Against stupidity....
Mike Scott Rohan
arts-oriented channel -- concerning a new youth movement that's
apparently catching on in Germany, under names like neopaganism and
Germania. To give you the flavour of this, secret cameras filmed a quite
substantial rock concert full of German teenagers, with a group of hairy
oafs screeching excerpts from the sagas full of gore and violence,
interspersed with howls of "Wir sind Germania's Krieger!" and "Der
Hammer soll der Kreuz zerschmettern!" and the like. And the audience
responded how? With rhythmic Nazi salutes and cries of "Sieg Heil!". The
depressing thing is that these are not bone-headed smelly skinheads, as
was formerly the case, but freshfaced teenagers and young high-school
and student types, well educated middle-class children who seem to take
the religious bit fairly seriously, and pick up what else goes with it.
The neo-Nazism of course is illegal, but the pagan part of the business
is not, and T-shirts with slogans and images such as "Ragnarok", ie
Gotterdammerung, and "Wotan statt Jesus!" are increasingly popular. But
the movement also publishes all sorts of underground press, and this is
full of fascist blah and antisemitic caricatures straight out of 1933 --
and, yes, what makes this relevant here, Wagner appears to be invoked.
And thus, of course, in danger of being tarred by association all over
again, even though I doubt many of these kids listen to him; the 1930s
repeating themselves. "Der alter Sturm, der alter Muh..."
I wouldn't be surprised if we got a visit from this bunch at some point
-- or from someone who assumes we're part of them.
Praetorius
I've been told that Jake Guylenhall's follow-up to "Brokeback Mountain"
is a Marine Corps movie (think it was called 'Dogface' and went
straight to DVD) which features a scene in a movie theater where the
marines are watching 'Apocalypse Now' and gleefully chant along to the
Ride of the Valkyries as the Vietnamese village is obliterated.
(On the other hand, one could ask, if this were to get even a few of
these kids to listen to Wagner, hopefully attaining then a correct
perspective, would that be...good?)
mpre...@earthlink.net
> Just been watching a report on 3Sat -- a serious and unsensational
> arts-oriented channel -- concerning a new youth movement that's
> apparently catching on in Germany, under names like neopaganism and
> Germania.
Demographics show some interesting news. The indigenous European
population is likely on the wane. Immigration and resulting birth rates
from, frankly, areas and people whose thinking is anti-Western continues
to rise. It is not just Germany. This will (has) created a clash
between an established Western civilization, and a decidedly uncivilized
culture. I am not making a value-judgment, here. Not that I don't have
opinions, but my opinion will not change things.
The reaction to all of this by some--certainly an uncivilized reaction
as you imply--does not surprise me. Whether Europe, as we usually think
of it, can remain in face of this cultural change is a big question.
mp
Mike Scott Rohan
from "mpre...@earthlink.net" <mpre...@earthlink.net> contains these words:
> Mike Scott Rohan wrote:
Speaking as a European myself -- not just a Brit but with strong French
links, plus Austria and Scandinavia -- I share some concern about such
matters. They've been particularly acute in the UK with our Commonwealth
connections, which have resulted in the transplanting of entire
communities, almost, maintaining their own ways and language without any
real effort to integrate. But reverting to neo-Nazism or its equivalent
is no answer to any of this, and in Germany of all places it seems
especially outrageous to me. They've seen what such vicious idiocy did
before; can they, even as a gesture, lend the slightest credence to
those bastards' ideas? If they can, maybe we're better off with the
immigrants.
Even that crusty old bigot Wagner remarked that if he were to write on
the subject again, he wouldn't blame the Jews for what he believed was
their effect on German culture; he blamed the Germans for not valuing
their own sufficiently. To that extent I think he had a point; a shame
it didn't dawn on him earlier. But it won't help if attempts to bolster
our own culture become entangled with racist crap of whatever political
shade -- and Wagner is in greater danger than most. If the Germania
bunch become more widespread -- and they're already very popular -- then
we risk finding ourselves tarred with the same foul brush. I can imagine
Wagner performances declining, singers being unwilling to take up the
repertoire because of what they might be identified with, all sorts of
problems. I believe our present rush of stupid productions derives in
part from the effort to detach Wagner from exactly the imagery that
Germania-style movements tout, the blond brutal supermen, the hairy gods
in horned helmets and so on.
I'd sooner see immigrants in the audience discovering they like it -- or
even on the stage. That's how we ended up with the great Jewish and
black Wagner performers, after all!
Cheers,
Mike
mpre...@earthlink.net
> Speaking as a European myself -- not just a Brit but with strong French
> links, plus Austria and Scandinavia -- I share some concern about such
> matters. They've been particularly acute in the UK with our Commonwealth
> connections, which have resulted in the transplanting of entire
> communities, almost, maintaining their own ways and language without any
> real effort to integrate.
Here in the US demographics are changing, too. But it is different.
The very substantial (mostly Mexican) immigration is somewhat transient
in that while there is a large foreign worker population here--estimates
range upwards of 12 million, most are "illegal" and not citizens. Their
existence is fluid in that many come and go. At the same time they
share much of the indigenous culture; most are Christians (Catholics, I
believe). And they embrace a very Protestant work ethic. So, in most
respects (really, except in language), they fit in and integrate
accordingly.
Culturally speaking, even if Mexicans gained control of our political
institutions (not likely to happen) it would not mean much, probably.
There is no separate and distinct Mexican legal code analogous to
Sharia. Mexicans eat what we eat, and they drink what we drink
(actually, it more the other way around, these days). Artistically
speaking, Wagner could most certainly be played. While most Mexicans
likely have no interest in Wagner's music, they certainly have no care
whether others do.
In Europe things are decidedly different. I wonder whether under a
predominately Muslim influenced government (say, in 75 years and, say,
in France) Wagner could be accepted? A lot can happen in 75 years. We
will not be around as witnesses. But, one cannot discount the power of
cultural and religious differences, especially in the realm of political
controls.
When I reflect upon Europe and its future, I am not happy. As Han Solo
quipped when faced with an awful realization, "I have a bad feeling
about this."
mp
Ralph
snip
>If the Germania
> bunch become more widespread -- and they're already very popular -- then
> we risk finding ourselves tarred with the same foul brush. I can imagine
> Wagner performances declining, singers being unwilling to take up the
> repertoire because of what they might be identified with, all sorts of
> problems. I believe our present rush of stupid productions derives in
> part from the effort to detach Wagner from exactly the imagery that
> Germania-style movements tout, the blond brutal supermen, the hairy gods
> in horned helmets and so on.
>
> I'd sooner see immigrants in the audience discovering they like it -- or
> even on the stage. That's how we ended up with the great Jewish and
> black Wagner performers, after all!
Yes, and let's hope that this last note of optimism, wins in the end.
That Wagner would once again have to be rescued from a growing element
in Germany is sad.
Ralph
Paul Lower
I don't consider neo nazis a significant threat (unless one beats my head
in). The real threat to western civilisation is the rise of Muslim
fundamentalism,. The currently prime minister of Iran, Amadinnerlady or
something like that is threatening something worse than the holocaust on
Israel. He also is saying he is only after nuclear power for peaceful
purposes. I strongly believe he is being ingenuous in this and is gouing all
out to produce weapons grade plutonium as quickly as possible. Several
nations have the bomb but the same bomb in the hands of medieval
fundamentalist zealots is a sure recipe for Gotterdammerung,
In the Uk the BNP is likely to get the best vote they have ever had in the
local Government Elections, but they are just a tiny faction of British
politics and are completely irrelevant to the nuclear war that is to come
right on top of the major energy sources of the world,
Paul
"Mike Scott Rohan" <mike.sco...@asgard.zetnet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:200604291...@asgard.zetnet.co.uk...
REP
news:44550cef$1...@mk-nntp-2.news.uk.tiscali.com...
> Hi
> I don't consider neo nazis a significant threat (unless one beats my head
> in).
I'd tend to agree, as I was under the impression that these youth movements
had been going on for some time. Fortunately I don't think these kids are
the wired or intellectual types, so I don't expect much hub-bub on the
internet outside of a MySpace account peppered with badly-compressed images
of skulls, Hitler, fantasy art, and flashy cars. But that is not a war I'm
willing to wage. When some bigshot makes it to the surface above his cute
little underworld, then I guess we can deep-six his ass with extreme
prejudice.
REP
REP
news:XLT4g.11574$Es3....@newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net...
> Mike Scott Rohan wrote:
>
>
> > Speaking as a European myself -- not just a Brit but with strong French
> > links, plus Austria and Scandinavia -- I share some concern about such
> > matters. They've been particularly acute in the UK with our Commonwealth
> > connections, which have resulted in the transplanting of entire
> > communities, almost, maintaining their own ways and language without any
> > real effort to integrate.
>
>
> Here in the US demographics are changing, too. But it is different.
> The very substantial (mostly Mexican) immigration is somewhat transient
> in that while there is a large foreign worker population here--estimates
> range upwards of 12 million, most are "illegal" and not citizens. Their
> existence is fluid in that many come and go. At the same time they
> share much of the indigenous culture; most are Christians (Catholics, I
> believe). And they embrace a very Protestant work ethic. So, in most
> respects (really, except in language), they fit in and integrate
> accordingly.
I live in an agricultural (and rather provincial) American town roughly
split between whites and hispanics, and 'integrated' doesn't quite describe
the situation here. Integration, what MLK was getting at, suggests a unified
culture -- down to the basics like shared restrooms and water fountains, and
up to the big things like churches, religion, holidays, ideals, language,
etc.; as opposed to cultural diversity, which is definitely what we have in
this town and in Europe.
It's working here, but it isn't working there, and that's largely, I think,
due to issues of respect and the attitudes of an entire people. In America,
I interact with Mexicans daily, and I'm always impressed by their civility.
