“Dohnányi was not—and could not have possibly been—a war criminal” the Hungarian defense of Ernő Dohnányi, 1945–1949

Grymes, James A. (2013) “Dohnányi was not—and could not have possibly been—a war criminal” the Hungarian defense of Ernő Dohnányi, 1945–1949. Studia Musicologica, 54 (3). pp. 301-317. ISSN 1788-6244

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Abstract

In the years following World War II, Ernő Dohnányi was falsely accused of being a war criminal. Although scholars have assumed that this smear campaign was the result of a conspiracy by the entire Hungarian musical community, this widely accepted belief overlooks a number of prominent Hungarian musicians who consistently came to Dohnányi’s defense. In 1945, Zoltán Kodály led a delegation of musicians from the Franz Liszt Academy of Music who convinced the Hungarian Minister of Justice to remove Dohnányi’s name from an unofficial list of war criminals. In the following year, Kodály and Ede Zathureczky, who had succeeded Dohnányi as the Director General of the Liszt Academy, wrote letters to the US military government in support of Dohnányi’s rehabilitation. Finally, in 1949, Zathureczky obtained confirmation from the Ministry of Justice that the investigation of Dohnányi had been terminated—a message that Kodály himself communicated to Dohnányi. Drawing on documents from the Liszt Academy archives and the Dohnányi estate, this article chronicles the previously unknown Hungarian defense of Ernő Dohnányi.

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