Swiss Responses to Wagner’s Antisemitism Remained Limited

Historian Patrik Süess investigated how Switzerland reacted to Richard Wagner’s antisemitic pamphlet, “Das Judentum in der Musik,” published in 1869. Wagner wrote the text while living in Zurich and Lucerne, Switzerland, and from a villa on Lake Lucerne that now houses the Richard Wagner Museum. Süess examined newspaper articles and Wagner’s correspondence, finding that the pamphlet received little attention in Swiss media.

Neighboring countries and the United States saw mostly negative critiques and expressed outrage. Süess suggests the Swiss press may have considered the work too theoretical to address. He noted similar disinterest when researching Jewish equality in 19th-century Switzerland.

The museum, founded in 1933, initially involved individuals sympathetic to national socialist ideology. Adolf Zinstag, a member of the first museum commission, led a group called “The Swiss Friends of Bayreuth.” While the museum did not become a platform for antisemitism, it will incorporate Jewish perspectives and present Süess’s findings in a 2027 exhibit. The reasons for the initial lack of response remain unclear, and further research continues.