Download Wagner and Hitler: An exploration into the extent to which Richard

Wagner and Hitler:
An exploration into the extent to which Richard Wagner influenced Adolf Hitler
By
Laura Wang
Music Seminar 89S
Professor Harry Davidson
14 November 2012
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Introduction
“I recognize in Wagner my only predecessor….I regard him as a supreme prophetic
figure”1: these words of Hitler’s to Rauschnigg recorded in the latter’s famous book Hitler
Speaks are the focus of this essay. The 19th Century German composer Richard Wagner was a
titan of classical music, and his epic dramas exerted a powerful influence on the genre. Yet, there
existed another side to the composer’s legacy – Wagner’s virulent anti-Semitism. Wagner’s
music and anti-Semitic prose works found an avid disciple in Hitler, who would plunge Europe
into the darkest period of its history. In one of his essays, Wagner called for German princes to
support a national art, particularly theater, in union with the Volk and instilled with the “German
spirit”.2 In a way, Hitler became the “prince” that the composer hoped for: the Nazi leader
instigated volkisch and anti-Semitic policies in line with the Wagner’s ideas. This essay serves to
explore the extent to which Wagner’s music and ideas influenced Adolf Hitler. It will examine
the evidence from the composer and the German Chancellor, their diaries, letters, and essays, and
the recorded statements of their acquaintances.
Wagner’s Anti-Semitism
“All Jews should be burned at a performance of Nathan the Wise.”3 Most would agree
that this statement contains the brand of racism and uses “Jew” as an expletive. It would not
come as a surprise if one discovered that it came from Hitler. Hindsight is always the best sight,
but the truth is the statement is from Wagner. If Hitler were the origin, no one would be offering
excuses. On the other hand, because it was Wagner’s statement, his apologists react defensively.
After all, they argue, what harm did Wagner actually cause? Because it is difficult to deny
Robert L. Jacobs, “Wagner’s Influence on Hitler,” Music & Letters Vol. 22, No, 1 (Jan., 1941): 81-83.
Moravitz, Mike. "Wagner and Hitler." Wagner and Hitler. n. page. Web. 9 Nov. 2012.
<http://mason.gmu.edu/~mmoravit/clioiiwebsite/design.html>.
3
Wagner, Cosima. Diaries. (in 2 vols), trans Geoffry Skelton, 1980
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2
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something that was so well documented by Wagner himself, such apologists have had to
acknowledge Wagner’s racism. However, realizing that they cannot defend him on the ground,
they then proceed to deny that any racism appeared in his epic operas. Some are perturbed at
what they discover in the music dramas as they peel away the veneer of fairy tales. Subsequently,
they attempt to defend the music by detaching it from the drama, which is entirely contrary to the
mandate of the composer’s Gesamtkunstwerke (Total Work of Art), which is respected here.
They credulously argue that music by itself is amoral, that it lies outside the sphere to which
moral judgments apply. Per se, the operas are stripped down to naked tone relations to shield
them from the association of any possible racist agenda.4
With all that is now known, it is apparent that under such captivating, emotionally
charged music, Wagner’s apologists are deceiving themselves by insisting on wearing blinders.
Compare the following two excerpts:
“. . . in all of Wagner's innumerable commentaries on his own works, there is not a single
statement which would entitle us to interpret any of the characters in the music dramas
or any of the details of their plots in anti-Semitic terms, or even to interpret them as
allusions to the Jews. The attempt to interpret the Nieblungs, and especially the figure of
Mime, as mythic projections of the Jews -- an interpretation based on Wagner's
description of the physical appearance and speech patterns of Jews in his 1850 essay -- is
no more than an unverifiable hypothesis.5
“No less an admirer than the Jewish composer Gustav Mahler freely admitted the Jewish
nature of Mime: "No doubt with Mime, Wagner intended to ridicule the Jews with all
their characteristic traits -- petty intelligence and greed -- the jargon is texually and
musically so cleverly suggested; but for God's sake it must not be exaggerated and
overdone as Julius Spielmann does it... I know of only one Mime and that is myself... you
wouldn't believe what there is in that part, nor what I could make of it." 6
The first statement comes from a Wagner apologist of the 1990s. The second is a statement from
4
Solomon, Larry. "Wagner and Hitler." Wagner and Hitler. n. page. Web. 9 Nov. 2012.
