What If the Nazis Had Embraced Modern Art?

Joseph Goebbels - Reichminister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda -

pays a visit to the Exhibition of Degenerate Art in Munich (1937)

 

'We National Socialists are not unmodern; we are the carrier of a new modernity, 

not only in politics and in social matters, but also in art and intellectual matters.' [1]

 

 

I. 

 

As everybody knows, the Nazis were on a mission to cleanse Germany of bolshevism in all its forms, including so-called cultural bolshevism, a term widely used to denounce progressive and experimental trends in the world of contemporary art, music, and literature.

 

Thus, after coming to power in 1933, the Nazis prevented many artists from working or taking up teaching posts, replaced museum curators with loyal Party members, and, most notoriously, organised mass book burning events.

 

However, I'm pretty certain I once read that at least some leading Nazis were in favour of embracing modern art - providing of course it was produced by artists of pure Aryan blood who held the appropriate political views. 

 

If it was okay for Mussolini to couple Fascism with Futurism, then why shouldn't they celebrate certain works of German Expressionism - such as those by Emil Nolde or Erich Heckel, for example, which were said to exemplify the Nordic spirit and had parallels with German medieval and folk art. 

 

Even Joseph Goebbels, not wanting to be seen as a narrow-minded defender of bourgeois values, was open to the argument and, in texts written prior to 1933, spoke enthusiastically of the new, the radical, and the revolutionary [2] - or what we might simply call the modern. 

 

Indeed, the soon to be Reichsminister für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda had several works hanging on the walls of his Berlin apartment that would be branded in 1937 as Entartete Kunst (the Nazi mistranslation, as some wag said, of avant-garde).

 

Hitler, however, was having none of it - as made clear in a speech in the autumn of 1934, wherein he denounced modern artists as criminal lunatics and declared that under no circumstances would their incompetent rubbish play any role in the cultural rebirth of Germany. As far as he was concerned, any work that didn't conform to the aesthetic values of the Classical world was Un-German and corrupted by the Marxist-Jewish spirit. 

 

Goebbels, one of Hitler's closest and most devoted acolytes, thus quietly removed any offending pictures from his walls and, in 1937, he conceived the idea of an exhibition of works from the Weimar period - which he termed the era of decay - that would contrast with the forthcoming Great German Art Exhibition intended to showcase work approved by the Führer; statuesque blonde nudes, idealised landscapes, etc.

 

Hitler loved the idea and on 30 June signed an order authorising Die Ausstellung Entartete Kunst ...

 

Goebbels appointed Adolf Ziegler - one of Hitler's favourite painters and head of the Reich Chamber of Visual Art - in charge of a small team who toured state galleries and museums in numerous cities seizing thousands of works they deemed degenerate and showing signs of racial impurity [3].   

The exhibition opened in Munich on 19 July - one day after the Große Deutsche Kunstausstellung - and included 650 modernist pieces, chaotically hung and accompanied by notices encouraging the viewer to ridicule the work and vilify the artist responsible.

 

Ironically, however, over a million people visited this exhibition in Munich; three times more than visited the one consisting of the very best that German art had to offer. This is perhaps not surprising when one considers that works by many leading international artists - such as Klee, Kokoschka, and Kandinsky - were on display. When the show toured other German and Austrian cities, it attracted a million more visitors [4]. 

 

II.

So, finally, we return to the question asked in the title of this post: What if the Nazis had embraced modern art? 

 

In other words, (i) what would that have meant for the development of German culture during (and after) the Third Reich? and (ii) what would that have meant for the development of modern art and its reception within the rest of the world?  

Unfortunately, whilst it's always amusing to ask such questions, this one doesn't really fly unless you remove Hitler from the scenario. For the Führer's thinking on what constitutes great art - and what constitutes degenerate rubbish - was clear, consistent, and not open to debate. 

 

Hitler despised every innovative and non-representational style of art that had emerged during his lifetime; Fauvism, Cubism, Surrealism ... you name it, he hated it - including, as we have seen, German Expressionism, even when produced by a devoted Nazi such as Emil Nolde.

 

So perhaps it's more productive to ask: What was the result of the Nazi rejection of modern art? 

 

Well, as one commentator rightly notes, being banned by the Nazis turned out to have a silver lining: 

 

"'This artwork became more attractive abroad, or certainly in anti-Nazi circles it gained value because the Nazis opposed it, and I think that over the longer run it was good for modern art to be viewed as something that the Nazis detested and hated.'" [5]

 

It's certainly the case that several of the artists featured in the exhibition are now considered among the greats not just of modern art, but within the long history and tradition of Western art. As another art historian writes, the "'stigmatization of modernism caused by the National Socialists is partly responsible for the current boom in modern art [... having] created a canon, so to speak, that had not existed previously.'" [6]  

Further - and crucially - as Peter Schjeldahl points out:

 

"The glamour of martyrdom came to halo modern artists with political virtues that few of them either sought or merited. This set the stage, in Cold War America, for the public acceptance of Abstract Expressionism as, for all its esoteric aesthetics, a potent symbol of liberal democracy [...]" [7]

I conclude, in agreement with Schjeldahl: "Divorcing our thinking about modern culture from the residual consequences of 'Degenerate Art' probably can't be done." [8]  

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Joseph Goebbels, quoted by Peter Adam in Art of the Third Reich, (Harry N. Abrams, Inc. 1992), p. 56.

