Richard and Adolf: Did Richard Wagner Incite Adolf Hitler to Commit the Holocaust?

Two sides must be discerned in Richard Wagner: a musical genius and the author of nationalist, racist, and antisemitic texts, including texts of his major operas. Presents a biography of the composer, dwelling on the formation and development of his antisemitic ideas and their impact on his musical dramas. Presents also Hitler's biography, with a stress on the formation of his ideas. Argues that Hitler was greatly influenced by Wagner's ideas, including his antisemitism. Hitler idolized Wagner and adopted the nationalism in his polemical works and opera texts, as well as in the Wagnerian milieu, which developed during the last years of Wagner's life and continued long after his death, in particular through the Bayreuth festivals. Dwells also on sexual factors in the shaping of both Wagner's and Hitler's antisemitism. Implies that there is a link between Wagner's theories and the Holocaust, a path from Bayreuth to Auschwitz. Those people in Israel who reject Wagner's music can be understood.