<http://solomonsmusic.net/WagHit.htm>.
5
Borchmeyer, Dieter. “The Question of Anti-Semitism” in Wagner Handbook, Ulrich Muller & Peter Wapnewski,
eds. Harvard, 1992, 183. 6
Rose, Paul Lawrence. Wagner, Race and Revolution, Yale, 1992. Wang
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Mahler (1860-1911), a contemporary of Wagner who was closely familiar with both the operas,
which he conducted (Hitler himself saw Mahler's productions7), and the cultural sensibilities of
the time in which he lived. Mahler's statement not only shows an instant identification of
Wagner's stereotypical Jew, it also demonstrates his compliance with these stereotypes, and a
readiness to denigrate himself in a pitiable act of self-contempt. At that time, Jews who saw
productions instantly grasped what they considered to be their mocking depiction by Wagner,
particularly following the publication of his essay, Judaism in Music, in 1850. Many protested at
the premiere performances of Meistersinger in Vienna and Mannheim when they recognized
Wagner's Beckmesser as an invidious representation of Jews.8
The detailed and faithfully kept diaries of Cosima, Richard Wagner’s wife, further reveal
the racist agendas of Wagner’s operas. She often mentioned Wagners' friend, Arthur de
Gobineau, the French racial theorist and author of The Inequality of the Races, which received
extensive recognition in European societies, partly due to Wagner's diligent promotion.
Gobineau's theories agreed with what Wagner himself had previously determined regarding the
"noble and ignoble" races.9 In Cosima's diary entry of October 17, 1882, she recorded:
“. . . in the evening the third act of Siegfried, well played by Herr Rubinstein, pleases
both him and us. "That is Gobineau music" Richard says as he comes in, "that is race.
Where else will you find two such beings looking at each other! Here is just forest and
rocks and water and nothing rotten in it."10
Here, Wagner comments on a racial metaphor in his own music. Therefore, on the authority of
the composer himself, one can no longer deny that racial notions have a purposeful and direct
association to Wagner’s works. This unlocks the door to an arena for such interpretation, which
Kubizek, August. Adolf Hitler, The Young Friend I Knew (Mein Jungenfreund), 1953
Weiner, Marc. Richard Wagner and the Anti-Semitic Imagination, Nebraska, 1995. 9
Solomon, Wagner and Hitler
10
Wagner, C., Diaries, October 17, 1882
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8
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will be pursued later. In addition, this statement confirms Wagner's distinction of race based on
appearance. According to Gobineau and Wagner, Aryans unite and detach themselves from the
lower races by identifying resemblance in appearance.11
Wagner did not explicitly identify Jews in his music dramas, particularly following the
criticisms he received after the publication of his essay Judaism in Music, which he first
published under a pseudonym. Naturally, he used a pseudonym because of a justified fear of
negative response. Following the onset critical reactions, he backed off from insulting his Jewish
conductors, patrons, and performers, though only to a certain degree. Wagner did not plan to
abandon his virulent discrimination (he republished Judaism in Music under his real name in
1869), which infuses all parts of his music dramas through allegorical representation. Although it
was obvious to his contemporaries, he was still always only one step away from openly labeling
his evil characters as "Jews".12
Nonetheless, Wagner’s aversion to Jews was so profound (and thereby guaranteed to
emerge in his works), that he allowed it to surface in his essay Know Thyself. In this essay,
Wagner wrote, “…if the Jew comes tinkling with his bell of paper [money], (our nation) throws
its savings at his feet, and makes him in one night a millionaire . . .."13
“Clever though be the many thoughts expressed by mouth or pen about the invention of
money and its enormous value as a civiliser, against such praises should be set the curse
to which it has always been doomed in song and legend. If gold here figures as the demon
strangling manhood's innocence, our greatest poet shows at last the goblin's game of
paper money. The Nieblung's fateful ring become a pocket-book, might well complete the
eerie picture of the spectral world-controller. By the advocates of our Progressive
Civilisation this rulership is indeed regarded as a spiritual, nay, a moral power; for
vanished Faith is now replaced by "Credit", that fiction of our mutual honesty kept
upright by the most elaborate safeguards against loss and trickery. What comes to pass
beneath the benediction of this Credit we now are witnessing, and seem inclined to lay all
Gobineau, Arthur de. Inequality of the Races, A. Collins, trnas, London, 1915. Solomon, Wagner and Hitler
13
Wagner, Richard. Prose Works, “Know Thyself”, trans. W.A. Ellis, 1892-9, reprinted 1966.
