Valhalla in Flames

It was nineteen thirty-nine, Bayreuth, Germany. Hitler was at the top of his game. Great tracts of Europe stretched before him like so many Aryan virgins waiting to be plucked. Only a few short months earlier, the German army had marched unchallenged into Czechoslovakia. He was the dominant force in German politics, and in a few short years he had turned around a failing economy and restored national pride.

An invited audience of social élite and Third Reich hierarchy, the lusty prospect of world domination gleaming in their eyes, had flocked to the Festspielhaus, the old fashioned opera house in the town of Bayreuth which hosted the annual showcase for Richard Wagner’s operatic works. They had witnessed a landmark production of the opera Parsifal, which all agreed was the finest in their lifetime. Credit was due in the main to Wagner’s daughter in law, Winifred, wife of the late composer’s son Siegfried, who in turn had died nine years earlier and had left her to carry on the mantle of Bayreuth until such time as she could pass it on to her own son, Wieland.

It was she who was seated next to Hitler. Their long-standing friendship was the subject of much gossip throughout the whole of German polite society, and it was widely rumoured that it was Winifred who had supplied him with the paper on which to dictate his book, Mein Kampf, to Rudolph Hess whilst imprisoned at Landsberg Castle. Seated on his other side was a glamorous blonde. In her twenties and with striking looks, the blonde leaned over and hugged him excitedly, kissing him on the cheek before resuming her own enthusiastic applause.

Others present were a vaguely familiar looking British politician, who, when the lights came up seemed to squirm uncomfortably in the glare of so much attention, plus a female companion of Winifred’s and three huge uniformed bodyguards, serious and unsmiling, who studied the crowd intently.

‘Marvellous, Winnie, that was just marvellous,’ enthused the Führer warmly.

‘Thank you Wolf, you are too kind’, replied Winifred Wagner modestly, using her pet name for him.

She stood and the others followed suit, the bodyguards immediately alert. The small group was ushered out of the box and into a private corridor, and from there a short distance into a private dining room which had been set aside for their post-performance supper. The room itself was vast, with high, ornate ceilings supporting three exquisite chandeliers. In the centre, upon a plush, intricately woven Persian carpet, stood a huge antique dining table and chairs, set with an antique dinner service and antique silver cutlery. The diners admired the scene respectfully then moved gracefully over to a small bar at one end of the room for aperitifs.

Out in the main theatre itself, the audience had raised themselves from the uncomfortable, simple wooden seating and had begun shuffling towards the exits, shaking the numbness from their lower limbs after four hours of sitting still. As they made their way out, a brass band on the balcony played ‘the entry of the Gods into Valhalla’, a leitmotif from Das Rheingold, the first opera of the Ring Cycle, which was due to be performed there the following evening.

Drinks began to flow back in the Wagners’ private dining room. Hitler was enjoying himself immensely, even though he was teetotal and the only one present not drinking alcohol. The striking blonde draped herself around him provocatively whilst he discussed Parsifal and the finer points of symbolism therein with his friend Winifred.

‘To achieve divinity,’ asserted Hitler, ‘the mind is forced to leave the realm of the unconscious and enter into the physical realm, to experience and to learn. This is symbolised by the slaying of the swan, you see, where Parsifal’s initial pride in his accuracy with a bow later turns to pity for the dead bird. This goes hand in hand with the distinction between the higher and the lower mind. Klingsor’s realm represents the lower mind, and is filled with temptation and worldly pleasures, whereas in contrast, we have the higher mental principal which is represented by the Grail.’

He rambled on, until eventually it was time to take their seats at the grandiose table whilst the Wagner family staff expertly served the first course. Hitler was a vegetarian and Winifred, t