The general music director of the then East Berlin State Opera Unter den Linden, conductor Erich Kleiber, father of the later even more famous Carlos, sent the artistic director Max Burghardt his resignation on March 16, 1955. Reason: The historical inscription in the gable of the opera house had been removed. Erich Kleiber was already GMD of the State Opera from 1923 to 1935 before he emigrated in protest against the Hitler regime. Now the GDR leadership appeared to him to be similarly dictatorial.
“The sudden tearing down of the inscription ‘FRIDERICUS REX APOLLINI ET MUSIS” from the Linden Opera is a desecration of the recently rebuilt historical monument. It is puzzling to me that the two-hundred-year-old inscription (which has been shining with new gilding for months) was not condemned to disappear years ago when my condition was accepted at the time: the house must be rebuilt exactly as the old man did in 1743 Fritz ‘donated to the German people through his master builder Knobelsdorff.
For me this incident – along with other recent incidents known to you – is a sad but sure symptom that – as in 1934 – politics and propaganda will not stop at the door of this temple. Sooner or later I would have to say goodbye again to the house I have longed for for 20 years.
The same or another “body” that gave the wild order to remove the inscription “within two hours” will not be prevented from penetrating into my sphere of activity and interfering with my hitherto completely uninfluenced art practice with instructions or guidelines.
My decision to give up my ties with the State Opera has been made. I took him with a heavy heart! (…) “