The Neuburg composer Paul Winter is honored in many ways in his hometown: on street signs, in schools and at dances. But new research reveals his burdensome Nazi past – and raises uncomfortable questions.
It was an amazing double career that Paul Winter had in the “Third Reich”. He became popular as a composer with the creation of the Olympic fanfare for Hitler’s games in 1936. As a soldier, he rose to the highest levels of the Wehrmacht. But only half of this unusual biography survived the Second World War: Winter is still celebrated as a great artist in his birthplace Neuburg an der Donau. His second life as a Nazi general disappeared into the depths of post-war repression. “This whole world seems to have disappeared for me,” wrote Winter, born in 1894, in a letter shortly after the fall of the Nazi dictatorship. He wanted to “exclusively follow my inner, obligatory calling to art” instead of “trying to serve two masters as he used to.”