The German publisher Hugo Bruckmann and his wife, Elsa, were among the early and highly influential promoters of Adolf Hitler. They first officially invited him to their estate in Their "literary salon," where intellectuals of various religions and opinions had met for intellectual exchange before World War I, was frequented in the s primarily by German nationalists who railed against democracy and the Weimar Republic.
Among them was Hitler's later star architect, Albert Speer, but also the married couple Winifred and Siegfried Wagner, who organized the famous Bayreuth Festival in celebration of German composer Richard Wagner. Elsa Bruckmann provided a forum for all those who mourned Germany's imperial era and suffered from the economic crisis or the "ignominy" of the lost First World War.
Hitler had inspired Elsa Bruckmann and many others with his indoctrinating speeches and his visions of a new great Germany. Through her, Hitler also established crucial connections with prominent industrialists. Adolf Hitler felt comfortable in these circles. He lacked a proper upbringing and background; he had to acquire everything on his own," Sven Friedrich elaborates. Winifred Wagner, the daughter-in-law of composer Richard Wagner, was also one of Hitler's supporters.
From the very beginning, he had promised her that he would take care of the Bayreuth Festival once he had power in Germany. A friendship quickly developed between the two. At times, Adolf Hitler lived with the Wagners in their estate. A prominent member of the family was also Houston Stewart Chamberlain, an influential British-German race theorist, antisemite and a mastermind of the National Socialist movement.
He was married to Richard Wagner's daughter Eva. In , the National Socialists, led by Adolf Hitler, made an unsuccessful attempt to violently overthrow the government of the Weimar Republicin Munich. As a consequence of this failed coup, Hitler was sentenced to five years in prison. He began serving his sentence in the spring of at Landsberg Fortress and was granted early release later the same year. The Wagners are not to be found on the visitors' list, but they kept up a lively correspondence with Hitler.
