Winifred Wagner and the history of the Wahnfried house 1914–1975
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Winifred Wagner and the history of the Wahnfried house 1914–1975 |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1975 |
| length | 302 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Hans-Jürgen Syberberg |
| production | Hans-Jürgen Syberberg |
| music | Richard Wagner |
| camera | Dietrich Lohmann |
| cut | Agape by Dorstewitz |
| occupation | |
| |
Winifred Wagner and the history of the Wahnfried house 1914–1975 is a German documentary from 1975 directed by Hans Jürgen Syberberg . It consists of an approximately five-hour interview with the former principal of the Bayreuth Wagner Festival and declared Hitler admirer Winifred Wagner .
action
The focus of the interview with the former head of the Bayreuth Wagner Festival and native Englishwoman Winifred Wagner is above all her relationship with Reich Chancellor and Wagner admirer Adolf Hitler , with whom she did not distance himself after 1945 any more than she did with National Socialist ideology in general. Numerous statements and comments in this five-hour interview prove her unbroken closeness to the regime, which is also expressed in the criticism of her own children. Wagner's reputation of being an incorrigible Nazi sympathizer to the last is due, among other things, to the sentence uttered in this film: "If Hitler came in the door today, I would be just as happy and so happy to see and have him here as always. "
Winifred Wagner cultivated her image right from the start of Syberberg's film. She explains tirelessly: "The great interest of the general public seems to focus again and again on our relationship with Hitler." For her it was a matter of "a purely human, personal and confidential bond based on admiration and love." Richard Wagner was based ". And that is why she will “always remember the spoiler of humanity with gratitude because he literally prepared the way for me here in Bayreuth, so to speak”. One picture in her photo albums shows Winifred's daughter Friedelind as a child on Goebbels' lap. Friedelind later fell out with her mother because of her weakness for the brown regime and emigrated to the USA in 1940. After the war there was a reconciliation, which does not prevent the mother from saying in front of the camera about her daughter: "Always wanted to play a big role" and "She never really got on the green line". Her judgment on her son Wieland, who had died nine years ago at the time of its creation, and who had directed the Wagner Festival together with brother Wolfgang from 1951 and tried to remove the shadow of the closeness to Hitler, is similarly harsh. She told Syberberg that he only “put everything down” and “only intrigued against us”. Wieland Wagner had taken a public position against his mother in 1965 because "she still believes in the Fiihrer's final victory".
The fact that Hitler “put the festival in the service of National Socialism”, so the incorrigible explains, is “pure nonsense”. The “Führer” came “as a Wagner fan and friend of the house”, followed by other Nazi greats such as Reichsmarschall Herman Göring and race leader Alfred Rosenberg. HJ, BdM and traditional costume groups came "to catch a glimpse of the Führer" during a, as Winifred says, "jubilation and triumph" from the Wahnfried house to the festival hall on the Green Hill, where Winifred Adolf Hitler was waiting and escorted him to the lodge. In addition, according to the ex-principal, Hitler wanted to “enjoy family life [...]” with the Wagner family, undisturbed in his sleep from four in the morning to eleven or twelve noon. “Here on my land he was absolutely calm.” He also came “to see the children”, with whom he was “very touching”: “They actually considered him a good uncle, and he really did we performed one of these. ”He spread“ Austrian heartbeat and warmth ”and“ also played the piano very nicely ”. They would not have been interested in the dark sides that actually made up Hitler, because “that didn't affect me” and “everything that goes into the dark with him - I know that it exists, but for me it doesn't exist”. Because she is "a completely apolitical person". In the end, Winifred Wagner shows herself to be a woman who is able to “completely separate Hitler, whom I know, from everything that is being accused of him nowadays”.
The second topic, about which Winifred Wagner speaks in Winifred Wagner and the history of the Wahnfried house 1914–1975, sometimes obsessed with details, sometimes rich in anecdotes, is her life in the Wahnfried house. Richard Wagner's widow Cosima brought her up there “absolutely in the spirit of Wagner and Bayreuth”, and was determined to be the “successor” of the “Lady”. Syberberg himself sees it in his documentation primarily as "living testimony" to an epoch marked by the "decadence of the upper class". The history of the House of Wahnfried should make it clear that the “artist's villa as a utopia of an ideal world” was bound to attract “the fateful guests from Ludwig II to Hitler”. At the same time, Syberberg's film leaves the impression of an early emancipated woman who was able to assert herself in an extremely male-dominated world, especially at the time of National Socialism, in which women were given a consistently subordinate role.
Hans-Jürgen Syberberg, "in its aesthetics himself connected to Wagnerians and the 19th century", as Der Spiegel writes in its July 28, 1975 issue, "sees his provocative documentary work primarily not as a lesson critical of ideology, but as a 'work of art ', which should give' pleasure 'and look' beautiful '”. That is why in the film “all freedom of dialectical imagination is preserved”, also with regard to the presentation of Winifred Wagner with her Hitler confessions - “through the slow and silent camera work that captures the face, the glances on and in which the Words and worlds arise and pass. "
Production notes
Winifred Wagner and the history of the Wahnfried house 1914–1975 was written over five days in April 1975 and was presented to the public for the first time in July of the same year. The mass start was June 15, 1976. In the following year, the film was shown for the first time on German television (third program of Bavarian radio).
Winifred's grandson Gottfried Wagner assisted Syberberg with this film.
criticism
“An extremely extensive interview film with Winifred Wagner, Richard Wagner's daughter-in-law, which documents 60 years of German contemporary history and reveals the ideological and socio-political references to National Socialism and Hitler's close relationship with the Wahnfried House and the Bayreuth Festival. Equally captivating in statement and presentation due to the authenticity of the mediation. "
Web links
- Winifred Wagner and the history of the House of Wahnfried 1914–1975 in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Winifred Wagner and the history of the Wahnfried house 1914–1975 at filmportal.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ Winifred Wagner: "Our blessed Adolf" In: Der Spiegel from July 28, 1975, p. 84
- ^ Winifred Wagner and the history of the Wahnfried house 1914–1975. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .