Art in the Third Reich refers to the many cultural
arenas in Germany in the period 1933 – 1945 which could be classified as the
Arts. It has been stated that “the Nazis exposed more Germans to culture than
any previous regime.”
Youtube
link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfGiYIppvDM
Since
the collapse of the Third Reich a great deal, possibly most, of the cultural
and artistic works of this period remain unknown to the average person. What
the victorious World War II Allies and the subsequent liberal-left governments
of Germany regarded as “controversial” remains hidden away and is accessible
only to scholars for research purposes. “A whole chapter of Germany’s cultural
history was pushed under the carpet” until 1988, when, in Frankfurt, the
subject of the official art under the National Socialist regime was finally
debated in public by German art historians for the very first time.
There
were many facets of art in National Socialist Germany, where the State sought
the development of a traditionalist German style linked to nature, the family
and the homeland; and the suppression of modern, notably what they termed
“degenerate”, art associated by the Reich with large cities, internationalism,
and decadence. Painting, sculpture, architecture, music, film and all the other
art disciplines were expected to reflect the greatness of European, and
particularly German, civilisation and culture. Live events could also be an
art: the Berlin Olympic Games in 1936, and the associated Winter Olympics at
Garmisch-Partenkirchen and the Nazi Party rallies at Nuremberg being examples.
“The modern state has taken on itself a cultural mission. It also insists on
ruling over the arts. This means a commitment for the painter, sculptor, poet,
and musician. Their work must serve the people,” declared the writer Ludwig
Eberlein. Hitler added to that: “Art has at all times been the expression of an
ideological and religious experience and at the same time the expression of a
political will.” Hitler always stressed Antiquity as the real precursor of
German art: “The struggle that rages today involves very great aims: a culture
fights for its existence, which combines millenniums and embraces Hellenism and
Germanity together.”
There
were quite a few German art magazines which propagated the new German cultural
ideology. Kunst und Volk (Art and the People) revelled in articles about
mediaeval Germany and old sagas, linking them with subjects of the Teutonic
peoples. Besides reproductions of new paintings, there were illustrations of
the beloved precursors Durer and Riemenschneider. But the most important arts
magazine of this era was Die Kunst im Dritten Reich, (Art in the Third Reich)
which was founded in 1937. The first editor was Alfred Rosenberg. His
collaborators were Walter Horn, Werner Rittich and Robert Scholz. The magazine
reached a circulation of 50,000, very considerable for that time.
Despite
the usual post-1945 liberal-left lies about and condemnations of the Third
Reich’s cultural policies opposing ‘modernists’ and ‘progressives’, only a
minority ‘suffered’ as a result, while “many artists thrived”. Indeed
Petropoulos argues that it was the degrees of modernism which counted, and that
some modernists managed to accommodate themselves in the new Reich. In 1947 the
Allies’ denazification court in Munich stated “as National Socialist barbarism
took over in 1933, it is deeply disappointing that the intellectual elite,
instead of opposing, one by one collaborated with National Socialism and placed
their talents and names at their disposal.” It is however, difficult to accept
that any intelligent person really believes that a national, whatever their
craft, would voluntarily resign their positions and professions and leave their
homes, friends and homeland just because of a new democratically elected
government.
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