Well, exactly

Short entry, from work, because it's too good not to share, but too big for twitter.

It was June 1944 in Hitler's Germany and Richard Strauss's 80th birthday was approaching. He was the greatest living German composer, and so there ought to be some kind of celebration. But although Strauss had been reasonably loyal, Hitler found him annoying and so he proposed to ignore the birthday. The conductor Furtwangler talked him out of it, saying that "international opinion might turn against Germany if Strauss's birthday were ignored". Obviously, no-one had a bad word to say about Germany otherwise.

This is from The Rest is Noise by Alex Ross, which I'm still (still!) reading.