Nazi Art

Much as they had with the cinema and folklore of German culture, the Nazis reformed the notion of German art to coincide with and reinforce their belief system. Nazi art was meant to impress upon its viewers the overwhelming nature of the Aryan spirit, and reached back to the styles of previous eras to impart this feeling. Works of art during this period drew on the classical style, which associated them, and hence the regime which they represented, with the power structures of Greece and Rome. They were also heavily influenced by the Romantic period, which tied them to the royal authority prevalent in nineteenth century Europe. The art of the Third Reich was also meant to reinforce the values that the Nazis felt were important, such as the notion of racial purity, the ideals of hard working, simple people serving the Nazi state, and the important virtues of motherhood, which were included in a German woman’s duties to Kinder, Küche, and Kirche (Children, Kitchen, and Church). All of the party’s ideals were reflected in Nazi art.

 Many of the styles that developed in the early years of the twentieth century—such as cubism, expressionism, Dadaism, and surrealism—were counter to the aims of Nazi art, and were therefore forbidden, degraded, and censored. Many Germans found these styles to be impenetrable and impossible to appreciate, and believed that those who did appreciate them were elitists who were on questionable moral ground. Still, Germany was at the forefront of these developing styles—in art, in film, and in music. The Nazi reaction against these new developments in art represented a conservative aesthetic that Hitler passed into law, as well as a desire to use art and culture as propaganda tools.

Hitler chose classical art—that of the Greeks and Romans—to be the style that Nazi art would emulate because he felt it represented art from a period of racial purity, before it had been “polluted” by Jewish influences. Despite the fact that only a few of the modern artists who had developed these new “degenerate” styles were actually Jewish, the Nazis considered the new forms to be the result of racial impurity, almost like a kind of cultural violence.

The Nazis created a government organization, which they called the Reichskulturkammer, or Reich Culture Chamber, late in 1933, in order to regulate the thematic nature of mass culture. Artists who supported the party line and were of Aryan descent were allowed to produce more artwork, thereby excluding those artists whose work did not fit in with the Nazi ideals. The Nazis seized and purged over 5,000 works of modern art from German museums. Hitler actually organized a showing of this “degenerate” art, featuring disorganized presentations and labels that mocked the works on display. However, the Nazis devoted much more fanfare to the exhibitions of Nazi art made by approved artists, creating the Große Deutsche Kunstausstellung, or Great German art exhibition, in Munich. The exhibition of “degenerate” art attracted more than three times the viewers as the Nazis’ offerings, and as a result, modern art experienced a surge in popularity throughout Europe.