Nazi Art Essay Research Paper Many people

Nazi Art Essay, Research Paper

Many people know that Adolph Hitler was an artist in his youth as an Austrian, but just how

much art played a role in the National Socialist Germany seems to get underrated in the history

books. Just as a racial war was waged against the Jewish population and the military fought the

French and the Slavic people, an artistic cleansing for the Germanic culture was in progress.

Special Nazi units were searching the ancient arts of antiquity for evidence of a great Germanic

race that existed well before history. Hitler had monuments and museums built on a grand scale

with carefully designed architecture that would last a thousand years. Art of this nature was a

priority because Hitler wanted to capture Chronos, not Gaea. He wanted to dominate the rest of

time, not the limits of Earth.

Hitler was born and raised in the town of Linz. As a youth he studied art, primarily as a painter

capturing mostly the surrounding Alpine Mountain landscapes that he grew up with, but he also

had an interest in architecture. When he turned eighteen he applied to the Vienna Art Academy,

and was rejected. Along with art, Hitler was fascinated with Linz, Antiquity, and Wagner. It was at

this time in his youth that Hitler and his friend, Kubicheck would try to finish an opera that

Wagner had abandoned. This opera was about a leader trying to establish the Roman Empire by

overthrowing the Papal government in Rome. Hitler would remember “It was in that hour it all

began.”1

Hitler thought of Wagner and art as the basis for a new government, nation, and people. It is

not just coincidence that he would be surrounded by National Socialist leaders with background

in the arts. Joseph Gobbels, the Minister of Propaganda and head of the Reich Chamber of

Culture, was an experienced writer and aspiring poet. Rosenberg was a painter and Von Sherot

wrote poetry. Hans Frederick Munch of the Reich’s Chamber of Literature said “This government

born out of opposition to rationalism knows the peoples inner longings and dreams, which only

the artist can give them.”2 Less than three months after coming to power, the Nazis issued

“What German artists expect of their new government” in March of 1933. One of the first projects

of the Nazi regime was the House of German Art (Haus der Deutschen Kunst), a large museum.

Quickly the Third Reich was forming it’s own style of art, as identifiable as Soviet “Social-

Realism”, but symbolizing the national and racial policies. And while the Soviets tended to

emphasize Literature, the Nazis focused on Visual art and Architecture. Nazi art was Neo-

Classical with a twist of German romanticism, heroicism, and nostalgia for the times of yore.3

In the beginning there was debate on what exactly the Nazis were looking for in art. It is well

known that the Third Reich was extremely hostile to Avant-Garde artists, but before the Nazis

came to power, Joseph Goebbels took to the opinion that some German Expressionists were

compatible with National Socialist ideas. These artists include Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Erich

Heckel, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Ernst Barlach, and Emil Nolde. Nolde was even a Nazi party

member, but these artists could hardly be called “Nazi artists”. They declared nationalism and

were very anti-capitalist. The Expressionists promoted sensation and passion over rational logic

and were heavily into primitive German culture. Hitler, Alfred Rosenberg, and other senior

Nazis attacked these modern artists as incompatible with the Nazi ideal because of there strong

opposition to authoritarianism and the individualism expressed within their work.4 Albert Speer,

commissioned to decorate Goebbels home would later write: “I borrowed a few watercolours from

… the director of the Berlin Nationalgalerie. Goebbels and his wife were delighted with the

paintings—until Hitler came to inspect, and expressed his severe disapproval. Then the minister

summoned me immediately. ‘The pictures will have to go at once; they’re simply impossible’.”5

Upon the assumption of power, almost all modern art was attacked and artists of all sorts fled the

country as work was confiscated and art schools were closed.

There are many reasons Hitler attacked modern art. Such groups as the Dadaists and the

Bauhaus had close connections with the Soviet schools of Constructivism and Suprematism.

These groups, while not necessarily Communist, were overly leftist ranging the gauntlet from

Socialism to Anarchism and was extremely anti-military. Hitler also attacked the aesthetics of

modern art. The Bauhaus was ultra-modern and cosmopolitan in it’s designs. It’s creations were

seamless global industrial works that lacked a recognizable element of German tradition and

craft. And other movements such as Cubism and Expressionism that distorted the picture to

analyze colour, shape and space, Hitler found to be an example of the “Degeneration” of culture

and race. On the day of the G

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