It's on par with a cherub-cheeked kid out of the '50s, when Civility was an
actual class taught in American schools, and in a way it puts us to shame.
Having come from a suburb that tried to integrate whites, blacks, hispanics,
Pacific islanders, Asians, and Arabs into the same neighborhoods and
society, I wasn't looking forward to dealing with a foreign culture and
language in my own country. If the immigrants here had been belligerent, I'd
probably be a racist, but that's not the case.
I don't know what's going on in Europe. Without pointing any fingers, I'll
guess that one group is lacking in respect, tolerance and civility. Or they
both are.
REP
mpre...@earthlink.net
> I don't know what's going on in Europe. Without pointing any fingers, I'll
> guess that one group is lacking in respect, tolerance and civility. Or they
> both are.
Europe is a completely different dynamic. I suspect that in the US
there will be some kind of accommodation for Mexican workers leading to
some kind of citizenship. We in the US are fortunate in that Mexicans
who aspire citizenship, for the most part, want to be Americans. I know
there are exceptions, but generally speaking it is the case.
I'm not sure Muslim European immigrants want to be "European". Their
culture and way of life is quite different than what is usually thought
of as the Western European way. France is a particularly troublesome
place in that economic circumstances have created a situation where
employment for young Muslims (actually, youth in general) is
problematic. And many Muslims are, as I understand it, isolated in a
ghetto situation. None of this is good.
I expect that it will work out to increasing violence on both sides.
Relating to Wagner, if Muslim culture predominates politically I wonder
whether his music could be accepted? Of course, by the time that
happens (if, indeed, it does) Wagner will be the least of anyone's concerns
mp
Mike Scott Rohan
from "REP" <loIr...@Iolrqapq.com> contains these words:
These kids are *not* the shaven-headed tattoo-ridden skinhead thugs who
previously dabbled in this kind of thing, and that's my problem. Those
bozos it was easier to ignore, thick semi-criminal deadenders who were
generally laughably ignorant of the matters they invoke. These are more
everyday young people, better educated and more articulate, more
socially acceptable and harder to write off; there's at least some
intellect there, not least in the inherited dream of Germania, which
like "Wacht am Rhein" usw has greater emotional weight for Germans than
it seems to outsiders.
Cheers,
Mike
Mike Scott Rohan
from "REP" <loIr...@Iolrqapq.com> contains these words:
{snip}
> I don't know what's going on in Europe. Without pointing any fingers, I'll
> guess that one group is lacking in respect, tolerance and civility. Or they
> both are.
I'm aware of the US Hispanic problem -- indeed, one of my close US
relatives is very actively caught up in the political tangle right now.
There are many differences between that and Europe, the prime one being
that despite organized crime, gangs, "colours" and the like, Hispanics
do not have brewing within their ranks a wholesale terror campaign and a
self-righteous religious expansionism which may in the end be more
divisive. Muslims are probably less exploited, except from within their
own ranks; they are more isolated from society, but that's often their
own choice. Hispanics would for the most part be very happy to achieve
the American dream; for Muslims even the less material European dream is
a nightmare, and they demand that Europe adopt their dream instead.
However, I don't actually feel this is the right group to go on
addressing such issues for too long, except to the extent they reflect
our core topic. I raised the matter of the pseudo-Nordic cults in
Germany because it seemed to me that we should be aware of how such
things may affect public perception of the things we care about -- and
even more informed artistic perceptions. If this sort of thing
continues, it'll hit our press as well as theirs, and we should be ready
to reject any such link, wholesale!
Cheers,
Mike
Mike Scott Rohan
from "Paul Lower" <paul-ju...@tiscali.co.uk> contains these words:
> Hi
> I don't consider neo nazis a significant threat (unless one beats my head
> in). The real threat to western civilisation is the rise of Muslim
> fundamentalism,. The currently prime minister of Iran, Amadinnerlady or
> something like that is threatening something worse than the holocaust on
> Israel. He also is saying he is only after nuclear power for peaceful
> purposes. I strongly believe he is being ingenuous in this and is
> gouing all
> out to produce weapons grade plutonium as quickly as possible. Several
> nations have the bomb but the same bomb in the hands of medieval
> fundamentalist zealots is a sure recipe for Gotterdammerung,
> In the Uk the BNP is likely to get the best vote they have ever had in the
> local Government Elections, but they are just a tiny faction of British
> politics and are completely irrelevant to the nuclear war that is to come
> right on top of the major energy sources of the world,
> Paul
He's a problem, sure, but not primarily a Wagnerian one! These
neo-fascist creatures, on the other hand, are a thread to us -- if only
because more people will look askance at our interest in Wagner; many do
already, as some of us here have experienced, and the last thing we need
is people assuming we're pre-cut fascists, just join the tabs. If this
goes on, then in the long run it will become harder to sustain and pass
on that interest; harder to find new stagings, new singers, new
productions and most of all new audiences. Certainly that's nothing
compared to the loonies in Iran, same as it wasn't in WWII either; but
along with everything else then Wagner took a knock from which he was
slow to recover -- and it could happen again.
Cheers,
Mike
Paul Lower
I have just been down to the village to vote and sure enough there was a BNP
candidate on the ballot paper. I live in a rural area where immigration and
outsiders hardly impinges on our consciousness yet they still manage to
field a candidate. Maybe I should start to take them seriously!.
Despite being a serious Wagnerian I voted for the most innocuous party,
resisting the urge to write "none of the above on the ballot paper" I may be
seriously pissed off with the government and the opposition but nothing
would induce me to vote for a bunch of fascists.
I am sure you and a few others on this group will still carry on doing a
sterling job of seeing off any dodgy characters who post to this news group
including myself in my more belligerent moods.news:200605031...@asgard.zetnet.co.uk...
Mike Scott Rohan
from "Paul Lower" <paul-ju...@tiscali.co.uk> contains these words:
> Hi
> I have just been down to the village to vote and sure enough there was
> a BNP
> candidate on the ballot paper. I live in a rural area where immigration and
> outsiders hardly impinges on our consciousness yet they still manage to
> field a candidate. Maybe I should start to take them seriously!.
> Despite being a serious Wagnerian I voted for the most innocuous party,
> resisting the urge to write "none of the above on the ballot paper" I
> may be
> seriously pissed off with the government and the opposition but nothing
> would induce me to vote for a bunch of fascists.
> I am sure you and a few others on this group will still carry on doing a
> sterling job of seeing off any dodgy characters who post to this news group
> including myself in my more belligerent moods.
> Paul
Snarl! Rip! Mutilate! Sorry, conditioned reflex. :-)
But actually the BNP, as far as I can see, are not exactly fascists.
Their main agenda is strongly populist to the point of being thoroughly
left-wing in an old-fashioned way, which is why they worry Labour. One
of their major figures was a close associate of the late gay filmmaker
Derek Jarman, and he was a thoroughgoing leftwinger if anyone was.
They're a resurgence of something too conveniently and self-righteously
forgotten, that bigotry is not the province of one political shade only,
but has thrived and continues to thrive at both extremes of the
spectrum. Hence, unfortunately, Wagner.
Cheers, sort of,
Mike
Mike Scott Rohan
from Mike Scott Rohan <mike.sco...@asgard.zetnet.co.uk> contains
these words:
{snip}
> But actually the BNP, as far as I can see, are not exactly fascists.
They're apparently boasting they've won eleven seats in Barking. They
said it; I didn't.
Wotan
Richard Wagner quotes about Jews-------
"According to the present constitution of the world, the Jew in truth
... rules and will rule, so long as money remains the power before
which all our doings and dealings lose their force. [Judaism in Music
1850 PW3 p81]
Wagner wrote that "Jews will rule the world so long as money remains
the power before which all our doings and dealings lose their force."
He described this as "the true pit of Hell" saying that
"...emancipation from the yoke of Judaism appears to us the greatest
of necessities." [Judaism in Music]
In his book [i]Judaism in Music[/i] Wagner writes, "I consider the
Jewish race the born enemy of pure humanity and all that is noble in
man.... Jews will rule the world so long as money remains the power
before which all our doings and dealings lose their force." He calls
this as "the true pit of Hell" adding that "...emancipation from the
yoke of Judaism appears to us the greatest of necessities."
Wagner also observed: "The Jew is the most astounding instance of
racial solidarity ever offered by world-history. Without a fatherland,
a mother-tongue, midst every people's land he finds himself again:
even commixture of blood does not hurt him; let Jew or Jewess
intermarry with the most distinct of races, a Jew will always come to
birth... he has no religion at all -- merely the belief in certain
promises of his god -- whereon his race is ensured dominion over all
that lives and lives not... [The Jew is] the plastic demon of man's
downfall in triumphant surety..." [Know Thyself PW6 p271-2 1881]
"...the quintessence of Judaism is that heartless unreasoning
optimism, to which all things are all right so long as stomach and
purse are well-filled ..." [Letters to Roeckel VI July 1855 p139]
"...the Jews: they comprise our civilisation - that is obvious , and
that is why it is worth nothing." [CWDII 20/5/1882]
"losing their own language, when that's what a people preserves
longest, shows that they are mainly there to live like parasites in
the body of others." [CWDII 30/11/1879]
"The cultured Jew stands in correlation with none but those who need
his money..." [Judaism in Music PW3 1850/1869 p87]
"Jews... are virtuosi in an art (making money) at which we bungle.
[Know Thyself 1881 PW6 p268]
"...former cannibals now trained to be business agents of society..."
