WAGNER'S FATHER A JEW?

Radio Record, Volume VII, Issue 18, 10 November 1933, Page 22

WAGNER'S FATHER A JEW?

Famous German Composer’s Descent Challenged [In last week’s "Radio Record" we published a story by Margaret Macpherson on the life of ‘sgner, the famous German composer. Beiow we publish an article written for the London "Daily Mail" by H. S. Gordon, which deals with the parentage of the composer and its possible relationship to the anti-Semitie views of modern Germany.] Bronislaw Huberman, the Polish violinist, has written to Dr. Furtwangler, conductor of the Berlin Philharmonie Orchestra, contending that Hitler and his supporters are "deliberately ignoring the probable hypothesis of Richard Wagner’s half-Jewish descent." This is his reply to a letter ‘in which lurtwangler asks Huberman to reconsider his decision not to appear again in Germany. It raises a disturbing point, for Germany has adopted Wagner as one of the fathers of its music. Hitler him-

self not only attended throughout the recent Wagner Festival at Bayreuth but his friendship with Siegfried Wagner’s widow is so ¢lose that their betrothal has been reported more than once. Authorities agree that Wagner's paternity is uncertain. Ludwig Geyer, a Jewish actor, was a member of the Wagner household before the birth of Richard. Six months after the birth of the child, the supposed father of the child, Chief of Police in Leipzig, died. This was in November, 1813, and the widow married Ludwig Geyer in the following August. The marriage, according to Ernest Newman, "was undoubtedly hastened in order to legitimise" another coming child. The suspicion that Geyer was in fact Wagner’s father, and that Richard was, therefore, half-Jewish, gains support from the likeness between the two. Unfortunately, no portrait of the re nuted father exists to counteract the influence of this resemblance. Again, it is more probable that Richard Wagner’s genius was derived from an actorfather than from a notary-father. Even the keenest of German scohlars admit that the 100 per cent. German origin of the new Germany’s musical idol cannot be established,