Wotan - the Wandering Jew - and his Untergang

Introduction: The Wandering Jew in Wagner's Works

The origins of the legend of the Wandering Jew are uncertain. Some point to Hosea 19-7:

My God will reject them because they have not obeyed him; they will be wanderers among the nations.

Others point to Matthew 16-28:

Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.

From around the 17th century the name of Ahasvar has been given to the Wandering Jew. It should also be mentioned that Wagner uses the German term ewige Jude or Eternal Jew.

Whatever its origins, the theme of the Wandering Jew became something of an idée fixe for Wagner. It occurs over and over throughout his work. The first major appearance is in the form of the Flying Dutchman, doomed to sail the seas for all eternity until he attains salvation. Wagner admitted to having taken the idea of the Flying Dutchman straight from The Memoirs of Mister von Schnabelewopski (Aus den Memoiren des Herrn von Schnabelewopski) by Heinrich Heine, a Jewish poet Wagner admired, and whose poem Tannhäuser, was the basis of his own opera by the same name . Wagner wrote in 1851 (Mitteilung an meine Freunde) that the Dutchman is "eine merkwürdige Mischung des Charakters des ewigen Juden mit dem von Odysseus" ("a curious mixture of the character of the Eternal Jew and that of Odysseus"). Heine himself tells us that his character is "the Wandering Jew of the ocean".  Interestingly Wagner wrote of Heine that "Er war das Gewissen des Judentums, wie das Judentum das üble Gewissen unsrer modernen Zivilisation ist" (he was the conscience of Judaism, just as Judaism is the bad conscience of our modern civilisation).

The final appearance of the Wandering Jew in Wagner's work is that of Kundry. In a prose sketch to Parsifal, this is what Wagner wrote (Prose Draft to Parsifal, Prosaentwurf zum Parsifal, Wagner, August 1865):

Kundry lebt ein unermeßliches Leben unter stets wechselnden Wiedergeburten, in Folge einer uralten Verwünschung, die sie, ähnlich dem “ewigen Juden,” dazu verdammt, in neuen Gestalten das Leiden der Liebesverführung über die Männer zu bringen; Erlösung, Auflösung, gänzliches Erlöschen ist ihr nur verhießen, wenn einst ein reinster, blühendster Mann ihrer machtvollsten Verführung wiederstehen würde. 

Kundry lives an immeasurable life consisting of constantly changing rebirths, as the result of an ancient curse, which condemns her, like the “Eternal Jew,” to bring the torment of seduction upon men; redemption, dissolution, total extinguishment is promised to her only if the purest, most youthful man were to resist her most powerful seduction.

An alternative translation:

Kundry is living an unending life of constantly alternating rebirths as the result of an ancient curse which, in a manner reminiscent of the Wandering Jew, condemns her, in ever-new shapes, to bring to men the suffering of seduction; redemption [Erlösung], death, complete annihilation is vouchsafed her only if her most powerful blandishments are withstood by the most chaste and virile of men.

Wotan the Wanderer

Although it is widely accepted that the figure of the Wandering Jew or "der ewige Jude" (the Eternal Jew) provides the inspiration for the Flying Dutchman and Kundry, most writers conveniently gloss over the figure of the Wanderer in The Ring of the Nibelung.

The extraordinary Jewish Wagnerian bass Friedrich Schorr as the Wanderer (photo taken at Bayreuth). His unsurpassed and deeply moving Wotan can be heard partnered by inspirational Jewish conductor,  Leo Blech, on this recording.

Like the Dutchman, Wotan is the Immortal Wanderer, and as such seems an absolutely perfect candidate to identify as another "ewige Jude". It is impossible to escape the conclusion that Wotan is a Wandering Jew, since Wagner himself unequivocally tells us that Wotan is the Wanderer. Wagner also refers to "die ewige Götter" (the Eternal Gods). This means that Wotan, the Eternal God, is therefore the Eternal Wanderer.  The formula goes like this:

Wotan = eternal God (ewiger Gott)
Wotan = Wanderer
Wotan = ewiger Wanderer (Eternal Wanderer)
therefore: Wotan = ewiger Jude (Wandering Jew)

If you accept that the Dutchman and Kundry are both Wandering Jews, then you simply must accept this conclusion as completely and utterly inescapable: Wotan is Jewish. However, the reason this is only rarely pointed out is quite simple: because it means nothing less than that the chief of the Germanic gods is Jewish! And, if Wotan of all eternal wanderers is not an Eternal Jew, then there are no wandering Jews in any of Wagner's works.

