Because the older generation (despite Friedelind’s plucky example) failed to clear the air early on, the air has barely been cleared at all. For Wieland’s children, it is surely hard belatedly to point a finger at a father one so deeply admired with one’s head and loved with one’s heart. Gottfried has fought for more openness but, in an eternal clinch with his father, he has also tended to disown the precious part of the Wagner heritage as well as the repugnant one. The town of Bayreuth, for which the festival is so welcome a source of revenue, has found it almost as tough to come to grips with the past (although individual citizens have made better stabs at doing so than their official representatives). In an embarrassing display of schizophrenia, near-veneration continues to be shown for Winifred the ‘honorary citizen’ while Winifred the Hitler-lover is passed over in near-silence. As for the modest memorial plaque belatedly erected to the inmates of the Bayreuth offshoot of Flossenbürg concentration camp, those keen to find it need to be unusually patient and sharp-eyed. By contrast, no one can miss the huge bust of the Master set on a pillar in the park before the Festspielhaus. A gift from the Bayreuth ‘Friends’, it is the work of Arno Breker, a sculptor much admired by Hitler – and by Winifred, who sat for him a few years before her death.
It is not too late to make amends. The family, in collaboration with the Foundation and the Wagner archive in Bayreuth, could and should back the preparation and publication of a scholarly history, in which independent judgement is backed by full documentation. The Studien zur Geschichte der Bayreuther Festpiele issued by Michael Karbaum in 1976 was excellent for its time and can serve as a model, but a lot of extra material has emerged in the past thirty years (some of it in this book). Much also remains under wraps and should be made available at last. One key, untapped source is the cache in Munich – very likely throwing more light on Siegfried and on the Hitler–Wahnfried connection – that Winifred put in the care of her granddaughter three decades ago. Another is the diaries that Wolfgang’s first wife Ellen kept from 1942 and later collated with extensive commentary. Now in Gottfried’s possession, these volumes could give more insight not least into the family’s wartime doings and the birth of ‘New Bayreuth’. Fuller use should also be made of the vast collection of documents that Friedelind left to Neill Thornborrow, part of which he has already generously made available. The resulting volume should have an introduction in which representatives of the clan’s various branches present as honest a view as they can of their heritage in all its facets.
Isn’t that crying for the moon? Not necessarily. Over more than half a century, the approach of Germans to the Nazi era – the effort to ‘overcome the past’ as it is over-ambitiously described – has been through several phases. The topic was largely buried in the 1950s, only to rise more shockingly and violently from the grave amid the student rebellion in the 1960s. The early 1970s brought something of a lull, followed – thanks not least to the showing in Germany of the American TV series Holocaust – by a broader public readiness to come to grips with the worst, the most unapproachable of all topics, the mass murder of the Jews. In recent years, from around the turn of the millennium, a new phase has emerged. To call it ‘relaxed’ would hardly be appropriate, but it is characterised neither by efforts to bury unsavoury facts nor by violent demands to reveal them. Many former Nazis and their victims have either died or are close to doing so. The post-war children who turned on their parents and fought against a ‘cover-up’ are now middle-aged (or even a bit older). Many of their children simply seem keen to learn as much as they can about that distant, repulsive but somehow also fascinating era – a desire to which a flood of books, films and television documentaries is responding.
At the same time, a lot of German firms that hitherto passed over their activities during the ‘Third Reich’ almost in silence have begun to issue histories that omit next to nothing. It is true that, in part, this new honesty has been stimulated by the court action of former victims, especially in the US. But broadly speaking, it is born of the realisation that in this case frankness is no longer hazardous; on the contrary, it tends to pay off handsomely. That is a lesson the Wagners, in their deeds and misdeeds ever a mirror of their times, should take to heart.
Notes
Most references are to the original – usually German – texts. By no means all the works consulted have been published in English translation, and where translations do exist they are not invariably fluent or even accurate. For English versions of much of Richard Wagner’s (admittedly often opaque) prose, for example, readers still have to rely on the archaic and sometimes misleading renderings of William Ashton Ellis. On the other hand, the invaluable Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, translated and edited by Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington, is a model of its kind. So is Geoffrey Skelton’s prodigious translation of Cosima’s diaries. These and a few other key English versions – for instance of books by Gottfried, Nike and Wolfgang Wagner – are noted below.
Even for German speakers, amassing a Wagner library is a complex and often costly business. For reference purposes, though, the CD-ROM Richard Wagner: Werke, Schriften und Briefe, issued in 2004 in the Digitale Bibliothek series by Directmedia Publishing GmbH, Berlin, is an inexpensive (€49.90) and invaluable tool. Besides including Wagner’s Mein Leben, his letters and his other prose, this astonishing little disc contains the full text of Cosima’s diaries and of noted works such as Carl Friedrich Glasenapp’s six-volume biography of The Master. It is strongly recommended, and not only to the impecunious.
