John Barrett writes wonderful pieces about Robert Jackson, the prosecutor at Nuremberg, and about the Nuremberg trial more generally. He circulates them by e-mail, and invites readers to share them, and that is what I am doing:
David Warren Brubeck was born in Concord,
California, on December 6, 1920. His father became a California cattle
rancher. His mother was a pianist and music teacher. Not surprisingly,
David’s older brothers and he became horsemen and
musicians. By his late teens, David was playing piano professionally.
After graduating from the College of the Pacific
in 1942, Brubeck enlisted in the U.S. Army. For two years, Private
Brubeck played in an Army band in California. In 1944, he was trained
to be a rifleman. Following D-Day, he was sent
to northern France for combat service.
Luck then intervened. After hearing Brubeck
playing piano with a Red Cross traveling show, his commanding officer
ordered that he not be sent into combat. Instead, Brubeck and a few
other soldiers, most of them decorated, formed a swing
band that was trucked into combat areas to entertain troops. Called
“The Wolf Pack,” it was the first racially-integrated band in the U.S.
Army.
After Germany’s surrender in May 1945, Brubeck
and his band mates were stationed in Nuremberg as part of the occupation
army. They soon discovered the city’s Opera House and made it their
rehearsal space.
On July 1, 1945, The Wolf Pack played in a United
Service Organizations (“USO”) show that reopened Nuremberg’s Opera
House. Later that summer and through the fall, Brubeck and his fellow
soldier-band mates served, roamed, rehearsed
and performed, including in USO shows featuring sixteen members of the
Radio City Music Hall Rockettes, in Allied-occupied Germany.
The Wolf Pack members were well aware of the IMT
proceedings that began in November 1945 in Nuremberg’s Palace of
Justice. Brubeck did not attend the trial but he interacted with U.S.,
U.S.S.R., U.K. and French personnel who were parts
of it, including at meals in a large mess hall that they shared.
In January 1946, Brubeck returned to the United States and was honorably discharged from the Army.
He then became, well, Dave Brubeck. He lived a
long, productive life of musical genius and international acclaim.
Although his time ended physically on December 5, 2012, Dave Brubeck
lives on in his compositions, his recordings and,
for those (I’m one) who got to see him play, in very special
memories. (For leading newspaper obituaries, click
here and
here.)
* * *
Across the years after 1945, Dave Brubeck never
forgot World War II or Nuremberg. In winter 2004, for example, he
recorded a musical autobiography, the leading songs of his war years.
The album, Private Brubeck Remembers, contains
twenty-four piano solos and, in CD editions with a bonus disk, a
lengthy interview of Brubeck by Walter Cronkite. In the interview, they
share memories of 1945 Nuremberg, where Cronkite also lived as he
reported on the IMT trial for United Press.
Around the time that he recorded Private Brubeck Remembers,
Dave Brubeck discussed Nuremberg with a Nuremberg prosecutor. In a St.
Louis, Missouri, restaurant following a performance, Brubeck met and
had a conversation with Whitney
R. Harris, former U.S. assistant prosecutor before the IMT. Brubeck
and Harris were hosted that night by their mutual friend Georgia
Frontiere—she made it a point to connect the men, two giants with
Nuremberg in common.
In 2005, the City of Nuremberg, noting Dave
Brubeck’s dedication throughout his musical career to toleration, peace
and human rights and his personal history in Nuremberg, invited him to
participate in the City’s commemoration of the
60th anniversary of the start of the IMT trial. Brubeck
accepted—he and his band mates added Nuremberg on the front end of a
concert tour that also took them to Austria, Switzerland, Spain and
Poland.
On November 16, 2005, the Dave Brubeck Quartet played in Nuremberg’s
Schauspielhaus (playhouse). This modern venue is part of the Staatstheater (National Theater). This complex includes the historic Opera House—for a guide book view,
click here. It is the same Opera House that The Wolf Pack helped to
reopen to music, and that Justice Jackson then wisely declined to make a
courtroom, in July 1945.
During Brubeck’s November 2005 visit to
Nuremberg, the Lord Mayor thanked him “for liberating our City.” In
fact, with his music, he did. And he liberated so much more.
* * *
A few more links—
- For video excerpts from a 2009 Dave Brubeck interview about his World War II service and his time in Nuremberg, click here. (Hat tip: Greg Peterson.);
- For Dave Brubeck explaining, in the same interview, what inspired him to compose his signature tune “Take Five,” click here; and
- For a 1966 Dave Brubeck Quartet performance, in Germany, of “Take Five,” click here.
Thanks as always for your interest, and please share this with others.
Sincerely,
John
Professor John Q. Barrett
St. John’s University School of Law
Elizabeth S. Lenna Fellow
Robert H. Jackson Center, Inc.,
Jamestown, NY
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