Basing one's judgment of a person's intellect, research interests, or agenda based on how they look is truly juvenile, bigoted and counterproductive. I suggest you try a different tack.

... towards functionaries of the Third Reich? Shocking! How could anyone possibly adopt such a tone in all seriousness!

Shame on you, Grew. Next you'll tell me his eyes are too close together.

EDIT: I will not deny having written this, but I do regret it and apologize.

Careful, RT; nausea is here considered a sign of sloppy scholarship!

Yes, we all know that, Milly, but there's something about this particular windup which is particularly nasty and to my mind unacceptable.

I was not making a comment upon Kater or his research - quite the opposite. I was taking one of his main points (Furtwangler being an example) which continued up to the end of the extract I posted, in which he asserted that many of those who espoused the Nazi system and ideology did so without in any way losing reverence for those things that had previously influenced them. So I was suggesting that, in all likelihood, a number of musicians joined up to Nazism directly as a result of the pressures of PC that were weighing heavily upon them. Under the strengthening will of Nazism these pressures must have been inexorable for those in high social positions.

That was all.

Baz

It is difficult for me to see Mr Grew as a "troll".

1. He always posts under the same name
2. At this moment there have been 87 postings on this thread, and Mr Grew has only contributed 7 of them
3. He was the actual originator of this thread

His (in my view) semi-serious (only) attempt to debunk a person because of their physical appearance is a ploy that he has often used, especially in belittling (again in my view only semi-seriously) composers whose music he does not like. He must be chuckling to himself (in his west-facing Australian sea-view villa) over the fact that these harmless quips cause so much serious response.

But he must at the same time be (like I am) somewhat astonished that a thread inviting a serious discussion of the MUSICAL OUTPUT of Richard Trunk has, reciprocally, been hijacked by those whose (quite understandable) distaste for Nazism asserts that - however good or bad his music may have been - his artistic output is de facto worthless because of his eventual (only) political allegiance to Nazism. This in my view (and I am sure also Mr Grew's) is no different in essence from that of the Nazis themselves who (let us not forget) automatically banned the music of Mendelssohn as also being de facto "unworthy". It is difficult for me to see how two wrongs make a right, especially since there is so little difference between them.

But it is clear that Mr Grew's original invitation will never be seriously addressed, and I am therefore not too surprised that he has hardly contributed further to the thread.

Baz