Book Talk: Hitler’s Twilight of the Gods
“Hitler’s Twilight of the Gods: Teutonic Aesthetics and the Statecraft of the Third Reich”
Join us for this special examination of the relationship between Wagner (and other German Romantic composers) and Hitler’s authoritarianism, in a book talk with author Alexandra Birch.
Alexandra Birch, Ph.D.
From the Author: Richard Wagner’s music is the most significant aesthetic association with Adolf Hitler and the musical stylings of National Socialism. However, in fact how clear was the connection between the musical romanticism of the late 1800s and the catastrophic, genocidal warfare of the 1940s? Dr. Alexandra Birch discusses her 2025 book, Hitler’s Twilight of the Gods: Music and the Orchestration of War and Genocide in Europe in an historical context, looking at the aesthetic conflicts of the 1800s as articulated by theorists like Hanslick and how these fractures continued into the creation of “degenerate’ music and alterity in the 1900s. She also highlights the role of Teutonic myth as utilized by Wagner and distorted by Hitler to create a mythologized world view of the Third Reich, and the extent to which these Teutonic ideals were durable under the conditions of war and genocide. Finally, she briefly presents the aftermath of the war and the singularly negative associations with Wagner, though not extended to conductors and composers who were NSDAP party members. She also provides suggestions for reincorporation of lost musical works alongside canonical favorites.
About the Author: Dr. Alexandra Birch is a professional violinist and historian who works comparatively on the Nazi Holocaust and Soviet mass atrocity, including the Gulag through the lens of music and sound. She holds a PhD in History from the University of California Santa Barbara, and a BM, MM, and DMA from Arizona State University in violin performance. Previously, she was a fellow at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Wilson Center, and the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute, where she released CDs of recovered music and finished her first book Hitler’s Twilight of the Gods: Music and the Orchestration of War and Genocide in Europe. Her current project “Sonic Shatterzones, The Intertwined Spaces, Sound and Music of Nazi and Soviet Atrocity,” investigates eight case studies of the Holocaust in the USSR and Gulag, including indigenous interactions with Solovki, new recordings of Weinberg’s compositions from his time in Tashkent, sound recordings of the Gulag in Kazakhstan and of Auschwitz-Birkenau, and post-Soviet world premiere compositions, creating a humanizing look at incomprehensible violence.
Copies of Dr Birch’s book will be available for purchase and signing. The event will be followed by a social hour with refreshments.
Livestream: the event will be livestreamed (viewable up to 36 hours after the start of the event). WSNY Members will receive livestream link automatically by e-mail; no need to pre-register.
