Rainer Hardt (1905 – 1943) also known as Rainer Hass, has been for the last century something of an enigma. It is known that he was born in Dresden, Germany on the 16th of June 1905. Not much is known about his childhood or his background. We do know that he started playing guitar at the young age of seven and by the age of sixteen had formed his own jazz band. From then on, he went by the pseudonym Rainer Hass.
From German, the English translation of this name means Pure Hate. It is more or less a play on words i.e. Rainer (Reiner means pure) is an actual first name and the last name Haas is transformed into Hass (Hate) giving us the name Rainer Hass. Although it seems strange that a young musician would want to use a name like this, it was generally accepted as the arts in Germany during the time of the Weimar Republic were often controversial. And controversial he was – but always indirectly. He sang most of his songs in English, which on the surface sounded perfectly fine to the average German. However, the themes and subjects of his songs dealt mainly with murder and death and the darker side of humanity’s psyche. Herr Hass wanted to fuse expressionism and jazz. This is particularly relevant during the time of the Weimar Republic in Germany, when for example; many German film directors were producing films that were nothing but shocking. Fritz Lang’s Film "M" dealt with a child murderer. F. W. Murnau’s famous piece "Nosferatu" infamized the modern vampire and the film "Die Büchse der Pandora" by director Georg Wilhem Pabst presented all the vices and corruption of man – subjects that were all but taboo in the arts until that time. The list goes on and on. Herr Hass seems to have been inspired by this movement and therefore transferred his ideas to music. The expressionist film "Das Cabinett des Doktor Caligari" (1920) by director Robert Wiene was used as a theme for a song by Rainer Hass entitled "Du Mußt Caligari Werden".
Rainer Hass never enjoyed a prosperous career and his talents were never appreciated outside of Europe until after his death. Although he was never met with sufficient success, Herr Hass led a very prolific musical career, performed many times on the radio and recorded somewhere around two hundred songs, many of which have been lost or were destroyed during the war. By the time he was twenty-six, Herr Hass was diagnosed with mild schizophrenia which progressively worsened in the latter years of his life. As the war in Europe raged on, Rainer Hass took his own life and was found in his flat on Christmas day of 1943 - he had hung himself to death. He left no final testimony and the reasons for him having committed suicide are to this day still unknown.
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