Winifred Wagner (June 23, 1897 - March 5, 1980) was an Englishwoman and wife of Siegfried Wagner, Richard Wagner's son. She was the effective head of the Wagner family from 1930 to 1945, and a close friend of German dictator Adolf Hitler.
Contents |
Youth and marriage to Siegfried Wagner
Winifred Williams was born in Hastings, 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's, Henrietta Karop, and her husband Karl Klindworth, a musician and a friend of Richard Wagner. The Bayreuth Festival was envisioned as a family business, with the leadership to be passed from Richard Wagner to his son Siegfried Wagner, but Siegfried, who was secretly homosexual, showed little interest in marriage. It was arranged that Winifred Klindworth, as she now was called, aged 17, would meet Siegfried Wagner, 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 September 22, 1915, they had four children in rapid succession:
After the death of Siegfried Wagner in 1930, Winifred Wagner took over the Bayreuth Festival, running it until the end of World War II.
Friendship with Adolf Hitler
In 1923, Winifred met Adolf Hitler, who greatly admired Wagner's music. When Hitler was jailed for his part in the Munich Beer Hall Putsch, Winifred sent him food parcels and stationery on which Hitler's autobiography Mein Kampf may have been written. In the late 1930s, she served as Hitler's personal translator during treaty negotiations with England. 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, 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 controversial author and Holocaust denier David Irving, 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 (their daughter Katia was married to Thomas Mann) from being arrested by the Gestapo.
Post-Bayreuth Years
Like Hitler, Winifred Wagner believed profoundly in the rite of a secular cult of German nationalism, of Nordic self-realization, and völkisch aspiration. After the collapse of the Third Reich, a war court banned her from the Bayreuth Festival, which she passed to her sons Wieland and Wolfgang. In 1975, she gave a filmed interview to Hans-Jurgen Syberberg, 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 died in Überlingen, one of the best preserved medieval sites, on the shore of Lake Constance, on March 5, 1980 at the age of 82, and was interred at Bayreuth.
References
- Hamann, Brigitte (2005). Winifred Wagner: A Life at the Heart of Hitler's Bayreuth. Orlando, Florida: Harcourt, Inc. ISBN 978-0-15-101308-1.
