Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Note on source material
- Wagner Family Tree
- Introduction
- 1 A ‘giant Easter egg’. Mausi's home and family
- 2 The noisy child 1924 to 1931
- 3 ‘She should learn to cope with drudgery’. At boarding school 1931 to 1935
- 4 ‘Impudent, endearing and witty’. Friedelind and her aunts 1936 to 1937
- 5 ‘Is it German, what Hitler has done for you?’ 1938 to 1939
- 6 ‘It's precisely because I'm German that I'm not living in Germany’. The farewell 1940
- 7 In England, behind barbed wire 1940 to 1941
- 8 ‘My heart is overflowing’. From Buenos Aires to New York 1941 to 1943
- 9 ‘Only you could still save our inheritance!’ 1943 to 1945
- 10 After the War is over 1946 to 1950
- 11 Friedelind returns 1950 to 1955
- 12 The master classes begin 1956 to 1960
- 13 Heyday of the master classes and their end 1960 to 1966
- 14 Sibling conflict 1967 to 1970
- 15 Schemes and setbacks The 1970s
- 16 ‘A foster mother, a guiding light’ The 1980s
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
6 - ‘It's precisely because I'm German that I'm not living in Germany’. The farewell 1940
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Note on source material
- Wagner Family Tree
- Introduction
- 1 A ‘giant Easter egg’. Mausi's home and family
- 2 The noisy child 1924 to 1931
- 3 ‘She should learn to cope with drudgery’. At boarding school 1931 to 1935
- 4 ‘Impudent, endearing and witty’. Friedelind and her aunts 1936 to 1937
- 5 ‘Is it German, what Hitler has done for you?’ 1938 to 1939
- 6 ‘It's precisely because I'm German that I'm not living in Germany’. The farewell 1940
- 7 In England, behind barbed wire 1940 to 1941
- 8 ‘My heart is overflowing’. From Buenos Aires to New York 1941 to 1943
- 9 ‘Only you could still save our inheritance!’ 1943 to 1945
- 10 After the War is over 1946 to 1950
- 11 Friedelind returns 1950 to 1955
- 12 The master classes begin 1956 to 1960
- 13 Heyday of the master classes and their end 1960 to 1966
- 14 Sibling conflict 1967 to 1970
- 15 Schemes and setbacks The 1970s
- 16 ‘A foster mother, a guiding light’ The 1980s
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Friedelind had made up her mind. ‘I won't let myself be ground through the mill if I can avoid it. And I will fight my whole life long for the truth only, for the good, the great and the divine – not for dirt and crime.’ These words, somewhat lofty but no less serious for it, were directed to Daniela while Friedelind was preparing for her departure to England. Once she had switched countries, she was emboldened in her sense of radical opposition to Nazi Germany and able to take a public stance in newspaper articles. She wanted to show the world – especially her mother – who was right in the coming battle. And she wanted the outside world to know what Wagner's granddaughter stood for. She had inwardly said farewell to her family and to their adulation of Hitler. Half measures were not for her. ‘I now stand on a different shore from you all – and I have learnt to love and appreciate “Germany's arch enemies or mortal enemies”, as you call them,’ she wrote to Daniela. ‘And I know that they don't want to destroy Germany. In fact, they want to save what can still be saved of its great human values. But it means sweeping aside the criminals, murderers and rabble-rousers who have caused immeasurable suffering in the whole world. Is it really German, all that Hitler has brought you??? Hasn't he turned the world into a miserable heap of rubble and doesn't he have the lamentations and tears of millions on his conscience – the death of the best of our youth and the greatest of our men?’.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Friedelind WagnerRichard Wagner's Rebellious Granddaughter, pp. 94 - 109Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2013