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Decent Vs Degenerate Art - National Socialist Case (1991) PDF
Decent Vs Degenerate Art - National Socialist Case (1991) PDF
"Degenerat
TheNational Socialist Case
MARY-MARGARET GOGGIN
When
84
generate."
Precedentsforartisticcensorshipin Nazi Germanycan
be found during the Weimar Republic, as the following
incidents indicate. In Berlin in 1928, a local court filed
chargesof blasphemyagainst GeorgeGroszforseveraldrawings published in an album titled Hintergrund(backdrop).
Although originally found guilty, Grosz was ultimatelyacquitted on appeal. The most provocativeof these drawings
was one of Christwearinga gas mask and boots, captioned,
"Keepyourmouthshut and do yourduty"(fig. 1).1 Grosz's
drawingis echoed in a recent photographicimage with a
femalenude (fig. 2) by the Americanartist BarbaraKruger,
one of manyU.S. artists whorisk censorshipbecause of their
engagementin similar moralconfrontations.In otherattacks
on modernart duringthe Weimarperiod, the Munichchapter
of the ReichsverbandbildenderKiinstler(federalassociation
of artists) protestedthe Berlin Nationalgalerie'spurchaseof
-'p
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WINTER1991
moralit
Forget
Forget
heroes"
2 BarbaraKruger,
Untitled(It'sourpleasureto disgustyou), 1990, photographic
screenprinton paper,192 x 276 inches.CourtesyMaryBooneGallery,
NewYork.
FIG.
86
FIG. 3 AdolfWissel,Kalenberg
FarmFamily,1939, oil. Courtesythe ArchivfOr
KunstundGeschichte,Berlin.
fromArt
Frc. 4 JohannesBeutner,Timeof Ripeness.Photographreproduced
in the ThirdReich(NewYork:Pantheon,1979, 134),with permission.
WINTER1991
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FIG. 6 JohannSchult,Expectation.
Photographreproduced
ThirdReich(NewYork:Pantheon,1979,134),with permission.
88
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Ideal
attemptby Bolshevistsand Jewsto create culturaland political anarchyby underminingtraditionalvalues.26Visitorsto
the exhibitionwerealso remindedhowmuchpublic moneyin inflatedDeutschmarks-had been paid forthis "degenerate"art.
Worksin the exhibitionof "degenerate"art had been
confiscated from German public collections.27 They were
described in a guide and on wall labels in a derogatoryand
inflammatorymanner.The exhibitionwas divided into nine
categories, each representing some "negative" aspect of
modernart.28 Worksin one group supposedly encouraged
political anarchythroughartistic anarchyby depicting the
struggling working class and capitalists who "mockingly
make light of the misery of the workers."Anothergroupwas
characterizedas Bolshevistpropagandaagainstmilitaryconscriptionfor portrayingsoldiers as murderersor victims, for
example, contraryto the NationalSocialist ideal of a heroic
art;one such "undesirable"workwas OttoDix's WarCripples
(1920, destroyed),which depicts a grotesqueprocessionof
mutilatedsoldiers.
The exhibition also denigratedthe religious worksof
such artists as Nolde (see fig. 7), referringto them in the
guide as a kind of "hocus-pocus"that makes an "insolent
mockery"of religion. The worksin anothergroupwere supposed to representthe immoralside of "Bolshevist"art, in
whichthe "wholeworldis one big whorehouse"(fig. 9). Some
of the works were called "nigger art" (fig. 10), with the
African and SouthSea islandersupposedlyexemplifyingthe
undesirableracial ideals of modernart.29 Finally, therewas
a group of works characterizedas "total insanity"that included examplesof abstractart.