11
12
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blame upon the Jews. They certainly are virtuosi in an art which we but bungle.”14
In this excerpt, he indicts Jews and figuratively connects them to the curse, demons, goblins, and
the lust for gold in the Ring. So, according to Wagner, Alberich, the avaricious Jewish merchant,
becomes the power-crazed demon-goblin, hankering after the Aryan maidens and trying to
pollute their blood, and sacrifices his desire to obtain the gold (his "pocket-book"), which would
make him the "spectral world-controller".15
Mime, portrayed as a foul-smelling Jew in the ghetto, has an even worse turn out. The
hero of the Ring, Siegfried, who is free of fear and who knows no conscience, dislikes Mime
purely for his presence and odor: " . . . that shuffling and slinking, those eyelids blinking -- how
long must I endure this sight? When shall I be rid of this fool? I'd like to catch you and end your
shrinking and stop your blinking! So deeply, Mime, do I loathe you." Even though Mime raised
Siegfried from birth like a father, Siegfried cruelly kills Mime with the sword, Nothung. Yet,
because Siegfried signifies the fear-free, conscience-free Teuton, he does not feel any regret or
sorrow. Wagner's music convinces his audience to justify Siegfried's method of personal
retribution. As a result, Siegfried, the prototypical Nazi, is adored as the hero of the Ring cycle.16
Furthermore, Wagner casts the voices of Mime and Alberich in an unusually high-pitched
register and makes them sing tritones and other difficult intervals, as with Beckmesser in
Meistersinger, making their voices screech, squeal, squawk, and thrill, like how he portrayed
Jewish speech in Judaism in Music, "in an arbitrary distortion of our national idiom." These
characters are also stereotyped in the productions as crooked, dowdy, humpback, warty, and
Wagner, Prose Works, “Know Thyself”
Solomon, Wagner and Hitler
16
Solomon, Wagner and Hitler
14
15
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short, resembling Siegfried’s description of Mime.17
Wagner was aware of the fact that using Jewish names for his antagonists or labeling
them Jews would diminish his principled “Artwork of the Future” and Gesamtkunstwerke (Total
Artworks) to discernible and uncouth political tracts. Wagner’s intent was much more cunning
and concealed, but still political – to touch the audience on a subconscious, emotional ground,
sidestepping their analytical faculties:
I shall within these four evenings succeed in artistically conveying my purpose to the
emotional -- not the critical -- understanding of the spectators. 18
In other portions of Opera and Drama Wagner warns against stirring any critical reason in the
spectators. Therefore, he visibly discloses his surreptitious and crafty agenda of evading any
analytical judgment and engaging straightforwardly to the now susceptible emotional and
instinctual state. Just as the audience has dropped its shield and is exposed to potent emotional
promptings, flamboyant singings and an enormous orchestra thick with brass and percussion
grippingly impose disguised political allegories. (In this aspect, one is reminded of the emotional
control exerted by Hitler's speeches.) Wagner gathers all his musical powers to persuade the
audience that Siegfried's ruthless killings are wholly justified and perhaps even celebrated. In
this way, Wagner succeeds, for one rarely questions the morality of Siegfried’s brutal murders.19
There did not exist the need to designate specific Jewish names or explicitly identify the
"Jew". Most of his audience of both Jews and Germans knew whom Wagner was portraying, and
those who did not realize would acquire the idea subliminally. Wagner did not want the audience
to take an analytical stand, but to uncritically submit to the prevailing emotional state. Similar
17
Solomon, Wagner and Hitler. 18
19
Wagner, Prose Works I, “Communication to my Friends”, 391
Solomon, Wagner and Hitler.
