Art of the Third Reich

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Die Partei, Arno Breker's statue representing the spirit of the Nazi Party
Die Partei, Arno Breker's statue representing the spirit of the Nazi Party

The Art of the Third Reich, the officially approved art produced in Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945, was characterized by a style of Romantic realism based on classical models. While banning modern styles as degenerate, the Nazis promoted paintings and sculptures that were narrowly traditional in manner and that exalted the "Blut und Boden" values of racial purity, militarism, and obedience. Other popular themes for Nazi art were the Volk at work in the fields, a return to the simple virtues of Heimat, the manly virtues of the National Socialist struggle, and the lauding of the female activities of child bearing and raising (Kinder, Küche, Kirche).

Similarly, music was expected to be tonal and free of jazz influence; films and plays were censored.

Nazi art bears a close similarity to the Communist propaganda art style of Socialist Realism, and the term heroic realism has sometimes been used to describe both artistic styles.

Among the well known artists endorsed by the Nazis were the sculptors Josef Thorak and Arno Breker, and painters Werner Peiner, Adolf Wissel and Conrad Hommel.

Contents

[edit] Historical background

The early twentieth century was a period of wrenching changes in the arts. In the visual arts, such innovations as cubism, Dada and surrealism, following hot on the heels of symbolism, post-Impressionism and Fauvism, were not universally appreciated. The majority of people in Germany, as elsewhere, did not care for the new art which many resented as elitist, morally suspect and too often incomprehensible.[1]

Germany had emerged as a leading center of the avant-garde, the birthplace of Expressionism in painting and sculpture, of the atonal musical compositions of Arnold Schoenberg and the jazz-influenced work of Paul Hindemith and Kurt Weill. Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Fritz Lang's Metropolis brought expressionism to cinema.

The Nazis viewed the culture of the Weimar period with disgust. Their response stemmed partly from conservative aesthetic taste and partly from their determination to use culture as a propaganda tool.[2] Upon becoming dictator in 1933, Hitler gave his personal taste in art the force of law to a degree never before seen. Only in Stalin's Soviet Union, where Socialist Realism was the mandatory style, had a state shown such concern with regulation of the arts. [3] In the case of Germany, the model was to be classical Greek and Roman art, seen by Hitler as an art whose exterior form embodied an inner racial ideal.[4]

The reason for this, as historian Henry Grosshans points out, is that Hitler "saw Greek and Roman art as uncontaminated by Jewish influences. Modern art was [seen as] an act of aesthetic violence by the Jews against the German spirit. Such was true to Hitler even though only Liebermann, Meidner, Freundlich, and Marc Chagall, among those who made significant contributions to the German modernist movement, were Jewish. But Hitler ... took upon himself the responsibility of deciding who, in matters of culture, thought and acted like a Jew."[5]

The supposedly "Jewish" nature of all art that was indecipherable, distorted, or that represented "depraved" subject matter was explained through the concept of degeneracy, which held that distorted and corrupted art was a symptom of an inferior race. By propagating the theory of degeneracy, the Nazis combined their anti-Semitism with their drive to control the culture, thus consolidating public support for both campaigns.[6]

[edit] Degenerate art

'Stormtroops Advancing Under Gas', etching and aquatint by Otto Dix, 1924. Dix was among the artists condemned as entartet. The distorted bodies reflecting the horror, reality and despair of war, were at odds with the desire to glorify the martial vigor and confidence of the German people.
'Stormtroops Advancing Under Gas', etching and aquatint by Otto Dix, 1924. Dix was among the artists condemned as entartet. The distorted bodies reflecting the horror, reality and despair of war, were at odds with the desire to glorify the martial vigor and confidence of the German people.
Main article: Degenerate art

The term Entartung (or "degeneracy") had gained currency in Germany by the late 19th century when the critic and author Max Nordau devised the theory presented in his 1892 book, Entartung.[7] Nordau drew upon the writings of the criminologist Cesare Lombroso, whose The Criminal Man, published in 1876, attempted to prove that there were "born criminals" whose atavistic personality traits could be detected by scientifically measuring abnormal physical characteristics. Nordau developed from this premise a critique of modern art, explained as the work of those so corrupted and enfeebled by modern life that they have lost the self-control needed to produce coherent works. Explaining the painterliness of Impressionism as the sign of a diseased visual cortex, he decried modern degeneracy while praising traditional German culture. Despite the fact that Nordau was Jewish (as was Lombroso), his theory of artistic degeneracy would be seized upon by German National Socialists during the Weimar Republic as a rallying point for their anti-Semitic and racist demand for Aryan purity in art.

