Stamps series "Richard Wagner Issues"

Hitler was a most enthusiastic Wagnerian, and was a great friend of the Wagner family, after the death of Wagner’s son Siegfried, he took an almost paternal interest in Wagner’s four grandchildren. His favourite opera was "Die Meistersinger" which he could quote entirely from memory. The themes of Wagner’s operas fitted in with the Nazi creed of glorifying the ancient past splendour of Germany and its Teutonic gods, and the re-birth of an Aryan master race. Richard Wagner: Born in Leipzig 1813. One of the world’s great opera composers, his themes, a romantic conception of old Germanic culture and Teutonic gods. He achieved a new type of musical expression in these operas by the complete union of music and drama, and his influence on later composers was immense. A great friend of Ludwig II of Bavaria, who in 1864, founded a theatre for him at Bayreuth. He died in 1883.