David Goldenberg
Anyone who wants to look at art under national socialism between 1933 – 1945 is confronted by severe problems. The first is thegGlobal ban on exhibiting art of the period because of a sense of guilt by association, and even arrest and imprisonment in some countries. The art of national socialism is also absent in the history of art, yet each day there are references in the news to national socialism and Adolf Hitler. Apart from these familiar references when we look at art of the Third Reich, we further encounter taboo and censorship; Adolf Hitler the artist and his paintings, suppression of Modernism and the 650, 000 art works stolen by the Nazis’s during the 2nd World war.
However, what we start to do immediately, and without being conscious that we are, is repeat the post war and cold war narrativ. We look at and interpret events and art through the lens of Neoliberalism and an art arena structured on a very specific understanding shaped by a specific reading of Modernism, that reduces, limits and erases other readings of art. What is missed is that the history of 1933-1945 is constantly changing, evolving and being inadequately cleaned up because scholarship is hamstrung.
Therefore, when we talk about art in the 3rd Reich we have to take into consideration the fascist wide concept of art. Mussolini for instance considered politics and art to be one-and-the-same, and that official art was the material substance of the nation state. While the fascist artist Evola considered Dada art to be a programme leading to complete emancipation, through disrupting and breaking the logic of capitalism and the victorious nations of the 1st world war. Hitler, the artist who was also a tyrant,made works of art that have been suppressed, although there are still approximately 800 works in existence, stored in the American Museum of War, and his exhibition history erased, although 15 years ago l came across an article in vogue that looked at a tour of his paintings across the USA in the 1930s. The two most famous shows, Degenerate Art and the Great German Art exhibition, that opened in Munich in 1937, addressed what is and what isn’t German art as defined by National Socialism, which exhibited the paintings of Emil Nolde. The very terms we use, Nazism, Fascism, Totalitarianism, Art, Politics, Modernism, the Avant Garde; to categorise, register and understand this material, are even today extremely difficult to define. Also certain terms are worn out, and consequently meaningless, interchangeable and unusable. And we should study the role of the media and its propaganda in fixing in place and stabilising these reading.
There are considerable differences in how art and Modernism was used and understood by National Socialism, the Fascism of Mussolini and the Fascism of Franco.
tempera on cardboard
How we understand art of that time is determined by a post war narrative that defined the art of America and Europe, and the reinvention of West Germany and West German art and its institutions. Emile Nolde, who was extracted from the history of national socialism, thus censoring other aspects of his thinking, was used among others to define art and freedom contra-communism, where Expressionism equalled Modernism, especially in the narrative told through the reconstruction of the Degenerate Art show exhibitions in San Francisco’s Museum of Contemporary Art, the Gallerie Neu in New York and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Also they established Documenta, now the largest global art exhibition in the world, formally positioned near the former Soviet East German border, to reinvent the art of Germany. And it is this normalised narrative and ideology of art that we continue to use, and that the majority of art museums and galleries in the world reproduce. So, what we have is a simplified and one-sided interpretation of art under national socialism, where the definition of art in post war Germany’s Modernism is a code for’ not Nazism’ and ‘not Communism’.
The years 1933 – 1934 can be characterised by an intense and often hostile debate and conflict between Goebbel’s, a supporter of Modernism, and collector and supporter of the works by Nolde and German Expressionism, and Rosenberg, whose tastes were conservative and nostalgic. Both had control in reshaping German culture along Nazi doctrines, into what would constitute Nazi art. With numerous exhibitions being staged in Germany that reflected these opposing ideological views of Nazism. The other key actor at this time was the Nazi student movement which strongly supported German Expressionism. At the same time the museums public displays were radically changed to reflect the Nazi revolution, resulting in the massive rehanging of works. Along with exhibition displays to shame artists not sanctioned by the state. Non-party members lost their teaching posts, were forbidden from exhibiting, and in some cases forbidden to make work. So, basically this period can be seen as a power struggle for the right to define the art of Germany, a struggle that Hitler deliberately set in motion. By the end of 1934 Hitler stepped into this power struggle to clarify exactly the function of art under National Socialism. Primarily through removing and negating art as it existed, defined by terms and categories outside Germany and the Nazi revolution. The removal of existing terms, categories and concepts meant they were able to define German art as not being Modernism, Cubism, Surrealism, Dada or Futurism, and not defined by the past, nor pre-existing non-Nazi concepts. What was instead proposed was a space for an art to only come into being out of the national socialist revolution, where art and politics became indistinguishable.
