Nicolou__Mark._Constructing_a_Voice_of_Degeneracy__Entartete_Kunst__Munich__1937.pdf

Constructing a Voice of Degeneracy:

Entartete Kunst, Munich, 1937

Mark Nicolou

Professor Adam Jolles

Modern Art Exhibitions

26 April 2011

Mark Nicolou

Professor Adam Jolles

Modern Art Exhibitions

26 April 2011

Constructing a Voice of Degeneracy:

Entartete Kunst, Munich, 1937

On 19 July 1937, Adolph Ziegler, president of the National Chamber of Fine Arts of the

NSDAP, opened the Ausstellung “Entartete Kunst” (Degenerate Art Exhibition) in Munich at the

Archäologisches Institut. Throughout the exhibition space, the curators constructed didactic

criticisms and ridicule through quotes, commentary, and their methods of arrangement of the

more than 650 works. The words of Hitler and other NSDAP members appeared exclusively in

Deutsche Schrift (German script), their Fraktur typeface, while those of modernist artists and

unauthored criticisms were in childlike or inconsistent Romanized form referred to as

Shriftentartung (degeneracy of script). This duality is continued in the corresponding exhibition

catalogue as well as other NSDAP propaganda including pre-1937 degenerate art posters, the

Entartete Musik exhibition and Der Ewige Jude (The Eternal Jew) exhibition. In addition to

these carefully constructed displays, the use of typography was extended into other areas of

visual culture to engage in the “Total War” that Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels would

later declare.1 These exhibitions are among the many propagandistic efforts by the Reich to

instill nationalistic cultural policies into the German people and inoculate them from the scourge

of the avant-garde.

The simultaneous presence of these differing modes of dissemination by the German state

in Entartete Kunst signify the extent to which the NSDAP went to constrain and manipulate

cultural nationalism. It is my contention that the application and differentiation of the formal

aspects of written language, beyond their content, reflect a desire for cultural homogeneity in

Germany - all as part of the construction of a government approved national identity.

Specifically, these different forms represent two distinct voices by means of typography, one of

refined, historically validated authority and another of modern degeneracy. Further, I posit that

the criticism of non-Fraktur typography, alongside the banning of avant-garde art relates the

Rosenberg-Goebbels debate with the Fraktur-Roman typography debate.2 Both of these

controversies represent the nuanced concern of the new German government with the smallest

components of national culture.

Disputes of National Cultural Policy

As described by Neil Levi, the 1935 Rosenberg-Goebbels dispute negotiated two variants

for developing a national art.3 Alfred Rosenberg, Commissar for Supervision of Intellectual and

Ideological Education of the NSDAP, supported a neoclassicist, realist mode of painting while

Joseph Goebbels, Reich Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, championed a

Nordic, anti-bolshevik expressionist style.4 In either case the goal was a German national art,

representative of the aims of the German people. Upon Rosenberg’s rhetorical success, all

stylistic modes of avant-garde art were branded degenerate.

A parallel exists to this debate regarding the treatment by the Reich of typography. The

point of contention was, again, modernity contrasted with history and nationalism. In the

Roman-Fraktur dispute, proponents of New Typography, such as Jan Tchishold and Paul Renner,

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supported a Romanized, streamlined, and universally legible type.5 As a counterpoint, the

conservative members of the German design community criticized the new type, and found the

Gothic-based Fraktur to be the most readable and “expressive of the content of the words.”6 An

influential text in this dispute was by Heinrich Wieynck, professor of typography at the

University of Dresden. His 1931 review “Guiding Principles on the Problem of Contemporary

Letterform Design” attacked the new Romanized types as “unGerman,” alien to the national

spirit, and most scathingly termed these types Schriftentartung (degenerate scripts).7 The

NSDAP settled on Fraktur as the official German typeface in 1935 requiring all official printings,

school textbooks, newspapers, and government subsidized publishers to switch to the German

type.8

Several designs were spread which reinforced the new official position of the

government. Design contests were held to establish acceptable variants of the Fraktur types; the

Element typeface was created specifically to complement the swastika (fig. 1).9 Additionally,

slogans were spread which associated Fraktur with German nationalism (figs. 2 and 3).10 The

first reads: “German script is an indispensable protective weapon for Germans abroad against

menacing de-Germanization,” and the second states:

Feel GermanThink GermanSpeak GermanBe German Even in your Script11

Each example illustrates the proper scripts and encourages their use for explicitly German

purposes. The latter slogan presses the idea that not only is the script German, but one should

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embrace German-ness through the aesthetic of letters. In the following years the forced

acceptance and adherence to both of these policies was conducted on the battlefield of the

exhibition.

