Beorn
09-23-2009, 10:41 PM
For decades, the shadow of Nazism has hung over the descendants of Richard Wagner.
His monumental music was embraced by Hitler while, 50 years after his death, the composer's family were favourites of the dictator and his cronies.
Now Wagner's 31-year-old great granddaughter Katharina says she wants to establish the truth about her ancestors' links to the Nazis - most particularly whether her grandmother was the Fuhrer's secret lover.
Her decision has horrified other members of the Wagner dynasty, who fear it will bring only more trouble on the family.
'When I was growing up, I was repeatedly confronted with this topic, the Nazis,' said Miss Wagner.
'Was my grandmother Hitler's lover? To what extent was my father embroiled with Hitler? No one in the family ever spoke about it. If I don't ask these questions, who then will?'
Miss Wagner, an opera stage director, is the daughter of Wolfgang Wagner and granddaughter of British-born Winifred Wagner, who married Richard's son, Siegfried.
Along with her half-sister Eva Wagner-Pasquier, she has taken charge of the opera world's most lavish extravaganza - the annual month-long Bayreuth Festival in Bavaria - after a bitter clash with cousin Nike Wagner.
Wagner fanatics pay hundreds, sometimes thousands of pounds, to experience Wagner's works such as The Ring Cycle and Parsifal in the opera house he built to stage them in the 1870s. It can take up to a decade to get a ticket.
Miss Wagner says there is 'a shadow hanging over Bayreuth, and I feel a responsibility to try to get some clarity'. It is 'time for a reckoning with the past', she declares.
She plans to invite researchers to probe the family's Nazi links much in the same way that many German businesses investigated how their firms were run during the Third Reich's 12-year lifespan.
Wagner's music was largely written between 1850 and 1880. Dealing as it did with Nordic legends, it fed into Hitler's notions of Aryan superiority and a mythical German past.
By the 1930s, Hitler was a regular visitor to Bayreuth. He became a close friend of Winifred Wagner, who shared Hitler's anti-Semitism, and referred to him by the nickname 'Wolf'.
There were even rumours that she would divorce Siegfried and marry Hitler.
Wagner's daughter Eva was also linked to fascism. She married Houston Stewart Chamberlain whose book The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century proclaimed the superiority of Aryan races and became required reading for Nazi Party (http://explore.dailymail.co.uk/organisations/nazi_party) members.
Wagner himself, who died in 1883, was outspoken in his hatred of the Jews.
Katharina Wagner insists that that the historians she hires to investigate her ancestors' connections to the Nazis will be fully independent.
Controversial decisions have hallmarked her career. She has upset purists by announcing plans to popularise what to many are the impenetrable scores of Wagner pieces.
Source (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1194536/Wagners-great-granddaughter-probe-composers-family-links-Hitler-Nazis.html)
His monumental music was embraced by Hitler while, 50 years after his death, the composer's family were favourites of the dictator and his cronies.
Now Wagner's 31-year-old great granddaughter Katharina says she wants to establish the truth about her ancestors' links to the Nazis - most particularly whether her grandmother was the Fuhrer's secret lover.
Her decision has horrified other members of the Wagner dynasty, who fear it will bring only more trouble on the family.
'When I was growing up, I was repeatedly confronted with this topic, the Nazis,' said Miss Wagner.
'Was my grandmother Hitler's lover? To what extent was my father embroiled with Hitler? No one in the family ever spoke about it. If I don't ask these questions, who then will?'
Miss Wagner, an opera stage director, is the daughter of Wolfgang Wagner and granddaughter of British-born Winifred Wagner, who married Richard's son, Siegfried.
Along with her half-sister Eva Wagner-Pasquier, she has taken charge of the opera world's most lavish extravaganza - the annual month-long Bayreuth Festival in Bavaria - after a bitter clash with cousin Nike Wagner.
Wagner fanatics pay hundreds, sometimes thousands of pounds, to experience Wagner's works such as The Ring Cycle and Parsifal in the opera house he built to stage them in the 1870s. It can take up to a decade to get a ticket.
Miss Wagner says there is 'a shadow hanging over Bayreuth, and I feel a responsibility to try to get some clarity'. It is 'time for a reckoning with the past', she declares.
She plans to invite researchers to probe the family's Nazi links much in the same way that many German businesses investigated how their firms were run during the Third Reich's 12-year lifespan.
Wagner's music was largely written between 1850 and 1880. Dealing as it did with Nordic legends, it fed into Hitler's notions of Aryan superiority and a mythical German past.
By the 1930s, Hitler was a regular visitor to Bayreuth. He became a close friend of Winifred Wagner, who shared Hitler's anti-Semitism, and referred to him by the nickname 'Wolf'.
There were even rumours that she would divorce Siegfried and marry Hitler.
Wagner's daughter Eva was also linked to fascism. She married Houston Stewart Chamberlain whose book The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century proclaimed the superiority of Aryan races and became required reading for Nazi Party (http://explore.dailymail.co.uk/organisations/nazi_party) members.
Wagner himself, who died in 1883, was outspoken in his hatred of the Jews.
Katharina Wagner insists that that the historians she hires to investigate her ancestors' connections to the Nazis will be fully independent.
Controversial decisions have hallmarked her career. She has upset purists by announcing plans to popularise what to many are the impenetrable scores of Wagner pieces.
Source (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1194536/Wagners-great-granddaughter-probe-composers-family-links-Hitler-Nazis.html)