Hitler and Wagnerism

To the average person the name Wagner means nothing more than the name .of a German composer and writer of operas. However, that name means to the German people almost as much as the name of Hitler. Wagner\u27s music is so impressive that it has lived through the past century and has come to be one of the most outstanding influences on modern Europe. It has been said that whoever expects to understand National Socialist Germany must know Wagner. Adolph Hitler has often told his friends and the whole National Socialist regime, which finds its foundation in the Germanic myths, that Germany would be impossible without Wagner and all he represents. In that sense the whole present war resolves itself into a super Wagnerian opera turned into grim reality