Hitler’s obsession with composer Richard Wagner
Adolf Hitler as a youth had a strong obsession with art, and within him was a need to become an artist. His love for art came from his affinity for beautiful architecture of buildings and opera houses.
This love for the construct of opera houses coincides with his second love which was for music. Hitler’s love for music started when he attended his first opera at the age of 12 in the region of upper Austria. A few months after attending his first opera, Hitler then discovered the person who would become his favorite composer Richard Wagner.
Hitler loved Wagners’s music for its uncompromisingly serious tone yet sensual sounds, and it’s war-like intensity that filled him with nationalistic pride. The only composers that truly counted according to Hitler were German composers.
Hitler meeting Wagner’s family
Of all the German composers Wagner drew the most of Hitler’s attention as he explains the impression Wagner's music had on him by saying “it seems to me that I hear rhythms of a bygone world.” Hitler saw Wagner as a great man for his ideas with little recognition from his contemporaries for being a great statesman. Hitler’s view was will Wagner’s work must be celebrated and should be in capsulized in the hearts of future German generations.
Source - Kershaw, Ian. "Drop-Out" Hittler, 1889-1936: Hubris. New York: W.W. Norton, 1999. 43. Print
If you enjoyed my work
All proceeds from upvotes on this post are going to more Steem Power.
Hitler's main interest in Wagner was the early opera Rienzi with it's political themes. The real grand Wagner operas was not that hot in the Nazi regime and Parsifal was even banned as far as I remember.
Still Wagner is in many ways, even though it is not possible historically to call him a Nazi, a fascinating and scaring prelude. The contradiction of being a conservative and a revolutionary at the same is somehow the essens of both Wagner and fascism.
From Syberbergs Parsifal-film that was also accused of having nazi sympathies... But a fantastic film none the less.
It is also said that Hitler loved Wagner because his work was tied to Germanic folklore.
Yes, it is often assumed that for example Der Ring des Nibelungen should be the main interest of the Nazis, but as far as I know there is not really historical evidence of this. Himmler was the one that cultivated the heathen - occult Nazism, but neither Hitler nor the other Nazi leaders approved much of that. But I am not entirely sure about Hitler's relationship with the folklore part...
Nietzsche on the other hand was the one that really understood the art of Wagner. Hitler was to petty bourgeois kitsch oriented to really understand the revolutionary grandness of Wagner's music.
This post has been linked to from another place on Steem.
Learn more about and upvote to support linkback bot v0.5. Flag this comment if you don't want the bot to continue posting linkbacks for your posts.
Built by @ontofractal
Nitzsche saw it coming