ABBREVIATIONS OF FREQUENTLY CITED SOURCES
CWTB – Cosima Wagner, Die Tagebücher, 2 vols., Munich, 1976–7; English translation, Cosima Wagner’s Diaries, London, 1978–80
KARBAUM – Michael Karbaum, Studien zur Geschichte der Bayreuther Festspiele, Regensburg, 1976
RWA – Richard-Wagner-Nationalarchiv, Bayreuth
RWML – Richard Wagner, Mein Leben, Munich, 1976; English translation, My Life, Cambridge UK, 1983
THORN – Neill Thornborrow archive, Düsseldorf
ZELINSKY – Hartmut Zelinsky, Richard Wagner: Ein deutsches Thema, Berlin/Vienna, 1976
Preface
1. Wolf Siegfried Wagner, Die Geschichte unserer Familie in Bildern, Berlin, 1976, p. 9
1 A Sublime but Glaucous Sea
1. CWTB, vol. I, 1869–77, entry 6 June 1869
2. Ibid., entry 25 December 1870
3. Judith Gautier, Auprès de Richard Wagner. Souvenirs (1861–1882), Paris, 1943, p. 75
4. Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, ‘Warum ich so klug bin’, part 5
5. CWTB, vol. I, entry 3 August 1871
6. Ibid., entry 2 January 1869
7. Ibid., entry 3 September 1870
8. Ibid., entry 28 November 1869
9. CWTB, vol. II, 1878–83, entry 12 February 1883
10. CWTB, vol. I, entry 3 June 1869
11. Ibid., entry 4 June 1869
12. Ibid., entry 21 November 1874
13. Charles de Gaulle, Vers l’armée de métier, Paris, 1973, pp. 19, 20
2 Revolution and Reverse
1. Richard Wagner, Sämtliche Briefe, vol. I, 3rd edn, Leipzig, 2000, letter 3 May 1840
2. Eduard Hanslick, Aus meinem Leben, vol. I, Berlin, 1894
3. Heinrich Heine, Zur Geschichte der Religion und Philosophie in Deutschland, Werke vol. V, Berlin/Weimar, 1986, p. 144
4. RWML, p. 443
5. Alfred von Meissner, Geschichte meines Lebens, vol. I, Vienna/Teschen, 1884, p. 170
6. Richard Wagner, Wie verhalten sich republikanische Bestrebungen dem Königthume gegenüber?, Sämtliche Schriften und Dichtungen, vol. XII, Leipzig, 1911
7. Mikhail Bakunin, The Reaction in Germany (1842); English translation in Bakunin on Anarchy, New York, 1971
8. RWML, p. 356
9. Eliza Wille, Funfzehn Briefe des Meisters nebst Erinnerungen und Erläuterungen von Eliza Wille, Berlin/Leipzig, 1908, p. 64
10. Richard Wagner, Sämtliche Briefe, vol.
VII, 1st edn, Leipzig, 1988, letter 12 June 1855
11. CWTB, vol. II, entry 22 April 1879
3 Ugly Duckling and Swan King
1. Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Book 2, chapter 3
2. Cosima Wagner, letter to Alfred Meissner, cited in Richard Graf Du Moulin Eckart, Cosima Wagner: ein Lebens-und Charakterbild, 2 vols., Munich/Berlin, 1929–31, vol. I, pp. 213–14
3. Marie Fürstin zu Hohenlohe, Erinnerungen an Richard Wagner, Weimar, 1938, p. 14
4. Richard Wagner an Eliza Wille, Funfzehn Briefe, Leipzig, 1908; this letter of 9 September 1864 first published in full in Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington, London, 1987
5. Letter from von Bülow to Liszt, 20 April 1856, cited in Max Millenkovich-Morold, Cosima Wagner; Ein Lebensbild, Leipzig, 1937, p. 82
6. Ibid., p. 81
7. RWML, pp. 745–6
8. CWTB, vol. I, entry 28 November 1869
9. König Ludwig II und Richard Wagner, Briefwechsel, 5 vols., Karlsruhe, 1936, letter 20 August 1865
10. Ibid., letter 11 October 1881
11. Ibid., letter 22 November 1881
12. Ibid., letter 7 October 1864
13. Richard Wagner an Eliza Wille, Leipzig, 1908, letter 26 September 1864
14. Richard Wagner, Das Braune Buch, Tagebuchaufzeichnuungen 1865–1882, Zurich, 1975, entry 8 September 1865
15. König Ludwig II und Richard Wagner, Briefwechsel, letter 30 August 1869 from King Ludwig to Hofrat von Düfflipp
16. Richard Wagner, Die Kunst und die Revolution, Sämtliche Schriften und Dichtungen, vol. III, Leipzig, 1911
17. Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, Menschliches. Allzumenschliches, part 2
18. CWTB, vol. II, entry 18 March 1880
4 The Fortress on the Hill
1. See notably Stewart Spencer, ‘“Er starb, – ein Mensch wie alle”: Wagner and Carrie Pringle’, Das Festspielbuch 2004, Bayreuth, and David Cormack, ‘“Wir welken und sterben dahinnen”; Carrie Pringle and the Flowermaidens of 1882’, Musical Times, Spring 2005
2. CWTB, vol. II, entry 27 September 1881
3. CWTB, vol. I, entry 16 June 1869
4. Ibid., entry 16 May 1870
5. Ibid., entry 21 November 1876
6. Ludwig II., Bemerkungen zur Nachricht von RW’s Tod, Notizen des Hofsekretärs Ludwig von Bürkel, quoted in KARBAUM, part 2, pp. 27–8
7. Quoted by Joseph Kerman in ‘Wagner and Wagnerism’, New York Review of Books, 22 December 1983
8. Martin Plüddemann, letter to Ludwig Schemann of 25 February 1896. quoted in Cosima Wagner geb. Liszt, Ausstellungskatalog, Bayreuth, 1987
9. See letters of 16 October 1881 and 29 September 1882 in Angelo Neumann, Erinnerungen an Richard Wagner, Leipzig, 1907
10. Richard Wagner, Bayreuther Briefe (1871–1883), Leipzig, 1907, letter to Friedrich Schön 28 June 1880
11. Richard Wagner, Vorwort zur Herausgabe der Dichtung des Bühnenfestspieles “Der Ring des Nibelungen”, Leipzig, 1863
12. Felix Weingartner, Lebenserinnerungen, vol. I, Zurich, 1928, p. 269
13. Ibid., pp. 264–5
5 The Plastic Demon
1. Isidor Kaim, Ein Jahrhundert der Judenemancipation und deren christliche Verteidiger, Leipzig, 1869, p. 1
2. Joachim Köhler, Wagners Hitler: Der Prophet und sein Vollstrecker, Munich, 1997; English translation, Wagner’s Hitler, Cambridge UK, 2000
3. See in particular Jens Malte Fischer, Richard Wagners “Das Judentum in der Musik”, Frankfurt am Main/Leipzig, 2000, which usefully compares the texts of 1850 and 1869 and examines the public impact of each one
4. Ibid., p. 196
5. CWTB, vol. II, entry 2 July 1878
6. Ibid., entry 22 November 1878
7. Richard Wagner, Ausführungen zu “Religion und Kunst”, “Erkenne dich selbst”, Sämtliche Schriften und Dichtungen, vol. X, Leipzig 1911. Article first appeared in Bayreuther Blätter 4, 1881, pp. 33–41
8. Ibid
9. CWTB, vol. II, entry 11 October 1879
10. See letter of 23 February 1881 in Angelo Neumann, Erinnerungen an Richard Wagner, Leipzig, 1907
11. Richard Wagner, Religion und Kunst (see note 7)
12. CWTB, vol. I, entry 19 September 1869
13. CWTB, vol. II, entry 16 December 1880
14. George Bernard Shaw, ‘Bayreuth and Back’, article of 13 August 1889, reprinted in Shaw’s Music, vol. I, London, 1981, pp. 739–40
15. Gustav Mahler, Briefe, Vienna, 1996, letter of July 1883 to Friedrich Löhr
16. CWTB, vol. II, entry 23 April 1882
17. Herbert Killian, Gustav Mahler in den Erinnerungen von Natalie Bauer-Lechner, Hamburg, 1984, p. 122
18. Marc A. Weiner, Richard Wagner and the Anti-Semitic Imagination, University of Nebraska Press, 1997 – a thorough study recommended to all with open minds on this tricky topic
19. CWTB, vol. II, entry 26 December 1878
20. Hanjo Kesting (Hrsg.), Franz Liszt – Richard Wagner Brief wechsel, Frankfurt am Main, 1988, Wagner letter to Liszt 18 April 1851
21. Richard Wagner, Briefe 1830–1883, Berlin, 1986, undated letter to Carl Tausig, April 1869
22. Manfred Eger, Wagner und die Juden, Fakten und Hintergründe, Bayreuth, 1985, p. 51
23. Ibid. and, among many others, Robert Gutman, Richard Wagner: the Man, his Mind and his Music, Pelican Books, 1971, p. 303
