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Thursday, September 4, 2008

Hitler's Bayreuth

As mentioned before, Hitler summered in Bayreuth. He was close to the Wagner family and seemed poised to marry Siegfried Wagner's widow. Perhaps a great gift is that Hitler did not marry Winifried Wagner and condemn Wagner's music to the dustbin of history.
Below, left, is the annex to the Wagner family compound where Hitler stayed.

Parkstrasse 4, where Hitler stayed before Wahnfried.
The Aryan type olympic statue at the base of the Festspielhaus/Wagner opera house grounds. The Nazis staged rallies around the opera house and had plans to replace it with a large complex nearby.
The tie of Bayreuth Festspielhaus Opera House to the Nazis is a complicated part of its history that is still being worked through. Richard Wagner himself died well before the rise of the Third Reich, but his music and Bayreuth itself was appropriated by the Nazis as symbols of cultural nationalism.

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