Richard Trunk
Richard Trunk was a German composer, pianist, conductor, critic, and member of the Nazi Party.
Life
He studied in Frankfurt with Iwan Knorr before traveling to Munich for further studies with Josef Rheinberger. He accompanied numerous singers, taught singing for a time, and served as music critic for the Münchener Post from 1907. He was invited to New York City and Newark, New Jersey to conduct the Arion Society in 1912; he returned home with the outbreak of World War I. He later became music critic for the Bayrische Staatszeitung, and taught singing in Cologne from 1920 until 1934. In 1925 he married the singer Maria Delbran. In 1934, through the involvement of Ernst Röhm, he returned to Munich as the president of the Akademie der Tonkunst. He retired to the Ammersee after World War II.Trunk was a member of the Nazi Party, having joined in Autumn 1931. In 1939, he was awarded the Goethe-Medaille für Kunst und Wissenschaft by Adolf Hitler. His songs Op. 65 set to music texts by Baldur von Schirach and Hanns Johst.
In 1948, a denazification court classified Trunk as a Mitläufer and issued him a Persilschein.