24. For closely documented accounts of the Bethmann family history see: Frankfurter Biographie. Personengeschichtliches Lexikon, ed. Wolfgang Klötzer, Frankfurt am Main, 1994 (Veröffentlichung der Frankfurter Historischen Kommission XIX); Wolfgang Henningen, Johann Jakob von Bethmann 1717–1892, Bochum, 1993; Charles Dupechez, Marie d’Agoult (1805–1876), Paris, 1989. I am grateful to members of the Bethmann family, the Bethmann Bank, the Institut für Stadtgeschichte and the Jüdisches Museum – all in Frankfurt am Main – for their advice and help
6 The Spin Doctor
1. For many details of Chamberlain’s life, I am indebted to Geoffrey Field’s indispensable Evangelist of Race: The Germanic Vision of Houston Stewart Chamberlain, New York, 1981. Additional biographical material has been drawn from Chamberlain’s Lebenswege meines Denkens, Munich, 1919, and Anna Chamberlain’s Meine Erinnerungen an Houston Stewart Chamberlain, Munich, 1923
2. Paul Pretzsch (ed.), Cosima Wagner und Houston S. Chamberlain im Briefwechsel 1888–1908, Leipzig, 1934, p. 8
3. Dietrich Mack (ed.), Cosima Wagner: Das zweite Leben, Briefe und Aufzeichnungen 1883–1930, Munich/Zurich, 1980, p. 762
4. For a detailed account of the journal’s history and influence see Annette Hein, ‘Es ist viel “Hitler” in Wagner’: Rassismus und antisemitische Deutschtumsideologie in den ‘Bayreuther Blättern’ (1878–1938), Tübingen, 1996
5. George Ainslie Hight, Tristan and Isolde: an Essay on the Wagnerian Drama, Montana, 2004 (reprint), chapter 2
6. Houston Stewart Chamberlain, Richard Wagner, Munich, 1895
7. Carl Friedrich Glasenapp, Das Leben Richard Wagners in sechs Büchern dargestellt, 6 vols., Leipzig, 1904–1911
8. Letter to Siegfried Wagner, 18 July 1896
9. Paul Pretzsch (ed.), Cosima Wagner und HSC, Cosima letter 23 August 1904
10. Paul Pretzsch (ed.) Houston Stewart Chamberlain Briefe 1882–1924 und Briefwechsel mit Kaiser Wilhelm II, Munich, 1928, Kaiser’s letter of 31 December 1901
11. Ibid., Chamberlain letter of 20 February 1902
12. Chamberlain, Die Grundlagen des 19. Jahrhunderts, Munich, 1899, vol. I, p. 17
13. Ibid., p. 583
14. Theodore Roosevelt, History as Literature, New York, 1913, part 8
15. Pretzsch (ed.), Briefwechsel mit Kaiser Wilhelm II, Chamberlain letter 1 December 1908
7 Odd Man Out
1. Isadora Duncan, My Life, London, 1928, chapter 15
2. Siegfried Wagner, Erinnerungen, Stuttgart, 1923, last paragraph. For much supplementary biographical material,
I am indebted to Peter Pachl’s Siegfried Wagner: Genie im Schatten, Munich, 1988 and (in part) to Zdenko von Kraft’s Der Sohn, Graz, 1969. For valuable insights into Siegfried Wagner’s life and work, see also the Siegfried Wagner-Kompendium I (ed. Peter Pachl), Herbolzheim, 2003 – a volume that brings together the contributions made at the first international Siegfried Wagner symposium in Cologne in 2001
3. Pachl, photo of Siegfried’s chalked-up remarks, opp. p. 436
4. Willi Schuh, Richard Strauss, Zurich/Freiburg 1976, p. 425
5. George Bernard Shaw, article of 15 November 1894, reprinted in Shaw’s Music, vol. III, London, 1981, pp. 333–8
6. This recording and others of Siegfried conducting his father’s works has been issued by Archipel on two CDs (ARPCD 0288-2)
7. Richard Graf Du Moulin Eckart, Cosima Wagner: ein Lebens-und Charakterbild, 2 vols, Munich/Berlin 1929–31, vol. II, p. 787
8. CWTB, vol. I, entry 5 November 1869
9. Edward Speyer, My Life and Friends, London, 1937, pp. 136–7
10. Claus Victor Bock, Pente Pigadia und die Tagebücher des Clement Harris, Amsterdam, 1962, p. 22. See also Ion Zottos, Clement Harris and the Wagner Family’ in the Siegfried Wagner-Kompendium I, pp. 235–51
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