cultural life under nazism

8/11/2019 Cultural Life Under Nazism

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AeCBODvy

would

have been regarded as foreign. This foreign element was for him indicative of a spiritual

i m i n r t l n n

that had reached the point of destroying the

spirit .

ConcludingAat thepoliticalcollapse of 1918 was

ariMnOy

amicipated in this degeneration, Hitlerdelivered a

harangue

against nrademist art as art Bolshevism.

Sbatf

years

ago, he commented, such aculturalcollapse, as it manifested itself

in

futurist,cubist, and dadaistic works,

^ o i i dhaveseemedsimplyimpossible and its organizers

would

haveended up in a madhouse . AsHitlersaid, he saw

ftoe

diseases

*Hn

nearly every

field

of art and culture in Germany between 1900 and 192S. The Bolshevist

pRScaf

was for

him

embodied in a cubist monstrosity, and he questioned whether it was permissible to dish up

haBodnations of lunatics or

criminals

to the healthy

world .

Whatmakesthis tediousharangueso important for

*e

ioieationalist

interpretation is the fact thati tprovides the complemento ftermslater used to

designate

modernist art

as a

apedal

idndofcultural

degeneration .

T f i t k r attributed the ultimate

reason

for the decline ofImperialGermany... to its failure to recognize the racial

pwMcuiin Germany. For

hinu

history was determined by thesurvivalof thefittest. a popularized version of

Social

Darwinism.In Hider'sterminology,this

reads

as the self-preservation and propagation of thespeciesand therace...

sobject to the lawso fNature . Consequently, Hider also sought to provide aracialjustificationof hiscultural politicsin

MeinXampf.Forhim,the Aryan was the founder and custodian of culture,whereasthe Jewish people were

declared to he a people

'Svithout

any true culture, especiallywithouta culture of

its

own .Hitlermaintained that

there has never

been

a Jewish art and accordingly there is none today eiUier . This pohidous demagoguery

reveals the racist

basis

of

Hitler's

concept of

cultural

degeneration and the

claim

for amandateto exercise this

diseaseo f

degeneration

from

the German national body .

The Nads' definitionof what was German wasbasedon a biomedicalworldview that posited a fictitious

Goman norm and resulted hi the argument that anything deviating

from

this norm was to be removed likea

cancer from

the

fictitious

body of a German people, or

Votk.

Nineteenth-century

pseudo-sdence

provided the

Naziswitha term for this norm and thedeviationtherefrom: the German wordsArT,or

genus,

and

Entartung,

or

degeneration.

While

the Nazi

usage

of both the terms rac^ and

Aryan

was

totaify

unscientific and

derived

from

pseudosdentific publications of the nineteenth century, the terms l iad the aura of sdentific

respectability not only among the masses but also among the educated middle dass. The l ink between

degeneration and the Jew was oneo fthe standard associations ofNazipropaganda.AlthoughJewsImdsettled hi

Germany for over 1,000 years, they were now considered as not

fitting

the fictitiousGerman norm, and they

were designated asdegenerate-

deviating

fromand harmful to thenorm.Therefore, according to Nad

ideology,

they had to be removed

from

the body of the German people, and this body had to be protected

from

or

immunizedagainst the influence

o f

degeneration .

I M P L E M E K T A T I O N

OFN A Z I

C U L T U R A L

POLICIES

In 1930, threeyearsbeforeHitlerbecameChancellor, there occurred the firstinstance of implementation ofNazi

culturalpolides : as a resulto fstateelectionsi nThuringiainJanuary 1930, the NaddqnityWilhelmRickentered the

stategovernment as minister of the interior

with

responsibility forstatepolice and education. One of Prick's

first

political

actions was to introduce a

regulation

called Ordinance againstNegit)

Culture,

whichwas to rid

Thuringia

o f

all

immoral

and

foreign

racialelements

in

the arts. Thisordinance resulted

in

the

blacklistingo f

books, the censorship

of

theatre, cinema, and concert

stage

as

well

as a purge of modernist aftfirom he Wdmar DucdMuseum...

he

eariy

actions

made

Thuringiathe rehearsal

stage

ofNazi culturalpolicies.Even though I^ck had to resign

in April

of

1931,

his actions were praised throughout the Partypress.They were a prelude to thecultural

policies

tobe implemented after

1933 . -

After Hitler had been appointed chancellor in January 1933, the various

stages

of his cultural p


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POLYCRACY,R A DI C A L I S A TI ONOFC U L T U R A LPOLICYAN DHITLER'S

LEADERSHIP

Nazirule was a polycratic system and itsculturalpolicies were no exception... [T]he interagency rivalry was

perhaps

more evidentherethan in any otherarea.Goebbels'ministryandthe Reich ChamberofCultureunder

his presidencybad a

rival

in the Combat LeagueofGerman Culture{Kamp bundfS r deutschKuUur under the

leadership of

Alfred

Rosenberg... Founded in 1929, this organization gadiered not

only Nazi

writers, artists, and

scholars, but also other nationalists, ultraconservatives. and pan-German racists of various colors. In January 1934,