The consequences of this are that Thor, who according to Germanic mythology is the son of Wotan, must also be at least half Jewish, since we do not know if his mother was definitely Jewish. Furthermore, this makes Brünnhilde, Siegmund, Sieglinde, and Siegfried all at least half Jewish.

The reason why you see almost nothing about Wotan being Jewish from Nazi apologists who want to shove the Eternal Truth of a madman's twisted perversion of Wagner down our throats is that it really makes a mockery of the depraved view that The Ring depicts a struggle of the Aryan German gods to crush the Jewish Nibelungs. As definitive proof of their interpretation, the allegation that Alberich is a Jew is proffered. It is alleged by them that as Alberich is ugly, this is smoking gun evidence that he must be a Jew: a horrifyingly racist interpretation that raises the question as to who the racist one really is. Their case is extremely weak since there is absolutely nothing in Wagner's writings to prove this, unless you are going to pull out your trump card in the form of a rant stating that only Nazified interpretations of Wagner can be regarded as Holy Writ. Indeed there an infinitely stronger case to be made for Wotan being Jewish, since he is clearly identified as being both eternal (he is one of the "die ewige Götter") as well as a Wanderer. Like the Flying Dutchman, Wotan finds his final redemption through love.

Irrespective of the overwhelming strength of the evidence arguing for the Jewish identity of the chief of the Germanic gods, this is deliberately swept under the carpet by advocates of Nazified interpretations of Wagner. They want to defend the Eternal Truth of their appallingly perverse view that The Ring represents a conflict between divine Aryans and ugly Jews at all costs. Particularly sacred to them is the mad ranting about the Aryan Siegfried being untainted with Jewish blood, so that his killing of Mime can be perverted into an execution of a Jew by an Aryan. Obviously, it becomes embarrassing to them when the chief of the Germanic gods, and his offspring Siegfried, both turn out to be even more frankly Jewish than any of the Nibelung dwarfs. The entire edifice of the Nazified interpretation of Wagner just ends up going up in flame in an apocalyptic inferno.

Wotan as the Germanic Yahweh Elohim

When you interpret the figure of the chief of the Germanic gods as Jewish, it actually makes a huge amount of sense. The entire Ring cycle starts to make greater sense. For a start, Wotan shares many characteristics in common with Elohim, the God of the Old Testament.

William Blake: Elohim creating Adam. Elohim (אֱלהִים) literally means "gods" (plural of El, אֱל). The Hebrew religion originated in a tribal polytheism like that of the Germanic tribes.  

Both Wotan and Elohim are wise and Almighty. Both are wrathful and vengeful. The wrath of both Wotan and Elohim are equally apocalyptic. If Elohim issues commandments carved in stone, and the Jews are bound to Him by the "doctrines" or "laws" of the Torah, then mankind is bound to Wotan by oaths carved into his spear. Yahweh Elohim was probably originally the chief of the tribal gods — and like Wotan — a mighty war god:

Yahweh is a man of war (Exodus 15-3)

Yahweh will go out like a mighty man. He will stir up zeal like a man of war. He will raise a war cry. Yes, he will shout aloud. He will triumph over his enemies. (Isaiah 42-13)

Erhard S. Gerstenberger writes on p.151 of Theologies of the Old Testament:

Yahweh was not always God in Israel and at every social level. Rather, initially he belongs only to the storm and war gods like Baal, Anath, Hadad, Resheph and Chemosh

So Wotan was originally the exact Germanic equivalent of the Hebrew god of storms and war, Yahweh Elohim. Indeed, Yahweh is referred to as the "God of Armies" no less than 280 times in the Bible. Even the name "Israel" means "God fights" or "fighter of God" - from "sara" (to fight) plus the suffix "El" (God).

Yahweh Elohim, God of storms and war, on his cloud-riding chariot of war.  

Just as Wotan's wife was the fertility goddess Fricka or Frigg ("beloved"), so too did Yahweh also originally have a wife: the fertility goddest Asherah.

 Like Fricka, Yahweh Elohim had a wife - the fertility goddess Asherah.

