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The Effect of Richard Wagner’s Music and Beliefs
heartlessness.”
21
While Wagner’s operas are not identical, the musical
portrayals of Beckmesser and Klingsor in these operas equally showcase
Wagner’s intended disparity between the Jew and the pure-blooded
German.
Even those living during Wagner’s time recognized his anti-Semitic
feelings. For example, Richard Wagner’s son, Siegfried, wrote to the
Jewish rabbi of Bayreuth in 1924, hoping to gain favor for a Wagnerian
music festival. The rabbi’s negative reply shows that the Wagner family
was clearly linked to an anti-Semitic nationalist movement:
There is a widespread view that your house is a
stronghold of this
völkisch
movement. . . . Members of
your family wear swastikas. Your family . . . is said to
support the
völkisch
parties with substantial funding. Is
it any surprise that decent men and women of the Jewish
faith here and abroad exercise caution regarding things
Wagnerian, and are not willing to offer contributions
that they fear may indirectly go to benefit the
völkisch
movement?
22
As a result of this anti-Semitic link, the rabbi wanted no part of
Siegfried’s attempt to gain his support and no part in funding the festival.
It is clear within Wagner’s compositions and writings that he desired a
pure German race, but how did his anti-Semitic stance come to infatuate
Hitler? To what extent did Wagner’s ideas of race influence Hitler’s
actions of massacre? Hitler’s connection to Wagner is rather evident. He
loved and spoke highly of Wagner’s operas, in which he felt an
identification with the story lines, the music, and the composer himself.
Hitler also had close personal ties to the family of Wagner. In essence,
Hitler felt connected to Wagner and his music, and this fueled his love
for the ideas of Wagner.
The young Adolf loved Wagner’s music and also knew it very well.
Hitler was introduced to his music at a relatively young age when he saw
a 1906 production of
Rienzi
in Linz
.
From that point on, Hitler made
every effort to attend many of Wagner’s operas, attempting to soak in as
21
Yan, “The Jewish Question Revisited,” 349.
22
Brigitte Hamann,
Winifred Wagner: The Life at the Heart of Hitler’s
Bayreuth
(Orlando: Harcourt, 2005), 94.