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appeals to uncritical emotions and efforts to avoid critical reason appear in Adolf Hitler's Mein
Kampf, where he explains the ways to control and convince masses.20
Wagner’s chauvinistic philosophy appears in diaries, letters, and essays such as Judaism
in Music, Know Thyself, Modern, and What is German? and touches Nazi extents in his last
discriminatory essay, Herodom and Christendom. In this essay, all of the racist historic models
from Chamberlain to Feuerbach, Fichte, Gobineau, Hegel, Luther, and Schopenhauer, matures to
full adulthood, when he wrote:
“It certainly may be right to charge this purblind dullness of our public spirit to the
vitiation of our blood – not only by departure from the natural food of man, but above all
by the tainting of the hero-blood of the noblest races with that of former cannibals now
trained to be the business agents of Society.”21
These “cannibals now trained to be business agents of Society” refer to Jews. In 1879, Cosima
wrote in her diary:
“Richard is in favor of expelling them entirely. We laugh to think that it really seems as if
his article on the Jews marked the beginning of this struggle.”22
Hence, Cosima reveals their delight at the extent of the impact of Judaism in Music and in
“expelling” Jews completely. When Wagner heard the massacre of Jews in Russia in August
1881, Cosima reported him proclaiming:
“That is the only way it can be done – by throwing these people out and thrashing
them.”23
Not only is his philosophy aggressively anti-Semitic, it is anti-Christian, trailing after Nietzsche.
He vilified Christianity because he believed Judaism tainted it. Wagner stated:
Judaism is the evil conscience of our modern civilization.24
20
Solomon, Wagner and Hitler
Wagner, Prose Works, excerpts from “Herodom and Christendom”
Wagner, C., Diaries, October 11, 1879
23
Wagner, C., Diaries, August 14, 1881
24
Wagner, Prose Works, “Judaism in Music”
21
22
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One can easily miss the importance of this statement. Here, he criticizes a conscience,
hence integrity, with which the Jews have soiled Christianity and German Volk. This conscience
is a sickness that needs to be rid, for it has prohibited the Volk from following their Noth; in other
words, the need to acknowledge their own racial dominance ("know thyself") and their fate of
ruling the world. Houston Smith Chamberlain, Wagner’s son-in-law and racial theoretician
further refines this view. Jews, Chamberlain said, are plagued by a “guilty conscience”, a feeling
of immorality, and this Jewish guiltiness contaminated Christianity. It exerted a sinful impact on
the Teutonic essence, on its Noth precisely, or need of the "noble races to rule the ignoble". This
notion of racial Noth (which is exclusively felt by the Volk) has its roots in Feuerbach, Fichte,
and Hegel. Only Germans (the Volk) are fortunate to feel the gemeinschaftliche Noth (the
collective need).25 In this way, Noth signifies the virtue of the German people. It is their
conscience, their law. Hitler later reverberated Wagner’s proclamation:
Conscience is a Jewish invention. It is a blemish, like circumcision. 26
Once this conscience is cleared, the German spirit is cleansed and becomes privileged to follow
needs and desires without any guilt, eventually leading to the Holocaust. This is why Siegfried
does not sense guilt when he murders Mime.27
Feuerbach's Noth is manifested in Der Ring des Nibelungen as the sword, the so-called
Nothung, or "Need-ung". Again, this refutes the apologists' assertion that Wagner's political and
racial beliefs do not appear in his music. The Ring lionizes the sword Nothung, a weapon
restricted to combat and murder. Its motive is cast in C major, the liveliest key, as a confident,
growing arpeggio, as shown in Figure 1.
25
Solomon, Wagner and Hitler. 26
27
Rauschining, Hermann. The Voice of Destruction, Pg. 223, Putman, 1940. Solomon, Wagner and Hitler. Wang
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Figure
1.
The
Sword
Nothung
Figure
2.
Nature
The composer attempts to impress his audience with his fierce music. The Nothung motive
conveys to the speculators how magnificent the instruments of war are. Wagner even closely
associates it with the motive of Nature (Figure 2), suggesting that murder and war are, in the end,
only natural.28
Only Siegmund can pull the sword from the world ash tree, only Wotan can crush it to
bits, and only Siegfried can reforge it once more. These characters are the German gods and their
progeny, the Volk, ordained to dominate over all other subordinate races, if only they can realize
their need (Noth) for racial pureness. Mime’s actions represent the useless efforts of a Niebelung
Jew who is incapable of forging Nothung because he will never feel the collective need.29
A renunciation of the significance of the racial and political allegories in Wagner’s works
downgrades his operas to sheer fairy tales. The composer himself would have snorted at such
innocence. Symbolic representations and metaphors have long been recognized in these dramas.