 

[2] See the widely distributed pamphlet written by Joseph Goebbels entitled Die verfluchten Hakenkreuzler: Etwas zum Nachdenken (1932), in which he attempts to make clear what is meant by National Socialism and why it is, in fact, first and foremost an uncompromising spiritual revolution. 

 

[3] Over 5000 works were initially seized, including 1052 by Nolde, 759 by Heckel, 639 by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and 508 by Max Beckmann, as well as smaller numbers of works by such artists as Marc Chagall, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, and Vincent van Gogh. It is interesting to note that only six of the 112 artists featured in the Degenerate Art Exhibition were Jewish. 

 

[4] Of course, whilst some came because they realised it would be their last chance to see great works of modern art in Germany, many also came to mock and be scandalised; for when it comes to modern art, public opinion isn't all that different from Hitler's - it's obscene, blasphemous, pretentious, infantile, etc.

 

[5] Jonathan Petropoulos, professor of European History and author of several books on art and politics in the Third Reich, quoted by Lucy Burns in 'Degenerate art: why Hitler hated modernism', on the BBC news website (6 November, 2013): click here.

[6] Ruth Heftig, quoted by Peter Schjeldahl in his essay 'The Anti-Modernists', The New Yorker, (March, 2014): click here to read online.  

[7] Peter Schjeldahl, op. cit. 

[8] Ibid.

Grand Austrian Perverts 2: Egon Schiele

Egon Schiele (1890-1918)

Photo by Anton Josef Trčka (1914)

 

Ich bestreite nicht, Bilder erotischer Natur gemacht zu haben. 

Aber sie sind immer Kunstwerke und den Künstler einzuschränken ist ein Verbrechen.[1] 

 

 

I. 

 

Whilst I have previously expressed my dislike of Egon Schiele's treatment of his devoted muse and lover Wally Neuzil - click here - it would be amiss to write a series of posts on the grand perverts [2] of Austria and not include this brilliant young artist. 

For he may have been a bit of a shit and his concern with marrying advantageously so he could climb the social ladder may make me despise him, but there's no denying that this protégé of Gustav Klimt - another grand pervert in his own right [3] - was a hugely talented figurative painter, whose work is noted (and notorious) for its twisted body shapes and explicit sexual nature.

 

 

II.

 

Egon Leo Adolf Ludwig Schiele was born in Tulln, Lower Austria, in 1890. 

 

As a child, he was fascinated by trains and would obsessively spend his time drawing them. I imagine that this was due more to the fact that his father was in charge of the local railway station, rather than an immature form of siderodromophila, but, who knows, maybe these early sketches did have a fetishistic or erotic component to them, which might help explain why his father one day became so enraged that he destroyed them. 

 

It might also explain why even his schoolfriends found him queer - that and the fact that this shy, reserved young man also had an incestuous desire for his younger sister, Gerti; something else that met with paternal disapproval [4]. 

 

By the time he turned sixteen, it was obvious that Egon had a tremendous talent for drawing and so he was enrolled first at the School of Arts and Crafts in Vienna (where Klimt had once studied) and then at the more traditional Academy of Fine Arts (also in Vienna). 

 

Although he stayed at the latter institution for three years, Schiele despised the ultra-conservative style of painting being taught [5] and so, in 1907, he decided to contact Klimt, who was known to mentor talented young artists. Klimt was so impressed by Schiele, that he not only helped find models and potential clients, but bought some of the young artist's drawings himself.  

 

Perhaps not surprisingly, therefore, Schiele's earliest work shows the strong influence of Klimt, although there are also similarities with his slightly older contemporary - and rival - Oskar Kokoschka. However, he soon developed his own distinctive style and, free from the conventions that had been imposed upon him at the Academy, he began to explore (and distort) the human form, particularly in its sexual aspect. 

 

This included some shockingly honest nude self-portraits, including one from 1910 in which  he is seen grimacing, and another, from 1911, in which he is masturbating. Other nude portraits were equally provocative; not least those which featured very young (and very thin) models in sexualised poses, such as Girl with Black Hair (1910), or Nude with Red Garters (1911): see figures 1 and 2 below.

 

Many critics thought the works grotesque and pornographic and soon the authorities would be coming for Schiele, who, perhaps sensing that trouble was brewing, decided to leave Vienna and start afresh elsewhere ...

 

 

III.

