HOUSTON STEWART CHAMBERLAIN. – Philosopher and musicologist, born in Portsmouth on 2 September 1855, died in Bayreuth on 9 January 1927. He studied the sciences, philosophy, and music in Geneva, Dresden, and Vienna. An enthusiastic admirer of Wagner, whose daughter he married, he defended not only the composer’s music but also his worldview and conception of life in various writings.
Principal works: *Das Drama R. Wagner* (Leipzig 1892); *Die ersten 20 Jahre der Bayreuther Bühnefestspiele* (Bayreuth 1896); *Parsifal-Märchen* (Munich 1900). Chamberlain’s fame, however, rests on the book *Die Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts* (4 vols., 1899): a historical-philosophical work of considerable importance as a precursor of the Germanic Aryan racial myth. According to this view, Germanness is credited with the renewal and purification of blood, culture, and ethics. Dante, Humanism, and even Christ Himself are interpreted and explained in this light. Typical in this regard are the works *I. Kant, die Persönlichkeit als Einführung in den Werk* (Munich 1905) and *Goethe* (4 vols., 1912). Chamberlain believed that the war of 1914–18 would bring about the pan-German racial myth, for which he became a fervent propagandist, and in 1916 he obtained German citizenship. Some of his writings from these years were translated into Italian.