You bid two handwritten, signed postcards oftheologians, conductors, musicologists and church musicians Fritz Stein (1879-1961).

Dated Berlin-Charlottenburg 1938 and 1940. At that time Fritz Stein was head of the office for choral music and folk music of the Reich Chamber of Music.

addressed to the pianist, composer, writer and music critic Erwin Kroll (1886-1976) in Berlin. Da Kroll with a Jewess (Lisbeth Kroll, b. Radok) was married, he found it difficult to get new commissions.

1.) letter card (11.3 x 17.7 cm), dated Charlottenburg, 20. December 1938.

Transcription: "Dear Dr. Kroll, I finally found time to look through my bills and it turned out - according to your receipts and the bank transfers – that you have only received 1300M from me. I had the 200 M transferred to you yesterday. And now I would like to say once again a heartfelt general thank you for all your help, for all the tireless effort you have given me, an unfortunate hard worker. The common work becomes us – I hope so – connect amicably while we are still allowed to work in this vale of tears. The thick bundle of books finally arrived today, and the first copy is to be sent to you tomorrow. With Allen best wishes for you for the festive season and for your whole family for the New Year, I send you my best regards as your Fritz Stein."

2.) Printed thank you card (10.5 x 15.8cm) for congratulations on your (60th) birthday, dated Charlottenburg, 25. December 1939.

Described on both sides by Fritz Stein, dated 19. January 1940.

Transcription: "[All the best wishes for a happy, peace-blessed New Year!] and a sincere special thanks, dear Dr. Kroll, for your kind birthday article in the 'Allgemeine Musikzeitung', in which you so lovingly magnified my humble life's work with the magnifying glass of the friends! With old ties and with warmest greetings from house to house, your 'sixties' Fritz Stein, teetering into 'old age'."

Respectivelywithout envelope.

Condition: Cards perforated on the side (the first card has a small loss of letters); Paper browned. BPlease also note the pictures!

Internal note: Kroll 2021-12-3 autograph autograph

About Fritz Stein and Erwin Kroll (source: wikipedia):

Fritz Stein (* 17. December 1879 in Gerlachsheim; † 14 November 1961 in Berlin) was a theologian, conductor, musicologist and church musician.

Life: Friedrich Wilhelm Stein was the son of a teacher at the institute for the deaf and dumb in the Gerlachsheim monastery and moved to Heidelberg with his widowed mother in 1891. He first studied theology in Heidelberg and Berlin and passed the theological state examination in Karlsruhe in 1902. He then began studying musicology with Arthur Nikisch and Hans Sitt. As university and city organist in Jena since 1906, he discovered the score of Friedrich Witt's Jena Symphony in a Jena archive in 1909 or 1910, which he attributed to the young Beethoven and published by Breitkopf & Härtel. In 1910 he received his dissertation on the history of music in Heidelberg up to the end of the 18th century. Century in Heidelberg to Dr. phil. PhD. In 1914 he was appointed as the successor to Max Reger as Kapellmeister to the Meiningen court. As a participant in the First World War, he conducted a soldiers' choir in Laon.

In 1913 he became an associate professor in Jena. In 1919 he became an associate professor and in 1928 full professor for musicology in Kiel, where he was also organist at the Nikolaikirche until 1923 and from 1925 to 1933 took over the position of general music director. As a member of the General German Music Association, the German Music Society, the New Bach Society and the Handel Society, as well as being the editor and organizer of several music festivals, he enjoyed a good reputation in professional circles. In 1928, for example, he was one of the leading personalities in the "Working Group for the German Choral System", which brought together the German Singers' Association, the German Workers' Singers' Association (DAS) and the Reich Association of Mixed Choirs in Germany.

In 1932 he joined the ethnically minded, anti-Semitic Kampfbund for German culture. After the Nazis seized power, he became director of the State Music Academy in Berlin. As a condition for accepting the post, he had demanded the immediate dismissal of Jewish musicians like Emanuel Feuermann. Another demand for "artistic reconstruction" was the dismissal of Leonid Kreutzer and replacement by Carl Adolf Martienssen.

In July 1933, Stein became Reich leader of the music section of the Kampfbund für Deutsche Kultur, as well as consultant for church music and choral music. As early as 1933 he was president of the Reich Chamber of Music. In May 1933, as head of the "interest group for German choral singing", Stein was jointly responsible for bringing all choirs into line, especially the workers' choirs, under one umbrella organization. on the 30th On July 1, 1933, Stein asked for accelerated admission to the NSDAP: "I can assure you on my honor that for many years my heart was devoted to Adolf Hitler's wonderful movement." Because of the membership ban, he was only released on January 1. Inducted March 1940 (membership number 7,547,647). From 1934 he was head of the office for choral music and folk music of the Reich Chamber of Music.

