24 - Praeceptor Germaniae

Summary

As Germany's democratic experiment crumpled early in 1933, Straube's admirers were occupied with more than the political winds, however ominous. Celebrations were in order. The previous summer he had been distinguished as an honorary member of the Helsinki Conservatory. Now at Epiphany 1933, he would mark his sixtieth birthday and thirtieth anniversary in Leipzig. In order that these celebrations were not overshadowed by those of 1928, Team Straube banded together once again to fête the cantor, this time with an appeal to Hindenburg to bestow the prestigious Goethe Medal for Art and Science. The award was new in 1932, having been established under the president's protectorate to mark the centenary of its namesake's death, despite the federal constitution's prohibition on state-sponsored decorations. By 1933 Hindenburg had given out the medal many times: the honorees had included then-Chancellor Brüning and the Leipzig Mayor Goerdeler, as well as literary luminaries like Hauptmann and Mann and musicians like Furtwängler. As with Straube's doctorate, his Goethe Medal appears to have been an eleventh-hour idea, this time set in motion by the composer-theorist Josef Achtélik and the Leipzig chapter of the Reichsverband deutscher Tonkünstler und Musiklehrer. The proposals ran through appropriate channels at City Hall beginning on December 23. A Christmas Day letter to the mayor requested the nomination. Goerdeler dispatched the official letter to the Interior Ministry on December 27, arguing that the award would be particularly appropriate in the Thomaskantor's case, “since Goethe's significance for music has not been sufficiently recognized in the Goethe year.” And indeed, by the time Straube became the medal's 156th recipient, it had distinguished musicians in only four other instances.

Hindenburg conferred the medal on January 3, so that Goerdeler could include the news in his congratulatory letter to Straube on the eve of his birthday. Perhaps anticipating the hubbub that would surround the milestone year, the Straubes had withdrawn to Dresden for a brief holiday. Even so, they would have been unable to escape the national press, which lit up with tributes marking birthday, anniversary, and medal alike. As in 1928, his accomplishments were run through, his broad erudition lauded, his national significance accentuated. Some writers embarked on flights of fancy approaching religious veneration.