The Art of Hitler

Author(s): Steven Kasher

Source: October, Vol. 59 (Winter, 1992), pp. 48-85
Published by: The MIT Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/778831
Accessed: 24-08-2018 14:45 UTC

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 The Art of Hitler*

STEVEN KASHER

This project presents a sampling of artifacts from a collection

cally entitled "The Art of Hitler." Assembled in Manhattan over th
years, the collection contains several hundred items. It was exhibit
University in early 1991. This photo/text essay follows in large part
of that exhibition: Part One documents Nazi visual culture; Part Two demon-
strates some ways that Nazi culture has surfaced in recent years.
Only a few of the documents from each of the various sections have been
selected for reproduction here because of space constraints. Footnotes and most
citations have also been omitted; they are available from the artist upon request.

Part One

Hitler Designs the Swastika Flag

The swastika, though ancient in origin and found in many cultures world-
wide, was no longer merely a benign symbol of life and sun in the Germany of
1920. Since the turn of the century the swastika had been appropriated by
various vilkisch, anti-Semitic, and reactionary groups. It had achieved wide-
spread currency as a symbol of these groups by the time Hitler in turn appro-
priated it.
It is little appreciated that the Nazi swastika flag was designed by Hitler
himself-in Munich in 1920. He describes its origin and meaning in Mein Kampf
(vol. 2, chap. 7), explaining how each color and shape was selected, and con-

* I would like to acknowledge the generous help I have received from dozens of people over
the last several years in collecting, researching, writing, editing, and mounting "The Art of Hitler"
in its various formats. For invaluable suggestions and constructive criticisms, I thank Martha
Buskirk, Hal Foster, Atina Grossman, Hans Haacke, Andy Miller, Diane Neumaier, Christopher
Phillips, Anson Rabinbach, Martha Rosler, Sally Stein, Yocheved Weinfeld, and, particularly,
Benjamin Buchloh.

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and aunt. Display of German flags. (Ph

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1;

THE EXTRAORDINARY STORY

cluding: "[We see] in the swastika the mission of struggle for the v
Aryan man, and, by the same token, the victory of the idea of cr
which as such always has been and always will be anti-Semitic."
Three "struggles," three "victories," are equated in Hitler's exp
the meaning of the swastika: that of "the Aryan man," anti-Semitis
idea of creative work." The latter refers to the notion of an aestheticization of
labor and social relations that would negate class conflicts and unite the V
To Hitler, the swastika symbolized the struggle for a totalized society rigi
stratified along sexual, racial, and class lines. It stood for a program of aggre
racial, sexual, and cultural purification, a struggle toward a single transcen
culture. Nazism called for the imposition of this culture across Europe and
world. Whatever lesser cultures stood in the way were to be expunged.
On September 15, 1935, Hitler convened a special session of the Reichs
in Nuremberg to mark the closing of the annual party congress. Among t
"Nuremberg Laws" promulgated that day were: a law proclaiming the swas
flag the sole state flag of Germany; a law depriving those subjects no
"German or cognate blood" of citizenship; and the Law for the Protecti
German Blood and German Honor, which forebade marriage between
and Germans, sexual relations between Jews and Germans, the employmen
Jews of German female domestic servants under forty-five years of age, an
flying of the German national flag by Jews.

Detail of book jacket. Robert Harris, Selling Hitler (New York:

Pantheon, 1986). (Illustration: Susannah Kelly; design: Louise Fili.)

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 The Art of Hitler 51

The Art of Adolf Hitler

Between the ages of nineteen and twenty-five Adolf Hitler worked as an

artist. He painted and sold watercolors of views of Vienna and Munich. He
produced several commercial advertisement and poster designs.
Hitler continued to produce art and design in his years as a soldier (1914-
18), as propaganda head of the Nazi party (1920-22), as leader of the Nazi
party (1923-33), and as Fiihrer (Leader) of national socialist Germany (1933-
45).
Hitler's drawings and paintings depict architectural monuments and ruins
in an amalgam of conventional styles. Human figures are awkwardly rendered,
diminutive, and scarce.
No other modern person has exercised the same degree of personal con-
trol over the visual culture of his nation as did Hitler. He did not, however,
control all aspects of the visual arts under the Third Reich; other separate
interests were also at work.

A watercolor by Hitler as reproduced on the 1984 catalog jacket for The Wate
Colours of Hitler, ed., Amilcare Bardi (Florence: Fratelli Alinari, 1984).

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 ...............k

ik ii

::: :: :::

Ak?i:ii

The Day of German Art, the House of German Art,

and the Great German Art Exhibitions, 1937-45
In 1937 the Nazis consummated their takeover of the visual arts in Ger-
many. Various factions-those for and against the incorporation of G
Expressionism, for instance-had been brought into consensus. A peri
relative cultural liberality instituted to impress foreign visitors to th
Olympic Games was terminated. A demonstrable Nazi style was compo
for display at the German Pavilion of the 1937 Paris International Exposi
1937 was the year that the Nazis inaugurated their major representat
art institutions, foremost among them the House of German Art, a new n
museum of contemporary German art, located in Munich. The building it
had been the first official architectural project initiated by the new Nazi s
commissioned by Hitler in 1933 from his favorite architect, Paul Ludwig T
It was designed to hold two annual juried exhibitions: the Great German
Exhibition (of new painting, sculpture, and graphics) and the German Ar
tecture and Crafts Exhibition.
July 16 was proclaimed the Day of German Art, a yearly holiday a
parade planned to coincide with the openings of the Great German Art annu
Hitler presided over the opening festivities, as he did over the juries that sele
the exhibited artworks. The annual party/state line on acceptable art pract
was in large part communicated through these selections. The placement of
works within the major or lesser galleries, their prices, whether or not they
purchased by the state, which official or office made the purchase: all of t
practices were used to establish a hierarchy of favor.
Die Kunst im Dritten Reich (Art in the Third Reich), an official nation
magazine devoted to contemporary art, was also founded in 1937; Albert Sp
Richard Klein, and other associates of Hitler were appointed as editors.

