Welcome to the Nazi Art Official Museum. Organized every year since 1937 by Adolf Ziegler,
appointed by Hitler, Director of the House of German Art, this show was very often a "bust".
National Socialism is the only regime which carefully excluded all but the approved art forms
right from its start, but the iconography of National Socialist art, although limited, was of good
quality. The subjects which National Socialists favour and vigorously promoted showed that art
was not only the direct expression of their political ideas, but also at the base of their political
system in all its aspects. Here are some examples of what state-controlled art can produce.
In 1936, Hitler decided to stage his own show of the hated modern art. An official exhibition of
"Entartete Kunst" -Degenerated Art- opened in Munich on July 19th, 1937, a day after the
opening of the first Great German Art Exhibition, to which it was a useful pendant. The
term "degenerated" was coined by the jewish philosopher Max Nordau who, at the end of
the 19th century, decided that all forms of new art, especially in painting, were degenerated.
Nordau was with Theodor Herzl a pioneer of Zionism.
With great satisfaction, Goebbels -who had probably not read Nordau and was not particularly
anti-semitic- felt however obliged to announce: "How deeply the perverse Jewish spirit has
penetrated German cultural life is shown in the frightening and horrifying forms of the Exhibition
Of Degenerate Art in Munich . This has nothing at all to do with the suppression of artistic
freedom and modem progress. On the contrary, the botched art works which were exhibited
there and their creators are of yesterday and before yesterday. They are the senile
representatives, no longer to be taken seriously, of a period that we have intellectually and
politically overcome and whose monstrous, degenerate creations still haunt the field of the
plastic arts in our time."
(Göbbels, November 26th, 1937, in Von der Großmacht zur Weltmacht.)
appointed by Hitler, Director of the House of German Art, this show was very often a "bust".
National Socialism is the only regime which carefully excluded all but the approved art forms
right from its start, but the iconography of National Socialist art, although limited, was of good
quality. The subjects which National Socialists favour and vigorously promoted showed that art
was not only the direct expression of their political ideas, but also at the base of their political
system in all its aspects. Here are some examples of what state-controlled art can produce.
In 1936, Hitler decided to stage his own show of the hated modern art. An official exhibition of
"Entartete Kunst" -Degenerated Art- opened in Munich on July 19th, 1937, a day after the
opening of the first Great German Art Exhibition, to which it was a useful pendant. The
term "degenerated" was coined by the jewish philosopher Max Nordau who, at the end of
the 19th century, decided that all forms of new art, especially in painting, were degenerated.
Nordau was with Theodor Herzl a pioneer of Zionism.
With great satisfaction, Goebbels -who had probably not read Nordau and was not particularly
anti-semitic- felt however obliged to announce: "How deeply the perverse Jewish spirit has
penetrated German cultural life is shown in the frightening and horrifying forms of the Exhibition
Of Degenerate Art in Munich . This has nothing at all to do with the suppression of artistic
freedom and modem progress. On the contrary, the botched art works which were exhibited
there and their creators are of yesterday and before yesterday. They are the senile
representatives, no longer to be taken seriously, of a period that we have intellectually and
politically overcome and whose monstrous, degenerate creations still haunt the field of the
plastic arts in our time."
(Göbbels, November 26th, 1937, in Von der Großmacht zur Weltmacht.)
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| Julius Paul Junghanns: Rest under the willow trees, 1938 |
| Werner Peiner: German soil |
| Karl Alexander Floegel: Harvests, 1938 |
| Heinrich Berran: Hay bearer |
| Oskar Martin-Amorbach: The sower, 1937 |
| Julius Paul Junghanns: Hard labor, 1939 |
| Udo Wendel |
| Albert Henrich: Countyside still life, 1940 |
| Fritz Erler: Fritzl |
| Udo Wendel: The Art Magazine, 1940 |
| Gisbert Palmié: Labor rewards |
| Gisbert Palmié: Labor rewards (details) |
| Ivo Saliger: Diana rest, 1940 |
| Adolf Ziegler: The Four Elements Great German Art Exhibition, 1937 |
| Franz Xaver Wolf: Parting, 1940 |
| Fritz Mackensen: the suckling |
| Johann Schult: After the bath, 1940 |
| Franz Eichhorst: Street fighting |
| Paul Matthias Padua: the 10th of may 1940 |
| Arthur Kampf: Steelworks, Great German Art Exhibition, 1939 |
| Adolf Reich : All their precious belongings, 1940 |
| Franz Weiss: the 7 capital sins |
| Conrad Hommel: Der Fuehrer, 1940 |
| Georg Gunther: Entrepause 1939 |
| Julius Paul Junghanns: Pflugschar |
| Ivo Saliger: Urteil des Paris |
| Hans Karl Busch: Stalingrad |
| Morale by Will Tschech |
