Art in Nazi Germany
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The Art of the Third Reich, the officially approved art produced in Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945, was characterized by a style of Romantic realism based on classical models. While banning modern art styles as degenerate, the Nazis promoted paintings and sculptures that were narrowly traditional in manner and that exalted the "blood and soil" values of racial purity, militarism, and obedience. Other popular themes for Nazi art were the Volk at work in the fields, a return to the simple virtues of Heimat, the manly virtues of the National Socialist struggle, and the lauding of the female activities of child bearing and raising (Kinder, Küche, Kirche).
Similarly, music was expected to be tonal and free of jazz influence; films and plays were censored.
Nazi art bears a close similarity to the Communist propaganda art style of Socialist Realism, and the term heroic realism has sometimes been used to describe both artistic styles.
Among the well known artists endorsed by the Nazis were the sculptors Josef Thorak and Arno Breker, and painters Werner Peiner, Adolf Wissel and Conrad Hommel.
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Individual artists
In September 1944 the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda prepared a list of 1,041 artists considered crucial to National Socialist culture, and therefore exempt from war service. This Gottbegnadeten list provides a well-documented index to the painters, sculptors, architects and filmmakers who were regarded by the Nazis as politically sympathetic, culturally valuable, and still residing in Germany at this late stage of the war.
Painting
- Thomas Baumgartner (1892–1962)
- Fritz Erler (1868–1940)
- Sepp Hilz (1906–1967)
- Walther Hoeck (1885–1956)
- Conrad Hommel (1883–1971)
- Trude Hoppe-Arendt
- Julius Paul Junghanns (1876–1953)
- Hubert Lanzinger (1880–1950), painter of "Adolf Hitler as Standard Bearer"
- Georg Lebrecht
- Ernst Liebermann (1869–1960)
- Oskar Martin-Amorbach (1897–1987)
- Paul Mathias Padua (1903–1981)
- Gisbert Palmie (1897–1984)
- Werner Peiner (1897–1984)
- Ivo Saliger (1894–1987)
- Leopold Schmutzler (1864–1940)
- Georg Sluyterman von Langeweyde (1903–1978)
- Edmund Steppes (1873–1968)
- Karl Truppe (1887–1952)
- Udo Wendel
- Wolfgang Willrich (1897–1948)
- Adolf Wissel (1894–1973)
- Adolf Ziegler (1892–1959)
Sculpture
- Karl Albiker
- Arno Breker
- Fritz Klimsch
- Fritz Koelle
- Georg Kolbe
- Ferdinand Liebermann
- Willy Meller
- Richard Scheibe
- Adolf Wamper
- Josef Thorak
- Franz Nagy
- Karl Diebitsch
- Prof. Theodor Karner
Music