tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7014209.post7998163980399455976..comments2024-03-28T14:55:27.949+02:00Comments on My Right Word: Wagner, Herzl, Israel, Palestine & BarenboimYMedadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14333122797414935958noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7014209.post-31974037744595142962013-06-12T12:44:31.380+03:002013-06-12T12:44:31.380+03:00Barenboim is indeed wrong, but in another way. Wag...Barenboim is indeed wrong, but in another way. Wagner was not a political influence on Hitler to begin with. Hitler never mentioned Wagner in such context, in public or in private. In "My struggle" Wagner is mentioned a grand total of twice, neither of which as an antisemite. The often quoted statement of needing to understand Wagner in order to understand nazi Germany is apocryphal at best since neither of the two people who first reported it, William Shirer and Otto David Tolischus, have never personally heard Hitler say it(and even if the quote is authentic Hitler merely saying it does not actually make Wanger a precursor). Hitler's private library which contained almost 1300 books had not one by Wagner. Also, contrary to popular belief, the performances of Wagner in Germany significantly declined from the moment Hitler took over, in 1939 being less then two thirds of what they were in 1933. One of the dramas "Parsifal" was in fact subject to underhand dicouragement of staging(though not outright banned as once thought) so much so that once the war began it was taken off the Bayreuth repertoire because some of the more insightful Nazis saw, not without justification, pacifist undertones in it. And there is more to dispell this myth...<br /><br />Back to the article you posted: the irony of it all is that in it Barenboim is using Wagner for his own political ends far more overtly and brazenly then Hitler ever did.Witch-king of Angmarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09918107035484094693noreply@blogger.com