Art and Typography in Entartete Kunst Exhibition Catalogue, 1937

While the 1937 Entartete Kunst and its accompanying catalogue have been discussed in

relation to the Rosenberg-Goebbels debate, the treatment of typography in either of these has

remained largely unexplored. Among the most iconic images of this exhibition, the catalogue

cover presents a clear example of the defaming of modern art and script (fig. 4). The mocking

quotations around “KUNST” appear insignificant compared with the rough crayon sketch of the

text. The insult is immediately directed to the uncredited cover image of Otto Freundlich’s

improperly lighted Der neue Mensch (1912). The crayoned text implies that the creator posesses

a childlike skill or mind. The bold, capitalized, red word is effortlessly contrasted with the

official status of the book as “Austellungsführer” (exhibition guide) in an officially approved

type, as if to say, rather sardonically, “they will provide the art (‘Kunst’), we will be your guide

(Führer) to this contagion.”

Within the catalogue, the concept is repeated. Each page spread contrasts the official

statement of the Nazi’s with the avant-garde art held within the exhibition (fig. 5). Without fail,

the left page reveals the authority of conservative criticism in Fraktur type, while the right side

contains thumbnails with brief quotes out of context and vague defamatory descriptions in

Modern typefaces. The page spread in figure 5 contains the opposition of the exhibition intent

with the images and ideas of avant-garde artists. Page two of the spread begins:

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What does the “Degenerate Art” Exhibition mean to do?

It means to give, at the outset of a new age for German people, a firsthand survey of the gruesome last chapter of those decades of cultural decadence that preceded the great change.

It means to appeal to the sound judgement of the people and thus to put an end to the drivel and claptrap of all those literary cliques and hangers-on, many of whom would still try to deny that we ever had such a thing as artistic degeneracy […]

It means to expose the common roots of political anarchy and cultural anarchy and to unmask degenerate art as art-Bolshevism in every sense of the term […]12

The facing page contains three George Grosz graphic works, a Marc Chagall painting, and

another unidentified painting; the upper left corner contains a quote that reads:

“To become an art-Communist [kunstkommunist] is to pass through two phases:

1. to take one’s place in the Communist party and assume the duties of solidarity in the struggle,

2. to take the revolutionary transformation of production.”

The Jew Wieland Herzfelde in “The Opponent” 1920/21.13

In this comparison, the NSDAP statement implies the cultural end of Weimar decadence, the

quality of rationalism in those who agree with the state positions, and the offsetting of

degeneracy upon Bolshevism. By this first spread of explanatory text, the reader/viewer can be

sure what the official position is on art and politics, but with an additional subtlety the way in

which the typefaces cast the elegance of German perfection and National Socialist modernity in

opposition to the old decadence of Weimar culture, to be found in politics, art, and type.

Inside Entartete Kunst, Munich, 1937

Within the exhibition space itself, these contrasting voices of authority and degeneracy

are continued. In the main entrance Ludwig Gies’s Kruzifixus (c.1921) is briefly explained (fig.

6). Attached to the base of the cross a Fraktur title-card reads “Christus von Prof. Gies, Berlin.”

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This work appears to be the only one which uses the official script to identify the work, inviting

the comparison to the traditional tablet attached to the cross. Completing the comparison, the

title card identifies Germany, by means of its official script, as the murder of degenerate art.

Below this is the continued attack which leaves the newly arrived visitor with no other way to

read the object — below a photo of the sculpture in situ, it states: “This horror hung as a war

memorial in the cathedral of Lübeck.” Beside the work a larger placard is directed generally at

all the work in the room. At the top it implores the viewer; it states, “Man staune!” (‘Marvel!’ or

‘It’s amazing!’)14 Behind the text a Bauhaus inspired, roughly painted question mark contradicts

or mocks the admonishment to “Marvel!” and instead encourages an act more like gawking.