Hider

created a new department for die

supervision

ofthe

ideological training

of the Party,

known

as the Officefor the

Supervision

of Ideological

Training

and Education of the

Nazi

Party,

with

Rosenberg as its head. This move

mstitutionalized

the rivalry between the two topNazi

officials

hi the

area

of cultural politics.The interoffice

infightii igdidnotneutralize the negative effectsofNazi cultural politicsbut radicalized them. In many uistances,

Rosenberg forced Goebbels' hand in cultural policies . Infighting was typical for the evolvement of many

institutionsandpolicies,and the

cultural

policies were no exception. A

process

of cumulative radicalization ...also

can be obsoved in the realm of

cultural

politics.Thisradicalizationoccurred whenever the various competing

Nazi

agencies

fought for

positions

of

power

withu)the system.

But

the cumulative

radicalizatioi^

ofthe

cultural politics

was

mainly

due to

Hitier

s

hitervention

and not the resultofthefaiteractionofvariousagendes.Thebdanceof

powo-b^ween Goebbels and Rosenberg was controlled by

Hitler's firm

leadership in matters of

cultural politics

between 1933 and 1939 .

Atthebeginningof

his

r^jjme,Hi t i e rwasrelativelyambiguous inhispronouncements on a rt Hisfirstpublic

statement on art in 1933

seemed

to^peaseboth the Goebbels and Rosenberg factions. He condemned modermst art,

but

asserted

that today's

tasks

require new methods. This statement was considoed a rejection of the

position

of the

Combat League for

Culture,

while

the condemnation of mod^dsm was taken as a repudiation of

[Goebbels']

Berlin

faction.

Goebbels* appomtment as president of the Reich Chand}er of

Colbire

wasseenasastepin theright

direction

toward

restraining &e dogmatism of Rosenberg and his Combat League for German Culture. By September 1934,

however,Hi t i e rdefined andsetthecourseofthe

cultural

polides for theyearstocome.

A t

the annud Nad Party

rally in

Nuremberg,

he

identifiedtwo

cdturddangersthreatemng

Nationd

Sodalism. Rrst, the modermsts,

whom

Iw

describedas

ttie

cubists, futurists, and Dadaists. were targeted as the conrupters of art There was noplace in

Germanyformodernist art, he

claimed,

that such charlatans are mistaken that the creators of theThirdRdch are

foolish

orcowardlyenough to 1^ themsdves be ...intimidatedby their cfaatto-. Hewoddnot tolerate any cdturd

assistance

topoUticddestruction, and he demanded that art be integrated as part of theNazi politicdprogram. The

otho'cdturd dang ' hepCTceived was the traditionalists.In thiscase,

IMex

attacked theMstoricist

followers

of

Rosenberg and the Combat League for German

CdUne.

Heridiculedthe representatives ofa

r e v l vd

of

Teutonic

art

and ordered such redvalist actidties to

cease.

These

polides, outlinedhiHitier's

speech

of 1934,

became

the

otBddprogram

of

Nad culturd

politics,and there was to be no

significant deviation

from the

direction

pobited

by

Hi t l e r . ' '

Roseabo^

and the Combat League for German Cdture woe prevented

from

gaimng farther

control

in

cdturd

affiuTL By 1935. the Cooibatk a ^ was

itMrporatedinto

the Nad Labor Front and had lost its sigmficance

within

the NadVj^sHefSi

wiule

Rosedxrg

shified

his actidties to other

areas.

Goebbels. on the other

hand,

was forced to

retrench

his

mote progresdveprogramai dtowithdrawto a more reactionary approachtocdture .

ByAugust 1907, thedefhiltiveNadculturd politicswereinplace and enforced inallareas...Nothingwas

donew itl iont

Hitier

s

i^provaL

The

ap{opruite legislation

was issued in thenameo fthe FQhrer and chancellor of the

Reich...In omtrasttodocuments

relating

to the Holocaust Hider's signature can be

found

on the major documents

relating

to

diecdturd

poUdes . *

Hit le r dalmeda qpedd relationship between German and dassicd Greek art, establishing a newtypeof

dasddsm. Ndtiier medlevd art nor expressionism coddserve as modds, but

only

classed Greekart as an

expressionof an

A r y a i ^

race,of a hedthier and stronger humanype

Hit le r

considered it his task to protect

the Germanraceandits art

from

destruction or,ashe put

i t ,

degeiKracy ...(Dhe cdturd

politics

oftheTh i rd

Rdch...constitutedanfaitegrdpartof[HBflers]ra dd polides .

S OURCE EhiiiardBahr, ^aziCulturalPolitics: Intentionalism vs. Functionalism , in Glenn R.

Cuomo,(cd-).

National

Socialist

Cultural

Policy London, Macmillan,

1995, pp.5-22.

DJM

EhrhaidBAHR

cultural life under nazism

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