During World War II, music and art in Germany were controlled by the Nazi Party. Any music that was deemed “harmful,” “decadent” or “anti-German” was labeled Entartete Musik (Degenerate Music). There were several reasons the Nazi Party considered music to be harmful, such as atonality and jazz, but much of it was based on the influence of Jewish culture. Composers of degenerate music found their music banned from being performed and many fled Germany to America after fearing for their lives. Among these composers were Kurt Weill, Erich Wolfgang Korngold and later Paul Hindemith. In America these composers thrived: Weill helping to push the genre of musical theater to more than comedies, Korngold setting the foundation of film music that would go on to influence composers such as John Williams and Hindemith creating a new conception of tonality.