Wednesday, April 1, 1964 University Daily Kansan
Page 9
German Music Critic Spent Years in Japan
A German who spent the years of World War II in Japan said that it was the Emperor of Japan who saved his life.
HE FIRST WENT to Japan in 1931 when he was invited by the Japanese government to become the musical director of the Imperial Academy of Music in Tokyo. Having received his education in Munich, Germany, and being a citizen of Germany, "I was ousted under pressure of the Nazis," after spending six years in Japan, he said. He said he served as musical advisor to the Royal Government of Thailand for two years before returning to Japan.
Prof. Pringsheim lived in Japan during the years of World War II. "It was not a pleasant time for me," he recalled.
Klaus Pringsheim, Sr., brother-in-law of the late German author Thomas Mann and father of Klaus Pringsheim, instructor of political science, looked back over his life last weekend. Professor Pringsheim, who visited Lawrence March 15-28, is a long-time composer, orchestra and choral conductor, and music critic. At present he is musical director of the Musashino Academy of Music in Tokyo, the Far East's largest college of music.
"I was very much depleted in my work because of the Nazis," Prof. Pringsheim said. He said often when he tried to free lance as a conductor the Nazis would stop him before he got a chance to perform.
"ABOUT 90 PER cent of Tokyo was razed during the last half year," he said. The houses in Japan which were made out of paper and wood burned very quickly.
However, during the war, the Japanese population was amazingly well-disciplined, Prof. Pringsheim said. "Bombings were almost never mentioned."
Even when the two nuclear bombs were dropped on Japan they were never spoken of until after the war, he recalled.
After World War II Prof. Pringsheim went to California where he spent four years lecturing, conducting, and teaching.
If the war had not ended when it did, Prof. Pringsheim felt that an American invasion would have been
very possible. "If there was one person who could prevent the American invasion," he said, "it was the Emperor."
However, by tradition the Emperor never appeared in public and his voice was never heard by his people. "He was about the clouds," Prof. Pringsheim said. Streets were evacuated and people could not look upon the Emperor when he went out.
Prof. Pringsheim is not even semiretired at the age of 80. He will tour Europe professionally next year. Before World War II he served as conductor of the Vienna State Opera, the Grand Theatre of Geneva, the opera in Prague, and the municipal 'theaters in Breslau and Bremen.
THE MILITARY HAD power during the war, he said, and the emperor had none. However, he said that after the nuclear bombs were dropped the Emperor "broke with all traditions" and spoke over a microphone to tell Japanese people that they would surrender.
Although there were threats on the Emperor's life after the announcement was made, "the Emperor was the only person they (the people of Japan) dared not touch," Prof. Pringsheim said.
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