To the Editor:

I greatly appreciated Terry Teachout’s “The Murder Artist” [September]. He is entirely right about Hitler; a reading of the dictator’s “table talk” amply bears out Mr. Teachout’s idea that the Nazi revolution was conceived by him as a great piece of theater, and one based largely on the work of Richard Wagner.

Although Mr. Teachout suggests that Hitler’s obsession with Wagner began at the age of twelve, with a viewing of Lohengrin, I am surprised he does not cite Wagner’s Rienzi, which Hitler himself referred to as the prototype for his political career. Indeed, anyone reading the libretto or listening to the score of that opera will quickly become familiar with the outlines of a drama that, in time, Hitler would succeed in turning into dreadful reality.

Robb Thurston
Seattle, Washington

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