Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt

Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt (1 November 1901 – 15 August 1988) was a German composer, musicologist, and historian and critic of music. Life Stuckenschmidt was born in Strasbourg. At as early an age as 19, he was the Berlin-based music critic/correspondent for the Prague-based periodical Bohemia, and lived as a freelance music writer in Hamburg, Vienna, Paris, Berlin and Prague, becoming personally acquainted with numerous composers of avant-garde music. Amongst his most prominent musical productions were the “new music” concert cycle in Hamburg, and the 1927-8 concerts of the Berlin November Group with Max Butting. In 1929, Stuckenschmidt became the successor to Adolf Weissmans as the music critic at the Berliner Zeitung am Mittag. In December 1934, he was forbidden by the fascist government to continue as a musical critic because of his positive review of Alban Berg’s opera Lulu. Due to political pressure owing to the newly empowered Nazi regime, he left the paper, later moving to Prague before the Nazi work ban went into effect and continued writing for foreign newspapers. In March 1939, the German forces occupied Prague and seized Stuckenschmidt’s passport, cutting off his opportu