In 1936 he was the arranger of a festival oratorio based on George Frideric Handel, which he "made serviceable for political celebrations of the Nazi state by deleting phrases such as 'Jehovah' or 'On Zion's holy mountain'".

In 1939, on the eve of his 50th Adolf Hitler's birthday the choir of the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler. In December of the same year, on the occasion of his 60th birthday, Adolf Hitler presented him with a th birthday the Goethe medal for art and science. After the beginning of the Second World War, the choral department of the Reich Chamber of Music was closed. In 1940 Stein, together with Ernst-Lothar von Knorr, put together a book of choral songs for the Wehrmacht, which was published in the Peters edition and was placed on the list of literature to be discarded in the Soviet occupation zone after the end of the war. Also from 1940 he played a leading role in the expulsion of the harpsichordist Eta Harich-Schneider from her professorship at the Berlin Music Academy. Due to a public eulogy for the Jewish harpsichordist Wanda Landowska at the opening of the newly established Berlin harpsichord school, he received an incriminating note in the files, and his award of a scholarship to a Jewish musician was also registered negatively. In March 1945, at the end of the Second World War, Stein became head of the State Institute for German Music Research.

After the end of the Second World War, he lost his positions and worked "freelance", including for Christian Science. He later became president of the Association for Protestant Church Music.

In 1936 his wife Margarete Stein-Czerny published her Reger-Memories Hours with Max Reger, which were published in 1955 by Ed. Bote & G. Bock, Berlin, have been reissued.

Max Reger was the godfather of Gretel and Fritz Stein's son Max Martin Stein (1911-2001), who became a university teacher as a pianist in Düsseldorf. The daughter Hedwig (1907-1983), also a godchild of Reger, married the English pianist Iso Elinson.

His brother-in-law Frank Bennedik and his brother-in-law Bernhard Bennedik were music teachers.

commemorative publications

Hans Hoffmann; Franz Rühlmann; Käte von Pein: Festschrift, Fritz Stein on the occasion of his 60th birthday. Birthday, Braunschweig, H. Litolff, 1939.

Max Hinrichsen: Festgabe for Fritz Stein, on the completion of his 80th birthday. year of life on 17. December 1959, Bonn: Max Reger Institute, 1959.

Erwin Kroll (* 3. February 1886 in Deutsch Eylau, East Prussia; † 7 March 1976 in West Berlin) was a German pianist, composer, writer and music critic. Like his friend Otto Besch, Kroll was a tone poet from East Prussia.

Life:Around 1900 Kroll came to Königsberg i. Pr. and attended the royal hoof high school with Otto Besch. At the Albertus University he studied philology and music. With a doctoral thesis on ETA Hoffmann, who has always been revered in Königsberg, for a Dr. phil. after his doctorate, he went into teaching. In 1919 he devoted himself entirely to music and continued his studies in Munich, which he had begun with Otto Fiebach and Paul Scheinpflug. There he found an important teacher, especially in Hans Pfitzner. He later dedicated a highly acclaimed book to him. In addition to his studies, Kroll was a répétiteur at the Munich State Opera and secretary of the Hans-Pfitzner-Verein für Deutsche Tonkunst, which Thomas Mann had called for to found. In 1925 Kroll returned to East Prussia and became a music critic for the Hartungsche Zeitung, and from 1930 its features editor.From 1934 he worked in Berlin as a critic and writer on music. After the Second World War he headed the music department of the Northwest German Broadcasting Corporation in Berlin until 1953. With his book, Kroll has set a monument to the (forgotten) importance of Königsberg as a music city.

factories

East Prussian homeland - orchestral work

Violin Sonata in B flat major

Sonatina in F major

East Prussian Dances

Der Adebar - Fantasy on East Prussian folk tunes for large orchestra

Vocal works and song arrangements

Songs for solo voices and choral songs

writings

Music city Koenigsberg

Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffman. Breitkopf & Haertel, Leipzig 1923.

Hans Pfitzner. Three masks publishing house, Munich 1924.

The theater. Festschrift for the 25th anniversary of the municipal theater in Dortmund. The Theater, Berlin 1930.

Carl Maria Weber. Athenaion, Potsdam 1934.

Music city Koenigsberg. Atlantis, Freiburg i. brother 1966.

honors

Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, Cross of Merit on Ribbon (27. January 1956)

Culture Prize of the East Prussian Association (1960)