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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 May 2022
On June 15, 1935, the Deutsche Akademie in Munich, founded during the Weimar period but since co-opted for Nazi propaganda, had announced Straube's appointment as senator. The timing of the award was made to coincide with the opening of the Reichs-Bach-Fest in Leipzig, a marathon of concerts and events scheduled from June 16 through 24, the final four days under the auspices of the NBG. Just before its launch Mayor Goerdeler directed a congratulatory letter to the cantor, together with thanks “that you have defied all temptations aiming to prepare a worthy domain elsewhere for your masterly abilities and personality. We thank you for the loyalty with which you have retained the office of Thomaskantor.” Writer and recipient knew that “loyalty” had not come easily, achieved only after months of wrangling. Amid all the subcutaneous malcontent, and while the Berlin question had loomed, Straube's busy schedule had rolled on mercilessly. Not least on the agenda had been preparations for the longest and most demanding Bach festival yet, marking its namesake's 250th birthday. As with such occasions in the past, he had been integrally involved in the planning for some time.
The festival capped a series of nationwide events around the triple anniversaries of Schütz, Handel, and Bach, many of which had featured the Thomanerchor. The outsized program of the Leipzig celebration reflected the hypernationalism of the moment and the propensity of the NS machine to assert itself in high-profile gatherings with the potential to galvanize the country. “From the work of Sebastian Bach speaks the spirit of the German nation,” proclaimed one newspaper, pushing the official line that the festivities would instill Bach's music—“rigorous, disciplined to the last, and thoroughly German”—in the hearts and minds of the “Aryan” Volk, not just the privileged educated classes. To this end a breathless schedule offered performances of both Passions, the B-minor Mass, the Musical Offering (J. N. David), The Art of Fugue (Graeser), and much besides. An exhibition at the Gohliser Schlösschen, designated locus of the NS-Kulturgemeinde, displayed eighteenth-century artifacts alongside a Bach family tree, the latter calculated to demonstrate the master's Teutonic blood line.
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