Richard Wagner is the composer about whom German society has not found peace to this day. After Wagner's death, they brought the past back into their present. For Wagner could promise almost everything to everyone. Sven Oliver Müller tells the thrilling story of the Wagner myth in this book, navigating between glorification and damnation, between hatred and devotion. Politically, Richard Wagner has never been evaluated neutrally. And so much has been made of him and his work. Monarchs and presidents, entrepreneurs and clerics, citizens and nobility, the left and the right—all loved him, despised him, and engaged in politics with him and his operas. From the German Empire through the Weimar Republic and National Socialism to the Federal Republic, the GDR, and reunified Germany, Wagner's legacy has been a mirror reflecting German history.