Lansch carefully dissects the orchestra, identifying those Jews and part-Jewish members forced to leave, and the card-carrying Nazis who were also musicians. He is careful to point out that the orchestra was made up on non-party members and that not all of the party members were foaming-at-the-mouth fascists. In doing this, Lansch manages to avoid a wholesale history revision. Instead, he leaves the questions of responsibility to the viewer.

Central to the documentary are the conductors: Wilhelm Furtwangler, Beethoven specialist and great master of the orchestra; Hans Knappertsbusch, Wagner specialist and greatest Parsifal conductor; Richard Strauss, composer and conductor; Erich Kleiber, father of Carlos, keeper of the flame. Footage shows them all in action during the period. Oddly, very little of offered of Herbert von Karajan, the orchestra’s “conductor for life” who was as active as Furtwangler during the period. The orchestra’s post-war life is considered with the installation of its fiery conductor Sergiu Celibidache, who needless to say, was electrifying in his salad days.

The Reichsorchester softly questions the harshness of post-war denazification in the same way Jorg Friedrich’s The Fire - The Bombing of Germany 1940-1945 questioned the use of fire bombing German. Even 70 years on, there remains dense pathos on all sides.

Production Notes: 100 minutes. Format: Color, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC. Aspect Ratio: 1.77:1. Number of discs: 1.