The German best-selling author and historian Michael Wolffsohn explains in the book powerfully eloquently and with sometimes extensive digressions Genius and conscience – Herbert von Karajan between music and National Socialismthat Karajan wasn’t actually a real Nazi. Since he has often worked with Jews, he could not have any anti-Semitic prejudices. But even self-confessed, rabid anti-Semites such as the conductor and composer Hans Pitzner worked with Max Reinhardt, who was of Jewish origin. But Wolffsohn doesn’t care about these concrete facts, instead he accuses most of the previous publications of “foreign nazification” of Karajan and violently attacks the Salzburg street name commission, which had suggested renaming Karajanplatz.