To contest that racist pieces, like Judaism in Music, have no manifestation in his works is
especially naive. By that same “reasoning”, his other tracts, such as Artwork of the Future and
Opera and Drama would also have no correlation with his music, but one would seldom claim
that, for the composer himself indicated the contrary. Wagner’s various prose pieces comprise a
28
Solomon, Wagner and Hitler
29
Solomon, Wagner and Hitler
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line of belief intended to bear upon and become apparent in his music works.30
Hence, the composer's dramas are instruments of racist, proto-Nazi propaganda,
composed for the intention of restoring the German soul from Jewish pollution. The greatgrandson of the Richard Wagner, Gottfried Wagner, in an act of moral duty and great personal
expense, returned to his legacy the “conscience” that Wagner and Hitler swept away when he
wrote in 1993:
“Wagner himself misused music as a vehicle of propaganda. Where arguments about
Wagner are concerned, Germans quickly lose their sense of humor. With Wagner the
German soul becomes exalted! Woe betide anyone who questions Wagner . . . “31
“Richard Wagner, through his inflammatory anti-Semitic writings, was co-responsible
for the transition from Bayreuth to Auschwitz.”32
Wagner’s Impact on Hitler and the Holocaust
Wagner and Hitler shared much ideology. They both believed that race is based on
appearance, genetics, language and nationality. Both thought an Aryan white race is the basis of
beauty, goodness, and racial purity. Both held that Germans are destined by a vital need to
dominate the world. They considered all other “races” inferior and that conscience (and hence,
guilt) is an evil Jewish invention and must be cleared. In addition, both Wagner and Hitler
believed Jews have no religion, lust after money and power, and that they are parasitic and
physically revolting.33
At a young age, Adolf Hitler began picturing himself as an artist and composer, shaping
himself after his hero, Wagner. Hitler attended Wagner productions fanatically and often bragged
that he had read everything the composer wrote. While attending the Linz Opera Theater in
30
Solomon, Wagner and Hitler
Wagner, Gottfried. Twilight of the Wagners, The Unveiling of a Family’s Legacy, 1997.
Wagner, G., 256
33
Solomon, Wagner and Hitler.
31
32
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1904, he encountered August Kubizek, a young Czech musician who would later publish Adolf
Hitler -- Mein Jungenfreund (The Young Hitler I Knew, 1953). The book offers one of the few
accounts of Hitler's developmental years and uncovers how Richard Wagner developed into an
idol on whose ideas Hitler’s ideology would be based.34
The young Adolf Hitler hoped to become an artist and acquired measly subsistence by
painting postcards. Kubizek attended Linz School of Music, and hence was a musician in
training. The pair of aspiring artists became attached during those early years and shared their
mutual passion for Wagner's music. They attended and examined numerous local musical
productions. While Kubizek had wider musical interests, Hitler maintained a narrow focus on the
power of Wagner's works. Hitler was fixated on experiencing every Wagner production,
regardless of his financial situation.35
One day in 1905, the two attended a performance of Wagner's Rienzi. This turned out to
be a pivotal point in life for the young Adolf, as he would reference it after he rose to power.
According to "Gustl", Hitler’s nickname for Kubizek, the opera had a powerful impact on
Hitler. The teenaged Hitler was "overwhelmed by the resplendent, dramatic musicality" of the
production and was extremely moved by the storyline within: that of Cola di Rienzi, a medieval
dissident who was an outsider to his peers and was "destroyed by their
incomprehension". Following the production...
"... Hitler began to orate. Words burst from him like a backed-up flood breaking
through crumbling dams. In grandiose, compelling images, he sketched for me his future and
that of his people" 36
Hitler never forgot this extraordinary event. After he became the German Chancellor, he visited
Wagner's daughter-in-law, Winifred Wagner in Bayreuth, in 1939. Upon describing the event, he
34
Solomon, Wagner and Hitler.
