Beauty with the SS Rune

Allach, Tasks and Goals

“No folk lives longer than the documents of its culture!”

These words of the Führer, which are the guiding principle in all matters of cultural nature pertaining to the German folk, also stand over the intention of the SS-porcelain manufacturer Allach-München Inc..

Many may have asked why the Schutzstaffel produces porcelain. The explanation is simple. The Reichsführer-SS had been thinking about the plan for a long time to promote the spirit of the SS in cultural work more strongly than had been possible during the period of struggle. So in the year 1935 he founded the porcelain manufacturer Allach-Munich Inc. as an instrument of his intention in this area.

It certainly was not the objective of the Reichsführer-SS, through the founding of the porcelain manufacturer Allach, to create a new porcelain manufacturer in order to produce economic values there - crudely put, in order to make money with it. Allach was instead from the beginning entrusted with the task to create from one of the most charming materials that exists, from porcelain, works of art and objects of daily use, which correspond to the feeling of our time and give witness to generations after us about our art feeling and form-will.

Each time shapes its own forms of expression itself and impresses its cultural style on them. Our time as well. In the great buildings of the Führer we experience the emergence of a - of our - new architectural style, whose space formation compels new ceramic forms.

From this realization the Reichsführer-SS commissioned Allach to work exemplarily:

in artistic formation,

in quality of material,

in execution a processing and

in price setting.

A look back shows how things once looked in the past with porcelain manufacture: Once, almost all porcelain manufacturers were founded by rulers (State of Berlin by Friedrich the Great, Meissen by August the Strong, Sevres by the Marquise of Pompadour, just to name a few examples.) With a few exceptions, they served the sole purpose, for the glory of their founder, to produce noble porcelain of highest artistic value without regard for any economic use. Great artists were obligated and could, in quiet and isolation, freed from all economic concerns, realize their ideas. So did the beautiful porcelain of Rococo and the Empire emerge as the expression of their time - works of art, which always keep their value and are worthy of highest admiration as the proclamations of the art feeling of their creators.

Individual Pieces and Mass Wares

But times change. Among almost all porcelain manufacturers (one should note the meaningful name “manufacture” [Manu = with the hand], even today, porcelain manufacture is largely dependent on the trained human hand) economic considerations step more and more into the foreground. Earning money soon stood at the top. The aristocratic patrons and employers soon receded behind the merchants. Only too often, art was treated like a stepchild. Cheap mass wares dominated the field. A few manufacturers of world fame barely managed to preserve their line in these times of artistic decline.

First there is sculpture. How often did it, due to false processing and lack of artistic understanding, turn into a domestic monstrosity. Allach saw here above all a field to help genuine folk feeling triumph. Certainly, the path was not easy, and all the plans still could not be carried out. The artists, too, who create works of art out of the raw material of porcelain through the genius of their inspiration and the formative energy of their hands, had to first be found and won.

“The Victor“, sculpture from Allach

But the demand of the Reichsführer was: Art is every German house, especially in the house of my SS men! Beautiful, tasteful dishes on every table, not only in the residences, but also - and especially - in the canteens, so that the German worker, as well as the comrade under arms, in his rest hours, from the harmony of his surroundings, gains new strength for the great tasks that must be placed on him. It is an ancient truth that the most simple food tastes better from vessels beautiful in form than the most precious roast on a tin plate! Allach wants to serve this goal of the Reichsführer-SS with all its energy.

In the few years that have passed since the founding of the porcelain manufacturer Allach, an important special position in the field of porcelain manufacture could already be achieved. Created completely from the feeling of our time emerged heroic youth figures from the Wehrmacht and the auxiliaries of the party, amazing authentic looking peasant custom figures and above all noble animal sculptures, which show the animal in all its beauty, works of art that must be valued as document of a strong, natural sense of art feeling and a goal-conscious advance along the path of responsibility-conscious art formation.

Ceramics, jugs, vases, candlesticks with a beauty of form were created that would decorate any German home. The goal of the Reichsführer-SS: every commodity - even the simplest water jug - should be of flawless beauty - was already achieved here to a high degree. From the great art treasure of our ancestors, delivered to us through many excavations, stimulus was taken for shaping and decorating and carried over into the style of our time. So a bridge was built between the naturebound creation of our ancestors and the artistic feeling of our days.

The knowledge of the fact that the surroundings exert a tremendous influence on the well being and bearing of man has caused the Reichsführer-SS to give his porcelain manufacturer Allach the order to become leading in the field of porcelain manufacture. Into the house of each SS man, indeed of every German, should come only form-beautiful and tasteful dishes and art objects. Allach thus gives to the working man in his daily surroundings the beauty that enables him to again and again gain new energy and to prove himself equal to the great tasks that our placed on him by a heroic time.

W.

SS Leitheft, Year 7, Issue 2