WINIFRED WAGNER: A LIFE AT THE HEART OF HITLER'S BAYREUTH, by Brigitte Hamann, translated from German by Alan Bance, Harcourt, 582 pages, $35
"Winifred Wagner" is not exactly a household name, but her story is extraordinary.
Born in England, she was orphaned at an early age, then adopted at 9 by an elderly couple who were musicians. When she grew up, she married Siegfried Wagner, son of the German composer Richard Wagner, who was 30 years her senior. She bore him four children before he died, providing the Wagners with the heirs they were desperate to have.
A highly capable woman, Wagner displaced her husband's mother, Cosima, as head of the family — and as head of the Nazi elite gathering of musicians and others at the Bayreuth Festival.
In 1923, Wagner became friends with Adolf Hitler, and because of her role in the festival, she was often referred to as "the First Lady of the Reich." After World War II, she was called "The Last Nazi," based of her determined loyalty to Hitler's memory.
The evidence suggests she was in love with Hitler.
Wagner's biographer, Brigitte Hamann, considers her naive, headstrong and misguided.
When Hitler began to force Jewish artists into exile, Winifred bargained to get her friends exempted — but Hitler eventually refused to listen to her. She was apparently seduced by power and wealth and failed to comprehend the political implications of her Nazi connections.
One of Winifred's written statements about Hitler is revealing not only of her feelings but also explains much about his impact on the German public:
"Everyone in Bayreuth knows that we enjoy friendly relations with Adolf Hitler. ... His personality has made a profound and moving impression on us, as it does on everybody who meets him, and we have come to understand how such a simple, physically slight person should be capable of commanding such power. That power is rooted in the moral strength and purity of the man, who works tirelessly and selflessly for an idea that he knows is right, and that he attempts to put into action with all the fervor and humility of a divine mission.
"Such a man, who stands so unconditionally for what is good, must be able to inspire people, captivate them, and fire their imagination with self-sacrificial love and devotion to his person. I admit frankly that we too are under the spell of this personality, and that we too, who were behind him in happier times, will now stand by him in his hour of need."
Unaccountably, Winifred never turned against Hitler, even when her children did. She died in 1980 at the age of 82.
Hamann has utilized previously unavailable sources to tell this strange story of hypocrisy and miscalculation.
E-mail: dennis@desnews.com