[1] The Institute's primary goals were to extol and promote "good German music” — specifically that of Beethoven, Wagner, Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Brahms, Bruckner and the like — and legitimize the claimed world supremacy of Germany culturally.

The Reichsmusikkammer also functioned as a musicians' guild, with composers, performers, conductors, teachers, and instrument manufacturers being obliged to join in order to pursue or continue a career in music.

[4][5] Dozens of composers, songwriters, lyricists, and musicians were ruined or forced into exile because for one reason or another (often political or racial) they did not adhere to or comply with the RMK's standards.

The career, for instance, of popular operetta composer Leon Jessel was destroyed by the Institute when it promoted boycotts of his music and finally banned it.

He was dismissed from the post in June 1935, when a letter to his Jewish librettist Stefan Zweig, critical of Nazi racial profiling, was intercepted by the Gestapo.