Wagner, Winifred (1897–1980)

British-born Nazi supporter and close friend of Adolf Hitler who was a key figure in the Bayreuth Festival in the 1930s and 1940s . Born Winifred Williams in England in 1897; died in 1980; married SiegfriedWagner (the son of composer Richard Wagner); children: Wolfgang Wagner (director of Bayreuth Festival); Friedelind Wagner (1918–1991).

Born Winifred Williams in 1897 in England, Winifred Wagner was around ten when she was adopted by a German musician, Karl Klind-worth, whose wife was a cousin of the composer Richard Wagner. Winifred married Siegfried Wagner, son of Richard and Cosima Wagner . In marrying into the Wagner operatic dynasty, Winifred was to become a key figure in the Bayreuth Festival and the controversy that has dogged it since World War II. Virulently anti-Semitic, Winifred Wagner was an outspoken admirer of Adolf Hitler, to whom she sent the manuscript paper on which he wrote his manifesto, Mein Kampf, while in prison for a failed 1923 coup.

Wagner never met her famous father-in-law; he died in 1883, before either she or Hitler were born. However, the composer's infamous anti-Semitic writings exercised a powerful influence over the Nazi leader. Winifred Wagner ran the Bayreuth Festival in the 1930s and played a key role in forging its alliance with Hitler, an association that has haunted both the Wagner family and the festival ever since. Under Winifred's directorship, Hitler helped fund the Bayreuth Festival and was allowed to play a role in artistic decisions. Although she later sought to play down her Nazi sympathies, insisting she paid only the minimum monthly party dues, Winifred courted controversy after the war by inviting widows of top Nazis to Bayreuth. According to her grandson Gottfried Wagner, she referred to Hitler as "USA"—which stood for "unser seliger Adolf" (our blessed Adolf)—and dismissed the Holocaust as "lies and insults."

After her death in 1980, Winifred Wagner's support for Hitler remained an incendiary issue for Wagner scholars and family members alike. In 1999, a Bayreuth exhibition marking her 100th birthday was canceled, possibly for fear of controversy. Winifred's son Wolfgang Wagner, estranged from his son Gottfried since the 1999 publication of Gottfried's Twilight of the Wagners—a family history extremely critical of Winifred Wagner—announced that more research was needed to determine "the historical truth" about his mother.

sources:

"Composer Wagner's heirs feuding over family's Nazi legacy," in The Day [New London, CT]. July 28, 1997.

Wagner, Gottfried. Twilight of the Wagners: The Unveiling of a Family's Legacy. Picador, 1999.

suggested reading:

Braun, Julius. "Winifred Wagner and Pater Laurent Hora," in Richard Wagner-Jahrbuch. Graz: Österreichische Richard-Wagner-Gesellschaft, 1988, pp. 209–216.

Scholz, Dieter David. Richard Wagner Antisemitismus. Würzburg: Könighausen & Neumann, 1993.

Spotts, Frederic. Bayreuth: A History of the Wagner Festival. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994.

"Winifred Wagner, Opera Figure," in The New York Times Biographical Service. March 1980, p. 467.

Wistrich, Robert S. Who's Who in Nazi Germany. NY: Macmillan, 1982.

related media:

Syberberg, Hans-Jürgen. "Winifred Wagner and the History of Haus Wahnfried, 1914–1975" (6 videos), Syberberg-Filmproduktion, Bayerischer Rundfunk, Österreichischer Rundfunk, 1975–85).

Paula Morris , D.Phil., Brooklyn, New York