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It proved harder to define good art than good news. The Nazis tried hard enough. They established literary and artistic prizes. They maintained a list of party-approved literature. They held major exhibitions of both approved and proscribed art (the latter exhibitions drawing more than the former).
The remarkable 1937 “Exhibit of Degenerate Art” in Munich made clear Nazism’s approach. The exhibit presented the works of artists like Marc Chagall, Otto Dix, George Grosz, Ernst Kirchner, Paul Klee, Oskar Koko-schka, and Emil Nolde in an unattractive, crowded, and chaotic setting.
The message of the exhibition was that Nazism had saved Germany from Jewish Bolshevist art that glorified perversion and ugliness rather than decency and beauty.4 Then as now, many Germans found much modern art unattractive or incomprehensible. There had been popular attacks on modern art even before Hitler’s takeover in 1933, so Nazism was able to present itself as the defender of traditional German culture.
To reinforce that claim, the party publishing house put out an elegant magazine, Die Kunst im Dritten Reich (after September 1939, Die Kunst im Deutschen Reich). It had two editions. Edition A focused on painting and sculpture. Edition B included everything in Edition A, but added material on architecture.5 Nazi leaders, notably Hitler, Goebbels, and Rosenberg, made regular statements on art. Hitler presented himself as an almost reluctant politician who would have preferred a career as an artist.
Architecture was Hitler’s favorite pastime. He had strong opinions and a mind for detail. Even during the war, nothing could relax him better than discussing building plans with Albert Speer, his favorite architect. His passion was more than personal. Hitler knew the persuasive power of stone.
In Mein Kampf he wrote: “[O]ur big cities of today possess no monuments dominating the city picture, which might somehow be regarded as the symbols of the whole epoch. This was true in the cities of antiquity, since nearly every one possessed a special monument in which it took pride. The characteristic aspect of the ancient city did not lie in private buildings, but in the community monuments which seemed made, not for the moment but for eternity.”6 The great buildings of antiquity were of a religious nature, buildings for eternity rather than the moment, exactly the point Hitler makes.
Albert Speer discusses Hitler’s desire to build buildings that would impress future generations, which Speer encouraged by proposing a “ruin value” approach to architecture in 1934. Speer made drawings of how Nazi buildings might look after the Thousand Year Reich had faded. Hitler’s entourage was disconcerted, but Hitler found the idea pleasing.7 The Nuremberg rally This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Sun, 05 Jun 2016 03:34:45 UTC
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grounds, the new Reich Chancellery in Berlin, and dozens of other buildings were intended to testify to the greatness of the Third Reich for generations.
Hanns Johst, a leading Nazi writer, made an explicitly religious comparison:
“The buildings of the Third Reich are the catechism of this secular faith put in stone and steel, concrete and iron!”8 He made a similar religious comparison in his eulogy for Fritz Todt, the man responsible for building the auto-bahn system: “I call Fritz Todt the Martin Luther of our highways. He nailed the thesis of highways to the gates of the Reich.”9
Hitler was not interested in architecture (or any other art) for its own sake. He wanted to transform major German cities just as he was transforming other aspects of life. He planned a new Berlin with vast avenues, huge domes, and great spaces. People would come to his Berlin as pilgrims came to Rome, awed and dwarfed by a city that was the seat of empire. His buildings were the secular temples of a secular Reich.
Literature was the least favorite Nazi art. Hitler read widely but preferred Karl May (a popular writer of adventure stories, many set in the American West) to Goethe. The Nazis developed their usual complicated and conflicting set of offices that dealt with literature (for example, in the women’s organization, the racial policy office, and the Hitler Youth), and the control was tight. After some prominent authors had left the country, the rest more or less wrote what would keep them out of trouble.10 There were a variety of novels with strong propaganda content that managed to tell a good enough story to be popular. An example is the 1934 novel Parteigenosse Schmiedecke, the story of a man who lost his job before 1933 for being a party member. After 1933, he regains his job but loses it again because his upright National Socialist behavior brings him in conflict with those who have not yet accepted the new order. In the end, his comrades, both wavering and steadfast, come to his aid, and he again regains his job.11 There were a good number of similar novels. Few sold well.
Theater used the spoken word, which the Nazis preferred to the written.
To demonstrate their enthusiasm for culture, considerable resources went into theater. The NSDAP’s own contribution to theatrical history, the Thingspiel, involved large speaking choruses performing in outdoor theaters filled with mysticism and talk of what bliss it was to burn to death for Germany in World War I. Understandably, these proved less popular than hoped, and they died out as the 1930s went on. The Nazis promoted other propaganda plays that were not vastly popular, but theater directors knew they had better include one in the playbill for the year. As the president of the Theater Chamber wrote in 1939: “Theater is a weapon of spiritual This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Sun, 05 Jun 2016 03:34:45 UTC
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struggle. It is ready for combat at the front lines of the intellectual battle.”12
The majority of theatrical efforts went into often excellent productions of the classics.
