This carefully researched investigation into music policy greatly increases our understanding of postwar German cultural politics. Thacker convincingly argues that Allied music control policies, and later those of the GDR and Federal Republic, were not as different as they initially appear or as the policymakers claimed. Allied and German authorities believed that the special relationship Germans had to music made music control relevant to postwar reeducation efforts. Thus, Allied officials sought to reconnect German music to the international scene to combat fascist tendencies, and the promotion of modernist music was part of that policy. The Allies also believed in the rehabilitative powers of the German classical tradition, including Jewish and other composers banned by the Nazis. In their quest to meet German standards of musicianship, the Allies, particularly the French, were willing to overlook the compromised pasts of prominent performers. American music control was hampered both by German disdain for American culture and American insistence on rigorous standards of denazification. Artists blacklisted in the U.S. zone of occupation frequently found employment in the other zones.

With the return of prominent émigré musicians to the Soviet zone in 1948, coinciding with the Soviet Union's rejection of modernism, East German communists began to differentiate their musical aspirations from those in the west. The communists pursued social realism, and the west continued to promote modernism. Even so, Thacker argues that the musical scene in the Federal Republic and the GDR were not as different as their leaders asserted. Government officials in both countries involved themselves with music policy and censorship, although this was more subtly handled in the Federal Republic. Leaders in both German states sought to claim the German classical heritage as their own and viewed jazz and dance music as threats. In the ten years after the war's end, musicians and music frequently crossed the borders. Officials in the Federal Republic gradually resigned themselves to a more pluralistic musical scene, and even the GDR's music adapted to outside influences.

While scholars have examined the role of music and musicians in the Third Reich and the cultural policies in individual zones of occupied Germany, this work performs valuable service in providing a comparative study of music policy in the four occupation zones and the two German states during their formative years. Recent research into the collaboration of academics with the Nazi regime has highlighted continuities of personnel and ideas between the Nazi period and postwar West German cultural institutions. Music after Hitler contributes to this literature by demonstrating the limits of denazification in musicology and the continued prominence of compromised individuals in both the GDR and the Federal Republic.

The archival sources are rich and varied, and Thacker uses them well, particularly in reconstructing denazification investigations into individual figures. The discussion of the competing West and East German festivals for the Bach year in 1950 is insightful and boldly confronts West German politicization of music, a realm officially proclaimed apolitical. Welcome attention is paid to the importance of choral music in communist efforts to bring music to the masses as well as in providing opportunities for East and West German contact. The role of individuals and their networks in policy formation and implementation is given due weight. It would have helped, however, to have more biographical information on key figures, such as Hans-Heinz Stuckenschmidt who was influential in postwar Berlin and of whose credentials and pre-1945 background there is virtually no mention.

Thacker does an admirable job weaving the various threads of this complex topic into a coherent, readable narrative. The prose is clear and brisk. On occasion, however, the brevity can leave all but specialists a bit bewildered. Only readers already conversant with postwar cultural and political history will fully appreciate, for example, the references to Zhdanovism, which is not defined, and the propaganda value of the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra. The orchestra is described as formed of “German musicians exiled from Prague and Breslau… . The particular membership of the orchestra guaranteed it a place in public imagination of the Federal Republic (p. 175).” These allusions to the postwar expulsion of ethnic Germans from communist states and to the significant role played by the expellees in the politics and symbolism of the Federal Republic are too subtle for the general reader.

Surprisingly in a book on music, the music itself is often overlooked. In discussing communist composers' fondness for the oratorio, Thacker mentions that an exception to the rule of banal and unsuccessful compositions was the Mansfelder Oratorium by Ernst Hermann Meyer. But there is no description of its musical or textual quality or explanation for why this particular piece achieved popular success in both Germanies. Likewise, the debate over the West German national anthem is mentioned, but the focus is solely on Hoffmann von Fallersleben's text “Deutschland, Deutschland über alles.” Postwar concerns that Haydn's melody had been compromised by Nazi appropriation and criticism that Hermann Reutter's music for President Theodor Heuss's proposed anthem was too modernist are not mentioned. Attention to these debates over the music could have lent insight into the Federal Republic's relationship to the classical tradition and to the new music. The emphasis on policy formation means that the context in which audiences heard the music (such as program notes, introductory speeches, and reviews in the press) and popular reception of musical works receive little attention.

These few shortcomings detract little from the overall importance of the research presented here. Music after Hitler is a valuable contribution to the scholarship on postwar German cultural history. It clearly demonstrates the role of music in the efforts of Allied and German officials to reorient German identity and politics. Perhaps most importantly, it dispels myths and assumptions about cultural policymaking in both Germanies during their early years.