Ostracised, Persecuted, Destroyed – “Degenerate Art” in National Socialism

The reasons why artistic products were defamed as “degenerate” were manifold: on the one hand, it was stylistic or substantive aspects that the National Socialists intended to eliminate. On the other hand, the origin, religion, and political sentiment of the artists played a central role in National Socialist cultural policy. Numerous modern styles were counted among the art movements identified as "un-German", such as Expressionism and Impressionism, Dadaism, Cubism and Surrealism.

Works that were taken to be too pessimistic or too pacific were also ostracised. They contradicted the National Socialist notions of academically monumental, naturalistic art. International influences were to be banned from the "German-Aryan" art of Nazi Germany. Instead, the regime-compliant artist had to orient himself to the German art of the 19th century.

Within National Socialist party politics, however, there was not always agreement on what and how “German art” should be: Expressionism had initially been recognised by Alfred Rosenberg, the leading ideologue of the NSDAP, as a legitimate and pioneering form of German art. In the end, it was declared and persecuted as "non-German".

Art's "Chamber of Horrors": National Socialist Propaganda Exhibitions

From 1933 onwards, the first defamatory art exhibitions took place in various German cities: the exhibitions, which ran under various titles such as “Kulturbolschewistische Bilder” ("Cultural Bolshevistic Paintings") (Mannheim), “Kunst, die nicht aus unserer Seele kam” ("Art that Didn't Come from Our Soul") (Chemnitz) or “Schreckenskammer” ("Chamber of Horrors") (Halle an der Saale), showed the modern works of art removed from museums and galleries in an initial “purge”. These served as a cautionary tale for the supposed cultural decline of Germany and Europe.

However, the propagandistic art exhibitions should not only discredit modern art and its creators. The Weimar Republic and its (cultural) policy was to also be publicly condemned and the still young Nazi state thereby politically strengthened and stabilised.

Under the title "Degenerate Art", a defamatory art exhibition, which was opened in September 1933, for the first time traded as "un-German" identified works of the Dresden art collections. The Dresden exhibition was regarded as particularly successful and attracted many visitors, including Joseph Goebbels, Hermann Göring and other high-ranking functionaries of the NSDAP. Adolf Hitler also took a look at the Dresden exhibits, but he did so only after the exhibition had ended, when the works had already been stored.

The Munich Exhibition of "Entartete Kunst" in 1937

A second wave of Nazi persecution followed from 1936 onwards: they imposed a general ban on modern art and closed the world's first public collection of modern art with the Neue Abteilung der Berliner Nationalgalerie im Kronprinzenpalais (New Department of the Berlin National Gallery in the Palace of the Crown Prince). In 1937 another, larger and still very present in (art) historiography, defamatory exhibition of the Reich propaganda office took place. Under the title "Entartete Kunst" taken from the Dresden exhibition, more than 700 "alien" works by 120 artists from 32 German museums were exposed to the mockery of politics, the press and the population in the Munich Hofgarten-Arkaden. More than two million visitors came.

Not only the title of the exhibition was borrowed from the Dresden show: Many of the Dresden works were also part of the Munich exhibition. The staging of the exhibits was adapted, and the surrounding propaganda continued. The Munich exhibition was also a touring exhibition, which was held in 21 cities until 1941.

At the same time, the "Große Deutsche Kunstausstellung" ("Great German Art Exhibition") was also held in Munich, which was intended to show the National Socialist (cultural) ideals and convey them to the public. Carefully curated and clearly hung, regime-compliant historical and landscape paintings were shown, which were to stand in the greatest possible contrast to the "Entartete Kunst" in the neighboring building. However, the interest of the visitors was quite low compared to the attendance figures of the "Entartete Kunst" show: "only" 420,000 people came to celebrate the art that conformed to the regime.

The "Verfallskunst" ("decadent art") exhibited in the Munich Hofgarten Arcades included works from the Dresden exhibition, which were supplemented by other confiscated works of art. In the run-up to the Munich exhibition, thousands of works of art had been removed and confiscated from German museums in a national “purge”. It was not until 1938, one year later, that the corresponding legal basis was created with the "Law on the Confiscation of Products of Degenerate Art".

Reactions, Consequences and Decisions

But how did the artists, defamed as "degenerate" and abused for propaganda purposes of the NSDAP, react to these restrictions of their work and their lives?

Numerous artists persecuted by the National Socialists left Germany and went into exile. Max Beckmann, one of the most important (and at the same time one of the most hated) visual artists of the 20th century, left Germany in 1937 and went to Amsterdam, where he remained until the end of the Second World War. In 1947, he emigrated to the United States and lived there until his death. In Nazi Germany, he had previously lost his professorship at the Städelschule (Städel School) in Frankfurt, 650 of his works were confiscated as part of the national cleansing campaign, 21 of which were exhibited publicly and prominently in the Munich "Degenerate Art" show.

Other artists remained in Germany despite the prohibition of work and persecution and went into the so-called "inner emigration". The term describes the attitude of regime-critical artists who were banned from working or whose works were defamed as "degenerate" and who nevertheless could not flee Germany for a variety of reasons. The Bauhaus master Oskar Schlemmer, whose works were among the first to be destroyed by the National Socialists, officially worked in a Wuppertal paint factory after being banned from his profession - but he continued to paint in private. In his so-called "window paintings", he depicted his neighbours, whom he observed from his home, and thus further developed his artistic profile. Schlemmer had previously tried to explain and defend himself and his art in various correspondence with NSDAP functionaries and sympathisers, but had been unsuccessful.

Some artists adapted their works to Nazi ideas in order to escape persecution and a professional ban: Rudolf Schlichter, previously known as a communist Dada artist, adapted to the aesthetics and way of thinking propagated by the National Socialists and became friends with nationalist pioneers such as the writer Ernst Jünger.

This adaptation to the Nazi ideology later shamed him himself, so that he reinterpreted parts of his work: The warrior, who embodied his criticism of the liberal Weimar Republic, became a warrior who criticized the Nazi regime.

The painter Emil Bartoschek, on the other hand, only worked externally in accordance with the regime to conceal and finance his actual artistic activity.