 

Schiele and his mistress Wally first moved to the small town of Český Krumlov (German: Krumau), in southern Bohemia. Unfortunately, they quickly upset the locals with their lifestyle and the fact that Schiele tried to employ their young daughters as models. 

 

Obliged to move on, they travelled to Neulengbach, about 25 miles west of Vienna. However, as in Krumau, Schiele's studio became a meeting place for delinquent adolescents and unsavoury artist-types and soon the town's residents were up in arms, the Bürgermeister agreeing that something had to be done. 

 

And so, in April 1912, Schiele's studio was raided by the police who seized more than a hundred works they considered degenerate [6] and arrested him on a charge of seducing a girl below the age of consent (which was then - as now - fourteen in Austria) [7]. Schiele was imprisoned for three weeks while awaiting his trial, during which time he produced a series of twelve paintings depicting life behind bars. 

 

When his case was finally heard, the charge of seduction was dropped. But he was found guilty of exhibiting obscene drawings in a place accessible to children and the judge seemed to take a strange delight in burning one of these offending works over a candle flame in the courtroom itself.   

 

Deciding he really needed to settle down - and tone down the pervy-paedo content of his work - Schiele married in 1915 into a solidly middle-class family, breaking Wally's heart in the process. Despite being conscripted during the War, he continued to work and to exhibit. By 1917, he was back in Vienna and able to focus more fully on his artistic career. 

 

This was, in fact, his most productive period and at the Secession's 1918 exhibition, Schiele had fifty works on display in the main hall. He also designed a poster for the event; a version of the Last Supper, with himself in the role of Christ. The show was a huge success and not only did he receive many new portrait commissions, but prices for his older works dramatically increased.

 

Unfortunately, in the autumn of that same year, the Spanish flu [8] arrived in Vienna: it first killed his wife (who was six months pregnant at the time) and, three days later, on Halloween, it claimed Schiele's life too. Allegedly, his last words were: Der Krieg ist aus, und ich muss gehen ... 

 

Which is a nice line with which to close either a life or a post. 

 

 

Fig. 1: Schwarzhaariger Mädchenakt (1910)

Fig. 2: Akt mit roten Strumpfbändern  (1911)

 

 

Notes

 

[1] For those who don't read German and can't be bothered to have it translated, the lines in English read:  'I do not deny that I have made pictures of an erotic nature. But they are always works of art and to restrict the artist is a crime.'

 

[2] I am borrowing this phrase from D. H. Lawrence, who, in a letter to Aldous Huxley, once described St. Francis, Michelangelo, Goethe, Kant, Rousseau, Byron, Baudelaire, Wilde and Marcel Proust as grand perverts. Click here for my post on this subject.

 

[3] Gustav Klimt (1862-1918), was an Austrian symbolist and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Secession movement. His primary subject was the female body and his works are marked by what is often rather coyly phrased as a frank eroticism. As he began to develop a more pervy style, his work was increasingly the subject of controversy; this culminated when the paintings he completed around 1900 for the ceiling of the Great Hall of the University of Vienna were criticized as pornographic.

 

[4] When Egon was sixteen he took his twelve-year-old sister Gerti - by train - to Trieste and spent the night in a hotel room with her. By this time his father had died, of syphilis, and he was technically in the care of his maternal uncle (another railway official).   

 

[5] Schiele's main teacher at the Academy was the German painter Christian Griepenkerl, who specilised in allegorical works based on themes drawn from classical mythology. As well as frustrating Schiele, Griepenkerl was also the man who twice rejected Adolf Hitler's application to study at the Academy in 1907-08. 

 

[6] As Cody Delistraty reminds us in his essay 'Rethinking Schiele' in The Paris Review (3 Dec 2018):

      

"Working at precisely the time that fin-de-siècle decadence and excess was giving way to prewar conservatism, Schiele found that degeneracy would become a key term in his damnation. Degeneracy, of course, was also the term that the Nazis would use to describe so much of modern art, from works by Vincent van Gogh to Paul Klee to Edvard Munch." 

 

This interesting essay, which discusses Schiele's art in relation to questions of pornography and sexual exploitation, can be read online by clicking here. 

[7] Thirteen-year-old Tatjana Georgette Anna von Mossig. Frl. Mossig, from Neulengbach, was the daughter of an esteemed naval officer. I am grateful once more to Cody Delistraty for this information. 

 

[8] Unlike the coronavirus pandemic which caused global hysteria, the Spanish flu pandemic (1918-20) was exceptionally deadly and no one really knows how many people it killed, although estimates vary from 17 million to 50 million (and possibly as high as 100 million). Unusually, whereas the flu usually kills the very young and very old, this strain also had a high mortality rate amongst young adults, such as 28-year-old Schiele. 

 

 

To read the first post in this series on grand Austrian perverts - on Arthur Schnitzler - click here.   

 

To read the third post in this series on grand Austrian perverts - on Freud - click here.