Hadamovsky outlined Nazi plans for the radio in his 1934 book titled Our Radio. The purpose of radio, he wrote, was to be political. That was best accomplished not by overwhelming the audience with political speeches and sermonizing, rather radio should have a political undertone in all it broadcast.13 Goebbels made the Nazi goal equally clear in a March 1933
speech to what must have been an uncomfortable audience of radio professionals: “The radio belongs to us, no one else! We will put the radio in our service; no other idea will have a chance to speak. If we do allow another idea to be heard, it will only be to show how it differs from us.”14
After initial Nazi policy provided radio with too much political content, the focus shifted more to entertainment and information, though political considerations were never ignored. As a Nazi writer noted in 1941: “The National Socialist state viewed radio from [the] beginning as a means of leadership that should serve the state and the National Socialist worldview.”15 The question was not whether the radio was to be guided by propaganda but how that could be done most effectively.
Film was handled differently than the press or radio, in part, perhaps, because there was more at stake.16 A journalist who made a slip could be fired with at most some embarrassment, but a faulty film involved a large investment. Although film companies remained privately owned, a complicated system of controls ensured that film stayed within clear limits. The Reich dramaturge was housed in the Propaganda Ministry.17 Scenarios for all films needed his advance approval. In 1936 film censors were added in the Reich Chamber of Film. They approved films before release. Government financing and awards influenced the directions the industry went.
Goebbels himself had a particular interest in film and kept careful watch.
His diaries have numerous comments on film. In August 1937, for instance, he noted: “A mass of film questions, with new ones every day.”18
His interest in film nearly cost him both his position and his marriage, as it led to an affair with Czech
actress Lida Baarova. Hitler finally ordered him to break off the relationship and return to his wife. Goebbels reluctantly obeyed.
There was an initial burst of propaganda films. Hitlerjunge Quex, for example, dealt with a boy who dies in Hitler’s service during the Kampfzeit, the period before the Nazi seizure of power. Hans Westmar, a completely mediocre film, glorified the SA. Both appeared in 1933. Propaganda films This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Sun, 05 Jun 2016 03:34:45 UTC
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turned out not to be box office hits. People bought a daily newspaper, even with heavy propaganda content, to get what news they could, but they avoided films that provided more propaganda than entertainment. As a result, most films during the Nazi era had relatively limited political content.
The goal was to entertain in a way that subtly reinforced (or at least did not undermine) the propaganda line. There were exceptions, films like the anti-Semitic trio Der ewige Jude, Jud Süß, and Der Rothschilds of the early war years or Kolberg, the last Nazi film, which presented the message that if only one held out long enough a miracle would happen. But as Rentschler notes: “Nazi features are anything but universally proscribed or detested; they are still shown today in many places. Most of the era’s films exist and—with a precious few exceptions—remain in circulation.”19 Their very
“innocuousness” contributed to their propaganda value. By presenting an optimistic, cheerful attitude toward life, they reinforced in subtle ways the basic themes of Nazi propaganda.20
There were a considerable number of short propaganda films, usually produced by the party. These had stronger political content. The Reichspropagandaleitung alone made 140 such films in 1935. Gau offices released others. The RPL’s film section developed motorized units able to bring film shows to villages and towns that lacked a movie theater.21 In the early years of the war, the system had 900 vehicles that provided 50,000 film showings monthly.
Although the film industry often was not overly sympathetic to Nazism, as in other areas of the media, most went along (although the number of prominent personalities who fled Germany was higher in film than in other media). Given a choice between a concentration camp, which Goebbels did not hesitate to threaten, and wealth and acclaim, most held their tongues in public and limited their opposition to matters that did not outrage the system.
An interesting sidelight to Nazi cultural policy is artistic criticism. The problem was that the restrictions Nazism placed on art often led to mediocre, if professionally done, paintings, books, movies, and plays. It would not do to have that said too often, as it would contradict the propaganda line that art was flourishing under National Socialism as never before. Goebbels had a running battle with the critics, finally attempting to ban criticism altogether. Criticism, he decided, was a “Jewish” phenomenon. “The critic is to be superseded by the art editor. The reporting of art should not be concerned with values, but should confine itself to description.” The public would supposedly make up its own mind.22 When the This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Sun, 05 Jun 2016 03:34:45 UTC
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lack of artistic criticism in newspapers led to criticism, Goebbels announced a ban on criticizing newspapers. As he instructed party offices: “Since I have prohibited the press from criticism, I must also ban criticism of the press. . . . From now on, any public criticism of the press is prohibited.”23
This policy proved beyond his powers to enforce, but the attempt showed how dangerous he believed criticism could be to the Nazi cause.
Socialist Art
The SED also had a great interest in art. Politburo member Kurt Hager oversaw cultural policy from 1963 to 1989. Other party leaders, the Central Committee, and party congresses made regular and long statements on what culture ought to be. These expectations changed over the years as the SED tried approaches that had limited success.