Because this sight introduces the exhibition, this is the attitude intended to be repeated by the

viewer.

In the third and largest room hangs the infamous mockery of Wassily Kandinsky’s Der

schwarze Fleck (1921). Like the installation of Gies, this piece establishes the proper reading of

the images and the text around it (figs 7 and 8). In ridiculing a modernist artwork by recreation,

the text above in both content and style can be taken the same way. The George Grosz quote

reads: “Take Dada seriously! it’s worth it.” The derisive employment of the quote is doubled by

the uneven and inconsistent type within which it is written. A discussion of the misplacement of

a quote about dada over an Expressionist Kandinsky is reductive of the larger situation.

It is, however, significant that the lyrical quality of the text is reflected by the lines of the

mock painting. Using the same movement of the composition, the quote follows an organic flow

atop the panting. Further, the text is rendered in the same paint and varied line weights as the

Kandinsky, and, although no color images exist, a secondary color is present in the text which is

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visible as a grey-tone in the apertures of the letters of the word “Dada.” Similarly the tittle of the

‘i’ in “Sie” extends irrelevantly upward as those part of the painting as well as the exclamation

mark, which leans to the right like the abstract forms below. Although the text was intended to

harshly critique the work, the application of the painting’s principles reflect an understanding of

the visual qualities of Kandinsky’s intentions.

Also on this wall, two dada publication covers are present: Der Dada numbers 2 and 3

(figs. 9 and 10). Each of these images combines a multitude of types, sizes, and compositional

methods. This appears to be a tactic of the curators to validate the criticism above; however to

even a mildly discerning eye, the differences are vast. The dada constructions employ the

methods of photomontage and collage to create a disorienting display that remains relatively

legible. The Grosz quote is connected to the staggered type of Der Dada No. 3 by the inclusion

of Grosz’s dada works. The page lists the “Directeurs” of the journal as “groszfield,”

“hearthaus,” and “georgemann;” the puppet-like figure, beside a Richard Huelsenbeck poem, is

further credited to Grosz-Heartfield. With this direct comparison, a viewer approaching closely

might find the preposterous quote above reconciled with the page below. Because the larger text

dominates the space, it informs the reading and ridicules the smaller image.

On the south wall of the same room, a similar technique of criticism is attempted (fig.

11). Above a series of sculptures, an undulating quote is taken as a self-assertion of artlessness.

This text is preceded by the neatly and properly written: “They say it themselves:” it continues,

“We act as if we were painters, poets, or whatever, but what we are is simply and ecstatically

impudent. In our impudence we take the world for a ride and train snobs to lick our boots!”

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While the wobbling text matches the varying heights of the sculptures below, their

intentional placement defies a logical design order. The first sculpture under the text is Eugen

Hoffmann’s Mädchen mit blauem Haar, (c. 1919), followed by Rudolf Belling’s Dreiklang

(1924), and finally returning to Hoffmann, his Weiblicher Akt. The intentional placement of the

Hoffmann sculptures on either side of the Belling creates the uneven ground upon which the text

lies. If the Hoffmann sculptures were placed together (switching the Belling with Hoffmann’s

Weiblicher Akt) both visual and oeuvreic order would be restored. This subtle feature

compounds the confusion of the multivalent display techniques to prevent the viewer from

becoming contaminated by an artist’s degeneracy.

The official voice is forcefully established and distinguished in this exhibition space.

Again, in moving closer, the viewer finds the two voices amongst each object. In the Cubo-

Constructivist Walter Dexel painting, Lokomotive, the perceived simplicity of the image is

reflected in typography of the artist’s name, title, museum collection, year, and inflated Weimar

cost (fig. 12).15 In an attempt to cast this and all other works taken from museum collections as

degenerate, a secondary level of criticism is imposed upon the museum that purchased the work.

All of the pre-Nazi history of the work is rendered in a sans serif, Roman type and contrasted

with a red letter Fraktur placard below. As with many paintings throughout the exhibition, it

reads: “Paid for by the taxes of the German working people.” The intended effect of this was

certainly to incite anger in the viewer.

All of these subtle techniques represent the first time the NSDAP exposed a large number

of German citizen to these modes of propaganda. In the subsequent exhibitions, these

techniques, begun in this successful exhibition, were honed to serve broader uses and sharper

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criticisms. The following section will examine the previous methods of typographic propaganda

in exhibitions, as well as those which the 1937 show influenced.

Other Exhibitions of Degeneracy

Pre-1937 Exhibitions of Degenerate Art

Before the 1937 exhibition, the NSDAP attempted other less expansive exhibitions of the

art which they found to be degenerate. Surviving Entartete Kunst posters from Dortmund in

1935 and Munich in 1936 express the same ideological critique of modern art and modern type

refined by the culminating show in 1937. By directly contrasting the official writing with the

cartoonish quality in the Dortmund poster, the effect of the alienation of the art is established;

before entering the actual exhibition, the viewer knows how to read the display (fig. 13). The

poster states: “Special Show: Degenerate Art. Services provided by Judeo-Bolshevik cultural

poisoning.”16 A further tie to the differentiation between the legitimate and illegitimate elements

emphasized in this poster are evident in the diacritical mark over the ‘u’ in ‘K!nst.’ This is a

vestigial element from blackletter typefaces, such as Fraktura, which helps differentiate a ‘u’

from an ‘i.’ This establishes a subtle mockery of the new typefaces as well as the new art.

Similarly, the poster for the 1936 Munich exhibition, held at the White Hall Police

Department, employs elements of Russian Suprematist design to create a parody of the avant-

garde (fig. 14). The poster clearly mocks and reverses El Lissitzky’s lithography Beat the Whites

with the Red Wedge (1919) (fig 15). Much like the treatment of fellow Russian Kandinsky in the

later Munich show, Lissitzky’s work is reversed and recast as degenerate. Rather than the red

wedge attacking the white, the white (perhaps Aryan) wedge assaults the red circle. The poster

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insults the design principles of modernism while informing the viewer of the degenerate features

of Jewish and Bolshevik art by stating: “Degenerate Art exhibition of “cultural documents” of

Bolshevist and Jewish subversion.”17 The insult continues: “What we see in this interesting-

looking [work], was once taken seriously!!!!!”

Both of these works use the authority and supremacy of the government in constructing

degeneracy. By creating a spectacle of Otherness, the viewer, even of the exhibition poster,

becomes aware of the proper response. Elements of each of these types were later used to

strengthen the message in the 1937 exhibition from the mockery of Kandinsky to the divergent

textual voices of aesthetics. The multifaceted methods of converging art and typography are not

unique, thus this technique was expanded after the culminating 1937 show.

Outside Entartete Kunst: Munich, Berlin, and Düsseldorf

As the 1937 Entartete Kunst exhibition traveled to other locations after Munich, at least

one well documented feature helped to externalize the typography insult of the exhibition within.

Although no subsequent incarnation of Entartete Kunst was documented as well as the opening

in Munich, several photographs of the façades in later exhibitions have been retained. The

lettering on these façades also reveals the increasing reliance upon typography to distance the

visitors from the avant-garde.

The original show in Munich, at the Archäologisches Institut, used a sign that read:

‘Ausstellung “Entartete Kunst” Eintritt frei’ (Exhibition: “Degenerate Art” Free admission) (fig.

16). This signs expresses its official status with its Fraktur lettering and its defamation of the

avant-garde as degenerate with no typographic insult to the art. Rather, it relies on those

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techniques within. In the traveling of this exhibition, the façade lettering came to reflect the

interior insults upon the art in similar ways to the exhibition catalogue and the walls of the

Munich show.

By the end of the Munich exhibition in November 1937, the Entartete Kunst exhibition

was taken over by the Reichspropagaleitung (Reich Propaganda Directorate) and became more

outwardly direct about the conflicting voices within the show. The first exhibition after Munich

and the administrative transfer was held in Berlin from 26 February until 8 May 1938 at the Haus

der Kunst. The sign for this show divided the two voices and asserted its official status more

clearly than in Munich (fig. 17). The sign read: “Ausstellung der NSDAP bau Berlin, Entartete

Kunst” (Exhibition of the Nazi Party Building Berlin, Degenerate Art). As with its predecessor,

the top line was composed in the official typeface and claimed credit as the NSDAP in the title.

Furthering their assertion of authority, below the sign hung a banner emblazoned with a swastika.

Between these two official symbols (text and flag) the words “Entartete Kunst” were written in a

clumsy, sharp-pointed, type. This clear distinction between these two conflicting voices is

therefore as apparent externally as within the exhibition.

The Düsseldorf exhibition, held from 18 June to 7 August 1938, at the Kunstpalast

Ehrenhof used a very similar sign, yet without the swastika (fig. 18). Atop the building however,

was a much more didactic method of differentiation: Arno Breker’s Aurora, which still perches

on the edge of the Kunstpalast façade. Breker was considered to be the ideal sculptor by the

standards of the Reich.18 In this example, the comparison becomes clear, although there is no

degenerate work on the exterior, the mock-degenerate text creates a contrast with the proper form

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shown above it. While other exhibitions employ similar techniques, these two earlier shows best

demonstrate the development of the ideas begun on the walls of the Munich show.

Degeneracy of Race and Music

As a demonstration of the committedness to constructing otherness/degeneracy by means

of typography, the NSDAP’s The Eternal Jew exhibition yields one of the most memorable

examples of their dedication. Held in November 1937 at the Library of the German Museums in

Munich, the exhibition imposed a strong textual degeneracy upon the Jewish race. Rather than

simply attacking a cultural development of Jewishness, the exhibition constructed an Otherness

to distance the desired nationalism of the German people. Apart from the frequent use of the

stereotype of the greedy, Bolshevik Jew, they further removed the Jews by alienating their

language. The posters and entrance banner for the exhibition employed a pseudo-Hebraic

typeface which, while legible is awkward and antagonistic to a well trained German viewer (fig.

19 and 20). This Hebrew mimicry made a major resurgence after the 1941 decree that all Jews

must wear a yellow patch with the word “Jude” (fig. 21). This example of the NSDAP social

policy is clearly derived from the typographical propaganda which reached maturity in 1937 in

Entartete Kunst.

The 1938 Entartete Musik exhibition, also held in Düsseldorf’s Kunstpalast Ehrenhof,

employed the expanded propagandistic techniques which where largely developed in the 1937

Entartete Kunst exhibition. This exhibition targeted Jewish composers and black jazz musicians.

The gallery space contained various paintings and insults directed toward the music and the

musicians. In one installation example, four elements of conservative cultural policy coalesce

(fig. 22). A painting hangs off-center overlapping two banners of crudely painted text which

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read: “the Jew Arnold Schönberg as Kokoschka saw him.” To the right, the composer’s atonal

composition is expressed as sheet music and is further mocked by the presence of the lyrics to a

simple child’s song: “Steht auf, ihr lieben Kinderlein” (“Rise, my dear little children”). With this

relatively simple display, the concepts of Jewishness, modern painting, avant-garde music, and

new typography were simultaneously condemned. This show brought the elements of

constructing degeneracy to its apex.

Conclusion

All of the propaganda techniques developed from the pre-1937 posters through the

multiple incarnations of Entartete Kunst, to Der Ewige Jude, the 1938 exhibition brought

together these typographic installation elements to discredit the artistic merit of painters,

musicians, Jews, and Communists. All of these perceived forms of degeneracy easily were

attacked in a single exhibition space which was initiated with the major exposure and careful

construction of the 1937 Munich Entartete Kunst exhibition. Through increasingly complex

developments of typographic propaganda, the NSDAP established two voices. The first voice

was the official, historical, and properly nationalistic Fraktur which operated in an administrative

capacity to communicate the ideals of the Reich to the German people; they were so effective in

the use of this typeface that it is seldom used today without evoking Nazi Germany. The other

voice, that of the “degenerate” avant-garde, was separated from any fascist ideologies. The

freedom of these typefaces to reflect pluralism, personal identity, and formally expressive

elements is characteristic to their resistance of conservative cultural fascism. The typefaces used

in Entartete Kunst separate these two voices as the NSDAP desired. However, the compared

legacies of the Third Reich and the so-called degenerate artists have been settled.

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All of these complex methods and results of NSDAP’s propaganda for cultural policy are

derived from this highly popular experiment of exhibition installation. By developing and

perfecting the methods which helped to draw over two million visitors in four months to the

Munich exhibition, the new German Reich was able to expand its desire for control into other

cultural critiques. Following the 1937 show, the attack was extended into the social policies

imposed upon Jews and assisted in moving toward their goal of ‘Total War’ with the Entartete

Musik exhibition by attacking all of their enemies simultaneously on the Eastern and Western

fronts as well as on the battleground of the museum.

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1 The idea of total war was declared in Goebbels 1943 speech “Nation, Rise Up, and Let the Storm Break Loose.” See Calvin College’s German Propaganda Archive.

2 See Neil Levi, “‘Judge for Yourselves!’-The ‘Degenerate Art’ Exhibition As Political Spectacle.” October (1998: 85), 41-64 and Peter Bain and Paul Shaw, Blackletter: Type and National Identity (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1998).

3 Levi, 45.

4 Ibid., 46.

5 For a discussion of New Typography, see Christopher Burke’s Active Literature: Jan Tschichold and New Typography (London: Hyphen, 2007) and Paul Renner: The Art of Typography ( New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1998).

6 Jeremy Aynsley, Graphic Design in Germany: 1890-1945 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 181.

7 Ibid., 185.

8 Bain, 44.

9 Burke, Paul Renner, 150.

10 Ibid. Burke’s Translation.

11 Ibid.

12 Stephanie Barron, “Facsimile of the Entartete Kunst Exhibition Brochure” trans. David Britt in ‘Degenerate Art’: The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany (Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1991), 360. Emphases in original.

13 Ibid, 361.

14 Mario-Andreas von Lüttichau “Entartete Kunst, Munich 1937: A Reconstruction” trans. David Britt in ‘Degenerate Art’: The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany (Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1991), 51.

The text continues: “The concentrated simplification of all the motifs is not meant as a halting primitivism but it is a deliberate effort to convey aesthetic stimuli . . . . The spiritual values too are so profound and individual that they would in themselves make the work one of the richest documents of modern religious experience . . . . It would be hard to find a symbol that would convey to posterity with greater power and depth the significance of the Great War and its fallen heroes.”

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15 The cost of 1000 refers to Deutsche Papiermarks, the currency of the Weimar Republic which hit a period of hyperinflation in 1923. At the height of this inflation a pound of meat cost 36 Billion . However, it is unknown at what point of the inflation period each of the works was procured.

16 My translation.

17 My translation.

18 Barron, 18. Breker was also a juror for the 1937 Große Deutsche Kunst Ausstellung.

Bibliography

Aynsley, Jeremy. Graphic Design in Germany: 1890-1945. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.

Bain, Peter, and Paul Shaw. Blackletter: Type and National Identity. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1998.

Barron, Stephanie, Peter Guenther, Christopher Zuschlag, et al. ‘Degenerate Art’: The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1991.

Burke, Christopher. Active Literature: Jan Tschichold and New Typography. London: Hyphen, 2007.

———-. Paul Renner: The Art of Typography. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1998.

Clark, Toby. Art and Propaganda in the Twentieth Century: The Political Image in the Age of Mass Culture. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1997.

Ellul, Jacques. Propaganda; The Formation of Men's Attitudes. New York: Knopf, 1965.

Golsan, Richard Joseph. Fascism, Aesthetics, and Culture. Hanover: University Press of New England, 1992.

Jolles, Adam. "Stalin's Talking Museums." Oxford Art Journal. 28, no. 3 (2005): 429-455.

Jowett, Garth and Victoria O'Donnell. Readings in Propaganda and Persuasion: New and Classic Essays. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 2006.

Levi, Neil. “‘Judge for Yourselves!’-The ‘Degenerate Art’ Exhibition As Political Spectacle.” October. 1998 85: 41-64.

Mario-Andreas von Lüttichau “Entartete Kunst, Munich 1937: A Reconstruction.” Translated by David Britt. In ‘Degenerate Art’: The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1991.

Michaud, Eric, and Janet Lloyd. The Cult of Art in Nazi Germany. Translated by Janet Lloyd. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004.

Petropoulos, Jonathan. Art As Politics in the Third Reich. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996.