Belief in a Germanic spirit—defined as mystical, rural, moral, bearing ancient wisdom, noble in the face of a tragic destiny—existed long before the rise of the Nazis; Richard Wagner celebrated such ideas in his work.[8] Beginning before World War I the well-known German architect and painter Paul Schultze-Naumburg's influential writings, which invoked racial theories in condemning modern art and architecture, supplied much of the basis for Adolf Hitler's belief that classical Greece and the Middle Ages were the true sources of Aryan art.[9] Hitler's rise to power on January 31, 1933 was quickly followed by actions intended to cleanse the culture of degeneracy: book burnings were organized, artists and musicians were dismissed from teaching positions, and curators who had shown a partiality to modern art were replaced by Party members.[10]

[edit] Creation of the Reichskulturkammer

Great German Art Exhibition logo
Great German Art Exhibition logo

In September 1933 the Reichskulturkammer (Reich Culture Chamber) was established, with Josef Goebbels, Hitler's Reichminister für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda (Reich Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda) in charge. Subchambers within the Culture Chamber, representing the individual arts (music, film, literature, architecture, and the visual arts) were created; these were membership groups consisting of "racially pure" artists supportive of the Party, or willing to be compliant. Goebbels made it clear: "In future only those who are members of a chamber are allowed to be productive in our cultural life. Membership is open only to those who fulfill the entrance condition. In this way all unwanted and damaging elements have been excluded."[11] By 1935 the Reich Culture Chamber had 100,000 members.[12]

Nonetheless there was, during the period 1933-1934, some confusion within the Party on the question of Expressionism. Goebbels and some others believed that the forceful works of such artists as Emil Nolde, Ernst Barlach and Erich Heckel exemplified the Nordic spirit; as Goebbels explained, "We National Socialists are not unmodern; we are the carrier of a new modernity, not only in politics and in social matters, but also in art and intellectual matters."[13] However, a faction led by Rosenberg despised Expressionism, leading to a bitter ideological dispute which was settled only in September 1934, when Hitler declared that there would be no place for modernist experimentation in the Reich.[14]

Modern artworks were purged from German museums. Over 5,000 works were initially seized, including 1,052 by Nolde, 759 by Heckel, 639 by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and 508 by Max Beckmann, as well as smaller numbers of works by such artists as Alexander Archipenko, Marc Chagall, James Ensor, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso and Vincent van Gogh.[15] These became the material for a defamatory exhibit, Entartete Kunst ("Degenerate Art"), featuring over 650 paintings, sculptures, prints, and books from the collections of thirty two German museums, that premiered in Munich on July 19, 1937 and remained on view until November 30 before travelling to eleven other cities in Germany and Austria. In this exhibition, the artworks were deliberately presented in a disorderly manner, and accompanied by mocking labels.

The "House of German Art" in Munich
The "House of German Art" in Munich

Coinciding with the Entartete Kunst exhibition, the Große Deutsche Kunstausstellung (Great German art exhibition) made its premiere amid much pageantry. This exhibition, held at the palatial Haus der deutschen Kunst (House of German Art), displayed the work of officially approved artists such as Arno Breker and Adolf Wissel. At the end of four months Entartete Kunst had attracted over two million visitors, nearly three and a half times the number that visited the nearby Grosse deutsche Kunstausstellung.[16]

[edit] Art theft

Main article: Nazi plunder

Later, as the occupiers of Europe, the Germans trawled the museums and private collections of Europe for suitably Aryan art to be acquired to fill a bombastic new gallery in Hitler's home town of Linz. At first a pretense was made of exchanges of works (sometimes with Impressionist masterpieces, considered degenerate by the Nazis), but later acquisitions came through forced "donations" and eventually by simple looting.[17] Despite public disdain for the degeneracy of Impressionism and Expressionism some elements of the Nazi leadership, notably Hermann Göring, acquired large personal collections of so-called degenerate art.