Parade celebrating the opening of the House of German Art, Munich, 1937.
From Les Realismes (Paris: Centre Georges Pompidou, 1979).

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 The Art of Hitler 53

Two Emblems: Na
An emblem of Nazi art was
art institutions. This emblem
and was issued on medals and
holidays. It was designed by
Nazi art world.

The logo of Nazi art combines three symbols: a burning torch, the hel-
meted head of Athena/Minerva, and the imperial eagle bearing a swastika
wrapped in an oak wreath. The torch stands for Promethean creativity; Athen
represents the continuity of Aryan culture; the eagle with swastika signifies th
imperial anti-Semitic state. Except for the swastika, which now had becom
specifically German, these symbols were widely employed, with varying conno-
tations, throughout Europe and the U.S. in the 1930s.
Klein designed other emblems, including several for the Day of Labor, a
holiday the Nazis devised to replace May Day. Several Day of Labor emblem
appropriate the socialist hammer and sickle; in one example they are conjoined
to a bust of Goethe and the Nazi eagle-and-swastika. The holiday and the
emblem were parts of an energetic campaign to win over to Nazism its oppo-
nents among the German workers.

it'

.....i... ii. ii.

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KUN
Above: Medal for the Tag der Arbeit (Day of Labor
1934. (Design: Richard Klein.)

Left: Official catalog of the first Grosse Deutsche

Kunstausstellung (Great German Art Exhibit)
(Munich: Knorr und Hirth, 1937). (Design and
illustration: Richard Klein.)

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 . . .... .... - -------- i----iiiii-ii--ii-;i i - " .................. .

;; iii
NOiiiii

.. . ....... .........

::!![ !!iiii,

:; -

Ein neues Denkmal nationalsozialis

wie die Sch6pfungen des verstorbe
parteitaggelandes in Nirnberg, s
sein. Wir Bauleute sind stolz darau

Un nouveau monument, conceptio

Ainsi que les creations 6 Munich
professeur Troost, cette construct
executeurs, nous sommes fiers qu

By will of the "Fihrer", a new mo

as the creations of the late maste
Day Field in Nuremberg, so too
construction people are proud to

Un nuovo monumento impront

volont6 del Fihrer. Come le cre
dell'Assemblea del Partito a Nori
tedesca. Noi costruttori siamo fi

The frontispiece of an unoffici

Paris International Exposition
pavilion. From Heinrich Hoff
1937). Speer won the Grand Pri
of the Nuremberg Reichspartei

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 The Art of Hitler 55

The Architec
Albert Speer was the lea
grandson of successful arch
Technology in Berlin unde
teaching assistants. Tessenow
teacher, of a radically simpl
Tessenow with flamboyant i
the Third Reich, Trevor How
Speer.)
In 1931 Speerjoined the Nazi party and received his first Nazi commission:
to redecorate the interiors of the district headquarters in the Grunewald section
of Berlin. After the Nazi seizure of the German state in 1933, Speer went to
work first for Goebbels, the minister of propaganda, and then for Hitler, who
was by then involved in numerous architectural projects. When Troost, Hitler's
favorite architect, died in 1934, Speer took his place and remained close to
Hitler ever after.

Speer became the chief architect in the Third Reich, occupying several
official posts. He was a major proponent of the resurgent state-sponsored
neoclassicisms of the industrialized nations in the 1930s and '40s. In his hands
the authoritarian and racist components of this tradition were exacerbated.
While retaining his posts as chief architect, Speer was also appointed by
Hitler in the midst of the war as minister of armaments and munitions. His zeal
in this critical office earned Speer such epithets as "the second man in the
Reich" (Eugene Davidson) and the "real criminal of Nazi Germany" (Hugh
Trevor-Roper). In his dual offices Speer supervised a wide range of state
architectural and construction projects, including the reconstruction of the
capital city of Berlin. The New Berlin was being rebuilt as the capital not only
of Germany but also of the Nazi world empire. Speer projected the expenses
in tens of billions of Reichsmarks. Gargantuan monumental structures were to
be constructed from extra-thick stone walls, according to the "theory of ruin-
value," which mandated that the eventual ruins of the thousand-year Nazi Reich
would be as impressive as the Roman ruins that Speer and Hitler admired.
At the same time, Speer oversaw the construction of the concentration,
slave-labor, and elimination camps, such as the one at Auschwitz. In March of
1943, after a personal visit to the Mauthausen camp, he initiated an extensive
review of construction procedures at all concentration camps as part of an effort
to conserve scarce materials. In response to the review Speer ordered the
erection of thinner plank walls for prisoners' housing units. On May 30, 1943,
however, Speer authorized a special allocation of metal pipe for construction
and sanitation at the Auschwitz camp. He concluded this order with the follow-
ing handwritten remarks: "I am delighted that the inspection of the other
concentration camps resulted in a highly positive picture."

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 Dtrto,.l.Idc' SI5t,, 0lo0

no. r! b I
Berlin-Charlottenurg 2
=zr, den 3o. 5.4
Dies. Bausisenangen aind nor flr den Ausbau
DER REICHSMINIST ERden ee ir.
BEWAFFNUNG UNO MUNITION der KZ-Lager, inehesoadere Auschwitz, sou verenden.
GB 26/l-1nn27 T c.x'ei ml FQr zusitzliche Behelfabanhsanahan filr die uifatel-

lung euer Divisionen der Iaffen-0 kann ich leider

An den
keine waitere Baneisseneagen zutellen. Der Bedarf
Herrn eichafiihrer H und Chef
der Deutschen Polisei H i a n 1 a r
asB aus den in Rahn a des Gesatbhauiseankontingentes

des GB-Ban an die H sugetailten Mengen entnoamn wer-

Prinz-Albrecht-Str. 8
den. Die linselfragen der Zuteilung werden zsischen

Ihro Dinastatellen and seiner Bohatoffatelle gere-

Betr.: Baueisenkontineant fir 1), insbesondere -LZ
Lager AuschVits.
gelt. Die Beachaffung der Besugachaine fir 1 ooo t

Lieber Partaigenosse H i na 1 a r I Guhohre, aeorie der Tereand der uaserleitungerohre

ist bersits in die lego galettet.