35
Solomon, Wagner and Hitler.
36
Fest, Joachim C. Hitler. New York: Vintage Books, 1975. Wang
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cried, "It was in that hour that it all began"37. Therefore, one hears from Hitler himself how
instrumental Wagner and his music were on his political ideas and later life. The prelude to
Rienzi could often be heard at Hitler’s speeches and Nazi rallies.38
During his rise to dominance and war years, Adolf Hitler often visited Wagner's heirs’
residence at Villa Wahnfried (Wagner's home) in Bayreuth. Gradually, Bayreuth developed into
a respite and Wagnerian shrine for him and numerous other Nazi leaders. Hitler spent time with
Wagner’s grandchildren, Wieland and Wolfgang, and told them stories of his escapades.
Wagner's family adored Hitler and thought of him as Germany's Messiah. When he visited on
September 30, 1923, Wagner’s son, Siegfried, his wife Winifred, and son-in-law, Houston
Stewart Chamberlain, a racial theorist who called Hitler “God’s gift to Germany”, all warmly
welcomed him. During the same visit, Wagner's 86-year-old widow Cosima hugged and kissed
him. Hitler’s racial ideology of the fate of superior Aryans to rule inferior races, as stated in his
Foundations of the Nineteenth Century (1899), was accepted and embraced by both Cosima and
the composer, and the Wagner heirs. Wagner’s family made a cult of Hitler and as a result, Hitler
thought of the endorsement of the Wagner family and Chamberlain as a rally for his racial views
and political goals. Chamberlain wrote to Hitler:
With one blow you have transformed the state of my soul . . . that Germany, in the hour of her
greatest need brings forth a Hitler that is proof of her vitality.39
Accordingly, Hitler became the savior that Wagner's legacy ached for. Siegfried and Winifred,
Wagner’s son and daughter-in-law, were also anti-Semitic and worshiped the Chancellor. They
built a special extension at Wahnfried for Hitler to welcome his visits. Siegfried wrote:
“The times of the Spanish Inquisition have returned. Perjury and betrayal are sanctified,
37
Zalampas, Sheree Owens. Adolf Hitler: A psychological Interpretation of His Views on Architecture, Art, and
Music, Popular Press, 1990. 38
Solomon, Wagner and Hitler
39
Rose, Wagner, Race and Revolution, 48
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and Jew and Jesuit are working hand in glove to exterminate Germanness! But perhaps
Satan has miscalculated this time. Should the German cause really succumb, then I'll
believe in Jehova, the god of revenge and hatred. My wife is fighting like a lioness for
Hitler -- first rate!”40
And Winifred wrote:
“For years we have been following with the greatest inner sympathy and approval the
uplifting work of Adolf Hitler, this German man who, filled with ardent love for his
fatherland, is sacrificing his life for his idea of a purified, united, national greater
Germany, who has set himself the task of opening the eyes of the working class to the
enemy within . . .”41
Adolf Hitler was so occupied with Wagner and his music that at one point, around 1907,
he became determined to compose a "Wagnerian" opera. Even though he had no training in
composition, he did not think this as an obstacle. He proposed to have Kubizek jot down the
notes as he (Hitler) pounded out his notion of a Wagnerian opera on the piano. When he learned
that Wagner had composed a draft for the Edda legend Wieland the Smith as the theme for one of
his music dramas but later dropped it, Hitler seized upon the idea and decided to complete his
idol’s unfinished project. He said to Kubizek: "Listen Gustl, I am going to make Wieland into an
opera."42
A dark Icelandic legend, Wieland the Smith attracted both Wagner and Hitler. Kubizek
described it as the following: "King Nidur is entirely motived by avarice and greed . . . Wieland
kills his sons out of vengeance, rapes his daughter, and drinks from beakers fashioned out of the
skulls of his sons.”43 Hitler's interpretation was grand, with erupting Icelandic volcanoes,
glaciers, Wagnerian tubas, ancient Teutonic instruments, winged metal helmets, Walkures riding
through clouds, etc. Despite the unrealistic willpower and inexorable vigor, the opera ultimately
40
Wagner, G., 71
41
Wagner, G., 70
42
Kubizek, 195
43
Kubizek, 194
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died down and was left incomplete, undoubtedly because of the absence of musical ability.44 All
the same, it would be intriguing to hear the notes and experience a production of this piece if
simply for its historic importance.
