Gottbegnadeten list  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

Related e

Wikipedia
Wiktionary
Shop


Featured:

The Gottbegnadeten-Liste ("God-gifted list" or "Important Artist Exempt List") was a 36-page list of artists considered crucial to Nazi culture. The list was assembled in September 1944 by Joseph Goebbels, the head of the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, and Germany's chancellor Adolf Hitler.

Contents

History

The list exempted the designated artists from military mobilisation during the final stages of World War II. Each listed artist received a letter from the Nazi Propaganda Ministry which certified his or her status. A total of 1,041 names of artists, architects, music conductors, singers, writers and filmmakers appeared on the list. Of that number, 24 were named as especially indispensable; they thus became the equivalent of National Socialism's "national treasures."

Goebbels included about 640 motion picture actors, writers and directors on an extended version of the list. They were to be protected as part of his propaganda film efforts, which persisted through the end of the war (and culminating in the expensive final UFA production Kolberg, released in January 1945).

Many of the cultural figures appearing on the list are no longer widely remembered but there are exceptions, including a number of renowned classical musicians such as the composers Richard Strauss, Hans Pfitzner, Carl Orff and Norbert Schultze, the orchestral conductors Wilhelm Furtwängler and Herbert von Karajan, and the Wagnerian baritone Rudolf Bockelmann. The only foreigner (Ausländer) on the list was Dutch actor Johannes Heesters.

Special listed artists

Architects

Visual artists

Authors

Composers

Actors

Singers

Further listed artists on the "Führerliste"

There was also an extended list, the so-called "Führerliste" that included "God-gifted artists" who were not to be drafted but worked as "Künstler im Kriegseinsatz" (artists in the war effort).

Authors

Composers

Conductors

Instrumentalists

Theater and Opera

Fine Arts

Special film-list initiated by Goebbels

See also




Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Gottbegnadeten list" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

Personal tools