Gottfried Wagner with the Nazi regime. His book "Twilight of the Wagners: The Unveiling of a Family's Legacy", an autobiography, queried the extent to which his father had extricated himself from the families close connection to National Socialism, while he has also been critical of many aspects of the Bayreuth Festival. The British film director Tony Palmer has made a two-hour documentary film about the Wagner family in which Gottfried plays a key role. Gottfried Wagner Gottfried Wagner (born 13 April 1947 in Bayreuth) is a multimedia director and publicist. Gottfried Wagner is the son of Wolfgang Wagner and a great-grandchild of
Ernst August Wagner where later he wrote several plays and dramas. He died there of tuberculosis in 1938. Ernst August Wagner was born on 22 September 1874 in Eglosheim near Ludwigsburg as the ninth of ten children, as well as one half-brother and half-sister. Most of his siblings died early, so that in 1913 only two sisters and one brother remained. After his father, a poor peasant with drinking problems, died one day before Ernst Wagner's second birthday, the indebted family was forced to sell their farm. His mother tried to make a living by running a small shop; she soon remarried, but