He is small in stature, and unremarkable to look at.  He may have the small man syndrome.

He was not born to the purple, or anything like it.

He is an animal loving vegetarian.

He believes he can see into the German psyche – which means he believes that there is such a thing.

When younger, he dabbled in rebellion, if not revolution.

He has a grievance against the world – he believes that he has the answer, but too few people understand him.  He is a prophet rejected in his own nation.

He is therefore a thwarted champion lusting for revenge on the whole inferior ungrateful world.

If seen by a psychiatrist now, he would be diagnosed as suffering from ‘chronic megalomania, paranoia and moral derangement.’

His ego is such that he has few if any friends.  He treats badly any of those who do not see or accept his superiority.

He has a longing for the hero (held) – especially a Teutonic one.

He believes that one great man can make all the difference.

He dreams of a massive building to be his shrine forever.

He has an immense power to appeal to, if not hypnotise, Germans – as a people.  He lives to captivate and control his followers.  It is a lust for power.

And he knows he has this gift, and he goes over the top to exploit it in order to bring his audience under his power.  They feed off and incite each other.  And neither feels any qualms about the process – which can subvert their own agencies of self-control.  That means that the mob can and does surrender to him.

He believes that Jewish people belong to a different race that is inferior to that of the German people and are a threat to the German nation.

By and large, and with some give and take, each such statement could be applied to Adolf Hitler and Richard Wagner.  I am not suggesting that one is as evil as the other – merely that the concatenation puts a lot of people off the man Richard Wagner. 

And I am yet to meet the person who likes or even takes seriously his poetry.  Some can take the librettos seriously – but not me.