Heinz Ihlert

Heinz Ihlert was trained as a musician up to a bandmaster level. In the 1920s, he worked as an accompanist for silent movies. He joined the NSDAP as early as 1927 and became a councilman in Berlin. Shortly thereafter, he became the party’s cultural administrator and, in 1932, section head for copyright in the anti-Semitic “Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur” (Militant League for German Culture).

After the founding of the “Reichsmusikkammer” (Reich Chamber of Music), Ihlert became its managing director and in this capacity was appointed a member of the Reich Cultural Senate in 1935. He was also a member of the board of trustees of the “Goebbels-Stiftung für Kulturschaffende” (Goebbels Foundation for Cultural Workers). An SS-Standartenführer since 1939, he died a few days before the end of World War II in the fighting for Berlin.

Ihlert is said to have written several compositions for the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin.