Did he really say it? And even if he did, so what? – Part one

„In order to understand national-socialism, one must understand Wagner“. These, or similar words attributed to Hitler have been used and overused in order to prove that Wagner and his works are somehow „evil“ and that they set the stage for the coming of nazism. This is as close as the anti-Wagner cottage industry got to a „smoking gun“. But is it really the damning evidence it is supposed to be?

What struck me right from the moment I saw the quote is the lack of any reference or bibliographical citation attached to it. It seemed as if it was a sentence commonly known by everybody and his dog to be said by Hitler. However, facts that I had knowledge of only furthered my suspicion of the quote’s authenticity. In 1998. during a symposium held at Bayreuth two Israeli historians, Dina Porat and Saul Friedlander, presented a rather starteling(for the time, discovery): Hitler, in fact, has not on one single instance quoted Wagner in a public speech! Also, having read „Mein Kampf“ I knew for a fact that the quote does not appear there either.

Occurances of the quote grew in numbers as I was reading various publications on Wagner with no source whatsoever next to them. A couple of years ago, however, I did find in what was a standard „bash-Wagner“ article a footnote attached to the quote which pointed to a book called „The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich“ by William Shirer, „New York Times“ correspondant from nazi Germany. While I haven’t read the book I was aquainted with Shirer’s career enough to know that he only met Hitler on a couple of occasions and never in private so he himself could not have possibly heard Hitler say those words. I decided to fact-check the footnote in question and managed to get a copy of Shirer’s book. The quote is indeed there, on page 104 of the fiftieth anniversary edition of the book. Predictably, however, it is de-contextualized to a significant extent by the author of the above mentioned article. Here is how it appears:

”Whoever wants to understand National Socialist Germany must know Wagner,” Hitler used to say._ This may have been based on a partial misconception of the great composer, for though Richard Wagner harbored a fanatical hatred,as Hitler did, for the Jews, who he was convinced were out to dominate the world with their money, and though he scorned parliaments and democracy and the materialism and mediocrity of the bourgeoisie, he also fervently hoped that the Germans, ”with their special gifts,” would ”become not rulers, but ennoblers of the world.”

 

It was not his political writings, however, but his towering operas, recalling so vividly the world of German antiquity with its heroic myths, its fighting pagan gods and heroes, its demons and dragons, its blood feuds and primitive tribal codes, its sense of destiny, of the splendor of love and life and the nobility of death, which inspired the myths of modern Germany and gave it a Germanic Weltanschauung which Hitler and the Nazis, with some justification, took over as their own.

…

 

Though Hitler reiterated in his monologue that winter evening that to him Tristan und Isolde was ”Wagner’s masterpiece,” it is the stupendous Nibelungen Ring, a series of four operas which was inspired by the great German epic myth, Nibelungenlied, and on which the composer worked for the better part of twenty-five years, that gave Germany and especially the Third Reich so much of its primitive Germanic mythos. Often a people’s myths are the highest and truest expression of its spirit and culture, and nowhere is this more true than in Germany. Schelling even argued that ”a nation comes into existence with its mythology . . . The unity of its thinking, which means a collective philosophy,

[is] presented in its mythology; therefore its mythology contains the fate of the nation.” And Max Mell, a contemporary poet, who wrote a modern version of the Song of the Nibelungs, declared, ”Today only little has remained of the Greek gods that humanism wanted to implant so deeply into our culture . . . But Siegfried and Kriemhild were always in the people’s soul!”

Siegfried and Kriemhild, Brunhild and Hagen – these are the ancient heroes and heroines with whom so many modern Germans liked to identify themselves.With them, and with the world of the barbaric, pagan Nibelungs – an irrational,

heroic, mystic world, beset by treachery, overwhelmed by violence, drowned in blood, and culminating in the Goetterdaemmerung, the twilight of the gods, as Valhalla, set on fire by Wotan after all his vicissitudes, goes up in flames in an orgy of self-willed annihilation which has always fascinated the German mind and answered some terrible longing in the German soul. These heroes, this primitive, demonic world, were always, in Mell’s words, ”in the people’s soul.” In that German soul could be felt the struggle between the spirit of civilization and the spirit of the Nibelungs, and in the time with which this history is concerned the latter seemed to gain the upper hand. It is not at all surprising that Hitler tried to emulate Wotan when in 1945 he willed the destruction of Germany so that it might go down in flames with him.

Wagner, a man of staggering genius, an artist of incredible magnitude, stood for much more than has been set down here. The conflict in the Ring operas often revolves around the theme of greed for gold, which the composer equated with the ”tragedy of modern capitalism,” and which he saw, with horror, wiping out the old virtues which had come down from an earlier day. Despite all his pagan heroes he did not entirely despair of Christianity, as Nietzsche did. And he had great compassion for the erring, warring human race. But Hitler was not entirely wrong in saying that to understand Nazism one must first know Wagner.

Shirer’s interpretation of the „Ring of the Nibelung“ leaves a lot to be deisred, as well as his knowledge of Wagner’s prose. I will not however discuss this in detail since it is not the topic of this entry. What is relevant, on the other hand, is the fact that, as it is clear from the excerpt I posted, Shirer, while conceeding that there is a grain of truth in the words Hitler allegedly said, is not taking Hitler’s statement at face value nor is he ready to reduce Wagner to a simplicistic caricature of a proto-nazi, unlike many so-called authors of today. Shirer even admits, though he does not elaborate on this which is a major mistake, that „it was not Wagner’s political writings which inspired modern Germany“.

The original sin, however, is Shirer’s treatment of the quote itself. While it is true that his book is more an eyewitness account then an attempt at writing historical literature, it is nonetheless apalling that Shirer gives absoultely no information at all as to where and when did Hitler allegedly say that „to undestand national-socialism one must understand Wagner“, to say nothing of the possible context. Shirer does attach an asterisc to the quote and here is what appears in the footnotes:

My own recollection is confirmed by Otto Tolischus in his They Wanted War, p. 11.

A recollection…Which may or may not be accurate. To determine which it is I tracked down the relevant passage of the book Shirer mentions, and it is here. As the readers can see, just like Shirer, Otto Tolischus gives absolutely no evidence in support of the authenticity of the infamous quote, just a vague „Hitler used to tell his friends this“(how could Tolischus know this when he presumably did not attend any meeting of Hitler and his inner circle?) followed by an interpretation of the „Ring“ similar to that of Shirer.

Personally, I find it quite egregious that messrs Shirer and Tolischus could throw in in such a casual an callous manner a quote such as this one. It is irrelevant that neither are historians per se but even as mere witnesses they had an obligation to provide something that could shed light on this alleged Hitler statement, especially since neither of the two heard Hitler say it in person.

Conclusion: the quote attributed to Hitler „Whoever wants to understand national-socialism must understand Wagner“ is at best apocryphal. It is based on two separate second-hand testimonies, with one witness having no qualms about expressing doubts about the truthfulness of those words. Shirer and Tolischus heard this statement from someone and based on what they saw thought it credible. This is not how historical science works. Without records in writing and first-hand eyewitness reports, words or deeds attributed to a person should be dismissed as mere hearsay. There is absolutely no relevant evidence that Hitler ever said that „in order to understand national-socialism one must understand Wagner“

Or is there? Well, here’s a challenge: provide some!

(end of part one)

 

EDIT: One reader gave in the comments section another source of the quote with references and I replied.