In Religion and Art (1880) Wagner makes it clear that he sees Yahweh Elohim as the God of war:

How, without this falling back to the Jewish spirituality and its placement on an equal footing to that of that of the pure Christian Gospel, would it have been possible up till the present day, to have elevated the claims of the church on the civilised world, whose people are armed to the teeth for the sake of their mutual annihilation, the prosperity of peace squandered, ready at the first sign of the warlord to systematically pounce into mauling one another? Obviously, it is not Jesus Christ, the Saviour, whom our military clergy praise as a paragon in front of the assembled battalions, before the beginning of the slaughter. Even if they name Him, they really mean: Jehova, Yahweh or one of the Elohim, who hates all other gods other than himself, and who wants to be enchained to his beloved people. From this we can see that our overly sophisticated civilisation will not contrive to unmask its totally unchristian provenance. We find it impossible to explain the Gospel, let alone contrive to justify it, even though we are initiated into it from a tender age. Thus we have ourselves a situation in which we can very well discern the triumph of the enemies of the Christian faith. 

Wie, ohne diese Hereinziehung des jüdischen Geistes und seine Gleichstellung mit dem des rein christlichen Evangeliums, wäre es auch bis auf den heutigen Tag noch möglich, kirchliche Ansprüche an die civilisirte Welt zu erheben, deren Völker, wie zur gegenseitigen Ausrottung bis an die Zähne bewaffnet, ihren Friedenswohlstand vergeuden, um beim ersten Zeichen des Kriegsherrn methodisch zerfleischend über sich herzufallen? Offenbar ist es nicht Jesus Christus, der Erlöser, den unsere Herren Feldprediger vor dem Beginne der Schlacht den um sie versammelten Bataillonen zum Vorbild empfehlen; sondern, nennen sie ihn, so werden sie wohl meinen: Jehova, Jahve oder einen der Elohim, der alle Götter außer sich haßte und sie deshalb von seinem treuen Volke unterjocht wissen wollte. Ersehen wir hieran, daß unserer so komplizierten Zivilisation selbst nur die Verhüllung ihrer durchaus unchristlichen Herkunft nicht gelingen will, und kann unmöglich das Evangelium, auf das wir trotzdem in zartester Jugend bereits vereidigt werden, zu ihrer Erklärung, geschweige denn zu ihrer Rechtfertigung herbeigezogen werden, so hätten wir in unserem Zustande sehr wohl einen Triumph der Feinde des christlichen Glaubens zu erkennen.

In the same essay Wagner also writes of the God of the Old Testament as "der Stammgott eines kleinen Volkes" — the tribal God of a minor people.

In case you are beating your war drum to say that anyone who in any way, shape or form dares to even so much as slightly critique the Old Testament can only but be a Nazi guilty of genocide, Wagner extends his critique towards the equally Yahwistic and wrathful Abrahamic God of Islam:

Islam seemed to be particularly destined to call for the fulfilment of the complete extinguishment of Judaism, as it usurped the place of the Jewish God as the creator of heaven and earth in order elevate him with fire and sword to [the position of] the one and only God of all living things. They believed that they might forfeit their participation in this world domination of their Jehova to the Jews, who had on the other hand, also taken part in the formation of the Christian religion, with all of its consequences on political dominion, culture, and civilisation, which in the course of time it was very suitable for the delivery of. 

namentlich schien der Islam dazu berufen, das Werk der gänzlichen Auslöschung des Judentums auszuführen, da er sich des Juden-Gottes als Schöpfers des Himmels und der Erde selbst bemächtigte, um ihn mit Feuer und Schwert zum alleinigen Gott alles Atmenden zu erheben. Die Teilnahme an dieser Weltherrschaft ihres Jehova glaubten, so scheint es, die Juden verscherzen zu können, da sie andererseits Teilnahme an einer Ausbildung der christlichen Religion gewonnen hatten, welche ihnen diese, mit allen ihren Erfolgen für Herrschaft, Kultur und Civilisation, im Verlaufe der Zeiten in die Hände zu liefern sehr wohl geeignet war.

From Religion and Art (1880) 

In one fell swoop, Wagner has equally damned as a false deity, the God of all the Abrahamic religions: mainstream Christianity, Judaism and Islam.  In another post we will more closely explore how this brings Wagner's ideas extremely close to those of Gnosticism — the beliefs of the Cathars, on whom the Knights of the Holy Grail in Parsifal is likely to be based.

The Apocalypse in Germanic and Jewish Tribal Mythology

The final strand linking Germanic and Hebrew mythology is the common notion of an "apocalypse". The term apocalypse in the Jewish tradition is extremely interesting:

The Greek verb ἀπōκαλύπτειν is occasionally employed in the Septuagint to translate the Hebrew  גְּלָא ("reveal"); thus, of a secret, Prov. xi. 13; compare Ecclus. iv. 18, xxii. 22, xli. 23 [xlii. 1]; of future events disclosed by God, Amos, iii. 7, and especially in the idioms "uncover the ear," "uncover the eyes," meaning "reveal," Num. xxii. 31, xxiv. 4, 16 (compare Enoch, i. 2); compare further I Sam. ii. 27, iii. 21, etc. 

