Opera Director, Folk Figure. During a turbulent time in Germany's history, she ran the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, presenting the music of her father-in-law Richard Wagner. Orphaned while a toddler, Winnie was shuttled thru a number of homes until she was adopted at around 10 by a German couple named Klindworth who had been friends of Wagner; in 1914 she met the somewhat older Siegfried Wagner, composer and son of Richard Wagner. The couple entered into a more-or-less arranged marriage next year, in part to quiet Siegfried's homosexual scandals as well as to provide a Wagnerian heir. Winnie had four children in three years and supported her husband in the running of Bayreuth; in 1923, she was to meet the true love of her life, Adolf Hitler. When Hitler was in Landsberg Prison the next year over the Munich Beer Hall Putsch, Winnie sent him food and the stationery on which he began writing "Mein Kampf". Having joined the NSDAP in 1926, she participated in Party rallies and became a favorite of Hess and the other leaders; at Siegfried's death in 1930 Winnie assumed the directorship of the Festspielhaus which was then in dire financial straits, though after Hitler took power he had the government buy tickets and provided subsidies and tax breaks. Winnie and the Fuhrer shared the same Nordic ideals and nationalism and there were soon rumors of romance and impending marriage, though with time Hitler also took an interest in her daughter Verena (born 1920), but declined to pursue the attraction due to the 30 year age difference. For her part Winnie gladly made her home a refuge for Hitler, catered to his musical tastes, particularly in hiring his favorite conductor, Wilhelm Furtwangler, and served as his interpreter in negotiations with the British. Interestingly, she was not an anti-Semite and personally intervened on behalf of a number of Jews who were, indeed, spared. During Winnie's time at the helm, the Bayreuth Festival became the center of the German social scene, with the Wagners the only people allowed to use the familiar form of address with Hitler; at the end of World War II, however, the opera house was heavily damaged and Winnie found herself banned for life from any control due to her unreconstructed Nazism, though she retained formal ownership until it passed to the Richard Wagner Foundation in 1973. When the facility was reopened in 1951, her sons Wieland and Wolfgang were made joint directors. Winnie lived out her days totally devoted to the man she called "our blessed Adolf"; the letters she exchanged with him over 20 years have never been made public. Her story was told in Brigitte Hamann's "Winifred Wagner: A Life at the Heart of Hitler's Bayreuth" (2005) and novelized by A.N. Wilson in the 2007 "Winnie and Wolf". Of her relationship with Hitler she said simply: "To have met him is an experience I would not have missed".