[edit] Graphic design

The poster became an important medium for propaganda during this period. Combining text and bold graphics, posters were extensively deployed both in Germany and in the areas occupied. Their typography reflected the Nazis' preference for Fraktur over modern sans-serif typefaces, which were condemned as cultural Bolshevism (although Futura continued to be used owing to its practicality).[18] The use of Fraktur was prevalent in advertising—which was a state monopoly—and books published during the Third Reich.

[edit] Popular art

Mass culture was less stringently regulated than high culture, possibly because the authorities feared the consequences of too heavy-handed interference in popular entertainment.[19] Thus, until the outbreak of the war, most Hollywood films could be screened, including It Happened One Night, San Francisco, and Gone with the Wind. While performance of atonal music was banned, the prohibition of jazz was less strictly enforced. Benny Goodman and Django Reinhardt were popular, and leading English and American jazz bands continued to perform in major cities until the war; thereafter, dance bands officially played "swing" rather than the banned jazz.[20]

[edit] Individual artists

[edit] Painting

  • Thomas Baumgartner (1892-1962)
  • Fritz Erler (1868-1940)
  • Sepp Hilz (1906-1967)
  • Walther Hoeck (1885-1956)
  • Conrad Hommel (1883-1971)
  • Trude Hoppe-Arendt
  • Julius Paul Junghanns (1876-1953)
  • Hubert Lanzinger (1880-1950)
  • Georg Lebrecht
  • Ernst Liebermann (1869-1960)
  • Oskar Martin-Amorbach (1897-1987)
  • Paul Mathias Padua (1903-1981)
  • Gisbert Palmie (1897-1984)
  • Werner Peiner (1897-1984)
  • Ivo Saliger (1894-1987)
  • Leopold Schmutzler (1864-1940)
  • Georg Sluyterman von Langeweyde (1903-1978)
  • Edmund Steppes (1873-1968)
  • Karl Truppe (1887-1952)
  • Udo Wendel
  • Wolfgang Willrich (1897-1948)
  • Adolf Wissel (1894-1973)
  • Adolf Ziegler (1892-1959)

[edit] Sculpture

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Adam, 1992, p. 29
  2. ^ Adam, 1992, p. 110
  3. ^ Barron, 1991, p.10
  4. ^ Grosshans, 1983, p. 87
  5. ^ Grosshans, 1983, p. 86
  6. ^ Barron, 1991, p.83
  7. ^ Barron, 1991, p.26
  8. ^ Adam, 1992, pp.23-24
  9. ^ Adam, 1992, p. 29-32.
  10. ^ Adam, 1992, p.52
  11. ^ Adam, 1992, p.53
  12. ^ Adam, 1992, p. 53
  13. ^ Adam, 1992, p.56
  14. ^ Grosshans, 1983, p. 73-74
  15. ^ Adam, 1992, pp. 121-122
  16. ^ Adam, 1992, pp.124-125
  17. ^ Conducting Research at the National Archives into Art Looting, Recovery, and Restitution by Ernest Latham, US National Archives
  18. ^ Hollis, 2001, pp. 66-67
  19. ^ Laqueur, 1996, p. 73.
  20. ^ Laqueur, 1996, pp. 73-5.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
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[edit] Gallery

Georg Kolbe's 1935 sculpture 1914-1918 You have not been in vain in Stralsund

Willy Meller's torch bearer at Ordensburg Vogelsang

German Nike by Willy Meller (1936) at the Olympic area in Berlin; in the background the Olympic stadium

Third Reich stamp lionizing martial vigor

Third Reich stamp celebrating the 1935 Nuremberg Rally

Poster celebrating the 4th SS Polizei Division