AGerman-language edition of Friedelind's autobiography was published in Switzerland in 1945, and in February 1946 the first extensive reviews began to appear in the German newspapers. It contained ‘many a spicy matter’, they wrote, and headlines were made by Winifred's threat that ‘You will be eradicated and exterminated.’ Winifred denied having uttered it, and blamed Friedelind's co-author Page Cooper for all the book's ‘lies’. ‘[Friedelind's] whole behaviour is still a mystery to me, because she is sending money to Lucerne for them to forward lovely food parcels every month to the head of the family!’ The news of the book's publication shocked the whole family, for they anticipated the worst and feared personal attacks. Wieland wrote to their mother that the book ‘will be its own downfall among decent people’ and did not change his opinion once he had actually read it. The family wrote it off as ‘trivial and mediocre’. Wolfgang wrote to Wieland: ‘The whole thing is a strange product and many a matter is psychologically puzzling to me.’ Gertrud Strobel aptly summed up the family's disgust with Friedelind – and at the same time their willingness to accept her food parcels: ‘Spoke of the book by Maus. The Swiss earnings are used to finance the care packets … The Wagner family is thus living off its own shame!’ A Swiss social democratic newspaper commented triumphantly: ‘Future generations will have to decide whether Bayreuth can have a reason to exist after all the horrors of National Socialism. But if Bayreuth ever blossoms forth again, then Friedelind will at that joyful time stand in the spotlight. Her highly developed sense of national honour and the untouched purity of human dignity have saved Bayreuth!’.