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Winifred Marjorie Wagner (née Williams; 23 June 1897 – 5 March 1980) was the English-born wife of Siegfried Wagner, the son of Richard Wagner, and ran the Bayreuth Festival after her husband's death in 1930 until the end of World War II in 1945. She was a friend and supporter of Adolf Hitler, himself a Wagner enthusiast, and she and Hitler maintained a regular correspondence.
Haus Wahnfried, the Wagner home in Bayreuth, became Hitler's favourite retreat. He stayed there on numerous occasions without his bodyguards, despite fears of his SS colleagues. Hitler gave the Bayreuth festival government assistance and tax-exempt status, and treated Wagner's children solicitously.
According to biographer Brigitte Hamann, Wagner was reported to be "disgusted" by Hitler's persecution of the Jews. In one notable incident, in the late 1930s, a letter from her to Hitler prevented Hedwig and Alfred Pringsheim (whose daughter Katia Mann was married to Thomas Mann) from being arrested by the Gestapo.Tony Paterson, "'British' Wagner saved Jews from her friend Hitler" The Sunday Telegraph, 25 June 2002 Alfred Pringsheim was a fan of Richard Wagner, who he corresponded with and supported financially. He was also a patron of the Bayreuth Festival.
According to Gottfried Wagner, Winifred Wagner's grandson, she never admitted any error to her ways. After the war, her posthumous devotion to Hitler, whom she referred to as "USA" – for Unser Seliger Adolf (our blessed Adolf) – remained undimmed. She corresponded with Hitler for nearly two decades. Scholars have not been allowed to see the letters, which have been kept locked away by Amélie Lafferentz, one of Winifred Wagner's grandchildren, who has insisted that they not be released until the whole family agrees to do so.
"My aunt Friedelind was outraged when my grandmother again slowly blossomed as the first lady of right-wing groups and received political friends such as Emmy Göring, Ilse Hess, the former NPD Adolf von Thadden, Gerdy Troost, the wife of the Nazi architect and friend of Hitler Paul Ludwig Troost, the British fascist leader Oswald Mosley, the German NS-movie director Karl Ritter and the racist author and former Senator of the Reich Hans Severus Ziegler."Gottfried Wagner, Wer nicht mit dem Wolf heult – Autobiographische Aufzeichnungen eines Wagner-Urenkels (Cologne, 1997), p. 69 (quotation translated from the German)
In 1975, Wagner gave a filmed interview to Hans-Jürgen Syberberg in which she appeared unrepentant concerning her past. "To have met him Hitler," she declared, "is an experience I would not have missed." She was interviewed that year by David Irving, who reported that she had said she would still welcome Hitler at her door and that she had discussed with Hitler the saving of some individuals. She died in Überlingen, one of the best preserved medieval sites, on the shore of Lake Constance on 5 March 1980 at the age of 82 and was interred at Bayreuth.
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