Between 1934-37 we can see the slow manifestation of what this might look like, primarily through Leni Riefenstahl’s films; the 1934 film of the Nuremberg Rallies, the Olympic games, and the art works and sculpture shown in the Paris Art fair, both in 1936. Culminating in two shows in Munich in 1937, then in 1938 a festival to define German music in Dusseldorf. This progression was intended to lead to the construction of a new art capital of the 3rd Reich in Linz, which was not realised, to show the greatest art works by western civilization. (On a separate but similar note, in 2010 a new building opened in Munich showing the archive of National Socialism.)
The Triumph of the Will made in 1934, shows the first concerted attempt at devising a filmic aesthetic of National Socialism, the dramatic depiction of new mythologies, through documenting the rise of Adolf Hitler and emergence of the new German State, around the cohesion of the German people in the rallies in Nuremberg, the former capital of the Holy Roman Empire, with 700,000 attendees. Followed by the two-part film Olympia 1. Festival of Nations and Olympia 2. Festival of Beauty made from the 1936 Berlin Olympics. And the art fair in Paris of 1936. The opening of the new building for German art in 1937, with monumental heroic figurative sculptures by Arno Breker and a monument by Albert Speer, along with the music of Bruckner, announced that a specifically national socialism art was birthing. This aesthetic of vastness or gigantism was shared with the Communist architecture of North Korea and Romania and mass rallies in the Soviet Union and North Korea.
However, the two exhibitions that opened in Munich in 1937 were intended to launch the first exhibitions of fine art of Germany as defined by National Socialism; The Degenerate Art show, at the Institute of Archaeology, Holgarten, and the Great German Aart show, in the new building the Palace of Art, designed by the architect Paul Troost, the central venue of National Socialist art policy. After the war the building was renamed Haus der Kunst. A new art magazine of German art was also launched. The Degenerate Show after it closed in Munich, toured over the next three years to a further 11 venues throughout Germany and Austria. While the German palace of art held annual shows until 1944. The principal purpose of both shows was to sell art works.
The two shows were coordinated by Goebbels, in collaboration with the curator and artist Adolf Ziegler, and openly displayed the heated and divergent opinions of Goebbel’s and Rosenberg, offering the audience an opportunity to take part in that debate. Goebbels’ notion of degenerate art was to show the Weimar art as degenerate. But also explored ideas behind Nietzsche notion of nihilism and erosion of Christianity and ideas and myths to continue civilization. Nietzsche understood this to signal the possibility of the last man or the end of man and the options of breaking that continuity, through locating new myths, just as Wagner sought, which the concept of the overman expressed. These ideas were later developed further by Heidegger in a more extreme form, in his search for recovering lost culture and thinking through the reinvention of concepts, and the language of their definition.
The opening of the exhibitions was celebrated by a pageant showing 2,000 years of German history, its renewal and re-emergence, and a speech by Hitler on the role of art in the 3rd Reich.
In the text The Work Of Art In The Age Of Mechanical Reproduction, Walter Benjamin discusses breaking the pacification of the spectator in the contemplative artwork; so how to break that role of the spectator and the bourgeois in modernist art work?
In the opening speech, to open the Great German Art show, Hitler also discussed the issue of the ‘Pacification of the viewer’ and ‘how is change brought about?’ ‘by the art or the State?’ ‘What art can everyone identify and understand?’ Which is similar to an idea of pop art, popular art and the art of Walt Disney. In that respect the work of art is intended to galvanise the worker or soldier into action, to make tangible changes, not to sit back and admire and learn from the work of art. He also questioned why modern art is so expensive and why the language to describe the art is inexplicable to the majority of people. Many of these matter of fact questions are questions that have never ceased to be asked.
And how is art understood within an aesthetic State? Is it the parades, the architecture, uniforms, state theatre, flags, symbols, speeches, cinema, the Olympics etc.,?
The Degenerate Art show showed 740 works by leading international artists and German expressionists, Matisse, Picasso, Klee, Nolde, Kandinsky, Beckman, Modigliani, Dix, Mondrian, Chagall, Kirchner. The house of German art exhibited 900 works primarily figurative art works and landscapes. Today these works are stored in Berlin.