[Herodom and Christendom PW6 p284 1881]
"The Jew is the most astounding instance of racial solidarity ever
offered by world-history. Without a fatherland, a mother-tongue, midst
every people's land he finds himself again: even commixture of blood
does not hurt him; let Jew or Jewess intermarry with the most distinct
of races, a Jew will always come to birth... he has no religion at all
- merely the belief in certain promises of his god - whereon his race
is ensured dominion over all that lives and lives not... [The Jew is]
the plastic demon of man's downfall in triumphant surety..." [Know
Thyself PW6 p271-2 1881]
"Judaism is the evil conscience of our modern civilisation." [Judaism
in Music PW3 p100 1869]
"This is the true pit of Hell", Wagner says regarding Jewish
dominance. [CWD2 30/4/1879]
Profit is "the duty of the Jew" :
"It everywhere appears to be the duty of the Jew, to show the nations
of modern Europe where by chance there might be a profit they have
overlooked... [What is German PW4 1878]
"Jews can never really become anything else." [CWDII 25/5/1878]
"If we are quite candid, we must ... truly confess that ... the real
art-work cannot be created now, but only prepared for; yes by
revolutionary means, by destroying and beating down all that deserves
to be destroyed and beaten down. That is our work and quite other
people than ourselves will be the first, true creative artists [he was
writing to a fellow musician]... even a work that I may write and
produce... can be only a momentum of revolution, an affirmative sign
of destruction. Only destruction is now necessary, to build up can
only at present be caprice." [Letters to Uhlig etc. p20 December 1849]
"...emancipation from the yoke of Judaism appears to us the greatest
of necessities" [Judaism in Music 1869 PW3 p82]
"Judaism... [is] ...the most miserably narrow-minded conception of the
world that has ever been imagined." (Letter to Rockel VI June 1855
p136)
"We have no need to first substantiate the be-Jewing of modern art; it
springs to the eye, and thrusts it upon the senses, of itself."
(Judaism in Music PW3 p82)
" ... the influence which the Jews have gained upon our mental life -
as displayed in the deflection and falsification of our highest
culture tendencies..."/PW3 p121 1869
"What issues from the Jews' attempts at making Art, must
necessarily... bear the attributes of coldness and indifference, even
to triviality and absurdity; and in the history of Modern Music we can
class the Judaic period as that of final unproductivity, of stability
gone to ruin." [Judaism in Music p93]
"The Jews could never take possession of [Music], until... its inner
capacity for life [was exposed]. So long as the separate art of Music
had a real organic life-need in it, down to... Mozart and Beethoven,
there was nowhere to be found a Jew composer; it was impossible for an
element entirely foreign to that living organism to take part in the
formative stages of that life. Only when a body's inner death is
manifest, do outside elements win the power of lodgement in it - yet
merely to destroy it. Then indeed that body's flesh dissolves into a
swarming colony of insect-life." [Judaism in Music p99]
"Modern journalism and romance have been captured entire by the
free-thinking Jew... for it is a fact that German Judaism now works so
forcibly, so giant-like and so untiredly at the new culture and
science, that the greater part of Christendom is led by the spirit of
modern Judaism either consciously or unconsciously. Today, for
example, there is scarcely a newspaper or magazine that is not
directly or indirectly conducted by Jews." [Modern 1878 PW6 p43]
Richard Loeb
news:74at525e6i5kd7ndr...@4ax.com...
And exactly what do you discern from all these quotations or are you just
throwing them up for no concrete reason Richard
Wotan
Are you aware that Wagner was an enthusiastic advocate of violent
revolution, as well as being a racist and an anti-semite?
He wanted to "destroy by fire" the "money-based system of the Jews" in
order to bring about a "natural order." Thus he was major influence on
Hitler.
Read "Art and Revolution" and "Judaism in Music." Both written by
Wagner.
Adolph Hitler was first inspired to pursue a political career by
Wagner's operas and writings. Wagner, said Hitler, was not merely a
musician and a poet; he was the supreme prophetic figure among the
Germans. He had come early to Wagner, by chance or by the disposition
of Providence. He had discovered, with almost hysterical excitement,
that everything written by that great man that he had read was in
agreement with his innermost, subconscious, dormant conviction.
[Hitler Speaks, Hermann Rauschning p226 1940]
In the 1920s Hitler became friends with Houston Stewart Chamberlain
and Winifred Wagner. Chamberlain was the husband of Wagner's daughter
Eva and the author of Foundations of the Nineteenth-Century, an
interpretation of the history of the West in terms of the struggles
between the Aryan and Jewish races. This book was deeply influenced by
Wagner and in turn influenced Hitler's racial interpretation of
history and culture. Winifred was the wife of Wagner's son Siegfried,
with whom she had four children. When Siegfried died in 1930, Hitler
became something of a surrogate father for Winifred's children. Hitler
and Winifred were such close friends that there were rumors of
marriage plans.
The Ring is all about revolution and destroying by fire. The
Nibelungen characters are supposed to represent Jews, each of whom has
his own little plot to acquire the Ring -- which will give them the
"money-horde" and through it, world domination.
On 29 Apr 2006 08:09:58 -0700, "Praetorius"
A.C. Douglas
"Wotan" <jeffon...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:cigt52pdvavgulr3d...@4ax.com...
No further comment beyond my introductory sentence necessary.
---
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com/
Wotan
Read "Judaism in Music" (1850), "Religion and Art" (1880), and
"Artwork of the Future," ( 1849) which contains the core of Wagner’s
philosophy.
Also see:
Wagner and Multiracialism
http://www.nationalvanguard.org/story.php?id=4422
Wagner quotes about Jews ------
Mike Scott Rohan
from Wotan <jeffon...@comcast.net> contains these words:
> Just what is the correct perspective?
> Are you aware that Wagner was an enthusiastic advocate of violent
> revolution, as well as being a racist and an anti-semite?
In his early days, violent left-wing revolution, yes. That was aimed at
kings and the nobility, not Jews.
> He wanted to "destroy by fire" the "money-based system of the Jews" in
> order to bring about a "natural order." Thus he was major influence on
> Hitler.
A wartime myth put about largely by the Nazis themselves, in search of
"respectable" antecdents. Reputable modern historians reject this
complely. Ian Kershaw's biography, the definitive one for this
generation, hardly mentions Wagner or his influence, and sharply rejects
sensationalists such as Joachim Kohler who peddle this myth. Likewise
Michael Burleigh's equally well regarded history of the rise of Nazis
again hardly mentions Wagner; the excellent and authoritative TV series
"The Nazis: A Warning from History" not even once.
If you bother to study the matter properly, you will find that Hitler's
youthful passion for Wagner extended chiefly to Tristan und Isolde,
which is about sex and renunciation of the world, and nothing about his
beliefs, sense of destiny or imbecilic doctrines; furthermore, as the
historian Brigitte Hamann has shown, he was not at that time even
anti-semitic -- he was deeply in love with a local girl, but Hamann has
now discovered she was Jewish. He seems to have picked this up later,
perhaps even as just a political ploy at first. There is no evidence
from his writings, such as they are, that he had ever read Wagner's
anti-semitic pamphlet or anything else he'd written at all. And since
there is no anti-semitism in any of Wagner's works, and their message
about power is that it corrupts, he can hardly have been greatly
influenced by them either.
You will also find that the Nazi party generally loathed Wagner,
distrusted the Bayreuth Festival and tacitly banned one of his operas
during the war -- Parsifal, for its pacifist connotations. The party
ideologue Alfred Rosenberg atacked Wagner as unheroic and unGerman.
During the Nazi regime performance statistics show that Wagner
performances fell sharply.
> Read "Art and Revolution" and "Judaism in Music." Both written by
> Wagner.
> Adolph Hitler was first inspired to pursue a political career by
> Wagner's operas and writings. Wagner, said Hitler, was not merely a
> musician and a poet; he was the supreme prophetic figure among the
> Germans. He had come early to Wagner, by chance or by the disposition
> of Providence. He had discovered, with almost hysterical excitement,
> that everything written by that great man that he had read was in
> agreement with his innermost, subconscious, dormant conviction.
> [Hitler Speaks, Hermann Rauschning p226 1940]
Rauschning's book has been totally discredited by historians. It was no
more than a self-serving fiction assembled by a distant associate who
was trying to magnify his own connection with him. If you're going to
pronounce so pompously on such matters, you should try and get some
proper education on them first, or you're no better than David Irving.
> In the 1920s Hitler became friends with Houston Stewart Chamberlain
> and Winifred Wagner. Chamberlain was the husband of Wagner's daughter
> Eva and the author of Foundations of the Nineteenth-Century, an
> interpretation of the history of the West in terms of the struggles
> between the Aryan and Jewish races. This book was deeply influenced by
> Wagner and in turn influenced Hitler's racial interpretation of
> history and culture. Winifred was the wife of Wagner's son Siegfried,
> with whom she had four children. When Siegfried died in 1930, Hitler
> became something of a surrogate father for Winifred's children. Hitler
> and Winifred were such close friends that there were rumors of
> marriage plans.
Do you think you're actually telling us something, and that posters to a
group like this would not only be aware of this, but a great deal better
informed about it than you are? Neither Winifred nor even Chamberlain
ever met Wagner. Like Hitler, they appeared on the scene long after his
death, when indeed Bayreuth did become the centre of a romantic coterie
of Germanists whose idiotic ideas included racism and anti-semitism of a
kind far more pronounced and systematic than Wagner's -- although even
that, to do them what justice they deserve, was less extreme and savage
than the Nazis. Since they never knew Wagner and their ideas were
diametrically opposed to those expressed in his works, you can hardly
blame him for them.
> The Ring is all about revolution and destroying by fire. The
> Nibelungen characters are supposed to represent Jews, each of whom has
> his own little plot to acquire the Ring -- which will give them the
> "money-horde" and through it, world domination.
Don't tell us what the Ring is about. We know more about Wagner and his
history than you evidently do, and a great deal more about his work; and
what you are spouting here is utter rubbish, an insult to our
intelligence. And many of us, the posters in this group, happen to be
Jews. As have been and are a great many of the world's finest and most
devoted Wagner performers, from Hermann Levi in his lifetime to Sir
Georg Solti and Daniel Barenboim today -- both of whom lost close family
in the Holocaust, and would have the first right to condemn Wagner if
they believed he was remotely responsible. Instead they have made him
popular and well known as never before.
So before you get back on your self-righteous and ignorant little high
horse, I strongly suggest you go away and devote some time and some
humility to thinking why they, great talents and greatly humane men,
knew better than you.
Mike Scott Rohan
from Wotan <jeffon...@comcast.net> contains these words:
> Richard Wagner quotes about Jews-------
Curiously enough, we know. Although at least one of your quotes does not
in fact refer to Jews at all, the one about "destruction", rendering
whatever point you're trying to make worthless -- as it may well have
been from the start, anyway.
Wagner sounded off against anything else that irritated or hindered him
in much the same manner, and included among "Jews" almost anyone who did
that, whether they were in fact Jewish or not. But he also had close
Jewish friends and assistants, who lived in his family and to whom he
appears to have been as generous and friendly as they were devoted to
him. In short, he was an inconsistent crank. But he never called for
violence against Jews, or even social exclusion; he believed they should
assimilate. If the Nazis and similar extremists followed Wagner's
example, Jews would never have been more than mildly insulted.
Ralph
> A wartime myth put about largely by the Nazis themselves, in search of
> "respectable" antecdents. Reputable modern historians reject this
> complely. Ian Kershaw's biography, the definitive one for this
> generation, hardly mentions Wagner or his influence, and sharply rejects
> sensationalists such as Joachim Kohler who peddle this myth. Likewise
> Michael Burleigh's equally well regarded history of the rise of Nazis
> again hardly mentions Wagner; the excellent and authoritative TV series
> "The Nazis: A Warning from History" not even once.
>
And since
> there is no anti-semitism in any of Wagner's works, and their message
> about power is that it corrupts, he can hardly have been greatly
> influenced by them either.
>
> You will also find that the Nazi party generally loathed Wagner,
> distrusted the Bayreuth Festival and tacitly banned one of his operas
> during the war -- Parsifal, for its pacifist connotations. The party
> ideologue Alfred Rosenberg atacked Wagner as unheroic and unGerman.
> During the Nazi regime performance statistics show that Wagner
> performances fell sharply.
>
> Do you think you're actually telling us something, and that posters to a
> group like this would not only be aware of this, but a great deal better
> informed about it than you are? Neither Winifred nor even Chamberlain
> ever met Wagner. Like Hitler, they appeared on the scene long after his
> death, when indeed Bayreuth did become the centre of a romantic coterie
> of Germanists whose idiotic ideas included racism and anti-semitism of a
> kind far more pronounced and systematic than Wagner's -- although even
> that, to do them what justice they deserve, was less extreme and savage
> than the Nazis. Since they never knew Wagner and their ideas were
> diametrically opposed to those expressed in his works, you can hardly
> blame him for them.
>
> Don't tell us what the Ring is about. We know more about Wagner and his
> history than you evidently do, and a great deal more about his work; and
> what you are spouting here is utter rubbish, an insult to our
> intelligence. And many of us, the posters in this group, happen to be
> Jews. As have been and are a great many of the world's finest and most
> devoted Wagner performers, from Hermann Levi in his lifetime to Sir
> Georg Solti and Daniel Barenboim today -- both of whom lost close family
> in the Holocaust, and would have the first right to condemn Wagner if
> they believed he was remotely responsible. Instead they have made him
> popular and well known as never before.
>
>I strongly suggest you go away and devote some time and some
> humility to thinking why they, great talents and greatly humane men,
> knew better than you.
>
I'll just say ditto to Mike's posts to "Wotan"! My feelings too, only
written better then I can.
Ralph
Wotan
writings by List and other contemporaries.
I am a huge Wagner fan. Nevertheless, he did advocate for violent
revolution, targeting, I believe, Jews.
And it is not stupid to surmise that the Nibelungen represent Jews.
Many are of that opinion. After all, when is the last time The Ring
was performed in Israel?
In 2004 I went to the San Francisco Opera's new production of Richard
Wagner's Der Fliegende Holländer, and I thought I would share my
reactions, since they relate to larger issues.
It was the first time I had seen The Flying Dutchman performed. I had
heard Wagner's dark and surging overture, but I had only a general
idea of the themes of the story. I decided not to read the synopsis in
the program, because I did not want to spoil the unfolding of the
story by peeking at the end.
Unfortunately, the story was spoiled for me by stage director Nikolaus
Lehnhoff in collaboration with set designer Raimund Bauer, costume
designer Andrea Schmidt-Futterer, and choreographer Denni Sayers.
Their production was a travesty and a desecration of Wagner, by turns
distracting, ridiculous, and downright unintelligible.
Wagner's opera is set along the coast of Norway in the eighteenth or
nineteenth century. Lehnhoff's production seems to be set in some sort
of vast industrial cargo hold populated by post-apocalyptic mutants, a
setting that renders Wagner's talk of sailing ships and spinning
wheels jarringly anachronistic.
In traditional productions, the settings are the deck of a sailing
ship, the hall in the house of Daland (the ship's Captain), and a
village wharf. In Lehnhoff's production, there is only a vast box,
with riveted steel walls, dressed in only slightly different ways for
different scenes, with a translucent scrim always hanging between the
stage and the audience. This scrim is emblematic of the whole
production: instead of realizing Wagner's genius on stage, it gets
between the audience and the artwork, distracting our attention and
muddling our understanding.
In traditional productions the sailors are dressed like sailors of the
time. Since the music for their choruses is filled with humor and high
spirits, I imagine that the choreographers instructed them to swagger
a bit and swing from the riggings like the nimble young men they are
supposed to be. In Lehnhoff's production, they are dressed in bulky
silver-colored suits that made them look like fire hydrants clad in
Samurai armor, costumes that reduced their movements to ungainly
waddling and stiff, mechanical gestures that clashed with the spirit
and feel of the music.
In traditional productions the Norwegian maidens in Captain Daland's
hall are all thin, pretty young women -- I know that is a lot to ask
for in the opera world -- with fair complexions and rosy cheeks. Their
long blonde hair is braided, and they are wearing long peasant
dresses. They sit at spinning wheels spinning wool and singing about
their boyfriends. Wagner's sunny music calls to mind graceful feminine
forms and gestures and flowing hair and dresses. In Lehnhoff's
production, however, the maidens look from the waist up like mutant
Geishas and from the waist down like the Daleks from Dr. Who? Instead
of spinning wool, some of them just spin like tops, while the others
move their arms in jerky, robotic gestures. Again, the whole scene
clashes with the setting and the spirit of the music.
At least Captain Daland and Mary, the nurse of Daland's daughter,
Senta, both look human. But they look decidedly un-Norwegian, with
masses of brown, frizzy, Negroid hair.
But oddly enough, Senta, who is the heroine of the tale, wears what
looks like a costume from a traditional production. And not only does
she look human -- not to mention thin and beautiful -- she is
decidedly Nordic, the role being sung by Swedish soprano Nina Stemme.
The Dutchman, too, wears what appears to be a period costume, and his
role was sung by Finnish Bass-Baritone Juha Uusitalo.
I suppose I should be grateful for these lapses into good taste, but
they so jarringly clashed with the rest of the production's perverse
and irritating style that they just made me resent it all the more.
Like a well-characterized villain, bad art can almost be redeemed if
it at least has integrity, a unity of vision and style. Lehnhoff's
production lacks even that.
Lehnhoff's aesthetic crimes go far beyond laughable and distracting
costumes and sets. His staging actually makes significant parts of the
story unintelligible.
In a traditional staging, the Dutchman makes his entrance after his
ship pulls up alongside Captain Daland's ship in the dead of night. In
Lehnhoff's production, the Dutchman simply walks through a door --
along with a puff of smoke and a blaze of light and a mysterious
rotating propeller effect -- and steps onto the deck of Daland's ship.
For all I knew, the Dutchman was already on Daland's ship and was part
of his crew. Only later did I realize that he had come from another
ship. The entrance was certainly dramatic, but needlessly confusing.
(The drama was heightened by the mirror-like polish of the stage, but
when the characters were duplicated by their reflections, they looked
like a deck of singing playing cards.)
The Dutchman then launches into his riveting aria "Die Frist ist um"
("The Time is Up"), where he describes his tormented life condemned to
wander the oceans, longing for death, seeking death, but condemned to
live on in solitude until Judgment Day, when the dead will arise and
he will finally attain the annihilation for which he longs. (This is a
clear inversion of the Christian scheme and shows an almost Buddhist
outlook.)
Later we learn that the Dutchman's only chance for redemption before
Judgment Day is to find a woman who will love him until death. Every
seven years, he is allowed to come ashore to search for salvation
(which, ironically, means annihilation) through love, and the time has
come for another attempt, although the Dutchman's search for love has
failed so many times that he is not optimistic.
Juha Uusitalo's voice was magnificent, his German understandable, and
his performance deeply moving. For a while, I forgot all about
Lehnhoff's perverse production and was swept up in the beauty of the
music and the drama of the story. I could not help but identify with
the Dutchman's loneliness and his longing for salvation through love,
not to mention his constant disappointment.
