The 1st e-mail (18:29 JST on 4 October, 2015).

Dear Mr. Kobayashi,

My compatriot, Dr. Benjamin Maso, informed you about the incident that took place on October 5, 1939, when Schuricht conducted Mahler's Lied von der Erde in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw (link).
So far, the identity of the woman who told the conductor "Deutschland über alles, Herr Schuricht!" was never revealed, and her motive remained unclear. Dr. Maso reports some of the speculations that the critics came up with. Most of them saw only two possibilities: either she expressed her support to Adolf Hitler, or she meant to express her aversion to him.
I have now identified the woman, and found out a few aspects of her life story. This gives me reason to suppose that she applied Mahler's text to her own life, and somehow wanted to make the public aware of this. So this led me to a different interpretation of the incident, which I have now published in my new book Dissonanten in het Concertgebouw (amazon). And I apologize: it's all in Dutch.. But to make up for this, I am attaching her picture, which you may like to add to the story on your website!

Sincerely,
Dr. Albert van der Schoot

Dear Dr. Albert van der Schoot:

Hello!
Thank you for your surprising e-mail about the woman who shouted at the concert on 5 October, 1939.
How could you identify the woman?
Did she confess what she did?

Sincerely,
Tohru Kobayashi

THE 2nd e-mail (20:26 JST on 4 October, 2025).

Surprisingly, her family name is mentioned in the minutes of a board meeting of the Concertgebouw (Oct. 25, 1939). And also the place where she came from: Enschede. I have contacted all the present inhabitants of that city with that name whom I could reach by phone, and most of them were sure that it was impossible that any member of their families had ever visited a concert in the Concertgebouw in 1939. I also checked obituaries, and finally found out there had been a family of a social democrat union leader who moved from Enschede to Amsterdam in 1920. The two daughters of this family became enthusiastic concert lovers, and used to visit the Concertgebouw. When the father retired, the family moved back to Enschede - this was in the summer of 1939, so it's true that she was an inhabitant of Enschede on October 5, 1939, but she had lived in Amsterdam most of her life! The minutes also mention that she wrote a letter to Carl Schuricht. I have done everything to find this letter (in Amsterdam, The Hague and Lausanne), but in vain. Unfortunately, the minutes do not mention how the Board knew she wrote this letter, and nothing is said about the contents. Probably she apologized ...

It became clear that the older sister (the only one who wore spectacles) was a psychiatric patient when she was hospitalized in a mental asylum, in 1951. She spent the rest of her life there, and died in 1995.

Sincerely,
Albert

Dear Albert:

Hi!

Thank you again for your great effort to understand this historical issue.
I hope her letter will be found in the Carl Schuricht archive stored in the library of Lausanne in future.

Can I put your e-mails in the archive of Carl Schuricht website?
If you don't like it, please tell me.

Sincerely,
Tohru

The 3rd e-mail (1:23 JST on 5 October, 2025).

Dear Tohru,

I'm pretty sure that the letter is gone forever ... since it was not in the Lausanne library when I checked in 2022, it is not likely to appear there at a later time ...
Anyway, it is OK if you would like to include my e-mails in the archive - I hope people will appreciate this!

Sincerely,
Albert

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