 The noun ἀπōκάλυψις appears in the Greek translation of Ecclus. with the meaning "disclosure" of what is unknown, Ecclus. xxii. 22 (μυστηρίōυ ἀπōκάλυψις, "revealing of a mystery"—compare Theodotion's translation of Dan. ii. 19, 28 et seq.), xli. 23 [xlii. 1], xi. 27. The nearest approach to this usage which has been observed in a profane writer is the passage in Plutarch, "Moralia," 70 F: δεῖ γὰρ. . . τῆς ἁμαρτίας τὴν νōυϑέτησιν κας ἀπōκάλυψιν ἀπόῤῥητōν εἶναι κ.τ. (the reference in Stephanus, "Thesaurus"); but it must also have been in use among Greek-speaking Jews at the beginning of the common era in the sense "revelation from God."  

From the Jewish Encyclopedia, 1906 

So ἀπōκάλυψις can denote a revelation of God, which is why the apocalypse heralds the coming of the Jewish Messiah.

Wagner's use of the term Untergang is identical in all aspects to this Old Testament ἀπōκάλυψις or apocalypse. Untergang is a notoriously hard word to translate (Nietzsche too makes extensive use of it in his Zarathustra). It comes from two words, unter (under) plus gehen (to go). Literally, it means to "going under". A number of different translation can be found here, but you can also use Google translator to find a few. Listed on Leo are these translations:

break up
decline
demise
destruction
doom
downfall
loss
nemesis
ruin
sinking

In fact, apocalypse would also be a reasonable alternative. The original German title to the film translated as Downfall, about Hitler's last's days, was der Untergang. However, Wagner uses it in the same sense as ἀπōκάλυψις, that is a revelation, actualisation, or ultimate fulfilment. Here is an example:

As long as the poetic intention - as such - still exists and significantly so,  it is still not destroyed [untergegangen], ie brought to fruition, in the expression of the musician.

Ist die dichterische Absicht – als solche – noch vorhanden und merklich, so ist sie im Ausdrucke des Musikers noch nicht untergegangen, d.h. verwirklicht.

Wagner actually tells us that "untergegangen" here means "verwirklicht" — brought to fruition, fully realised, or actualised.  This comes from das Judentum in der Musik:

Gemeinschaftlich mit uns Mensch werden, heißt für den Juden aber zu allernächst so viel als: aufhören, Jude zu sein. ... Aber bedenkt, daß nur Eines eure Erlösung von dem auf euch lastenden Fluche sein kann: die Erlösung Ahasvers, – der Untergang!

 In order to be become part of the community of mankind with us, means nothing less than: stop being Jews. .... But remember that only one thing can be your Redemption from your burdensome curse: the Redemption of Ahasver, - the Untergang!

The critical word here is Erlösung - Redemption. The Untergang is the Redemption, or the ἀπōκάλυψις. It is a moment of supreme self-actualisation, the fullest bringing to fruition of an apocalyptic revelation. Wagner also makes it clear that the Redemption of Ahasver is the Untergang. This can only mean an apocalyptic moment of release through acceptance of Jesus as the Messiah. Or in the words of Matthew 16-28:

Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.

Wagner is really issuing a challenge to all Jews to rise up to their apocalyptic self-actualisation. The use of the Untergang to mean ἀπōκάλυψις, is no more a call for a Holocaust in Wagner, than it is in the Old or New Testaments of the Bible! It is a call for the Jews to rise up from their down trodden state to achieve true "emancipation" (a word also Wagner uses in the essay) and assimilation into the broader Christian community through the Redemption of Ahasver.

The Death of God

Now let's return to the figure of Wotan.  In the letter to his fellow pro-democracy activist friend Roeckel, Wagner called Wotan "my jovially self-annihilating God". Wagner also writes:

The course of the drama thus shows the necessity of accepting and giving way to the changeableness, the diversity, the multiplicity, the eternal newness of reality and of life. Wodan rises to the tragic height of willing his own downfall. This is everything that we have to learn from the history of mankind: to will the inevitable and to carry it out oneself. The product of this highest, self-destructive will is the fearless, ever-loving man, who is finally created: Siegfried. — That is all.

