Winfred Wagner

Born Winifred Williams in 1894 to an English father and German mother. In 1915 she married Siegfried Wagner, he was twenty-five years her senior, and son of composer Richard Wagner. She became fascinated with Hitler and his NS movement in the early 1920s. Adolf Hitler became a regular visitor to the Wagner household, where Hitler was introduced to many of societies high-class people; the Wagners also raised funds for Hitlers political party.


It was rumored that a marriage between Adolf and Winifred was in the offing, but nothing came of it. Such an event would have solicited great support from the German people. The Fuhrer himself entertained such thoughts believing that a union of the names Hitler and Wagner would ensure the adulation of the masses for time immemorial.


Since Adolf Hitler had become such frequent visitor to her home, the 'Villa Wahnfried', where her three children knew him by the nickname 'Wolf'. Hitler was often seen with her at various performances during the Bayreuth Festival, the last time in the late summer of 1940 when they attended a performance of 'Gutterdummerung'. Winifred's last festival was in 1944, after which the opera house was closed.It begins a lifelong friendship between "Winnie" and "wolf", which include the whole Wagner family.


Winifred paradoxically describes herself as a completely apolitical being, adamant that her classification as a grade three Nazi at the end of the war was a grave injustice. Still Winifred cannot contain her amusement when she recalls that after the collapse of the Third Reich, she was the only person left in Germany who would admit that she was a Nazi. Winifred Wagner died in Uberlingen on March 5, 1980, unrepentant of her relationship with Hitler.



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