Schiller Institute

The institute has published its quarterly magazine, Fidelio, since 1992, described as a "Journal of Poetry, Science, and Statecraft." It was co-founded and edited by Kenneth Kronberg.[22][23] The magazine is named after Ludwig van Beethoven's opera, Fidelio, which tells the story of a political prisoner who is freed by the courage of his wife. At the time the magazine was founded, Lyndon LaRouche was still in prison.

Its issues have included articles on Homer, Henry VII, Benjamin Franklin, Gottfried Leibniz, the Vier ernste Gesänge of Johannes Brahms, Vice President Dick Cheney, Paul Kreingold's “I.L. Peretz, Father of the Yiddish Renaissance”, and reviews of books, art exhibits, and musical, and dramatic performances.

In 1988, the institute initiated a campaign to establish "philosophical pitch" or "scientific pitch" as the classical music concert pitch standard.[24] This tuning system is based on middle C set at 256 Hz, making concert A 430.539 Hz rather than the most commonly used 440 Hz. The Schiller Institute calls this system "Verdi tuning" because it was Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi who first sought to stop the increase in pitch to which orchestras are tuned.[25] However, Verdi used the French standard 435 Hz in writing his Requiem in 1874; later he indicated that 432 Hz was slightly more optimal.[26] It is this A=432 Hz standard that the Schiller Institute advocates, which aligns mathematically with their stated preference for C=256 Hz[27] as long as Pythagorean tuning is used (in equal temperament or just intonation, A would be 430.541 Hz or 426.667 Hz, respectively).[28] French acoustic physicist Joseph Sauveur first researched then proposed the philosophical pitch standard in 1713, more than a century before Verdi began leading orchestras. Sauveur was strongly resisted by the musicians he was working with, and the proposed standard was not adopted.[29]

In 1999, the institute circulated a petition calling for the establishment of a permanent orchestra in Verdi's childhood home in Busseto, Italy, employing the special tuning in order to mark the composer's centennial.[30]

The tuning initiative is opposed by Stefan Zucker. According to Zucker, the Institute offered a bill in Italy to impose the Verdi tuning on state-sponsored musicians that included provisions for fines and confiscation of non-Verdi tuning forks. Zucker has written that he believes the claims about the Verdi tuning are historically inaccurate. Institute followers are reported by Tim Page of Newsday to have stood outside concert halls with petitions to ban the music of Vivaldi and even to have disrupted a concert conducted by Leonard Slatkin in order to pass out pamphlets titled "Leonard Slatkin Serves Satan."[31]

In 1992, the institute published A Manual on the Rudiments of Tuning and Registration: Book I: Introduction and Human Singing Voice, which discusses the tuning issue from the artistic and the scientific point of view. The Institute asserts the Bel Canto method of singing is "one of the best examples of mankind's ability to discover an existing physical principle, and to use that discovery to create new works of science and art, which then increase humanity's power to build civilization." They also assert that composers such as J.S. Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Giuseppe Verdi all wrote with the distinct vocal registers of the Bel Canto system in mind, and that their compositions intentionally exploit the different tone colors that these registers produce.[32]

In 2010, 25 LaRouche supporters protesting a new production of Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen presented by the Los Angeles Opera carried signs that said, "Wagner: Loved by Nazis, Rejected by Humans" and "L.A. County: $14 Million to promote Nazi Wagner, Layoffs for Music Teachers". They distributed flyers from the Schiller Institute which asked "Does Los Angeles County have nothing better to do ... than bail out L.A. Opera, so that it can celebrate the monstrous sexual fantasies, and the cult of violence, of that vile anti-Semite, Wagner?"[33]

The Schiller Institute presented a performance of Mozart's Requiem at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston, on January 19, 2014, the 50th anniversary of the performance of Mozart's Requiem and pontifical mass for John F. Kennedy which was held at the Cathedral. Remarks were made by Ambassador Ray Flynn, and a letter was read from Irish President Michael D. Higgins. Recordings of speeches by President Kennedy were also featured.[34]

The institute has published a four-volume series of English translations of the works of Friedrich Schiller, entitled Poet of Freedom, as well as some translations into other languages.

Following the 2003 death of Jeremiah Duggan, a student who had been attending a Schiller Institute conference in Germany, the Schiller Institute was accused of spreading antisemitic conspiracy theories. An internal London Metropolitan Police (Scotland Yard) letter, obtained by the BBC's Newsnight during a British investigation into the death says: "The Schiller Institute and the LaRouche Youth Movement... blames the Jewish people for the Iraq war and all the other problems in the world. Jeremiah's lecture notes and bulletins showed the antisemitic nature of [the] ideology."[6] The German newspaper Berliner Zeitung categorizes the Schiller Institute as antisemitic.[36]

Duggan had been attending a Schiller Institute conference and LaRouche Youth Movement cadre school in Wiesbaden, Germany,[37] when he died after running onto a busy road. The German police investigation found that he had committed suicide.[38] A British inquest rejected that verdict after hearing testimony about the nature of the Schiller Institute.[39][40]

In an interview with Newsnight, Chip Berlet of Political Research Associates, an American research group that tracks right-wing movements, said:

The antisemitism at a meeting of the Schiller Institute would not be obvious at first. You would have to listen over time to a... set of patterns, and you would begin to hear the echoes of the classic antisemitic conspiracy theories, in the way that Israel is talked about, in the way that Jews are talked about, in the way that the idea is put forward that the wars of America are somehow manipulated by Jewish lobbies and Israeli interests, and this really is an echo of the old classic antisemitic conspiracy theories. It's not that every criticism of Israel or American-Jewish lobby groups is antisemitic, but over time this pattern emerges."[6]

The Schiller Institute issued a statement in response to the controversy, calling it "a politically motivated smear job" based on "conspiracy theories," and alleged that the Institute was being targeted because of its opposition to the Iraq War.[41]

Following the 2003 death of Duggan, cult allegations were made.[42][43][44][45][46] According to the Berliner Zeitung, the LaRouche movement in Germany, operating as the Schiller Institute, LaRouche Youth Movement, Europäische Arbeiterpartei and Bürgerrechtsbewegung Solidarität (BüSo), had around 300 followers in 2007, and "next to Scientology, [was] the cult soliciting most aggressively in German streets at [that] time."[44]

The BBC's Newsnight has said the institute places members under "psychological duress," during "so-called psycho sessions."[6] Aglaja Beyes Corleis, a member of the Schiller Institute for 16 years, who left in the early 1990s and wrote a book about the Institute,[47] told the BBC:

When I speak with family members how I was then at that time, [they] tell me 'You were like from a different planet.' ... People tend to be drawn into it who did not want to be drawn into it, who did not want to join a cult or a sect or something like that ... I was freaked out and I experienced that other people freaked out. I saw other people who, members who, got out of their mind ... Sometimes Jewish members were put under special pressure. For instance, at a public meeting, the person was picked out and publicly attacked – 'your mother visited Israel'."[6]

On November 6, 2003, a British inquest heard allegations that the Schiller Institute is a "political cult with sinister and dangerous connections."[45][46] which may have used controversial recruitment techniques on Duggan.[48]

Kenneth Kronberg, co-founder and editor of the Schiller Institute's magazine, Fidelio, and the president of a LaRouche movement printing business, committed suicide in April 2007.[23] According to Nicholas F. Benton, a former member of the LaRouche movement, Kronberg killed himself on the day that a so-called "morning briefing" (published daily by the LaRouche movement) heavily criticized Kronberg's printing business.[49] Kronberg's printing business was also reported to be in financial trouble, the Washington Monthly described the companies finances as being "in perilous shape. Various LaRouche organizations owed Kronberg hundreds of thousands of dollars. When the IRS and Virginia tax authorities came calling over withholding payments, Ken knew he was in serious trouble."[50]

During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Schiller Institute argued for Russia to be relieved of economic sanctions, for other countries to cease supporting Ukraine, and for Ukraine to surrender territory and to accede to Russia's demands. The Ukrainian government Center for Countering Disinformation named the Schiller Institute as one of several entities it says conspired with Russia in advancing propaganda efforts in support of the war.[51][52]