Another serious lapse in the production comes in Act II, which is set
in the Captain Daland's hall. In this act, we are introduced to the
heroine, Senta, who is Daland's daughter. We learn that Senta has been
infatuated by a fairy tale since childhood. A portrait of the story's
hero hangs on the wall. Senta tells his story in another celebrated
aria, "Johohoe, Traft ihr das Schiff" ("Johohoe, Have You Seen the
Ship"). I found the story puzzling until about half way through the
aria (which is quite long), when it dawned on me that she was telling
other aspects of the story of the Dutchman.
In a sensible production, I would have known that immediately, because
there would have been a portrait of the Dutchman hanging on the wall,
a portrait that the audience could clearly identify as the Dutchman.
In Lehnhoff's production, the picture is referred to but not shown.
This was a needless cause of confusion.
The closest thing to the picture in Lehnhoff's production is a huge
shadow of the Dutchman projected on the scrim, which was a nice
dramatic touch, but distractingly reminiscent of the silhouette of the
hero of the old radio serial The Shadow.
The Dutchman has used his immense wealth to persuade Daland to betroth
him to Senta. Although the Dutchman can be saved only by a woman who
loves him and remains faithful until death, in his desperation, he in
effect purchases a bride he has never seen in a loveless arranged
marriage. It seems self-defeating, but this kind of delusional
thinking is depressingly common among men when it comes to matters of
the heart. Fortunately for the Dutchman, Senta already loves him from
hearing his tale as a child. Senta, too, is a lonely soul, and she
feels immense compassion for the Dutchman. It is a perfect match.
Two more blunders occur in Act III. The act begins with some brilliant
choral singing. The setting is the wharf along which Daland's and the
Dutchman's ships are anchored. A feast is underway to celebrate the
return of Daland's men. Daland's crew and their girlfriends call out
to the Dutchman's crew, inviting them ashore and playfully taunting
them. There is no reply, so they turn their attention to the feast.
But then the Dutchman's ghostly crew begins singing, startling
Daland's crew, who try to down them out with their own singing then
flee in terror.
The effect of the battling choruses was stunning, but in Lehnhoff's
production we do not see two ships by a wharf, but a vast steel box
with a barbeque grill in the middle, around which Daland's crew dance,
decked out with top hats and canes. When they address the Dutchman's
crew, they face the audience. When they cried "Wacht doch auf!" ("Wake
up there!") it seemed they were addressing the audience! (I had heard
some snoring a few rows behind me.) The Dutchman's sailors were not
located on stage. Instead, what appeared to be a pre-recorded tape was
blasted out from speakers around the auditorium. A spectacular effect,
but not exactly live music. Then there was a lot of running around and
banging into things, the clatter of canes hitting the stage, the house
lights rising and falling. Then, in the middle of the stage, I saw a
mass of huddled men, all of them with bald heads and greenish skin.
Was it the Dutchman's ghostly crew? Was it an Uncle Fester look-alike
contest? No. These were Daland's Norwegian sailors! What idiocy.
Lehnhoff, however, saved his worst desecration for the very end. When
the Dutchman arrived on the scene, Senta was already being courted by
Erik, a hunter. Erik would be a good catch for most women, but he
seemed utterly ordinary to Senta, who wanted to hold out for a true
soul mate -- and for a transcendent rather than an earthly sort of
love. Once the Dutchman appeared, Erik was completely out of the
running. But he came to Senta to plead his case one last time.
Erik's pleas were utterly in vain. But the Dutchman walked in on Senta
and Erik and mistakenly concluded that she was being untrue to him. He
probably leaped to this conclusion because he had been betrayed by
countless other women. These disappointments would naturally cause him
to doubt the fairer sex and, what is worse, his own worthiness to be
loved. The Dutchman denounces Senta, breaks their engagement, and
leaves.
In Lehnoff's production he simply walks back through the doorway
through which he first entered. Senta then declares that she will be
true to him until death and follows him off stage. Then the whole
house goes dark. As far I knew, Senta and the Dutchman eloped together
on his ship. Where was the tragedy in that? It seemed rather
anticlimactic, almost . . . happy, in short, a real let down.
As I left the opera house, I told a friend who had never seen a
traditional production about the real ending. The Dutchman returns to
his ship and begins to sail away. Senta, to prove that she was
faithful and to deliver the Dutchman from his curse by remaining
faithful until death, kills herself by jumping into the sea. The
Dutchman's ship then sinks, and the ghostly forms of Senta and the
Dutchman rise from the waves embracing. (This last gesture seems to be
the kind of concession to Christian sensibilities that turned
Nietzsche against Wagner.)
I wondered if Lehnhoff was some sort of first-timer or amateur, an
egomaniacal boy genius who was in over his head and who would likely
never work again after this travesty. I wondered if he was an envious
mediocrity who, not content merely to realize a greater man's work on
stage, wished to surpass him, but, unable to do that, was content to
vandalize his work instead. I wondered why the Maestro, Donald
Runnicles, who had made his reputation as a Wagner conductor, allowed
the production to go forward.
It turns out, though, that Nikolaus Lehnhoff is no mere amateur. He
has made a career out of desecrating Wagner, which is something of an
industry in post-World War II Germany. In 1987 Lehnhoff directed a
Ring cycle in Munich known as the "spaceship Ring." In 1973, Lehnhoff
directed a surrealistic Tristan und Isolde in the Roman amphitheater
in Orange complete with "trippy" psychedelic lighting effects.
Lehnoff's mentor was none other than Wieland Wagner, the composer's
grandson, who from 1951 until his death in 1966, directed a number of
Wagner's operas at the family's theater in Bayreuth and elsewhere.
Wieland's goal was to strip his grandfather's operas of everything
Germanic and Nordic. This was a tall order, since all ten of Wagner's
mature operas are based on myths, romances, and folktales from
Northern Europe. Not to mention the fact that they were written in
German. These elements could not be changed without destroying the
works themselves.
But Wieland felt he could get away with changing traditional stagings
and costumes, for there has always been some creative leeway in
staging operas, even though Wagner himself had very definite ideas
about how his operas should be staged, and these ideas were developed
after his death, primarily by his widow Cosima, into what has become
the archetypal Wagner style of winged helmets and romantic, fairytale
backdrops.
Wieland's "New Bayreuth" was characterized by virtually empty stages.
Sets were suggested and spaces demarcated by color and lighting
effects. Costumes were "abstract," "modernistic" or "futuristic" --
anything but Germanic or Nordic. New Bayreuth was for music what the
"international style" was for architecture: cold, clinical, inhumanly
drab, and stripped of everything national, historical, or ethnic. In
the words of Peter Jonas of the Bavarian State Opera, who approved of
New Bayreuth, Wieland "took those myths and purged them of ideology
and of the Nordic dream of identity and produced a theater of
abstraction, of absolute integrity." (Absolute betrayal is more like
it.)
But why? During and after World War II, Richard Wagner and his family
were targets of especially intense hatred from the Allies and, behind
them, the Jews. Wagner was a German nationalist, a racist, a pagan,
and an anti-Semite. Adolf Hitler was deeply influenced by Wagner's
music and ideas. Hitler claimed that when he was a teenager, he was
first inspired to pursue a political career by Wagner's early opera
Rienzi.
During his struggle for power, Hitler became friends with Houston
Stewart Chamberlain and Winifred Wagner. Chamberlain was the husband
of Wagner's daughter Eva and the author of Foundations of the
Nineteenth-Century, an interpretation of the history of the West in
terms of the struggles between the Aryan and Jewish races. This book
was deeply influenced by Wagner and in turn influenced Hitler's racial
interpretation of history and culture.
Winifred was the wife of Wagner's son Siegfried, with whom she had
four children, one of them being Wieland. When Siegfried died in 1930,
Hitler became something of a surrogate father for Winifred's children,
who called him "Uncle Wolf." Hitler and Winifred were such close
friends that there were rumors of marriage plans. Hitler even secured
an exemption from military service for Wieland during World War II.
Wieland Wagner was apparently one of those histrionic, self-hating,
post-war Germans whose weak sense of self-worth had been totally
crushed by relentless propaganda about German atrocities, real and
fictitious, and German collective guilt for them. After the war,
anti-German ethnic cleansing was Allied policy. This was accomplished
not just by the expulsion of fourteen million Germans from their homes
in the East, not just by killing leading German nationalists and
purging millions of their followers from positions of power and
influence, but also by the suppression of German identity and
nationalist sentiments in all realms of culture. The New Bayreuth
style was of a piece with this policy. Perhaps Wieland thought he
could redeem and ingratiate himself in the eyes of Germany's new
masters by ethnically cleansing his grandfather's works. Lehnhoff, who
is German as well, not a Jew, is carrying on the same program.
But there is no appeasing Jewish hatred. Jews can hold a grudge longer
than any nation in history. To this day, there is an unofficial but
very real ban on performing Wagner's works in Israel. Although
Wagner's music has been advocated by many Jewish conductors, including
George Solti, James Levine, and Daniel Barenboim, they defend his
operas on musical grounds and for what is "universal" in their
stories. As one would expect, given Jewish domination of the media,
the arts, and the recording industry, the public is not allowed to
hear voices that praise Wagner for what is particular about his operas
-- what is Germanic, what is Nordic.
I don't doubt that Wagner's operas have universal appeal and
significance. Anyone can hum a tune and follow a story. But for some
there is more to Wagner than just that. As a friend once said, "Mozart
and Puccini are art; Wagner is religion." Wagner is a religious
experience because something deep in his music connects with something
deep in certain listeners, something that has to do with what is
particular to Nordic people.
C.S. Lewis once described how, when reading the Norse myths, the words
"Baldur the beautiful is dead, is dead," suddenly awakened deep racial
memories or archetypes of the ice-clad wastes in which the White race,
or at least its Nordic subrace, probably evolved. Wagner has the same
effect. He stirs something in the blood, and he will continue to do so
as long as his music and our race survive, no matter how badly his
operas are parodied on the stage.
