Eva Rieger, ‘Only You Could Save Bayreuth!’ The Life of Richard Wagner’s Granddaughter Friedelind

July 2013, Volume 7, Number 2, 18–28.

While Wieland and Wolfgang Wagner are the subject of several books, their sister Friedelind (1918–91) was hitherto known only from her autobiography Heritage of Fire. Although it first appeared in print in the USA and Switzerland in 1945, no edition was published in Germany until the year 1994 (thus nearly fifty years later), and this fact in itself hints at the problems that Richard Wagner’s grand-daughter posed to the land of her infant nurture. She absconded to England in 1940, whence she soon afterwards travelled via Buenos Aires to New York. There she wrote for newspapers, gave lectures and campaigned against the politics of the Nazis.