As with Hitler, architecture was a favorite pastime of the GDR’s leaders, though they went in different directions. There was some interest in building to impress. Walter Ulbricht spoke in 1951 of “buildings for the centuries.”24 In 1969 he encouraged his subordinates to think big in the reconstruction of Berlin: “The most important thing for the council is to concentrate its energies on the city center. A few years ago, there were tendencies to split the energies. One cannot build a capital city that way. It is very important to concentrate all one’s resources for a capital city.” At the same meeting, Paul Vernier said: “The monumental art of our time should show the greatness and the accomplishments of the socialist order and its people.”25
Disproportionate resources were put into Berlin in an effort to make it a showplace. Unfortunately, leaving the center of Berlin even in 1989
quickly brought one to buildings untouched since 1945. This was even more true of cities such as Leipzig or Dresden. Like Hitler, the GDR’s leaders wanted a capital city that would impress visitors but lacked the resources to carry out their dreams.
Propaganda also influenced the choice of past buildings to be restored or eliminated. For example, the damaged Prussian Royal Palace in Berlin was torn down in 1950 and was eventually replaced by the Palace of the Republic, which became an East Berlin showpiece of socialist architecture, the meeting place of the GDR’s parliament, and the scene of major government receptions. It was an intentional removal of a symbol of the past. The University Church in Leipzig was torn down in 1968 in the face of considerable domestic opposition. “The thing has to go,” Ulbricht said, even This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Sun, 05 Jun 2016 03:34:45 UTC
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though it was one of the few major buildings in Leipzig’s central city that had survived the war in relatively good condition. The Frauenkirche in Dresden was left in ruins as a war memorial. The Semper Opera in Dresden, on the other hand, was elegantly restored, reopening in 1985. As the
“Better Germany,” the GDR could dispense with old churches and palaces, but not opera houses.
Under Honecker, the major architectural efforts went into attempting to meet his goal of solving the substantial housing shortage by 1990. The result was enormous housing developments like Marzahn in Berlin or Halle-Neustadt. These were often poorly constructed and aesthetically monotonous, but they included central heating (no small matter to those who formerly hauled brown coal up five flights of stairs) and bathrooms (many prewar buildings had shared hallway toilets). Progress in housing was also a steady element of propaganda, which presented it as proof of socialism’s ability to meet human needs. Big new apartment buildings were more visible proof of socialism’s progress than were restored buildings from Germany’s capitalist past. As a result, many once solid apartment buildings decayed through lack of maintenance, often rotting from the top down as roofs began to leak (there was a perennial shortage of roofing tiles in the GDR).
Literature was the queen of the arts in the GDR. The country prided itself on its self-awarded name Leseland DDR, or “The GDR: Land of Readers.” The GDR produced about 6,000 books a year, 1,200 of which were nonfiction. A careful system of reviewers ensured that few works that were too controversial appeared while eliminating the need for official censorship.26
Unlike the Third Reich, which gave no particular benefits to most writers, the GDR’s writers were pampered. They were assured of prestige and benefits. The system encouraged writing at every level. In April 1959, for example, the “Bitterfeld Way” was proclaimed. A gathering of writers, directed from behind the scenes by the party, proclaimed that writers should go into the factories and building sites to write literature that would celebrate the glories of labor. Workers themselves were to create works of art.27 As Ulbricht said at the time: “Artistic representation must always proceed fr
om ideology.”28 The Bitterfeld Way did not prove notably successful and was retired a few years later.29 The Johannes R. Becher Literature Institute in Leipzig, founded in 1955, admitted twenty residential students annually and also offered correspondence courses to train future writers. It survived to the end of the GDR and produced a number of successful writers, though none of first rank.
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A significant number of leading authors left for the West, but those who remained functioned almost as the real journalists of the GDR. Writers like Christa Wolf and Christoph Hein wrote novels that addressed some of the difficulties of life in the GDR in ways that could not have been done in newspapers. There were clear limits, and authors usually had to accept significant revisions to retain some critical content. Klaus Höpke, the SED
functionary responsible for literature, explained his rules: “Well, fleeing the Republic was very touchy. The rule of thumb was that it could be indicated, but it was not allowed to be presented as the norm, even though in real life every East German knew someone who had done it. Then there were certain planks of social policy which were untouchable. You couldn’t say that many pensioners lived badly here, or that lots of hospitals were outdated. And you couldn’t really touch the army, the state security, or relations with the Soviet Union.”30 Or quite a number of other things. Katja Lange-Müller’s criticism of Christa Wolf’s novels is not entirely fair but has an element of truth that applies to GDR literature in general: “an attempt to express seven unimportant truths in order to leave an important lie covered up.”31
The system carefully monitored television programs. The GDR produced a range of interesting and popular television programming, some of which found an audience in West Germany. But there were also examples of heavy propaganda, which generally drew limited audiences. The most visible program with heavy propaganda content was Karl Eduard von Schnitzler’s Der Schwarze Kanal, the 1,519 episodes of which provided commentary to footage taken from West German television.32 Programs on areas of general interest often had a tangled path before being broadcast. For example, a 1985 program on technology required the approval of ten bureaucrats, ending with Günter Mittag, the SED’s economics expert.33
The Propagandas of Nazi Germany and the German Democratic Republic Page 16
