Under his direction, the modern compositions of Paul Hindemith, Ernst Krenek, Erwin Schulhoff and Anton Webern, which had been cultivated by this orchestra until then, took a back seat to the repertoire in favour of classical-romantic music.
When in 1932 he published the article Die Juden in der deutschen Musik in the party newspaper of the NSDAP Völkischer Beobachter, which was based on Richard Wagner's anti-Semitic pamphlet Das Judenthum in der Musik, he drew the wrath of the Bochum citizens, who were still willing to resist.
[1] Reichwein was a convinced Nazi and belonged to the NSDAP as early as 1932 (number 1.009.765) and the völkisch minded, anti-Semitic Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur .
[2] He published among other things heated tirades in the Völkischer Beobachter against Jewish composers such as Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, who he primarily accused of financial interests as the driving force of their artistic creation.
Towards the end of the Second World War, Reichwein chose suicide at age 66 in Vienna.