In the long run, Wieland Wagner and Nikolaus Lehnhoff and their kind
will be forgotten. In the meantime, is easy enough to avoid such
travesties. There are CDs, DVDs, and no shortage of traditional
productions. One can even enjoy Lehnhoff's Dutchman if one knows the
story in advance and is forewarned about the worst bits. When I found
the production too distracting, it was easy enough to sweep it all
away. All I did was close my eyes. Then there was just Wagner's music,
in all its undimmed glory.
Peter
"Mike Scott Rohan" <mike.sco...@asgard.zetnet.co.uk> wrote in message
> But he never called for violence against Jews, or even social exclusion;
> he believed they should
> assimilate.
I vaguely remember having read somewhere, perhaps in the Cosima Diaries,
that on the occasion of a synagogue fire, that Wagner supposedly said that
he hoped that all of the people inside should burn up.
Do you, Mike, perhaps know where this statement came from, if it is indeed
true, or if perhaps even Cosima made it up?
I also firmly believe that Wagner would not have at all gotten along with
the hierarchy of the Third Reich, but I would be very interested in your
thoughts about this matter.
Thanks a lot in advance for your interest and consideration.
Richard Loeb
Z"Peter" <replyNazi Heirarchy to newsgroup only> wrote in message
news:UomdnWe6M_x...@comcast.com...
I think Wagner would have thought most of the Nazi heirarchy to be
bourgeois (or worse) numbskulls and would have had little time for them. He
would have been aghast at the terror they inflicted on others. Other than
Mr. Wotans problems with a modern stage directors take on a Wagner opera (he
is preaching to the choir here, I think) the rest of his ramblings are full
of so many anti-semitic, factually incorrect statements, its almost like any
kind of reply would be fruitless. Richard
Wotan
Loeb instantly ducks behind the handy shield of "anti-Semitism."
An expression of thought has fallen outside of the very narrow range
of acceptable opinion, and categorized as "ramblings."
In August of 2003, a Jewish theatre director by the name of Gerald
Thomas unveiled an "experimental" version of Wagner's Tristan and
Isolde opera at Rio de Janeiro's prestigious Teatro Municipal. I was
in attendance.
As you know, the play is supposed to tell the tale of medieval lovers
in an era of knights and chivalry; however, Mr. Thomas had different
ideas. His version added a masturbating woman, a nude catwalk show, a
Can-Can-like chorus comprised of Hasidic Jews, a Nazi concentration
camp, and an actor playing Sigmund Freud who sniffs cocaine and tosses
it around like confetti.
The play was not particularly well-received. One critic described
Thomas as "reeking of bad art and bad craft." Another wrote that "This
Thomas (expletive deleted) should have been locked up and the key
thrown away forever. This isn't creativity, it's stupidity and
ignorance." A local Rio de Janeiro newspaper suggested that the play
was a "telling indicator of the squalid depths to which these
postmodern opera productions regularly descend in order to accommodate
the outrageous, self-involved, self-serving vandalism of those
directors who perpetrate these grotesque productions, and inflict them
on a paying public."
And it wasn't just the critics -- those in the opening-night audience
at the Teatro Municipal also hated the New York City Jew's radical
reworking of the beloved opera. When Thomas appeared at the curtain
call, he was greeted with a fusillade of boos, jeers and insults.
Thomas responded by turning his back to us, dropping his pants and
underwear, and 'mooning' us. The police promptly booked him for
indecent exposure since hundreds of small children were in the
audience.
Afterward, Thomas was not apologetic. "I do not follow what the
composer imagined, because I am not worried about that," he told local
reporters. "I joined the music of Wagner, an anti-Semite, with the
ideas of Sigmund Freud, a Jew that changed thought and the art of the
20th century." Thomas added that he was accustomed to being booed and
said that in certain circumstances, like a controversial production of
Wagner's Flying Dutchman that he mounted at the Teatro Municipal in
1987, he even preferred that to applause.
The prosecutor who filed the public indecency charges, Gisela Brandão,
said that even though "we had the option of shelving the case," she
chose to forge ahead because Thomas "didn't want the relief to which
he was entitled," referring to the option of admitting guilt and
paying a fine of about $400. He was to appear before a judge who would
have decided whether there were grounds to proceed with the case.
Thomas, asked about his rejection of the plea bargain, said: "I do
have principles. What kind of example would I be setting for my fellow
artists? I don't accept the fact that I committed a crime because I
decided to moon the audience in my own theater."
Thomas, 49, was born and raised in Rio, and spent most of his adult
life in New York City. His father was a Jewish-communist activist who
was run out of Germany by the Hitler regime. His mother was a
Lithuanian Jewess who worked as a psychoanalyst for the Lithuanian
Communist Party.
According to the New York Times, Thomas fled Rio and took up refuge in
London, and has acknowledged that his staging of Tristan und Isolde
was meant to provoke. He also told the Times that he 'mooned' the
audience in response to "anti-Semitic catcalls" from the crowd. "From
the first three rows I very clearly heard voices saying, 'You filthy
little Jew, why don't you go back to the camps?'" he told the Times.
He went on to declare: "When someone throws a marble ball at you, you
should go back with three grenades in your hands."
But now, Thomas has apparently abandoned the 'anti-Semitism' excuse
for the dropping of his pants in public. His new strategy is to claim
that his prosecution is politically motivated, because he was
frequently critical of the Rio de Janeiro state governor in a column
he wrote for a local daily newspaper (Note - The paper fired him right
after the play's debut).
My point is this -- the reason why Wagner opera stagings are often a
disgrace is because of Jews: it's not an issue of minimalism vs.
traditionalism. It's a matter of Jews vs. White European music via
Wagner.
The recent Stuttgart version of Wagner's four-opera Ring Cycle,
available on DVD for anyone who wants to waste money, provides another
excellent illustration. The following is an excerpt from an online
review:
"In Rheingold the gods don't ascend into Valhalla, they go down into
the basement. In Walküre, Siegmund doesn't pull the sword out of a
tree (there isn't any), but from Sieglinde's bodice, and it is
embarrassing to watch the two of them, with flailing arms and legs, in
simulated coupling on top of a table. The Valkyries are high-heeled
tarts with paper wings, and occasionally during Ride of the Valkyries
what looks like a mummy (representing a fallen hero) is dragged across
the stage. At the end of this opera Wotan doesn't look at Brünnhilde
except via a TV set (which he operates with a remote) -- even though
she is right in front of him on the upper stage level. There's no
'magic fire' except for five small candles which she lights herself.
In Siegfried, after watching Mime masturbate in scene three of act
one, the hero (who has 'Sieg Fried' printed on his T-shirt) discovers
Brünnhilde in what appears to be a kitchen which happens to have a bed
in it. As both are not small singers, it is rather comical to watch
their mating ritual, reminiscent of a PBS nature documentary."
Productions of this sort are usually surrounded by self-serving
artspeak: They're cutting-edge, daring, disturbing, groundbreaking,
subversive, etc. If you imagine a Pythonesque Twit who delusively
visualizes himself as an avant-garde artist, you'll have captured the
core personality of Wagner desecraters like Nikolaus Lehnhoff. In
modern Germany an authentically Wagnerian Ring would be genuinely bold
and subversive, since the primary purpose of all postwar German
governments has been to de-ethnicize their citizenry. Because artistic
recollections of ancient Nordic mythology could potentially do the
opposite, anti-Wagnerians carefully degrade or excise Wagner's Nordic
mythos. Thus in the Stuttgart Rheingold Valhalla is located in a
basement, rather than in the sky, and the gods enter Valhalla not by
crossing a rainbow bridge but by descending in an old elevator.
Clearly this production is not a modernization for the purpose of
illuminating hidden dimensions of Wagner's drama; it expresses
unmistakable aggression, burning hatred for what the real Ring Cycle
represents.
For the Stuttgart Ring four separate artistic teams were assigned the
task of wrecking an opera according to their own inclinations, and
although each team produced its own particular form of desecration
marked by significant stylistic differences, an intense hostility to
Wagner's mythology was the feature they ended up sharing in common.
All arrived independently at a single anti-mythological focus for
their loathing. Anti-Wagnerians do not engage in random desecration,
since this aggressive demythologizing, practiced in varying degrees by
all anti-Wagnerian productions, is ideologically systematic.
Everything that seems threatening to the anti-national German
establishment is a target. The music survives unscathed, but the
Wagnerian mythology that once informed it is trashed or eliminated in
deliberate acts of cultural ethnic cleansing. The purportedly "daring"
Stuttgart Ring is really no more daring than a state-circulated
anti-racism leaflet or a bureaucratic document outlining changes in
the tax code. All are instruments of state power.
In George Orwell's dystopian account of the future, history can be
eradicated by a state-orchestrated program of mandatory forgetting,
because history is intangible and unable to defend itself. Having no
solid existence, it survives only in books and in cultural memory, and
in 1984 history can be changed or destroyed by the totalitarian state
simply by rewriting or destroying the books in which it is documented,
in the expectation that memory will wither soon after and that new
memories can be artificially produced to replace the old. Enemies of
state power and state ideology can be eliminated ("vaporized") from
history, as though they had never lived, and the past can be
continually reshaped to serve Ingsoc's latest political objectives.
In practice, however, anti-racialists have generally adopted a
different tactic, preferring to hollow out old forms, emptying them of
their original content but preserving a debased semblance of the
originals. The intention -- to control the past -- is the same, though
the method is different. There are in fact certain cultural monuments,
like Wagnerian opera in Germany, that cannot be easily eradicated or
dropped down the memory hole. Although Wagner is perceived by
anti-national Germans as an old enemy, and hated accordingly, he is an
enemy who cannot be forgotten. He occupies too prominent a position in
the musical pantheon of the past. For dedicated multiracialists his
most threatening art must therefore be aggressively reproduced in
misshapen travesties of his original vision.