Later, Hitler’s acquaintances drew similarities between the Hitler’s public speaking
methods and Wagner’s leitmotifs. Hitler employed metrical speech, countless reiteration, and
thundering crescendi to captivate his audiences. Hitler learned methods of crowd control from
readings such as Gustave Le Bon's Crowd (1895), and it is evident that he used Le Bon's theory
to control and manipulate the audience. One of his political musicians, Ernst Hanfstaengel, often
played Wagner's pieces on the piano to Hitler and noticed that when he played the prelude to
Meistersinger, one of Hitler's favorites,
. . . .whole interweavings of leitmotifs, of embellishments of counterpoint, and musical
contrast and arguments, were exactly mirrored in the patterns of his [Hitler's] speeches,
which were symphonic in construction and ended in a great climax, like the blare of
Wagner's trombones.45
In addition, Hanfstaengel drew parallels between Hitler's arm movements while giving a speech
and those of a conductor waving a baton.46
Years later, while in Landsberg prison, Hitler wrote Mein Kampf to the roar of Wagner's
works played on grammaphone records. Winifred Wagner provided the paper for Mein Kampf.
She thought that Hitler would "pull the sword out of the German oak" and protect Germany from
Jewish contamination.47 Therefore, Winifred took this political allegory directly from Wagner's
Walkure, when Siegmund draws the sword Nothung from the world ash tree. After the war ended
and Hitler's concentration camps were revealed, she insisted that the Holocaust was a story
44
Solomon, Wagner and Hitler. Hanfstaengl, Ernst. Hitler: The Missing Years, London 1957. Solomon, Wagner and Hitler. 47
Zalampas, 48
45
46
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invented by American Jews.48
The word kampf (struggle) is a word that frequently appears in the prose works of
Wagner, his heirs, and Hitler (Mein Kampf). Rather than an intangible struggle against some
unidentified might, they meant specifically the struggle against Jews and other non-Germans.
Another recurrent word was "Wolf", which signified the god Wotan in the Ring cycle, and Hitler
by the heirs of Wagner and even by Hitler to refer to himself. Hence, "Wolf's Lair" refers to
Hitler's Eastern front military headquarter during the war. Lastly, Barbarosa was another
common word used by Hitler and his hero. Barbarosa was a Teuton warrior/hero, the original
coldblooded barbarian. The word Barbarosa defines war as the "struggle" and has its root in the
word “barbarian” or “barbaric”, a representation for the longed for return of the German soul to
its barbarous origins, uninhibited by conscience, and thus free to wage mayhem and war.49
Therefore, the effect of Richard Wagner and his music on Adolf Hitler cannot be
overestimated. For him, they were fantasies to be realized. Hitler was a fervent Wagnerian. Not
only did he fawn upon the operas at Bayreuth and Nuremberg and wallow in the prose works, he
claimed affinity with Wagner. Wagner was his harbinger, his kindred soul. Thus Hitler considers
Wagner his “only predecessor”, “a supreme prophetic figure”.50
48
Wagner, G., 61
49
Solomon, Wagner and Hitler.
50
Robert L. Jacobs, “Wagner’s Influence on Hitler,” Music & Letters Vol. 22, No, 1 (Jan., 1941): 81-83.
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Work Cited
Borchmeyer, Dieter. “The Question of Anti-Semitism” in Wagner Handbook, Ulrich Muller &
Peter Wapnewski, eds. Harvard, 1992, 183.
Fest, Joachim C. Hitler. New York: Vintage Books, 1975.
Gobineau, Arthur de. Inequality of the Races, A. Collins, trnas, London, 1915.
Hanfstaengl, Ernst. Hitler: The Missing Years, London 1957.
Kubizek, August. Adolf Hitler, The Young Friend I Knew (Mein Jungenfreund), 1953
Moravitz, Mike. "Wagner and Hitler." Wagner and Hitler. n. page. Web. 9 Nov. 2012.
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