It is difficult to retrospectively reconstruct the two shows and their intention, because the information and facts do not add up, while the information in recent exhibitions and information are factually inaccurate. If the idea was to denigrate and remove and censor art that was in opposition to the national socialist agenda, why go to so much effort to tour the work throughout Germany and give it maximum visibility? Picasso, Matisse, Munch were not persecuted during the 2nd world war. Even Oliver Cromwell, who considered the art that Charles 1st acquired, as propaganda of the catholic church, simply removed the work from public buildings and had them thrown into the streets. He banned exhibitions, theatre and festivals. The 3rd Reich thrived on them.
The two shows appear to show two distinct concepts of exhibiting art in a way that is common today, to show the conflict between a white cube and a laboratory and experimental art space, attacking or contesting the concept of the isolated object of art. It is possible to read the degenerate show in two ways: as a way of insulting the art and artists or as a humorous and provocative way of reinventing the work and making new work from the material. While the extreme provocation, replicated Dada actions, the art of Munch, it became very good advertising. The breaking down and obstructing artwork objects is also a familiar strategy used in contemporary art, and seems to work effectively. While the house of German art, architectural spaces showed us spaciousness, beauty, simplicity and grandeur that is also a common feature of contemporary large-scale exhibition. The problem arises from recent descriptions of the show where we are explicitly instructed how to read and understand the works, because this goes against the common expectation that a viewer or anyone educated in art is able to read the material and make up their own mind, so the obvious contradiction here is that they are repeating what they consider to be a problem in the first place, by imposing a dictatorial interpretation. they also dangerously under-estimate the incipient fascism in the contemporary art-arena.
In 1938 Hitler considered the two shows to have failed in providing the answer to what is a work of art ?, that embodies a national socialist concept of art, and indeed, artists favoured by the Nazis, agreed that no definition of a Nazi work of art had been defined. While the responses to the shows were mixed and conflicting, local artists and curators considered the shows to be kitsch while a New York critic agreed with the view that Modernism and Expressionist art is degenerate.
The Royal Academy in London in the 1930s also contested Modernism, and the art of Paris, including Cubism, Picasso, Expressionism, Abstraction, Matisse, and retained the style of the arts and crafts movement. Are we to jump to the conclusion that they also showed sympathy with Nazi Germany? Or should we recognise that there were organisations then and today who contest this reading of Modernism, and the direction art took and that there are invisible histories of art. By saying this l am not condoning this reading, but l am suggesting that they had a valid ‘art’ point of view and it is worth while looking at this hidden and invisible work. And it could also be argued that Post Modernism embodied just this point of view and it could also be viewed as a form of fascist art.
It is difficult to comprehend the significance of the Degenerate Art show in contributing to the formation of post war western art. It was the most successful exhibition in the history of art history, as claimed in the books and texts on the Degenerate Art show, in terms of visitor numbers, with an estimated 3,000,000 visitors to the Degenerate Art show, while the house of German art attracted 1,500,000 visitors.
Nolde, who is one of the most widely known and popular artist in recent years, was used as the model of art to redefine and rebuild Western art after the 2nd world war, that is until 2017, when research revealed that not only was Nolde a member of the Nazi party and that he made a fortune after 1927 in Germany but that he was also a vehement anti-Semite, leading to the significant damage of his reputation and role in German culture. This made a mockery of the mythology that was built around Nolde in order to rebuild western art.
Recent research has also shown that de-nazification didn’t work and was just for public consumption, and that former Nazi members were integrated back into society or played a significant role in the global war on Communism that started the day the 2nd World War finished. And that the taboo and censorship of Nazism was intended to divert attention away from the continued presence of Nazism, and also worked to suppress the public gaze, contributing to the increased erosion of civil liberties, leading to the dangerous situation we are in now with a new mass blanket censoring, cancelling of art exhibitions, mass sacking of lecturers and the closing of art schools.
Benjamin Buchloh in his lecture in 2012, reflecting on the history of the Haus der Kunst and the Great German art show of 1937 and in his article on Expressionism in the 1980s, countered the view made by recent critics that Expressionism constituted an advanced art form. Instead he recognised expressionism as a regressive mindless art form, that has had a terrible influence on recent art. He also, in the same way that Pasolini did in the mid 1970s, showed that Fascism and Nazism, does not constitute the problem for art today, but instead it is commodification and commodity culture, that creates the standardised homogeneous and regimented lives we lead, and threatens to destroy art as absolutely as the post-war states thought Nazism would do.
Views with which I agree.