So Wotan, our Wandering Jew, follows to the letter what Wagner says in Judentum in der Musik and rises to his own self-fulfilment in Death and in his own self-annihilation - his Untergang, his ἀπōκάλυψις! Siegfried is that heroic part of Wotan himself, that grants his self-destruction by shattering his spear, and Brünnhilde is that part of him who brings the Untergang to fruition as Wotan is consumed in the flames of her wish-fulfilling Love.

At this point, we should go back to what Wagner wrote about Kundry:

Erlösung, Auflösung, gänzliches Erlöschen ist ihr nur verhießen, wenn einst ein reinster, blühendster Mann ihrer machtvollsten Verführung wiederstehen würde. 

redemption, dissolution, total extinguishment is promised to her only if the purest, most youthful man were to resist her most powerful seduction.

So once again Kundry rises to her ultimate self-actualisation in a moment of ἀπōκάλυψις. This alone grants her Salvation. Here Wagner does not use the term Untergang, but uses very similar terms including Erlösung: Redemption. Erlöschen means to extinguish like a flame. Auflösung means liquidation, dissolution. Note the similarity to Isolde's final words:

vertrinken...versinken... unbewusst - höchste Lust!

to drown - to sink - into oblivion - supreme ecstasy!

Compare this with what Wagner wrote in a letter to Franz Liszt in December 1854 about his discovery of the philosophy of Schopenhauer:

Apart from my - slow - progress with my music I have now devoted my time exclusively to a man, who - if only through his writings - has been a gift of heaven to me in my loneliness. This is Arthur Schopenhauer, the greatest philosopher since Kant, whose ideas - as he puts it - he has completed by thinking them through to their logical conclusion. ... His central thought, the final denial of the will to live, is of frightful seriousness, but the only Salvation. Of course this idea was not new to me and no one can think it at all in whom it did not already exist. But it was this philosopher who first showed it to me with such clarity. If I think back to the storms of my heart and the terrible cramp with which it clutched - against my Will - at the hope of living, indeed when these storms even now still rise in tempestuous strength - now at last I have found a palliative, which alone helps me to sleep in sleepless nights; it is the deep and innermost yearning for Death: total unconsciousness, absolute non-Being, the extinction of all dreams - unique and final Salvation!

This ἀπōκάλυψις, and embracing of the the supreme "non-Being, the extinction of all dreams" as the "unique and final Salvation" - that is precisely the Untergang that Wotan, the jovially self-annihilating God, rises to embrace.

Further comparison to what Schopenhauer's wrote about Redemption through the philosophical awakening to the supreme truth is equally enlightening:

It is this, that after our investigation has brought us to the point at which we have before our eyes perfect holiness, the denial and surrender of all volition, and thus the deliverance from a world whose whole existence we have found to be suffering, this appears to us as passing away into empty Nothingness. 

Schopenhauer then explains that this Nothingness is not a privation or absence. 

Denial, abolition, conversion of the Will, is also the ablution and the vanishing of the world, its mirror. If we no longer perceive it in this mirror, we ask in vain where it has gone, and then, because it has no longer any where and when, complain that it has vanished into nothing.

These passages come from the section on The Assertion and Denial of the Will from The World as Will and Representation.  Interestingly, Schopenhauer praises the mystic Meister Eckhart, who famously stated that God is "Superessential Nothingness". Some, such as D.T. Suzuki, have found similarities to Zen Buddhist thinking about Nothingness, and Schopenhauer would have likely approved of the comparison.

In any case, this divine revelation in the Untergang,  ἀπōκάλυψις, is a moment of pure ecstasy "höchste Lust" for Wagner. It is a moment of Redemption granted to Wagner's Wandering Jew, Wotan, just as it is to the Flying Dutchman, Isolde and to Kundry. It is the "unique and final Salvation" of which Wagner writes as fulfilling his "innermost yearning for Death". Moreover, it is a universal Salvation, ἀπōκάλυψις for all of humanity, transcending class or race.

So Wotan, that noble self-annihilating God, is Wagner's ultimate Wandering Jew: the Old Testament God of wars and storms, who willingly embraces his apocalypse in the redemptive flames of human Love.

The chief of the Germanic Gods is Jewish.



Recommended related Post: Wotan Lives!


[Post-script: for an interesting account arguing for the view that the Indo-European gods - including the Indian and Germanic gods - and Semitic gods have a common historical origin, and that the notion of a sharp divide between them is a racist ideological myth, see this very interesting web article. Note that the Aryans were a North Indian tribe, hence the interchangeability of the term Indo-Aryan with Indo-European. Even the name Frigg, or Fricka in Wagner's Ring, is related to the Sankrit, priyā or "beloved".]