Mucked Up: “I am not a German, although they said I was. I considered myself an American.”

A century ago, Karl Muck, a world-renowned conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, was fired over a national anthem controversy.

America was at war with Germany. Muck was born in Germany, but left to make a life in Switzerland. Lured to America by a rich contract, he came to the U.S. to lead the Boston Symphony from 1912-1918.

His national anthem controversy has familiar overtones. The press was polarized. The Providence newspaper—strongly anti-German—set a trap for Muck. The paper had been attacking Muck for weeks because he played music by German composers. As war reached a fever pitch, some symphonies ended shows by playing the national anthem. Like other national conductors, Muck didn’t do this—he wanted to keep politics out of the show.

While the BSO was en route to Providence, the local newspaper published a call for the symphony to play the national anthem—and also arranged for a patriotic club to make this demand of the symphony. The BSO’s founder and president knew of these requests but didn’t tell Muck because he didn’t want to put Muck, a German national, in an awkward spot.

The performance ended with no national anthem. Muck knew nothing about the newspaper demand or the demand from the local group.

The newspaper falsely reported that Conductor Muck had refused to perform the anthem, accused Muck of treason, and called him a spy and a hater of all things American.

Muck lost his job. Six months later, he was imprisoned at Fort Oglethorpe in Georgia. He remained there for three years with 2,000 other internees.

Expelled in a deportation hearing, his departing quotes to the New York Times: “I am not a German, although they said I was. I considered myself an American.”

(Credit to Janet for providing the lead to this fascinating story in the Boston Globe.)