Synopses & Reviews
Winifred Wagner was a British-born orphan who became Richard Wagnerand#8217;s daughter-in-law, head of the Bayreuth festival, and one of Adolf Hitlerand#8217;s closest personal friends.and#160;A no-nonsense Englishwoman who displaced Wagnerand#8217;s formidable widow to become head of the family and the Festival, Winifred fell adolescently in love with Hitler and made Bayreuth the summer gathering place for the Nazi elite from 1933 to 1939. And yet this staunch German nationalist leaped to the aid of Jewish acquaintances and artists as they were increasingly threatened by exile, imprisonment, or death.
Drawing on previously unavailable sources, Brigitte Hamann has produced a meticulously researched and elegantly written biographyand#151;the story of the private Hitler and his monumental obsessions, and of the headstrong, dedicated, and misguided woman who remained loyal to his memory until her death in 1980.
Review
"Viennese historian Hamann's important biography tells the complex story of Winifred Wagner (1897 1980), Richard Wagner's daughter-in-law, who headed the Bayreuth opera festival during Hitler's rule. An impressionable 18-year-old, British-born Winifred Williams married Wagner's middle-aged only son, Siegfried, in 1915, bearing him the heirs the Wagners so desperately wanted. When in 1923 Hitler solicited the Wagners for political support, an infatuated Winifred joined the Nazi Party, becoming Hitler's loyal devotee. Widowed in 1930, Winifred assumed directorship of Bayreuth amid rumors of future betrothal to Hitler, who, as Reich chancellor, put the festival center stage in his political campaigns. As increasing numbers of Jewish artists were exiled, Winifred bargained to gain exemptions for her friends and was gradually frozen out by Hitler. Without claiming heroic status for Winifred or denying her anti-Semitism, Hamann (Hitler's Vienna) meticulously places Winifred's aid in the context of the nationalist, anti-Semitic Wagners and their circle. Hamann describes the public denunciation of Winifred by her American migr daughter, Friedelind; Winifred's equally problematic relationships with her other children; and her postwar openness about her affection for Hitler. This is a fascinating portrait not only of Winifred but of the Wagners and their milieu. 8 pages of b&w photos; map." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
Review
"A unique perspective on the Wagners, centered on the clan's most controversial member and most tumultous period...Hamann diligently explores this naive young woman's slow seduction by wealth and power." (starred)
Review
PRAISE FOR
WINIFRED WAGNER"A fair and balanced appraisal, free of vitriol or misplaced sympathy . . . a gigantic historical study of Nazi Bayreuth with, at its center, the life history of a dubious, yet remarkable woman." --Der Spiegel (Germany)
"A magnificent book" --Glasgow Herald (UK)
"Riveting"--Sunday Times (UK)
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Review
"Hamann has produced a gripping, full-dress biography of a woman for whom 'fascinating' is too pale a word."
Review
"Hamann has produced a gripping, full-dress biography of a woman for whom fascinating is too pale a word."
(St. Petersburg Times, Dec 14 2006 )
Review
"[I]mportant...this is a fascinating portrait not only of Winifred but of the Wagners and their milieu." (starred)
Review
"Compelling...[and b]rilliantly translated by Alan Bance, Wagner, as a figurehead of cultural politics, is best dealt with by a political historian like Brigitte Hamann"
Review
"Hamann provides a rich picture of Winifred's complex personality and of the social and artistic forces surrounding Bayreuth during its Nazi period while giving equal depth and force to the hypocrisies of postwar denazification and Winifred's final years and legacy. An important book for all libraries with in-depth collections on the Nazi era or music history; there are no comparable treatments of this subject in English."
About the Author
BRIGITTE HAMANN is a historian. Her study of Hitler's early years, Hitler's Vienna, was critically acclaimed and an international bestseller. She lives in Vienna.
Table of Contents
1. An Orphan from Sussex (1897-1915)
2. The Newly-weds (1915-22)
3. Hitler in Bayreuth (1923-4)
4. American Journey (1924)
5. The Festival under the Swastika (1924-7)
6. The Older Generation Gives Way (1927-30)
7. Winifred, the New Boss of Bayreuth (1930-3)
8. Hitler in Power (1933)
9. Confusion around Parsifal (1934-5)
10. Lohengrin and the 'Thousand-year Reich' (1936-8)
11. Towards War (1938-9)
12. Wartimes Festivals (1940-2)
13. The Long Ending (1943-5)
14. De-nazification (1945-9)
15. Superannuation
16. At the End, a Film