In this article, 96 years old cellist Anita Lasker-Wallfisch reveals how her life is saved by a cello, and several controversies surrounding classical musics and the Nazis.

Controversies:

1) Alma Rose the niece of Jewish composer Gustav Mahler, who was labeled "degenerate" by the Nazis, is allowed to perform orchestra for the workers at the gate of the women's camp each morning and evening, even in freezing cold weather.

2) Music as part of the murder machine, culture was one of the ways to justify Nazi rule in Germany, it was a sort of cover for the Nazis. They could say, we are a cultural nation, we are a cultural people. You couldn't possibly suspect that we're doing something that was uncultural. This is pointed out by Norman Lebrecht in the article.

3) Hitler himself was aware of the power of music. "It is certain that music is to be addressed as the greatest shaper of feelings and sensations that move the mind," he said at the NSDAP Party Congress in 1938. Despite Jewish composers and musicians were ostracized and murdered, Nazis such as concentration camp doctor Josef Mengele had classical music pieces played to them by Jews including Lasker-Wallfisch in Auschwitz. Even Hitler's private record collection is said to have included recordings by Jewish musicians.

The new DW music documentary addresses these contradictions and, for the first time, summarizes classical music events as they related to the Third Reich in their entirety.

Please share your opinions how you feel about the contradictions between classical musics and the Nazis.