On the one hand, it’s good there are such things as laws against hate speech; on the other, it’s awful that such laws need to exist. We have such a lot of evolving to do.
It would be nice if each person took responsibility for what they’re saying whatever they’re saying & accept that yes, we can say what we like but we must be prepared for the consequences. A few cursory glances at the internet tell us many people don’t take that responsibility. We learn slowly & sometimes, conversation must become action.
& if people such as the Nazis are the ones making the laws, we must have pause for thought & realise there are many grey areas surrounding the issue of censorship of any kind. We might need to look at the extremes to understand the need for balance. After all, there were people’s lives at stake then - & now.
One of the most bizarrely smart moves on the part of the Nazi party was to wage war on what it referred to as “Degenerate Art.” Rather than destroy the art, they showed it off, presumably as an example of what they meant. If caught, the artists would be treated as harshly as you’d expect.
As has been said many times in these blogs: everything is represented in the World of Art. Lockdown has shown us how important art is. It holds up a mirror, sometimes reminding us who we are & sometimes what we aspire to be. Certainly the Nazis were interested in aspirational art but to put it mildly, it unfortunately was not inclusive. Many people aspired to live out their natural lives & were not permitted that right.
The Nazis understood the power of cultural influence. They used this concept both against others & for their own ends. Hitler had already seen to it that teachers in the arts & gallery curators had been systematically substituted for Nazi party representatives. For five months in 1937, the Nazis displayed Die Ausstellung “Entartete Kunst” (the Degenerate Art exhibition), the first of its kind, in the Institute of Archaeology in Munich. They had confiscated (stolen) 5238 artworks from German museums, targeting Modernist & Jewish artists in particular & put 650 into the exhibition. Hitler, who had twice been rejected from art school, believed that Modernists were charlatans & “swindlers.” The criteria for being “degenerate” were that the works weren’t of a high enough artistic standard or were offensive to Germany or were decadent or “racially impure” or avant-garde or seemed to depict mental illness or “confused natural form.” They didn’t like anything they felt made put down women, religion, soldiers or farmers.
The Nazis were indeed the “snowflakes” of their generation.
As with anything banned or deemed “offensive,” the exhibition was very popular. It was famously well-attended with a million people showing up in the first six weeks.
Not only were the works shown & held up as the worst they could find but the show was used in economic propaganda to suggest what a waste of money all this terrible art was. Then when the shows were over, they sold some works for the “war effort” & burned the rest. The following movements were considered to be “degenerate”: Bauhaus, Cubism, Dada, Expressionism, Fauvism, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, New Objectivity, Surrealism. Unsurprisingly, they were waging war with ideologies & manifestos.
The Nazis focused on the works. This seems to me yet another way of another method of objectifying & dehumanising people for their own purposes. So rather than search for the artworks themselves, I’ve chosen to look at a few the artists as portrayed by themselves who were included in 1937.
Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler (Germany, 1899-1940), Self Portrait, c. 1930
A movement born from the rejection of Expressionism & Romanticism, Germany’s New Objectivity comprised a group of artists broadly interested in realism or order. In this staggering self portrait, we’re challenged by the gaze of what appears to be a strong & determined woman. It’s expertly painted & we can almost believe there’s more detail than is actually included. Our eye fills in the rest. Lohse-Wächtler exhibited with the New Objectivity group but experienced poverty, mental illness & a turbulent life. Whilst institutionalised & after being diagnosed with schizophrenia, the Nazis forcibly sterilised & finally murdered her as part of their “euthanasia” agenda.
Alexej von Jawlensky (Russia, 1864-1941), Self Portrait, 1905
You can almost tell immediately what the Nazis weren’t going to like. If ever there was a self-portrait they’d have issues with, it’s surely this. But it was in fact arthritis that halted his artistic output & he was in Germany at the start of WWII, having been expelled in 1914. A Russian Expressionist, his works became more abstracted over time.
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Ernst Barlach (Germany, 1870-1938), Self Portrait, 1928
At first, Barlach actively supported WWI & this was reflected in his art. After fighting & being sent home due to a heart condition, his subsequent works clearly portrayed an anti-war stance. Predictably he was rejected by those around him as a result. In the end, his heart gave in after a period of humiliation wherein his work had been confiscated & declared degenerate.
George Grosz (Germany, 1893-1959), Self Portrait 2, 1938
The Nazis weren’t best known for being able to take a joke & it’s no wonder they had a go at Grosz. After evading arrest in the ’20s by pretending to be a handyman in his studio, he was prosecuted under blasphemy laws for making what were seen as anti-religious drawings. Not only guilty of this & being involved in Dada & New Objectivity, he was also very fond of depicting Nazi soldiers as seedy decadents themselves. He was as much a fan of them as they were of him & thankfully left Germany for the US before Hitler came to power.
Heinrich Nauen (Germany, 1880-1940), Self Portrait, 1919
Heinrich managed to get a few works in the Degenerate Art show – this after having been awarded the Iron Cross in WWI & being subject to poison gas. He became a war artist after this. But once the Nazis were in power, Expressionism was frowned upon & they drove him into retirement.
Hans Feibusch (1898-1998), Self Portrait, date unknown
My word but it is nice to find an artist from that exhibition that lived to fabulous old age. He lived & worked as a muralist & sculptor in the UK from 1933 & despite his Jewish origins, produced an enormous body of work for the Church of England.
Otto Freundlich (Germany, 1878-1943), Self Portrait, 1918
Freunlich’s self portrait appears as if he can see all that is before him. Despite its nod to abstraction & Expressionism, he was also interested in Cubism. It was a black & white photograph of Freundlich’s sculpture Der Neue Mensch (now thought to be destroyed) that was used for the cover of the Degenerate Art catalogue. He exemplified all the Nazis despised in terms of art (including involvement in Dada) & ethnicity, being of a Jewish background. They murdered him the day he arrived at Majdanek Concentration Camp.
Oskar Schlemmer (Germany, 1888-1943), Self Portrait, 1931/2
Perhaps one of the most influential artists on modern & avant-garde culture from the list, Schlemmer was Master of Form at the Bauhaus theatre workshop. “Master” is an apt title: master of a range of disciplines, he was streets ahead. In terms of deconstruction of form & its relationship with space, his work was ground-breaking. His influence can be seen in theatre, music & performance art even now.
Christian Rohlfs (1849-1938), Self Portrait, 1918
Rohlfs was greatly influenced by van Gogh (also denounced as a Degenerate Artist) & developed an expressionistic style as a result. Anxiety about WWI affected his ability to produce paintings & later in life, he focused on making linocuts & woodcuts.
Max Beckmann (Germany, 1884-1950), Self Portrait With Horn, 1938
Critical of the Nazis, more than 500 of Beckmann’s works were confiscated from museums for the Degenerate Art exhibition. He & his wife subsequently fled to Holland. His art truly reflected his times & the chaos of Europe at the time of the war. A number of his works were discovered stashed with other stolen Nazi-era works by Cornelius Gurlitt in 2012. This discovery was subject to police investigation, as several included artworks were known to have been looted from Jewish families.
The controversy of Degenerate Art continues…
The University of Michigan have collected the work from the show online, which can be seen here:
A two-minute clip about the exhibition by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6W9jW2uBMAs
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