Wagner descendant to speak on anti-Semitism

ORONO – Gottfried Wagner, co-founder of the Post-Holocaust Generations Dialogue Group, and the great-grandson of composer Richard Wagner, will give a lecture, “From Wagner to Hitler: Anti-Semitism and Culture in Germany,” at 7 p.m. Monday, Nov. 4, in Devino Auditorium, Donald P. Corbett Business Hall at the University of Maine.

The university’s school of performing arts, the department of history, and the department of modern languages and classics are sponsoring the lecture.

The Holocaust Human Rights Center of Maine will hold a reception after the lecture.

Gottfried Wagner, who also is the great-great-grandson of composer Franz Liszt, has spent his life confronting the legacy of Richard Wagner and the family’s relationship to German anti-Semitism, Hitler and the Holocaust. He is the author of “Twilight of the Wagners: The Unveiling of a Family’s Legacy.”

Gottfried is a philosopher, musicologist, stage director, lecturer and producer. In 1991, he co-founded the Post-Holocaust Generations Dialogue Group and went into self-imposed exile from the family home in Bayreuth, Germany. He now lives with his wife and son in Milan, Italy.