@Skyknight #186644
Looking further into the word "entartung", I found Reflections on “Entartung” at the website Forbidden Music, https://forbiddenmusic.org/2018/05/31/reflections-on-entartung/amp/
“Entartete Musik” is a Nazi term, commonly translated as “Degenerate Music”, when actually, it more accurately means “Deformed Music”.
...political Bolshevism had upended social and political norms; cultural Bolshevism was understood to do the same with the arts. It was a term that had gained ground before the Nazis and was liberally applied to anything that fell outside of the norm – indeed, “falling outside of the norm” is the literal translation of “Entartet”, the German word, “Art” meaning “Manner”, “Style”, “Type” or “Species” with the negating-prefix “ent” added. The “ent” prefix is not equivalent to English’s “anti” or “un”, but closer to “deviant” meaning “departure from”.
...cultural arbiters within National Socialism added their own prefix to “Cultural Bolshevism” with the word “Jewish”. The consequences of creating this hybrid, now known as “Jewish Cultural Bolshevism” meant Jewish musicians and composers, (or those perceived as Jewish), were synthesised into a concept that was meant to stir passions against all degrees of non-traditional expression. With this new tool to hand, it was possible to denounce perfectly commonplace composers simply because they were (or perceived to be), Jewish. The legacy of this cultural deceit was the term “Entartet” being applied to every style of music, every genre and every development, if any degree of Jewish provenance could be established.
Fascists are the ultimate conservatives, lashing out in fear and anger at anything new or different in the prevailing culture. Tradition is the arbiter of morality; novelty is perceived as coming from outside influences and is therefore understood as an attack on one's culture by outsiders.
The Nazis saw every non-Aryan as an enemy, hence the image I posted earlier:
image
I hope I've answered some of your questions. It's been an interesting topic to research, and I have new insight into Nazi thinking.