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Lalalalar
 Expert Boarder
Posts: 120 
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Does anyone have any good suggestions on books that reflect the link between Wagner and other such philosephers on the Nazi party ideology ?
I am paticulairly intertested in the remark that Hitler made stating that anyone who wants to understand National Socialism must understand Wagner.
It is in this context that I am interested in reading about Wagner and his influence on the Nazi Party.
I have just started reading 'The Rise and fall of the Third Reich', which has a few pages on this, but I am looking for an indepth analysis.
Thanks
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Sweety
 Expert Boarder
Posts: 90
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You might look at the first volume of Kershaw's biography, Hitler. He touches on Hitler's devotion to Wagner and especially Wagner's operas. I happen to be an opera buff, and I found it all a bit weird
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Linda2
Expert Boarder
Posts: 133
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The main question is whether such links were functional or ornamental. As long ago as 1963 German TV producer Joachim Fest made a strong case that Nazi 'ideology' was much more opportunistic than systematic
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hotelend
Expert Boarder
Posts: 114
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I haven't read either of these but you should consider:
Joachim Kohler, Wagner's Hitler: the Prophet and His Disciple, Blackwell, 2000.
Bryan Magee, The Tristan Chord: Wagner and Philosophy, Metropolitan Books,
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rbartram
 Expert Boarder
Posts: 123
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Joachim Köhler: 'Wagner's Hitler: The prophet and his disciple' discusses in depth Hitlers relationship with Wagner, but is IMHO utterly unreliable, and draws rather unsupported conclusons.
Frederic Spotts: 'Hitler and the Power of the aesthetics' is fascinating. The author's theory seems to be that Hitler was so enganged in the arts (music and architecture in particular), that he left much of the other fields of public life to his henchmen.
Ian Kershaw: 'The Hitler Myth' is still worth reading.
And then you have the standard biographies (Bullock, Fest and Kershaw first and foremost), but in none of these the relationship is discussed in anything like depth; in fact both Bullock and Kershaw mentions Wagner only in passim.
As an opera (and Wagner) fan myself, I find the most tenable theory to be that Hitler in his youth was taken in by the beauty and grandeur of Wagner's music, but that there is no evidence of anything by Wagner (neither music nor words) having had any influence on Nazi ideology. Nazi propaganda, however used Wagner for what he was worth.
Regards
Hans
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