Fritz Busch - Nazi Regime

Nazi Regime

Five weeks after Hitler came to power in 1933, Busch was removed from his post at the Dresden State Opera in a politically motivated dismissal. The March 1933 dismissal was humiliating: Nazis in the front rows shouted "Out with Busch" at the beginning a performance of Rigoletto, leading to his replacement as conductor by Kurt Striegler. The Nazis charged that despite his high salary, Busch had taken frequent leaves from the opera to take up guest conducting jobs elsewhere, although these had been built into his contract. Not himself Jewish, he counted many Jews among his friends and was opposed to dictatorship. The Nazis noted that his elder brother, the violinist Adolf Busch, had married a Jewish woman, and from his home in Basel was open about his dislike of the Nazis.

He went on to make several tours of South America before becoming the music director of Glyndebourne Festival Opera in England in 1934. He remained at Glyndebourne until the outbreak of World War II in 1939. He focused on work at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires (1934-36 and (1940-47) and at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, and from 1934 at the Danish State Radio Symphony Orchestra. He conducted the Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra from 1937 until 40. Despite assistance from the Swiss writer Thomas Mann, he was unsuccessful in getting Swiss citizenship, but in 1936 succeeded in obtaining Argentinian papers. He resumed the Glyndebourne musical directorship in 1950. He also conducted at the Met in New York from 1945 to 1949, and the Chicago Symphony from 1948 to 1950.. Post-war he also returned to work in Copenhagen and Stockholm.

He was a National Patron of Delta Omicron, an international professional music fraternity.

Busch was the brother of the distinguished violinist Adolf Busch and of the cellist Hermann Busch. He was married to Margarete Boettcher Busch. His son, Hans Busch, later stage director at the Indiana University Opera, was born in 1914. Busch died in London in 1951.