Winifred wagner died on 5 March 1980. No one could claim that in running the Festival she had in any way squandered the legacy of Cosima and Siegfried, for by engaging Tietjen, Preetorius and Furtwängler, and by retaining Toscanini, she had maintained and even expanded the Festival's importance as an institution that set the benchmark for theatres all over the world. One could hardly blame her for possessing neither the artistic talent nor the erudition of her mother-in-law Cosima. Even her blind enthusiasm for Hitler in the 1920s might be regarded as having been determined by the exigencies of the time. It is always problematical to sit at a safe chronological distance and indulge in moral judgements over people who had to live in times of dictatorship – not least because Winifred could claim, with some justification, to have helped people in need during the Nazi era, including several Jews.

What remained incomprehensible to Friedelind was her mother's steadfast fidelity to one of the most heinous criminals in world history – a fidelity that she maintained to the very end. But for all her anger at her unreconstructed mother, Friedelind was unable as a daughter to distance herself completely from her, and their relationship remained characterized by conflicting emotions. Both women possessed an iron will. If Winifred had condemned Nazi ideology after the fact, then she would have had to have rehabilitated the daughter who had fled from it.