| 30 January 1933 by Arthur Kampf |
| Nach dem Kampf by Hans Bühler |
| Kameraden by Will Tschech |
| Beer Putsch 1923 by Schmitt |
| Bust of Erwin Rommel by Fritz Berberich |
| Die Schauende (the Looker) by Fritz Klimsch |
| SS Guards by Ferdinand Staeger |
| The worst of Nazi Art was reserved to the Führer under the form of "Bildnis" (portraits) : |
| "Der Führer" by Karl Truppe. |
| "Führer des Grödeutschen Reiches" By Conrad Hommel, 1939. |
| "Bildnis des Führers" by Rudolf Zill, 1942 |
| "Bildnis des Führers" by Franz Triebsch, 1939 |
| Der Führer by Hugo Lehmann (1938) |
| "Der Führer und Oberste Befehlshaber der Wehrmacht" by Conrad Hommel, 1940 |
| Der Führer by Heinrich Knirr, Hitler's official painter - 1937r |
| Der Führer by Fritz Erler, 1939. |
| "Bildnis des Führers" by Otto von Kursell, 1941 |
| "Führerbildnis" by Hans Schachinger, 1942 |
| However Nazi art notably in the field of sculpture could be very good, artists like Thorak and Breker or Klimsch performed remarkable works and should today figure amongst the best artists of the past century, notwithstanding their collaboration with the regime. After all men like von Braun and Porsche were also geniuses in their field and they are still considered as such and have never been prosecuted by the Allies in 1945 whereas US GIs used Klimsch's works as shooting-pratice targets after the war. |
| This sculpture by Josef Thorak was said to have been modeled from a picture of German Olympic gold-medal winner Tillie Fleischer who was a favorite of Adolf Hitler. |
| In wind und sonne 1936 |
| Statues/sculptures by Professor Fritz Klimsch 1870-1960 |
| From 1934 through 1936 Klimsch was supervisor of the Meister studio for sculpture at the Berlin Academy of Arts and later yielded his post to Richard Scheibe in order to devote himself entirely to his work and to the orders that were rolling in. He did many Third Reich's sculptures such as the statues for the Luftwaffe Communications School and called it Der Kämpfer in Wind und Sonne (picture to the left). For the Ministry of Propaganda in Berlin he did the statue Beschaulichkeit. In 1939 for J. Goebbel's property in the garden of the ministry he did Brunnengruppe. In 1940 he did sculpture works for Ribbentrop's Foreign Office gardens and many others. He worked for IG Farben and retired in 1950. He died in Feiburg in 1960. The sculpture on red background recently sold for more than $30,000. |
| Not all painting works by "Nazi" artists were exalting the National-Socialist "virtues". The only form of art which was not officially tolerated -although Nazi leaders like Goering used to privately collect them-was the Entarte Kunst which essentially referred to abstract and surrealist art that Hitler hated. The picture on the right below is characteristic of the great celebrations offered to the German people at the opening of the German Art exhibition which was held each year since 1937 |
| Hitler's favorite painter : Franz von Stuck |
| Sensuality |
| Sisyphus 1920 |
| The sin 1893 |
| Wounded Amazon 1903 |
| The sirens (half the painting is here represented) |
| Sign my guestbook |
| Franz von Stuck (1863-1928) was Hitler's favorite artist when he was in Vienna and in the 20s. Hitler liked very much many paintings by him. Among them were: "Sinnlichkeit" (Sensuality), "Verfolgung" (Pursuit), "Das Laster" (Depravity), "Das böse Gewissen" (Evil Conscience), "Die Sünde" (Sin) and "Die Sirene" (The Sirens). When Hitler saw von Stuck's paintings die Sirene, he gasped : "those are the eyes of my mother!" and when he saw "Die Medusa" (pic above to the left. mother to the right) he said "she looks like my mother." More paintings by Stuck HERE. |
| W. Wiesbrock Wooden head |
| Hitler as he wished to be seen - as the chief patron of the arts. This Heinrich Hoffmann photo appeared as the frontispiece to several of the catalogs of the annual art exhibits in the Haus der Deutschen Kunst. |
German Art in its Nazi Expression
| Adolf Wissel: Kalenberger Bauernfamilie |
| "Hitler, Creator of the Third Reich and Renewer of German Art" by Heinrich Knirr !937 |
| Hubert Lanzinger's "Der Bannerträger" (The Standard Bearer), |
| "Bildnis des Führers" by Franz Triebsch, 1941 |
| Like Arno Breker, Jo Thorak sculpted massive figures exalting heroism and bravoure. He was given a huge studio in Munich in 1938 to perform his art. |
| Spring |
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| It is today plain obvious that Hitler had weird sexual practices and penchants. He was attracted to a rather somber side of sexuality given perhaps his own sexual deficiencies. For instance, he bought for himself this rather scandalous -although mythological- painting of "Leda and the Swan" (Zeus under the disguise of a swan) by artist Paul Mathias Padua that was exhibited during the Great German Art Show of 1937 in Munich. |
| "The Judgment of Paris" by Josef Thorak exposed at the Great German Art Exposition of 1941 is original and splendid. It was designed as a fountain grouping and was one of the main features of the exhibition. |