When thinking about these travesties it's hard to know whether anger
or laughter is the more appropriate response. Of the two, however, I'd
pick laughter. Multiracialism's hatred for a long-dead composer of
operas must surely indicate weakness and unease. If you wanted to
recruit a revolutionary organization, you middle-aged opera fans of
this group would be a poor demographic to select. Yet German
multiracialists evidently fear rotund ladies wearing winged helmets
performing in traditional Wagnerian operas before placid audiences,
because they fear anything that challenges their dogmas. Such fear
does not suggest real confidence. Anti-national Germans are literally
afraid of operas.
Nowhere in the West has multiracialism ever been presented as a
political choice that one could either accept or reject. It has
instead been imposed on its subjects as a moral system, a moral system
increasingly enforced by law. Within this system there are good Whites
who welcome racial diversity and bad Whites ("racists") who don't. In
that sense multiracialism is an ideological totalitarianism, and there
is no point minimizing its present strength. The power that can send
police officers to seize a British politician like Nick Griffin, for
the speech-crime of criticizing Islam, is real physical power. The
power that can drop bombs on the maternity wing of a Serb hospital, in
order to cure the inhabitants of their intolerance, is real physical
power of an especially savage kind. Multiracialists in Belgium can
criminalize a nationalist political party when it becomes too popular
for their comfort. In democratic Germany there are more political
prisoners in jail today than there were under the Marxist GDR. In
America a media-driven machinery of political correctness has
successfully stigmatized anyone who dissents from multiracialism's
implausible orthodoxies. That, too, is real power, though of a less
tangible variety. But despite wielding all this power, multiracialists
know that most Whites have not yet embraced their moral system. Any
suggestion that there are legitimate alternatives becomes a source of
fearful anxiety. Multiracialists try to prevent their opponents from
speaking because they believe that most Whites would want to listen,
and thus they fear anything, even old operas by a dead heretic, that
challenges their totalitarian ideology.
Jews have so successfully taken over classical music in the Western
world that classical music has become a basically Jewish enterprise
(classical music performance, that is), with some young Oriental stars
thrown in, just to show that Western classical music, one of the
flowers of White civilization, is something Orientals actually do
better (never mind that they're all just virtuoso performers and there
are few Oriental composers anyone cares about).
If you're asking yourself "what difference does it make!" -- just
think about the disgusting, "minimalist" stagings of Wagner's operas.
They've ruined Wagner's operas by crapping on his detailed
instructions on how to stage them!
George Gershwin, Aaron Copland, and most other Jewish composers are
second-rate talents. Felix Mendelssohn was probably the most talented
Jewish composer in Western musical history but even he can't hold a
candle to Bach, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, or Wagner. I
remember when I was first learning about classical music that I would
always wonder why George Gershwin was held in such high regard
(needless to say, I no longer wonder about this!). His music is a
hodge-podge of jazz (a Jewish musician promoting black music - imagine
that!) and classical elements (e.g., form and orchestration).
Anton Bruckner was not Jewish, despite the fact that many have
compared Jew Gustav Mahler’s music with Bruckner's. In fact, their
respective symphonies really couldn't be more different. Bruckner
wrote long, grand, and beautiful symphonies of enormous scope and
emotional power. His Seventh symphony is one of the glories of Western
art music. Mahler, by contrast, wrote symphonies which reveal his many
neuroses and are often dissonant and unsettling, though he did achieve
beauty in his 5th symphony.
Mahler is played to death on U.S. classical music stations. I think
they've realized that U.S. classical music audiences will simply not
abide the likes of Schoenberg and other 'atonalists,' but will accept
Mahler. And there's a virtual Mahler festival in Los Angeles every
year at the symphony hall. They always play a few of his overlong
symphonies each season, though the L.A. opera is generally very
reluctant to perform Wagner's operas. The many Jews in West L.A. who
are heavily involved in the L.A. classical music scene (they
effectively are the L.A. classical music scene) have surely seen to it
that this is the case.
Richard Loeb
that you are either incredibly stupid or anti-semitic - you pick. Richardnews:1o3062d10hroqgq15...@4ax.com...
Richard Loeb
Ralph
> When you say that "Jews hold grudges longer than any other people" I say
> that you are either incredibly stupid or anti-semitic - you pick. Richard
> "Wotan" <jeffon...@comcast.net> wrote in message
> news:1o3062d10hroqgq15...@4ax.com...
This "wotan" troller is an anti-Semite masquerading around as a Wagner
baiter. He creates a straw man of supposed anti-Wagner positions taken
by Jews.
No need to continue with this vile toad, I've already wasted enough
broadband width.
Ralph
Mike Scott Rohan
from Wotan <jeffon...@comcast.net> contains these words:
> You have a right to your opinion.
But you do not, to yours. It's ignorant and bigoted.
I read all of his books, as well as
> writings by List and other contemporaries.
And found there, evidently, only what you wanted to see.
> I am a huge Wagner fan.
No. You're a huge Nazi fan with fantasies about what Wagner represents.
Nevertheless, he did advocate for violent
> revolution, targeting, I believe, Jews.
> And it is not stupid to surmise that the Nibelungen represent Jews.
> Many are of that opinion. After all, when is the last time The Ring
> was performed in Israel?
Israelis share the common lot of humanity, including a capability for
ignorance and folly; but their sort is more forgiveable than yours.
And with a starting point like this, who the hell is interested in what
else you might think about anything?
Derrick Everett
> The message <gutv525tr2vgen6tf...@4ax.com> from Wotan
> <jeffon...@comcast.net> contains these words:
>
>> You have a right to your opinion.
>
> But you do not, to yours. It's ignorant and bigoted.
>
>
Even this Nazi troll has a right to his opinions. I claim the right to
put a bullet in his head, which is what this kind of racist, fascist scum
deserve. The only good Nazi is a dead Nazi.
Wotan, I spit in your eye.
--
Derrick Everett
====== Writing from 59°54'N 10°37'E =======
http://home.c2i.net/monsalvat/index.htm
http://home.c2i.net/monsalvat/wagnerfaq.htm
REP
> second-rate talents. Felix Mendelssohn was probably the most talented
> Jewish composer in Western musical history but even he can't hold a
> candle to Bach, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, or Wagner. I
> remember when I was first learning about classical music that I would
> always wonder why George Gershwin was held in such high regard
> (needless to say, I no longer wonder about this!). His music is a
> hodge-podge of jazz (a Jewish musician promoting black music - imagine
> that!) and classical elements (e.g., form and orchestration).
Sure, Mendelssohn is "second rate," but he gets about as much exposure as
Schubert and Schumann, which is only fitting. I've never seen anyone elevate
him to the level of Beethoven or Bach.
> Anton Bruckner was not Jewish, despite the fact that many have
> compared Jew Gustav Mahler's music with Bruckner's. In fact, their
> respective symphonies really couldn't be more different. Bruckner
> wrote long, grand, and beautiful symphonies of enormous scope and
> emotional power. His Seventh symphony is one of the glories of Western
> art music. Mahler, by contrast, wrote symphonies which reveal his many
> neuroses and are often dissonant and unsettling, though he did achieve
> beauty in his 5th symphony.
I can't stand Mahler's fifth. A far shot from beautiful, in my opinion; I'd
have selected the ninth, or the eighth, but even those make me ill with
their grotesqueness if taken all at once; instruments playing out of range,
voices dropping in and out of audibility (though less so in the Eighth);
it's the epitome of self-tortured, and it's tortuous to listen to; typically
Jewish! But there's no denying that Mahler's music is technically brilliant,
and most people simply _prefer_ its quirkiness and unbridled passion to
Bruckner's constraint and longwindedness. I know which I choose over the
other, of course -- I'd even take a Furtwangler symphony over a Mahler --
but there's no getting around the fact that Mahler is more popular, probably
because his music has a wider appeal. People -- smart, intelligent
Wagnerians -- just generally don't like Bruckner all that much.
> Mahler is played to death on U.S. classical music stations. I think
> they've realized that U.S. classical music audiences will simply not
> abide the likes of Schoenberg and other 'atonalists,' but will accept
> Mahler. And there's a virtual Mahler festival in Los Angeles every
> year at the symphony hall. They always play a few of his overlong
> symphonies each season, though the L.A. opera is generally very
> reluctant to perform Wagner's operas. The many Jews in West L.A. who
> are heavily involved in the L.A. classical music scene (they
> effectively are the L.A. classical music scene) have surely seen to it
> that this is the case.
There are a lot of Jews in LA, and they play the music they like. You'll
find the situation reversed elsewhere. I bet they play more Albeniz and
Granados in Spain and South America.
REP
Ralph
> snip
> I can't stand Mahler's fifth. A far shot from beautiful, in my opinion; I'd
> have selected the ninth, or the eighth, but even those make me ill with
> their grotesqueness if taken all at once; instruments playing out of range,
> voices dropping in and out of audibility (though less so in the Eighth);
> it's the epitome of self-tortured, and it's tortuous to listen to; typically
> Jewish!
snip
Perhaps we have to change the subject line to "With stupidity."
Ralph
Mike Scott Rohan
from "Peter" <reply to newsgroup only> contains these words:
> "Mike Scott Rohan" <mike.sco...@asgard.zetnet.co.uk> wrote in message
> > But he never called for violence against Jews, or even social exclusion;
> > he believed they should
> > assimilate.
> I vaguely remember having read somewhere, perhaps in the Cosima Diaries,
> that on the occasion of a synagogue fire, that Wagner supposedly said that
> he hoped that all of the people inside should burn up.