The Nazis suppressedartwhose contenttheyperceived
as a threat to traditionalvalues and institutions. Images of
prostitutesby ErnstLudwigKirchner(seefig. 9) or Grosz,for
example,werecriticizedforglorifyingtheirsubjects, thereby
contributingto society'smoraldecay and erodingtraditional
familyvalues. The Germansalso consideredstyle a determinant of the "degenerate"characterof art. The figural distortions of Expressionismwere directly linked to the inferior
racial traitsof the artistsor to a "gruesomemalfunctioningof
the eyes" caused by their inferior genetic background; or the
distortions were characterized as a hoax perpetrated on the
unsuspecting public.30
National Socialist art doctrine and the resultant art
policies were carried to extremes. Not only did the Nazis
denigrate modern art and denounce artists, they also confiscated modern art from museums and other collections. In
addition, they expelled artists from their teaching posts; Klee
was one of those to lose his position in 1933. Many artists
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9 Page17 of Entartete"Kunst"Ausstellungsfuhrer,
guideto the
exhibition DegenerateArt,"showing,lowerright,a paintingby ErnstLudwig
Kirchner
andworksby KarlSchmidt-Rottluff
and PaulKleinschmidt.
Courtesy
the Archivfir KunstundGeschichte,Berlin.
FIG.
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FIG. 10 Page7 of Entartete"Kunst"
AusstellungsfiJhrer,
exhibition"DegenerateArt."Theworkspictuedare(clockwise,fromtop left)
by EmilNolde,KarlSchmidt-Rottluff
(paintingand sculpture),ErnstLudwig
Otto Dix,andWilhelmMorgner.Courtesythe ArchivfOrKunstund
Kirchner,
Geschichte,Berlin.
WINTER1991
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paper. This research was supported in part by a Limited Grant-in-Aid from the
Universityof Houston.
1. Grosz'sdrawingswere issued in connectionwith ErwinPiscator'sstage production
of TheGoodSoldierSchweik,fromwhich the Germancaption, "Maulhaltenundweiter
dienen," was taken. In his first trial, the local court in Moabitrejected Grosz'sclaim
that he had not "intended to defame the church or to be blasphemous in these
drawings."In his first appeal Groszwas acquitted; the Second CriminalChamberof
RegionalCourtIII, Berlin-Moabit,interpretedGrosz'sdrawingof the crucified Christ
as a legitimate protest"againstthe idea of war. . . and any actions on the part of the
churchthatlend supportto the idea of war."The case subsequentlywentthroughmore
trials and appeals, into 1932, whenthe Reichsgericht(nationalcourt)decided thatthe
printing plates and all copies of the drawing"in the possession of the author, the
printer, the editor, the publisher, or any booksellers"were to be destroyed. The
publisher,however,had alreadydestroyedthe plates and sold impoundedcopies of the
portfolioof drawings. An ironic footnote:after the Nazis came to power in 1933,
Goebbels'sministry requested a copy of Grosz'sdrawingChristwith Gas Maskfrom
the prosecutorof the Generalstaatsanwaltschaft(superior regional court) for a brochure on cultural Bolshevism. Uwe M. Schneede, GeorgeGrosz:The Artist in His
Society, trans. Robertand Rita Kimber(Woodbury,N.Y.: Barron's,1985), 170-75.
2. Hellmut Lehmann-Haupt,Art undera Dictatorship(New York:OxfordUniversity
Press, 1954), 66-67.
3. HildegardBrenner,"Artin the PoliticalPowerStruggle, 1933-34," in Republicto
Reich: The Making of the Nazi Revolution,ed. Hajo Holborn,trans. Ralph Manheim
(New York:Pantheon, 1972), 396; Lehmann-Haupt,Art undera Dictatorship,67.
Frick acted on the advice of ProfessorPaul Schultze-Naumburg,an architect whose
theories on art were racially motivated. See also OskarSchlemmer,TheLettersand
Diaries ofOskarSchlemmer,ed. TutSchlemmer(Evanston,Ill.: NorthwesternUniversity Press, 1990), 272-75.
