Flemish Ancestry
Despite his surname, Johann van Beethoven was only one half Flemish; his father Lodewijk was the last van Beethoven to be fully Flemish. Most of van Beethoven's most recent family came from what is now Germany, mostly the Rhineland Electorate of the Palatinate area. Johann's son Ludwig is considered to be German, and people occasionally spell his name as von Beethoven, which is incorrect.
The Nazis were especially interested in Beethoven's background: "After making sure that Beethoven had no suspicious racial or national tinge of the non-Germanic in his background (clear evidence of his Flemish ancestry was denied in a series of articles), the masters of the Nazi propaganda and cultural machinery promoted his works as the essence of Germanic and Aryan strength".
Read more about this topic: Johann Van Beethoven
Famous quotes containing the words flemish and/or ancestry:
“These Flemish pictures of old days;
Sit with me by the homestead hearth,
And stretch the hands of memory forth
To warm them at the wood-fire’s blaze!”
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“The Democratic Party is like a mule. It has neither pride of ancestry nor hope of posterity.”
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