Wahnfried, once the center of anti-semitic ideas
Gert Krell
Yes, it is very important always to remember that groups of people and whole societies are capable of learning, and that new generations are willing to challenge the taboos which nations build around their histories. Knowing that there are so many Germans genuinely ashamed of our past and actively engaged in symbolical and also small material efforts to undo some of the vast furor Teutonicus which the Nazis brought over the world, is part of the breathing space which people like me and my wife need to feel o.k. in this country.
I saw a report the other day on German TV about Arabs who had saved Jews in North Africa during World War II. When a French general (!) from the Vichy regime presented the then King of Morocco with 20 000 Yellow Stars of David for the Jews in his country, the king said he needed 20 more, for his own family. I have ordered the book by Robert Sattlof “Among the Righteous”, who has more stories about Muslims who saved Jews. (The report was based on the book.)
On Friday, we visited an exhibition by the Folkwang Museum in Essen (my brother was born there and we still have relations in Essen) on paintings banned by the Nazis. Until 1933, this place had been considered one of the best collections of modern art, and they tried to present at least some of their old treasures. It was so crowded that we had to wait an hour to get in. The sheer number of painters banned from the museum in the 1930s – they were all listed near the exit and included so many well-known names – was mind-boggling. In a major book about “Verfemte Kunst” (Outlawed Art) I read that well into the war many art dealers still tried to present small collections of modern art and that they still had customers. The Nazis were angry that they did not seem to be able to control the Germans’ taste completely. The majority went along, of course.
Sometimes we feel helpless and overwhelmed by the amount of brutality and stupidity which Nazism represents. This also concerns the years after the war, when everything ought to have been different but wasn’t. To be sure, the Federal Republic never was a “fascist state”; in spite of many continuities it never came even near it. Compared to other countries, we have not done too badly in facing, coping with, and working through our dark past. But in relation to the dimensions of the crimes and idiocies of the Nazi period we certainly could have done better. I cannot and do not want to forgive stories such as the one I reported about the Flick family.
Currently I am reading another book by Brigitte Hamann, on Hitler’s Bayreuth and the Wagner family. “Wahnfried”, the house where Richard Wagner’s widow, his son Siegfried with his wife Winifred, and his daughter Eva Wagner with her husband and famous racist philosopher Houston Stewart Chamberlain lived, was a center of “völkisch” and anti-Semitic ideas and conversation, and it played a major part in the network of support for young Hitler and Nazism. They were all very close to the “Führer” until the end; Winifred felt so even until her own death decades later. If the Federal Republic had really wanted a new beginning and a clear cut from its past, it would have closed Bayreuth for at least 20 years.
In the 1920s, Siegfried wrote letters to Jews asking for financial support so that the Wagners could reopen their festivals. He tried to explain that he wasn’t really anti-Semitic, but his explanations were so tortuous that his vehement prejudice became all the more obvious. Siegfried Wagner was a minor composer and he blamed the lack of enthusiasm for his work on the “Jewish press”. This reminds me of his father, who once wrote an almost servile letter to Giacomo Meyerbeer, assuring him of his everlasting gratitude. Meyerbeer, whose operas were very successful in France in the 19th century, had supported young Richard Wagner financially and had helped him set foot in the business. We all know where Wagner’s gratitude led: to a vicious attack on the “Jewishness” in music.