4. Lehmann-Haupt,Art undera Dictatorship,68.
5. Ibid., 69, 181.
6. AdolfHitler,speech inauguratingthe Haus der Deutschen Kunstand the "Grosse
Deutsche Kunstausstellung," in Herschel B. Chipp, ed., Theoriesof ModernArt,
trans. Ilse Falk (Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 1968), 476-82. For the
Germantext see Hitler:Reden und Proklamationen,1932-1945, ed. MaxDomarus
(WOrzburg:VerlagsdruckereiSchmidt, Neustadt a.d. Aisch, 1962), I:705-10. See
also Hitler's speech of November11, 1935, in Nuremberg,in The Speechesof Adolf
Hitler: April 1922-August 1939, ed. and trans. Norman H. Baynes (New York:
HowardFertig, 1969), 1:569-84.
7. BertholdHinz, Art in the ThirdReich, trans. Robertand Rita Kimber(New York:
Pantheon, 1979), 77-83, 102-3.
8. Hitler, in Chipp, ed., Theories, 482; and Hitler:Reden und Proklamationen,I:
709.
9. Hinz, Art in the ThirdReich,46. MaxNordau,Degeneration,with introductionby
GeorgeL. Mosse (New York:HowardFertig, 1968). ForNordau(bornSfidfeld),one of
the characteristicsof degeneracyis reliance uponthe imagination,ratherthan nature.
Therefore,any art that does not reproducenature is degenerate.Nordauexcuses the
Impressionists, however,forsincerely recordingoptical perceptions,whetherthey be
a result of the visual sensation of "a mass of colour composed of spots of different
greens, on which the sun flashes here and therepoints and raysof light," or the result
of "nystagmus,or tremblingof the eyeball." In either case, however,the artist will
haveproducedan aesthetically and intellectuallyinferiorproduct.Nordau,Degeneration, 483, 27. It is ironic that Nordauwas a Jew and a Zionist, given the anti-Semitic
context in which the concept of degenerationwas used by the Nazis.
10. Lehmann-Haput,Art undera Dictatorship,39-41.
11. Jacques Sabile, "Introduction,"in Le Pillage par les Allemandsdes oeuvresd'art
et des bibliothdques
appartenant t des Juifs en France:Receuildes documents,ed. Jean
Cassou (Paris: Editions du Centre, 1947), 33; Hinz, Art in the ThirdReich, 45-46.
12. Because modern, "degenerate"artists often created within an international
context, they were accused of being Bolshevist. Hinz, Art in the ThirdReich, 11.
13. Carl Einstein's Die Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts, vol. 16 (Berlin: PropylaienKunstgeschichte, 1931), which deals exclusively with art and artists considered
"modern"by its author,was used by the NationalSocialists as a referenceto identify
their opponentsin the visual arts. Hinz, Art in the ThirdReich, 24-25, 228, n. 22.
14. See Sabile, "Introduction,"in Le Pillage par les Allemands, 25.
15. See Entartete "Kunst"Ausstellungsfiihrer,published by Fritz Kaiser (Berlin:
Verlagfur Kultur-und Wirtschaftswerbung,1937), 14. This was not a catalogueper
se, but rathera guide to the travelingexhibitionthat presented the NationalSocialist
propagandaabout "degenerate"art, including excerpts from Hitler's speech inauguratingthe Haus der Deutschen Kunst, illustratedwith examplesof "degenerate"art
thatmay have been in the exhibition. Note the use of quotationmarksaroundthe word
Kunst (art) in the title. The guide is reproducedin Franz Roh, "Entartete"Kunst:
Kunstbarbereiim DrittenReich(Hanover:Fackeltriger-Verlag,1962) and in Stephanie
Barron, ed., "DegenerateArt":The Fate of the Avant-Gardein Nazi Germany,exh.
cat. (Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1991), 356-90, with
translationby David Britt.
16. The iconographyof womanin NationalSocialist painting is discussed in Hinz,
Art in the Third Reich, 149-55, and Christian Gross and Uwe Grossman, "Die
WINTER 1991
MARY-MARGARET
GOGGIN
Universityof Houston. She is currently completing a booklength study of Picasso and his art during the German
occupation of Paris.