Jack, just read this again, because it explains the situation. Whether you see it or not is really beside the point. It's kind of like the tempered scale in that way:-)

"He was also an ardent German nationalist. The Ring Cycle operas, perhaps his greatest works, were composed and first staged in 1876, shortly after Germany unified. They were intended to develop a mythic national history for the new empire, which had no actual political history on which to construct a national identity"