> Do you, Mike, perhaps know where this statement came from, if it is indeed
> true, or if perhaps even Cosima made it up?
I can find the exact provenance of the quote if you like, Peter, but
Derrick will probably beat me to it! It is authentic, up to a point, and
it was recorded not, I think, by Cosima but by one of Wagner's friends.
The form in which you've heard it is quite common, but it's a
misquotation, so much so that it must be deliberate. The writer
recording it very definitely says something like "mit heftigen Scherzen"
-- in other words, he makes it clear that this was a heavily sarcastic
joke. Yet this is consistently ignored by writers who quote the remark
without that mitigation, to make it appear as if it were literal -- the
latest is Howard Goodall on a BBC composers bio. Either they're all
copying from one biased source -- which is likely -- or they're biased
themselves.
The actual remark was made on the spur of the moment in the middle of a
discussion, to the effect that all the Jews might as well be burned at a
performance of Nathan the Wise (Lessing's play, as you probably know).
Not exactly good taste, to put it mildly, but certainly not a serious
wish or expression of desirability. If the Nazis hadn't come along
afterwards, people would have assumed he was referring to the medieval
persecutions, as -- given the context of Nathan -- he probably was. It's
about comparable with Solti's exasperated remark that "all good singers
beasts and should be burnt -- all bad singers burnt anyway." Yet nobody
would seriously accuse Solti of incendiary ambitions.
> I also firmly believe that Wagner would not have at all gotten along with
> the hierarchy of the Third Reich, but I would be very interested in your
> thoughts about this matter.
I've remarked here more than once that I think he might well have been
taken in by them, as so many Germans were -- to begin with. Dazzled by
the promise they represented after a shattering experience, seduced by
the way their worldview fitted in with people's assumptions. They hadn't
really lost WWI, they'd been betrayed; they hadn't really been reduced
to poverty, it was all a plot of liberal/communist/jewish/insert
prejudice here. All very soothing to a damaged ego. But I think he would
also have seen through them more quickly than most, if only because he
was so unswerving in his devotion to his own art; he was not, like
Strauss, a smoothie who without being at all evil, nevertheless found it
easy to bend to the prevailing wind. At first. But the Nazi Party as a
whole was absolutely alien to Wagner -- anti-intellectual, anti-culture,
half-educated cranks, small-minded bean-counters, brainless thugs,
stolid local politicos of limited horizons and corrupt habits, petty
schoolteachers and barrroom bores, the apotheosis of resentful
mediocrity. The nearest thing they had to an intellectual in the
hierarchy was, god help us, Goebbels; other more cultured characters
such as Hanfstaengl -- can never spell that -- rapidly ceased to count
for anything. Even Speer was a shallow creature, and though Heydrich had
some musical talent, it did not extend to any wider culture or
discrimination. I can imagin Wagner fulminating at the lot of them, and
Hitler most of all.
Unless, since we're talking about an alternative history here, Hitler
had taken probably the best chance he ever had, and become assistant to
the great stage designer Roller. There was a real possibility he might
have, he had an introduction; and how harmless he could have been! Then
he and Wagner might have got along.
> Thanks a lot in advance for your interest and consideration.
My pleasure.
Cheers,
Mike
Derrick Everett
It was in fact recorded by Cosima. Here is the extract (18.12.1881):
Dann erzählt er von einer neulichen Aufführung des »Nathan«, wo bei
der Stelle, Christus war auch ein Jude, ein Israelit im Parterre bravo
gerufen habe. Er wirft Lessing diese Fadheit sehr vor, und wie ich ihm
erwidere, daß mir schiene ein eigener deutscher Zug der Humanität in dem
Stück zu liegen, sagt er: »Aber gar keine Tiefe« - er erinnert sich
Bernays', der Holtzmann es vorwarf, Lessing zu mißachten. »Man nährt
den Hochmut dieser Kerle dadurch, daß man mit ihnen umgeht, und z.B. wir
sprechen vor Rub. unsere Empfindung über die Juden im Theater nicht aus,
400 ungetaufte und wahrscheinlich 500 getaufte.« Er sagt im heftigen
Scherz, es sollten alle Juden in einer Aufführung des »Nathan«
verbrennen.
[Cosima Wagner: Die Tagebücher: Band II. Extracted from: 'Richard Wagner:
Werke, Schriften und Briefe', S. 40549 (vgl. Cosima-Tagebücher 2, S.852)]
(Then he tells me about a recent performance of 'Nathan' at which, when
the line asserting that Christ was also a Jew was spoken, an Israelite in
the audience cried, "Bravo". He reproaches Lessing for this piece of
insipidity and when I reply that the play seems to me to contain a
peculiarly German kind of humanity, he says, "But not a trace of
profundity". He recalls Bernays, who accused Holtzmann of having no
regard for Lessing. "One adds fuel to these fellows' arrogance by having
anything at all to do with them and we, for example, do not talk of our
feelings about those Jews in the theatre in front of Rub[instein], 400
unbaptized and probably 500 baptized ones". He makes a drastic joke to
the effect that all Jews should be burned at a performance of Nathan.)
[Cosima Wagner: The Diaries: translated by Geoffrey Skelton: volume 2,
pages 772-3]
Mike Scott Rohan
from Derrick Everett <sparafu...@yahoo.com> contains these words:
{snip}
Knew you could be relied upon, and good to see my memory was not so far
out about the actual quotation. It's very Wagner (and also very Cosima),
grumpy bad taste but hardly a serious expression of intent. I'm not sure
about Skelton's translation of "Fadheit", though; "Fad" has a variety of
meanings, and one very likely one, used by drama critics much as it is
here, could be "threadbare" -- in other words, Wagner is saying "...this
threadbare device.."
Interesting that she uses the word "Israelit". In French of that era,
and later, it was considered a courtesy, a polite reference to somebody
Jewish -- so much so that during the Occupation the official use of the
impolite "Juif" was one of the first things enforced by Vichy. And
Cosima, crabbed anti-Semite though she was, was of course a native
French-speaker.
Cheers,
Mike
Doomslayer_II
need to know.
jeff, Wotan, anti-semite etc wrote:
> Adolph Hitler
Bong! That dead dictator dude? His name was totally like Adolf, jeff.
jeff, you're supposed to be a nazi and you can't even spell Hitler's
name? You know your heroes used to kill mental defectives, don't you?
Just a little injection, jeff, you wouldn't feel a thing.
jeff wrote:
> Wagner, said Hitler, was ... etc >
> [Hitler Speaks, Hermann Rauschning p226 1940]
Bong! jeff, did you know that the main author of Rauschning's book was
Emery Reeves, and that Emery Reeves worked for British Intelligence,
and was a friend of Winston Churchill's? "Hitler Speaks" was not only a
hoax, it was anti-nazi propaganda. What kind of nazi are you, quoting
Rauschning?
jeff wrote:
> In the 1920s Hitler became friends with Houston Stewart Chamberlain
Bong! Chamberlain was a sick old man when Hitler arrived at Bayreuth.
They did not "become friends". Chamberlain "became dead".
Anyway Wagner never met either Chamberlain or Winifred Wagner, so what
they have to do with anything anyway...
jeff wrote:
> The Nibelungen characters are supposed to represent Jews
Bong! Wagner said that if the Nibelungs had a human racial equivalent,
it was the Mongols.
Wagner also wrote that once he acquired the ring, Siegfried was a
Nibelung. Think about that. Siegfried. Was. A. Nibelung. How Jewish was
Siegfried, again?
jeff, you're becoming an exhibition. And you're funnier than watching a
wino eating a live chicken. You carry on, ya heah?
Doom
Minuteman
Bong? I think you've been smoking from one, "Doomslayer."
"Adolf" as you say relates to this group, not myself, you twit. I am
playing Devil's Advocate and responding to this group's FAQ, which
presumes to educate about how Wagner did not really 1. dislike Jews 2.
favor a violent revolution 3, provide motivation to "Adolf" Hitler.
Sorry, I am not a "Nazi," oh slayer of Doom.
You wrote:
"Anyway Wagner never met either Chamberlain or Winifred Wagner, so
what they have to do with anything anyway..."
You are simply mistaken.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
"In 1923, Winifred met Adolf Hitler, who greatly admired Wagner's
music. When Hitler was jailed for his part in the Munich Beer Hall
Putsch, Winifred sent him food parcels and stationary on which
Hitler's autobiography Mein Kampf may have been written. In the late
1930s, she served as Hitler's personal translator during treaty
negotiations with England.
Her relationship with Hitler grew so close that by 1933 there were
rumors of impending marriage. Haus Wahnfried, the Wagner home in
Bayreuth, became Hitler's favorite retreat. Hitler gave the festival
government assistance and tax exempt status, and treated Winifred's
children solicitously."
You wrote:
"Chamberlain was a sick old man when Hitler arrived at Bayreuth...
Wagner never met Chamberlain..."
You're grasping, Doomslayer. Chamberlain's health status is not the
issue. The two met on several occasions in 1923. "Adolf" Hitler was a
student of his works, and praised him as "The Prophet of the Third
Reich".
As far as "Hitler Speaks, Hermann Rauschning p226 1940" is concerned,
I did not use that book as a reference, twit. I posted an article by a
Jew named "Solomon" who quoted from the book. You can find the Jew's
article at the link below. If the book has been "debunked" then I
would have to ask why it matters. The issue being that "Adolf" -- not
my Adolf -- was in fact inspired by Wagner.
http://solomonsmusic.net/WagHit.htm
You may feel the need to believe that Wagner was not a white
nationalist, with your "placemat" references, and list of Jews who
liked him. That's fine. However, there are many intelligent people -
both Jew and Gentile, who think otherwise.
On 14 May 2006 07:16:14 -0700, "Doomslayer_II"