Auf Grund der vorliegenden Berichte und der
Besichtigung dee KZ-Lagere Auschwitz durch seine Herren
Desch und Sander bin ich bereit, ilber die in III/43 aei E t 1 arI
zur Verfilgung gestellte Baueisenmenge in H Rha on
45o0 oto fir den Bedarf is Reichsgebiet und 18o noto
filr den Bedarf in den aneschloseenen und besetzten Ge-
bieten einaalig folgende Mangen zuzuteilen:

1.) 1 ooo t Bausisenbesugerechts.

2.) 1 ooo t GuBrohre, fir die die u aus ihrem Sri
Gesamotkontingent- To t Eisenbezugsrechte zur
Verfilgung atellt.
3.) Rd. loo t 'lasserleitunagsohre 1/2 " aus /k1 4d4h41
dena Vlerlgongsager des GB-Bau in HBam.
4.) Rundatahl 8 - 2o m an us artstahl in der
3
eroTraTe-ilhen leng-e.
. . ..... .. . ..--- , __ /0'L? 31 :6W I

The Sculpture of Arno Breker

Arno Breker, the premier sculptor of the Third Reich, had studied sculp-
ture in Paris and Berlin. His early work, in an expressionist-classicist style, was
influenced by Maillol, Despiau, Kolbe, and others. Breker came to the attention
of the Nazi hierarchy after his statue Decathlete won second prize in the sculpture
competition of the 1936 Olympics held in Berlin.
After 1938, sponsored by his friend Albert Speer, Breker was awarded
the majority of the major state sculpture commissions-for the Zeppelinfeld in
Nuremberg and for the Reichschancellery and the Arch of Triumph in Berlin.
These statutes by Breker were, and still are, considered the most typical Nazi
art and have been widely reproduced both then and now.
Breker's best-known works belong to a nineteenth-century European tra-
dition of sculpting a "decent and respectable" (George Mosse) male nudity as a
symbol of national strength and purity. These monuments featuring male nudes
were erected to symbolize a nation young, natural, healthy, and moral: the
Nation Before the Fall. Such statues were designed to convey the "natural"
harmoniousness of nationhood and of the bourgeois family. They were images
of chaste and self-controlled virility: their sexuality is never that of passionate
love; rather, it is sublimated in a desexualized male bonding, in sport, or in
martial posturing.

Memo from Speer to Himmler approving a requisition of building

materials for Auschwitz. From Matthias Schmidt, Albert Speer,
The End of a Myth (New York: Collier, 1982).

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 :AA All

....

. . .. . .. . .. .
dnni

iiiii~iiiii!ii' A ii "i'

Siiiiiii 4'

Between these earlier monuments and those of Breker, exp

Aryanism had intervened. Breker portrays a new passion,
through his characteristic swelling and tightening of body part
uncircumcised one. It is as if sexual excitation has been drained f
and used to pump up the limbs and torso: the whole figure be
As before, this energy suggests no outlet in love. Rather, a
observed, these are musclemen who are acting as guards; t
primed to release a potential blow. What they guard is Fiihrer,
-and Manhood itself. They are projections of an Aryan mas
equated with power.
Breker's statues can be understood as antitypes, purposi
certain preexisting stereotypes. They were erected to stand re
whole array of those defined by the Nazis as Untermenschen,
Negros, women, homosexuals, moderns, Bolsheviks, and urban
Using renowed athletes for models, Breker helped to dissem
type that is an antecedent of the "fascist body" (Hilton Als) bu
gym.

A pair of statues by Breker: Partei (Party) and Wehrmacht (Armed

Forces), the most important sculptural commission installed during the
Nazi dictatorship. From B. John Zavrel, Arno Breker His Art and Life
(Amherst: West-Art, 1983). The statues were renamed Swordbearer and
Torchbearer for this American promotional publication.

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 Dos Fernsehen
AmLM6rz 1936er6 to die Deutsche
Reichspost dos Fern sehgogensprechen out
der Strecke Berl!tin--6pig.Dies ist die
erste nd einzige etiebsnrih de
ser Art in der Welt
Noch dem ErloB des ibhrers wurde der
Fernsehruodfunk im Johre 1935 eingefohrtl
iiI~i~ii iiiii-i-i + i:i-"i~
Frden ote hnischenwAubo des Fernsehens
ist die De e Reih chpost zus lndigg den
Programebetrieb nimnt die Reichs Rund
SfunkGe selschafi wahr.
Int12ffentlichen Fernsehsele IoB tine rswird

pde eutschenVolksgenoe sen unentgetlich

der Fernsehrundfunk vorgefthrt. ei den
OlympischenSpielen im Johre 1936 w rden
die sporttichen Kampfe durch den Fernseh
sender bbertrage e
Frdie tetwiung des Fern ehens 1st

worden,

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gi-

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epre sermisit936,
allemand opostre
inauguroil sur lI Ett
la igne Berlin-
Leipzig lo television tele phoniq . Coest oa
premiere et to ee einstallation de ce
genre dons le monode.
~i~ii:;i:?isji~:!ii+ 2": i:~: :::??;j::?_: :~-; ?;;:: -- ?-j:;-
La ro io-t e : i let f intr site e

de IEtot ol emand est comp tente poor la

construction technique de lo to Ivision; la

SReIichs-Rundfunk-Gestllschaft tetablit le
::.:: : :::: ': -:':::::i~ii, :: . !.i:!:i': . !L;: iir " i"i~ programme.
Dans 12 stations publiques de t6.?vision de
Berlin, ta radio-toevision est presentee
gratuitement auxs itoyens allemands. ors
des Jeux Olympiques de 1926 les luties
sportives furentretra smies par tlWvisionf

Onafond Berlin, lepremnier jonvier1937,

n einstitution de recheches de Ia Poste
de I'Eot allemand pour le d6veloppement

de la t6loisiono

Television
O Mn I I the Dentsce Re o opened he etevision totelephone-service on the line Berlin-Leipzig, This is th
'Cke of islskinditheworld.
ot h edcre oft the hrer the television-broadcast was introduced in 1935. The competent authority for the technicl deveolop
menototelevisionisthe Deuc1 i eesit0the pogra mme isbeingtgkens careofby the Rel s-Rue lfusts- e schIt,
1 twelvePblitotele Is o-slotoonnttelob - roa cost inperforbed or Germn iti o Iensfee ofcorge. On the sc ca nof the Olympic
Girns 93otesportiveocontentswere foosrot ted by Ie eletoisiontrnsm05ii or.

.or e.further .devetopmento fet evsio n mthe dre se r .instituteeo t he Deut t h Reichlos on w founded in Berlin on Januory Ist 1937

La televisione
It 1. Maro 1936 to Deutsche Reilhspost inougur6 le comnicdionoi etefoniche con televisiones ullo linea Berlino-ipsin E questa lna p
esolIn instottazo e del genete i uto 1bit eondo.
feleisie perro 1 i intiodotto et 15con decreto del Fhrer nEssan& di competenz 0dello Deutsche ReichspoOto I proorammi sono
tregolati do Reichs Rundfunk-Gesellsthofti-t i
A Serlino, in 12 osltoni pubbliche di televisione vengonogro ltomeA opvesentlte tamisioni diteteoisionoe. Dor tnel dhi tim

.Weton.o 6.o*. ore fono

londe oit1,"ennuon1937a tr smeoseccon
lIno 11ttntotdi qdesto meoReb- spool......
rl erce deltaDeutche - A tine di spiostpore noI nomissiono del mm ginadintononfu

A photomontage purporting to represent a working videophone system. From

Heinrich Hoffman, Deutschland in Paris (Munich: F. Bruckmann, 1937).

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 The Art of Hitler 59

Nazi Media

The expanding Nazi party of the 1920s and early '30s had develop
extremely effective propaganda techniques operative in the public sp
These were low-budget and improvisational; they were centrally organized
locally tailored and funded; and they were based on the convening of meet
ranging from the very small to the very large and spectacular.
A critical element of the Nazi seizure of power in 1933 was the progra
matic Gleichschaltung (coordination) of the communications media. The pr
and radio, the film and photo industries were mobilized in order to reprod
expand, and institutionalize the earlier forms of Nazi propaganda.
Radio broadcasting was organized as an efficient means of garnering o
dience and consent. Inexpensive receivers, the Volksempfiinger, were deve
manufactured, and marketed under an intensive effort initiated by the Min
of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment.
Under the Nazis, the German film studios produced large number
films featuring various combinations of entertainment and propaganda. Be
ning in 1934, Hitler, Himmler, Goebbels, and Speer were closely involv
the production of The Triumph of the Will, which was directed by Leni Riefenst
The world's first multiline public television broadcast was organized by
Propaganda Ministry to televise the closing festivities of the 1936 Berlin O
pics. In 1937 the German state apparently exhibited a videophone in
pavilion at the Paris International Exposition. "On March Ist 1936 the Deuts
Reichspost opened the television-telephone-service on the line Berlin-Le
This is the first and only service of its kind in the world." It is not clear wh
this service was ever more than a propagandistic fantasy.
The national socialist party/state eventually achieved control of all me
activities in Germany.

Nazi Photography
The transition from Weimar to Nazi photography entailed a com
mixture of continuity, change, and rupture. Many German photograph
the pre-Nazi era participated in an antisocialist, racist, misogynist, and nat
alist ideology. Their views and practices were readily incorporated into
photography. Other photographers who had been active in Weimar Ger
did not cooperate with the new regime. These photographers were not allo
to publish or exhibit their work; they were driven out of business and
seclusion or exile, or they were imprisoned or murdered.
A particular Nazi style of photography was developed, as evidenced in
successive issues of the photographic annual Das Deutsche Lichtbild. This st
was characterized by a special blend of monumentalism and threat. The ove
riding theme of this photography was the resolution of social conflicts thro
the nation, through "creative work," and through war.

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Pages from the photographic annual Das Deutsche Lichtbild (German
photography), published in Berlin from 1927 through 1938. Displayed here
is a chronological sampling of representative images of men and women.

iiii~~ii!iiiiiii~i~iii~ii!!ii!iiiii~i~iii!ii~i~iiii!i iiiiiii! ! ! !iiiiiii!i~ !i iiii

.................... ............ ................

MINE..

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Das Deutsche Lichtbild 1930. Above: Eduard Das Deutsche Lichtbild 1931. Above: Geiringer-
Schlochauer, Gas. Below: Hannes Flach, In the Horowitz, Carry Hauser. Below: Ludwig Ferdinand
Studio. Clauss, South Arabian Jew.

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 The Art of Hitler 61

Das Deutsche Lichtbild 1932. Above: Elsbeth Das Deutsche Lichtbild 1934. Above: Heinrich
Gropp, Bookworm. Below: Martin Hiirlimann, Hoffman, Hermann Goering. Below: Emil Kies
Elderly Indian in the Peschawar Bazaar. Portrait of a Lady.

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 62 OCTOBER

Das Das Deutsche Lichtbild 1938. Above:Lic

Deutsche Hannes
Ferdinand Clauss,
Schmitt, Sculptor. Below: Georg Ludwig Hahn
Hahn, Pimpfe.
Anonymous, Unti

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 The Art of Hitler 63

Heinrich Hof
Nazi Phot
Heinrich Hoffman, born
the Munich revolutions of 1919-20, when a Workers' and Soldiers' Soviet took
power only to be soon repressed by the Weimar Republic and its Freikorps
mercenaries, Hoffman went into business selling photographs of the historic
events and their protagonists. He began a photo service to distribute the pic-
tures, and he published them as postcards and booklets.
In the 1920s Hoffman was drawn to Hitler and became his friend and
associate. He documented the rise of the Nazi party. In 1933 he was appoint
by Hitler as the first and only Reichsbildberichterstatter (national photojournalis
He had the exclusive right to issue photographs of Hitler. Hoffman ra
enormous photo business, employing numerous photographers (who remain
anonymous), publishing many photo books, and distributing his pictures t
press through his own agency. He became very wealthy.
Besides his duties as official photographer, Hoffman performed m
other functions for Hitler as well. He arranged for Hitler to be paid royalt
for each use of his image on postage stamps, which became a main sour
Hitler's immense personal wealth. Hoffman introduced Hitler to one of
studio assistants, Eva Braun, who became Hitler's mistress. He helped H
select the art works to be exhibited in the annuals held at the House of German
Art. Hoffman acted as an art dealer, selling Hitler many paintings for his
collection, which was meant to become the basis of the world's greatest art
museum.

*-2

.* ..i;.ii ......

20 pf

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 Heinrich Hoffman: Portrait of Marcel Duchamp. From
RudolfHerz and Dirk Halfbrodt, Revolution Und
Fotografie: Munchen 1918-19 (Munich: Munchner
Stadtmuseum, 1988).

......

. . ......

lii:-;iii--iiM u r W

The inscription reads: "To the battles: Munich.

A loyal East-African fighter. Freikorps Letow-
Vorbeck. May, 1919. (Photo: Heinrich
Hoffman.)

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Hoffman.)

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 The Art of Hitler 65

Museology, Arc
Art Collectin
The study, collection, diss
all controlled from the hig
Goering, Himmler, and oth
Plunder for personal or p
Of greater importance was
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In the Karl May Museum, near Dresden, after 1933. The sign by the window
reads: "Dogs and Niggers not allowed." From John Toland, Hitler: The
Pictorial Documentary of His Life (New York: Ballantine, 1976).

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 U~tfn

!ESSE~OWENS..NAC 503-tIR.E

Part Two

The Taboo Against Nazi Art I

In Germany since 1974, Nazi art has frequently been displayed in mu-
seums in the context of antifascist historical exhibitions. Germans have been
discussing Nazi art and what to do with it. This widespread public discuss
has been explicitly and complexly related to the struggle of Germans of
various generations to deal with their past and to forge a new national iden
Still, Nazi art has not yet been publicly exhibited as art even in Germany.
In the United States the taboo against exhibiting Nazi art is even str
An exhibition entitled "'Degenerate Art': The Fate of the Avant-Garde in
Germany" was recently shown at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Art Institute of Chicago, and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. I
an ambitious, informative re-creation of the infamous 1937 Munich show
banned modern art, a show that the Nazis mounted to counterpoint the op
of the first Great German Art Exhibition at the House of German Art. As
"'Degenerate Art"' demonstrated, the fate of the avant-garde in Nazi Ge
was to be mocked, hounded out, and replaced. Yet the replacement, Nazi
though repeatedly invoked, was but negligibly represented in the recen
bition, with only some ephemera on display and a half dozen small photo
in the extensive catalog. The sole full-page reproduction of a Nazi work
catalog, a photograph of Breker's Readiness, is misdated to 1937 rath
1939. This is a crucial misrepresentation of Breker's work and of Nazi a
general in respect to its iconography of war, revealing a strange inattent
the part of the curators to the brief chronology of Nazi art.
A taboo against the exhibition of Nazi art as such remains in force th
out the world. Yet there is a continuous return of the repressed: the fo
sections will offer some further examples, reflecting a variety of nationa
tutional, and personal histories.

Jesse Owens receiving oak-sapling trophies and "50 years later."

A cartoon from an album on the 1936 Olympic Games, Die Olympishen
Spiele 1936 (Hamburg: Cigaretten-Bilderdienst, 1936).

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 S
A
L
U
T
E
AMERICA

1 The Angels of Light 1983

57x39 cm
SALUTE AMERICA has been published on the occasion of the 300th Anniversary
of German immigration to America.
The original lithographs were created by Arno Breker. The text was written by
President Ronald Reagan, Vice President George Bush, West German President
Prof. Dr. Karl Carstens and West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl.
183

Announcement of the publication of a suite of lithographs by Arno Breker. From

B. John Zavrel, Arno Breker: His Art and Life (Amherst: West-Art, 1983)

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 68 OCTOBER

"The Wa
In 1984 the
entitled "Th
was issued in
show was mo
of the city f
symbol of th
of the six te
fascists." Rat
evil Nazis ov
In another
with being a
a certain cur
tationi."' In o
postmoderni
In a third text, a critic writes: "Hitler's water colours are ... in fact,
lightweight works which any young art student could have produced. Any young
art student, that is, who was devoid of any exceptional gifts or any artistic talent.
Thus may the matter be quickly disposed of. Nor, on the other hand, could it
be otherwise: Hitler is what he is, as we all know him. Anything further such
as we are about to say is idle reflection, 'degenerate' fantasy."
In all three of these descriptions, Hitler's watercolors are used to cast
blame or to expiate guilt. These texts from "The Water Colours of Hitler"
exemplify ways that certain people-people from Western European countries
that colluded with the Nazis-have used Nazi art to distance their own histories
rather than to examine them.

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 ll :w

'I'

:i i! ::

i kl

-;

I;

iiii!- :i i

Piazza della Republicca, Florence,

di Hitler" (the watercolors of Hit

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 ::::i::~~ :;:;i:~~2~~~~~~
$:;A~ ~ ~ Ag~~i

L~~~~~~~s~ ~ rB "~l~* ~ ~ b~ I
---ii~i ~----------~

hit,
Ifl~4I
Ix~~Rbae~ i:f~~iIi?)~1 I

Ford- Ford-Kiefer

Henry Ford was the one American that Hitler professed to a

was impressed with Ford's productive-technological achievements an
anti-Semitism. Hitler seems to have derived sections of Mein Kampf
writings. On July 30, 1938, his seventy-fifth birthday, Ford was pr
the Grand Cross of the German Eagle, the highest award that H
grant.
Ford admired Hitler as well. According to one of Ford's biographers,
David L. Lewis, "if any one American were to be singled out for his contribution
to the evils of Nazism, it would have to be Henry Ford." Ford continued to
support the Nazis even after the outbreak of war in 1939.
After the war, the Ford Motor Company, under Henry's son Edsel, un-
dertook a well-publicized espousal of liberal causes, particularly civil rights. The
Ford Foundation has contributed to numerous progressive projects.
Yet, as late as 1989, the public relations arm of the Ford Motor Company
was still involved with some sort of correction of the notorious anti-Semitic and
pro-Nazi activities of the company's founder. Ford's sponsorship of the Amer-
ican tour of the Anselm Kiefer exhibition, undertaken in partnership with the
West German government, must be considered in this light (notwithstanding
other motivations that were, of course, involved).
The touring Kiefer exhibition was the most grandiose and expensive show-
ing of any living European artist produced since the end of the Second World
War. Kiefer is an artist known for his attempts to exorcise Germany's Nazi past
with aesthetic resolutions. He has received exorbitant accolades, primarily from
the United States. For instance: "Kiefer's imagination reunited Germany before

Goethe-Hitler-Ford. From John Toland, Hitler: The Pictorial

Documentary of His Life (New York: Ballantine, 1976).

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 The Art of Hitler 71

the fact. . . . Kiefer made Ger

took the taboo off it. Kiefer's work embodied a consciousness true to the best
and chastened by the worst of the German past and therefore fit for an integral
future. Kiefer may not have changed the world, but ..." (Peter Schjeldahl, Art
in America, September 1991).
Kiefer creates monumental icons that incorporate images drawn from the
German Romantic-Nazi tradition; he treats these images with an ambiguous
awe that suggests both dread and admiration. In their mythification and lack
of concrete historicity, they offer little space for working through, as opposed
to magically resolving, the German historic burden.

Something big is happening at The Museum of Modern Art.

But the huge scale of Anselm Kiefers work

is only a small part ol his art Kiefer paints
public memories mixed with private dreamrs-
as he siuns the Comfort of Custom and
fashion. Only 43 years old, he has already
challenged Europes ideas of what an
artist is and does Now New York can

AI.NSELN'KIE.1FER AREI ROisI:..:'-;-::;SP; I?;:fVE:

A .ELM KIEFER:A RETROSPECTIV
United States.And The
K Museum of Modem
?Wl?( ;3S!Tes 'Ne tvk,?N,
21,2
Art is thefinal stop 708-948011-1--!
on its American tour -~:-1-
Kiefer's work demonstrates that boundaries.
ftime and place need not be barriersto
c 'etivi That is why Ford Motor Company is
proud to sponsor this exhibition

Advertisement for Anselm Kiefer exhibition and Ford Motor

Company. New York Times Magazine, October 16, 1988.

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72 OCTOBER

Speer
Leon Krier is
ghostwriter t
chitecture and
the prince on
Krier's most
of Albert Sp
postmodern c
architecture b
architecture
linked, rather
took occasion

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Two images from Leon Krier, Albert Speer Architecture 1932-1942 (Brussels:
Aux Archives d'Architectures Modernes, 1984). Opposite: the frontispiece, depicting
Speer and Hitler reviewing architectural plans (cropping and book design by
Krier). Below: "Architecture and destiny," an illustration by Krier.

ARC HiTECTURE + DESTIN

7 j-

A.t) M - 193r 3 -1945 1945---- -

IDEE IDEE /DEE
-eCLG C ?Il~vA/ V L e n - cu

Designers for Dorset

The Prince of Wales meets Leon Krier
part in working party discussions.
and John Thompson at last weekend's
An exhibition exit poll by User
planning think-in in Dorset. More than
Research, a Hunt Thompson sub-
1,200 people saw Leon Krier's
sidiary, disclosed that 67 per cent
masterplan for the
thought theexpansion
public participation of
Dorchester, the county town,
exercise had been useful, whileby
another the
close of the two-day public
16 per cent thoughtexhibition
it worthwhile.
at the County Museum on Monday
More than90 per cent said they wanted
night. to see further consultation.
The scheme, for four model villages Full report and pictures, back page
to the west of the town, is intended to
house 8,000 people over the next 15 to
20 years, on Duchy of Cornwall land.
Prince Charles, who as Duke of
Cornwall commissioned Krier last
year, made a surprise Visit by helicopter
to the Poundbury Planning Weekend,
organised by Hunt Thompson as
community development consultants,
last Friday. He spent 90 minutes taking

From an article about a development

project of Krier and Prince Charles,
Building Design, June 23, 1989.

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Hitler, Speer, Breker, and a cameraman in front of the Eiffel Tower, June 1940,
several days after the surrender of France to the German armies. Hitler celebrated
his greatest military victory with an "art tour" of Paris and invited three of his favorite
cultural practitioners to accompany him. The tour was widely publicized in Germany.
From Robert Wernick, Blitzkreig (Alexandria: Time-Life, 1977).

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 The Art of Hitler 75

Breker
Peter Ludwig is the mos
directorial positions in at
in over thirty, and at leas
In the 1940s, while a tee
Reiner Speck, "a sort of cu
was sent to a conference i
installed at the Ministry o
Ludwig has sought to inc
In 1984 Ludwig commissio
and his wife. During the
Ludwig in Cologne, he call
postmodernism, claiming:
trend. .... Postmodern-wh
has also purchased earlier
Ludwig, though these rem

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Ludwig, Breker, and Breker's busts of Mr. and Mrs. Ludwig,

Art News, April 1988. (Photo: Sven Simon.)

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 76 OCTOBER

Thy
Fritz Thyss
early financi
money hims
has been calle
power" (Curr
In 1928, afte
to renovate
modern styl
House" and se
ture, and des
Fritz Thysse
Baron Hans H
wealthiest in
private hand
sionists, "whi
'degenerate.'"
In 1988 Der Spiegel revealed that the baron had commissioned portrait
busts of himself and his wife from Arno Breker, whose work he particularly
likes even though Breker was not banned by the Nazis.

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.............................l

r. RIVAI PUPPET
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Left: Photomontage representing the importance of Fritz Thyssen in the Nazi hierarchy.
From M. Lincoln Schuster, ed., Eyes on the World (New York: Simon and Schuster,
1935). Right: Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza. From Architectural Digest, October 1987.

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 ,m., m?,,m p ws ge,e i Ge..........~v

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WM : ,7-

Heinrich Hoffman, the Lea

Nazi Photographer II
In 1945 Heinrich Hoffman was employed by the Inter
Tribunal to catalog photographs for use as evidence in the N
leading Nazis. Many of Hoffman's negatives and prints were
U.S. Army and are held in the U.S. National Archives in Was
government claims the rights to these images, which it gen
request, free of charge.
Since 1945 Hoffman's photographs of the Nazi era have b
continuously in huge numbers. The legal rights to many of
remained the property of Hoffman and his heirs, who h
rates for permission to reproduce. Leading publications, s
purchase these rights from the Hoffman agency. Others ha
or forgo the Hoffman images rather than pay the requisite

Heinrich Hoffman at work for the International Tribunal at Nuremberg

in 1945-46. From Charles W. Alexander and Anne Kesshan, Justice
at Nuernberg (U.S.A.: Marvel, 1946).

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 78 OCTOBER

MOMA and the Nazis

Propagandistic projects undertaken by the Museum of Modern A

conjunction with the Office of War Information, the Office of Inter-Am
Affairs, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the United States Infor
Agency have previously been brought to public attention. It is less well
nized that MOMA has repeatedly supported proponents and past prop
of Nazism while occluding their Nazi sympathies. Unlike the work w
above-mentioned governmental agencies, which was deliberate if often s
the activities and associations listed below have been permitted (perhaps
distaste) as inevitable consequences of the museum's aesthetic and p
positionings.
Philip Johnson, the museum's first director of the Department of
tecture (and its 6minence grise to this day), took leave from his post in D
of 1934 to found the National party, modeled after the Nazi party, with
Johnson had become familiar during his several visits to Germany. His
in this venture was Alan R. Blackburn, Jr., the museum's executive dire
They tried to enlist Huey Long, the demagogic governor of Louisiana, b
rebuffed. (See, for instance, Esquire, December 1983.)

Montage from the brochure for the exhibition "Das

Wunder des Lebens," designed by Herbert Bayer in 1935.
rE (Illustration: Herbert Bayer.) The spread illustrates "the
two great principles of life . .. the principle of the
division of labor ... and the Fiihrerprincip" [the Leader-
principle, a key concept in Nazi ideology]. Left: A detail
that includes a photo of Hitler. From Herbert Bayer, Das
Kunstlerische Werk, 1918-1938 (Berlin: Bauhaus-
Archiv, 1982). Opposite: From a copy that belonged to
Bayer and was censored by him with black ink.

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0 11111

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 The Art of Hitler 79

.. .. . .

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.... . . .
~AU4-
?w u , . ..... ..

. ......

......... . ...

... . ..

.... .. ...

.. I-...... .. ...... ..II

Lud
mos
gain
skul
cont
Mies supplied.
Herbert Bayer, after his emigration from Germany in 1938, was hired to
work at MOMA. He created the influential exhibition designs for "Road to
Victory" (1942) and "Airways to Peace" (1943). Previously, Bayer had contrib-
uted to the design of comparable exhibitions for the Nazis: "Deutschland Aus-
stellung" (1936) and "Wunder des Lebens" (1938).
In 1985, a year after the publication of his elaborate tribute to Speer, Leon
Krier was given an important exhibition of his own architectural projects at
MOMA.

Two recent historical survey exhibits at MOMA gave surprising

nence to the Weimar-period work of two artists who were soon to
leading Nazi artists. MOMA featured the earlier work with no referenc
later careers. Ludwig Hohlwein (shown in "The Modern Poster") was the
poster designer of the Third Reich. Hugo Erfurth (in "Photography Unti
was one of the most celebrated photographic portraitists in Nazi Germa
Peter Ludwig is a member of the International Council of MOM
has contributed generously to the museum.

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 80 OCTOBER

----- ----- --

lu Tfis is tcincwt

Poll MINXIMPAW

MIN",

The Modern Poster. MOMA installation, 1988.

(Photo: Steven Kasher.)

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 The Art of Hitler 81

The Taboo A
What, then, makes Nazi art i
rassment, barely chronicled, u
doubt this taboo is partly d
discourse of modernism, the f
anti-modernist then modernism
this belief is demonstrated wh
"quality" Nazi art (a stance tha
these anti-modernist positions
More profoundly, most cont
not only as the antitype of mo
We have been brought up to
culture, of living culture, of c
there was Nazi culture at all. Over and over our culture reinscribes denials of
Nazi culture in the attempt to establish an inherent cultural uprightness o
own.

I am not suggesting that we resolve this dilemma by

Nazi art works in order to permit some with aesthetic m
art. Rather, I am suggesting that an examination of the
can reveal the operation of a set of politicized myths. Am
that of the political neutrality of aesthetic canons. Rather
art, we might use reconsiderations of Nazi art to incr
politics of aesthetic judgments and to help dismantle
canon.

Dismantling the taboo against Nazi art will also pe

virulence, both blatant and subtle, that undergirds t
works construct heroes and sub-humans-an encounter that can illuminate
parallel constructions in other cultures, including our own. Furthermore, t
denial of Nazi art reinforces the popular myth of the Nazi as super-villa
myth central to our political imaginations in the United States. Nazi metap
and Hitler analogies are a pervasive everyday expedient in all media, rhetor
weapons always ready at hand. Turning others into Nazis or Hitlers has bec
a convenient way for the American interlocutor to attribute a surpassing evi
his opponent. Unremitting castigation of the Nazi masks both the historic
plicity of the United States with Nazi crimes and our own racist and genoc
histories. Compulsively assigning the labels "Nazi" and "Hitler" serves to rei
form an image of ourselves as innate anti-fascists-anti-fascists without hav
to work at it, without having to actively make democracy.

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 82 OCTOBER

Helms a

2i):sn tkhe NEA, B

The igit

kijhat ilkddi
Cpito pantAsman

a viewing them

t h a tf ct

rdo H in iNosubtletyH oe oto e ph ft

og dth od do tI bf p u ho d N

JESSE HELMS' VAL

HE "Senate's most are the common trustees:
persistent yahoo, bel- the legacy of treece,
SlowedTomyWicker in Rome and Israel. and the
the New York Times. legacy of Europe through
"As wily and contempt- Rack," a icon of t
ible a character as one gin Mary, desecrated and crowd as decent folkade- die Ages, the humanism of "In a world which has
Jonathan
could Yardley
hope to in the
meet,""Mary's
bayed ties. filth,
constructed is raising America's
toconsciousness
hold neck- mand romanticism ofRenaissance
the 19th ortation as ours, these spirit-
Washington Post. hands were to they condemn
the moral such the
Century, the
the visual artist ualseen such material
possessions devas-
are in im-
What's got the boys ba- pierced with pins and squalor of so much mod- is the medium who most minent peril."
nanas is an amendment by strung between them was ern art, and theamorality faithfully reflects the Barbarism! The precise
Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) a crucifix. Her mouth was and cowardice of art spirit of theage. hord, as we observe jour-
to ban federal funding, "3 ~ hi bleeding from both sides. "critics" whose duty it "The 'Art' of the 20th nalistic ahoos hail p
through the National En- And her halo was changed presumably was to main- Century is a fearful indict- pathetic Robert Ma
dowment for the Arts, for so that it stabbed her on tain some standards. ment of our culture. It is thorpe for having photo-
"obscene or indecent ma- the side of her bleeding This episode is going to the fruitless art of 'liber- graphed, for their amuse-
terials e including . . de- neck." do for the "arts communi- ated man,' disunited from ment, the degraded acts
pictions of sadomasoch- "- The photos would "be ty" what the cave-in to the the cause of his being.* by which he killed himself.
im, heeticia te great stuff for any Bible- Filthy Speech hMovement The artist' of today 'ful- What's to be done?
ism, homoeroticism, the r belt yahoo t to wave in front fills himself as does the We can defund the oi-
individuals engaged in sex of the folks back home," cancerous cell, in total dis- soners of culture, the pol-
acts"PATRICKJ mocks Burchard. But regadothe life of the or. luters of art; we can sweep
Whistled through with- Swift's "Gulliver's ganism which feeds and -up the debris that passes
out diasent, th.e amed- BUCHANAN Travels," where th e nourishes it." f dor mo
ment will
conference become pear,
committee law reveal
if a squalid
s yahoos .ceate first ap-
to be Culture, America's
he wrote, 50 yearsself- T.S. Eliot
can discredit saw it coming , ma
self-anointed
does not peel it off the $10.9 parent," coos Hank Bur- moal twins of the dead anointed art ago, is the "incarnation critics who have for
billion Interior bill. chard of the Washington pervert with the bullwhip .. . of the religion of a peo- our trust. Americ
Propulsion
amendment for from
comes Helms' Post:figure,
human "His eye
male for
and the
Hankwhse worhk
Burchard. so enthralled
forfeited critics have
the " Chlristianity goea, pe.
the yet Weimar,
"A wholAe paradigm
the now-famous photo- female, is superb, but what Excuse me, but God f ete th whole of our culture goes. to New Age pagan
graphic exhibit by the late is most compelling about bless Jesse Helms!e Then you must start pain- taken over the ar
Robert out
tossed MIapplethorpe, his nude
of the Corcoran studies
of any is the lack
suggestion thatHis
theretabling of this
Issue. after the public's
House nottrust
putfullty agait.culture
on a new ad ya c- Armstrong
cently. wrote mtete
"Conservatives had
Gallery, which features a models are being manipu- thought it had sidetracked ready- made. You must best become interested in
little girl with her dress lated." it with a tiny nick in the and student riots did for wait for the grass to grow art if they wish to see civi-
up, one man about to uri- (Query: If Mapple- NEA budget, is a deliver- the academic community to feed the sheep to give lization survive into the
nate in the mouth of an- thorpe's photos are that ance. in the '60s, i.e., strip them the wool out of which your 21st Century."
other, an elephantine penis good, why doesn't the For the Mapplethorpe of respect and make them new coat will be made. This is all-important: Not
hanging out of a pair of Washington Post publish exhibit, along with the objects of ridicule. You must pass through simply to cut out the.rot,
pants, and the "artist's" them?) NEA-underwritten "Piss "Art is the signature of many centuries of barba- but to seek out, to find, to
nude photo of himself, with Jeffrey Tucker of the Christ" (Andreas Serra- man," said G.K. Chester- rism. celebrate the good, the
a bu!ltchip sticking out of Ludwig Von Mises Insti- no's self-titled photo of a ton; sculptor and art histo- ". . . But we can at least true, the beautiful. But
his rectum. tute, however, was revolt- crucifixin a vat of his own rian H. Reed Armstrong try to save something of first, tell Jesse to hold the
"The artistry is trans- ed, especially by "Tie urine), and the paralysis adds: "Whether it be the those goods of which we fort; help is on the way.

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 The Art of Hitler 83

Bush on Auschwitz

'DAILY- NEWS'- .2&. V

- , control: "Hit a lick for peace!" To

Auschwitz: "Boy, they were big on cr
matoriums, weren't they?" His helium
filled campaign has been made poss
* ble by his proximity to Reagan and
. fact that so many early contests h
been concentrated where Reagan is
particularly popular.
Bush's November vulnerability is re-
,-vealed in the im, o .--".

Above: fragment of Daily News column. Bush's comment was

made during his tour of Auschwitz on September 29, 1987.

Opposite top: section from " The Right Wing's Cultural Warrior," Newsweek,
July 2, 1990. (Photos: Nancy Pierce --Black Star; Al Stephenson --Picture Group.)
Opposite bottom: syndicated column by Patrick J. Buchanan. From
the New York Post, August 2, 1989.

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 84 OCTOBER

Saddam
(Civil

a Am M:

to *tatatsttIIsrn~

... ................

(Photo: Steven Kasher.)

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 The Art of Hitler 85

Half-Time

'!iii::iiiii-iid

wik.

..... ...... ..

U.S. Athletes at the 1936 Olympic Games. From Die Olympishen

Spiele 1936 (Hamburg: Cigaretten-Bilderdienst, 1936).

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