Winifred Wagner
Encyclopedia
Siegfried Wagner
Siegfried Wagner was a German composer and conductor, the son of Richard Wagner. He was an opera composer and the artistic director of the Bayreuth Festival from 1908 to 1930.-Life:...
, Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
's son. She was the effective head of the Wagner family from 1930 to 1945, and a close friend of German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
dictator Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
.
Early life and marriage to Siegfried Wagner
Winifred Williams was born Winifred Marjorie Williams in HastingsHastings
Hastings is a town and borough in the county of East Sussex on the south coast of England. The town is located east of the county town of Lewes and south east of London, and has an estimated population of 86,900....
, England, the daughter of John Williams, a writer, and his wife, the former Emily Florence Karop. Winifred lost both her parents before the age of two and was initially raised in a series of homes. Eight years later she was adopted by a distant German relative of her mother, Henrietta Karop, and her husband Karl Klindworth
Karl Klindworth
Karl Klindworth was a German composer, pianist, conductor, violinist and music publisher.-Biography:Klindworth was born at Hanover in 1830. For a time he conducted a traveling opera troupe, but settled in Hanover as a teacher and composer. From there he went to Weimar, 1852, and studied the piano...
, a musician and a friend of Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
.
The Bayreuth Festival
Bayreuth Festival
The Bayreuth Festival is a music festival held annually in Bayreuth, Germany, at which performances of operas by the 19th century German composer Richard Wagner are presented...
was envisioned as a family business
Family business
A family business is a business in which one or more members of one or more families have a significant ownership interest and significant commitments toward the business’ overall well-being....
, with the leadership to be passed from Richard Wagner to his son Siegfried Wagner
Siegfried Wagner
Siegfried Wagner was a German composer and conductor, the son of Richard Wagner. He was an opera composer and the artistic director of the Bayreuth Festival from 1908 to 1930.-Life:...
, but Siegfried, who was secretly homosexual, showed little interest in marriage. It was arranged that Winifred Klindworth, as she was called at the time, aged 17, would meet Siegfried Wagner
Siegfried Wagner
Siegfried Wagner was a German composer and conductor, the son of Richard Wagner. He was an opera composer and the artistic director of the Bayreuth Festival from 1908 to 1930.-Life:...
, aged 45, at the Bayreuth Festival in 1914. A year later they were married. It was hoped that the marriage would end Siegfried's homosexual encounters and the associated costly scandals, and provide an heir to carry on the family business.
Following their marriage on 22 September 1915, they had four children in rapid succession:
- WielandWieland WagnerWieland Wagner was a German opera director.- Life :Wieland was the elder of two sons of Siegfried and Winifred Wagner and grandson of composer Richard Wagner....
(1917–1966) - FriedelindFriedlinde WagnerFriedelind Wagner was the daughter of German opera composer Siegfried Wagner and his Welsh wife, Winifred Williams and the granddaughter of the famous composer Richard Wagner. Born in Bayreuth, she was known by the nickname "Maus" or "Mausi"...
(1918–1991) - WolfgangWolfgang WagnerWolfgang Wagner was a German opera director. He is best known as the director of the Bayreuth Festival, a position he initially assumed alongside his brother Wieland in 1951 until the latter's death in 1966...
(1919–2010) - VerenaVerena WagnerVerena Wagner is the fourth child and youngest daughter of Winifred and Siegfried Wagner and the granddaughter of German composer Richard Wagner....
(born 1920)
After the death of Siegfried Wagner in 1930, Winifred Wagner took over the Bayreuth Festival, running it until the end of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
Friendship with Adolf Hitler
In 1923, Winifred met Adolf HitlerAdolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
, who greatly admired Wagner's music. When Hitler was jailed for his part in the Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
Beer Hall Putsch
Beer Hall Putsch
The Beer Hall Putsch was a failed attempt at revolution that occurred between the evening of 8 November and the early afternoon of 9 November 1923, when Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler, Generalquartiermeister Erich Ludendorff, and other heads of the Kampfbund unsuccessfully tried to seize power...
, Winifred sent him food parcels and stationery on which Hitler's autobiography Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf is a book written by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. It combines elements of autobiography with an exposition of Hitler's political ideology. Volume 1 of Mein Kampf was published in 1925 and Volume 2 in 1926...
may have been written. In the late 1930s, she served as Hitler's personal translator during treaty negotiations with Britain.
Although Winifred remained personally faithful to Hitler, she denied that she had ever supported the Nazi party. Her relationship with Hitler grew so close that by 1933 there were rumors of impending marriage. Haus Wahnfried
Wahnfried
Wahnfried may refer to:*Wahnfried, Richard Wagner's villa in Bayreuth*Richard Wahnfried , the long-time alias for German composer and musician Klaus Schulze...
, the Wagner home in Bayreuth, became Hitler's favorite retreat. Hitler gave the festival government assistance and tax exempt status, and treated Winifred's children solicitously.
According to biographer Brigitte Hamann
Brigitte Hamann
Brigitte Hamann Ph.D., is a German-Austrian author and historian based in Vienna.Born Brigitte Deitert in Essen, Germany, she studied history in Münster and Vienna and for a time worked as a journalist in her native Essen...
, Winifred Wagner was reported to be "disgusted" by Hitler's persecution of the Jews. In one notable incident, in the late 1930s, a letter from her to Hitler prevented Hedwig and Alfred Pringsheim
Alfred Pringsheim
Alfred Israel Pringsheim was a German mathematician and patron of the arts. He was born in Ohlau, Prussian Silesia and died in Zürich, Switzerland.- Family and academic career :...
(whose daughter Katia was married to Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual...
) from being arrested by the Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
.
According to Gottfried Wagner, Winifred's grandson, she never admitted the error of her ways. After the war, her posthumous devotion to the man she cryptically referred to as "USA" – for Unser Seliger Adolf (our blessed Adolf) – remained undimmed. She corresponded with Hitler for nearly two decades. Scholars have not been allowed to see the letters which are kept locked away by one of Winifred's grandchildren, Amélie Lafferentz.
The friendship of Winifred and Hitler is treated fancifully in A. N. Wilson
A. N. Wilson
Andrew Norman Wilson is an English writer and newspaper columnist, known for his critical biographies, novels, works of popular history and religious views...
's novel, Winnie and Wolf (2007).
Post-Bayreuth years
In 1975, she gave a filmed interview to Hans-Jurgen Syberberg
Hans-Jürgen Syberberg
Hans-Jürgen Syberberg is a German film director, whose best known film is his lengthy feature, Hitler: A Film from Germany.- Early life :...
, where she appeared utterly unrepentant concerning her past. Most striking was her love for Hitler. "To have met him," Frau Wagner declared, "is an experience I would not have missed." She was also interviewed that year by historian David Irving
David Irving
David John Cawdell Irving is an English writer,best known for his denial of the Holocaust, who specialises in the military and political history of World War II, with a focus on Nazi Germany...
who reports that she said that she would then still welcome Hitler at the door, and that she did discuss with Hitler the saving of some individuals.
She died in Überlingen
Überlingen
Überlingen is a city on the northern shore of Lake Constance . After the city of Friedrichshafen, it is the second largest city in the Bodenseekreis , and a central point for the outlying communities...
, one of the best preserved medieval sites, on the shore of Lake Constance
Lake Constance
Lake Constance is a lake on the Rhine at the northern foot of the Alps, and consists of three bodies of water: the Obersee , the Untersee , and a connecting stretch of the Rhine, called the Seerhein.The lake is situated in Germany, Switzerland and Austria near the Alps...
, on 5 March 1980 at the age of 82, and was interred at Bayreuth.