“but he did more than anyone else to mold the culture in which Nazism flourished”
Thats debateable. Scads of books published by all manner of
academics and cranks seem to have done more of that than
Wagners music which merely reflects the 19th emerging
German nationalism and interest in the old mythology.
Is everything that Hitler liked a mold of anti semitic
culture? Sounds like a stretch to me.
I think he shares some credit there with Martin Luther's infamous anti-semitic tract, "Of the Jews and their Lies."
“he did more than anyone else to mold the culture in which Nazism flourished”
He did more than anyone else besides Beethoven to mold musical culture, but that’s it. If that has anything to do with nazism I’ll eat my hat. He had nothing to do with the general political, economic, or social atmosphere, except as a dealer in secondhand ideas. His politics were early on the vaguely socialistic leftwing French Revolutionary principles of ‘48, and later almost stoical resignation. His philosophy was pure Schopenhauer, expressed with a fraction of the clarity, power, and originality of Nietzsche.
What is it people think Wagner taught the Nazis? Audobons and old-timey milkmaid dresses? Hooked crosses? State corporatism? Most likely it’s just that “Ride of the Valkyries” reminds us of the luftwaffe.
“What is it people think Wagner taught the Nazis?”
Aside from anti-semitism, I mean. And that not, or barely, in his operas, which is all anyone ever really cared about. Saying his anti-semetic articles moulded the Jew hating of the Weimar and Nazi eras is like saying Steve Urkel of “Family Matters” is responsible for today’s popular black youth culture. Okay, Urkel existed, but he’s irrelevant by now.
Wagner was one of legions of German Jew haters of pre-Hitlerite century. Too many to count, really, and that’s just Germany. Vastly more influential on Hitler’s thought was Brit Houston Stuart Chamberlain, who just so happened to be related to Wagner through marriage, but nevermind that.
All you’d have to do is close your eyes and flip to a random page of European history since the Dark Ages to find allegations of Christ killing, pogroms, and fake protocols. The historical air is thick with scapegoating.