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Sax, Benjamin, and Dieter Kuntz. Inside Hitler's Germany: A Documentary History of Life in the Third Reich. Lexington: D.C. Heath, 1992.

Steinweis, Alan. Art, Ideology & Economics in Nazi Germany: The Reich Chambers of Music, Theater, and the Visual Arts. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993.

Taylor, Brandon, and Wilfried van der Will. The Nazification of Art: Art, Design, Music, Architecture, and Film in the Third Reich. Winchester: Winchester Press,1990.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “Propaganda.” 2010. http://www.ushmm.org/propaganda/.

Zuschlag, Christopher. “An ‘Educational Exhibition’: The Precursors of Entartete Kunst and Its Individual Venues.” In ‘Degenerate Art’: The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1991.

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Figures

Figure 1. Third Reich Fraktur-based typefaces. National by Walter Höhnisch, 1934; Element by Max Bittrof, 1934; Gotenburg by Fritz Heinrichten, 1936; Tannenberg by E. Meyer, 1934(Burke,

150).

Figure 2. Deutsche Schrift. Printed Slogan of the Third Reich c. 1935.

“German script is an indispensable protective weapon for Germans abroad against menacing de-Germanization” (Burke, 148).

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Figure 3. Figure 2. Fühl Deutsche. Printed Slogan of the Third Reich c. 1935.

“Feel German / Think German / Speak German / Be German / Even in your Script” (Bruke, 148).

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Figure 4. Entartete ,,Kunst” Austellunsführer, 1937.Content by Fritz Kaiser. Published by Verlag für Kultur- und Wirtschaftswerbung, Berlin.

Image: Otto Freundlich, Der Neue Mensch, 1912, plaster cast, location unknown.

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'llerpaqre, lcaQl1 u, x1''"-*,o1 rpoo'm'r1161 r'irstrtt) PaUr)nrJ) nx{rzua 't'Dr;tJ$;Figure 6. Ludwig Gies, Kruzifixus, c.1921, wood; formerly in Lübeck Cathedral, probably destroyed; shown here on the landing in Room 1 of Entartete Kunst.

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Figure 7. Wassily Kandinsky, Der schwarze Fleck (The black spot), 1921, o/c, 138 x 120 cm; Kunsthaus, Zurich.

Figure 8. Detail of the Dada wall in Room 3; work on view by Haizmann, Hausmann, Klee, and Schwitters over mock Kandinsky.

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Figure 9. Raoul Hausmann, title page of Der Dada, no. 2, December 1919.

Figure 10. George Grosz, Raoul Hausmann, & John Heartfield, title page of Der Dada, no. 3, April 1920.

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Upper floor

Ground floor

Figure 40\Zafter Dexel, Lofronrotiue (Locomotive), c l92l , oilon canvas, 70 x g2 cm (271h x32t/o in),location unknown Entartete Kursf, Room 3, NS inventory no unrecorded

director of the Stadtmuseum in Dresden, condemne<out-of-context quotations from their own writings, dcase from Villrich's Sciuberung des Kunsttgftipgl5 s

The organizers attempted to bring some iconoginto the overcrowded exhibition by grouping the woseries of tendentious signs, labels, and headings. Thepurpose was both to rerieve the impression of disordeand to emphasize the themes of degeneracy in art byostensibly didactic organization. Actuaily these textsdirectly related to the works themselves,

Insolent mockery of tbe Dioine under Centrist ruleReoelation oJ tbe Jewisb racial soulTbe cultural Bolsheoiks' order oJ battleAn insult to German womanboodTbe ideal-cretin and wboreDeliberate sabotale of national defenseCerman t'armers-r yiddisb oiewThe Jewisb longing for tbe wilderness reoeals itselJ_in Gt

becomes tbe racial ideal of a deqenerate artMadness becomes metbodCrazy at any priceNature as seen by sick minds

Eoen museum bigwigs called this "art of the German peopleAlso painted direcdy on the wall in large letters v"verdicts" that had been passed by Hitle4 Clebbels, arlogue Alfred Rosenberg on the outrawed art, the variot

rnovements, and their adherents With great precision tcaptured the essence of the virification that covered thearound. For example, "lt is not the mission of art to walfor filth's sake, to paint the human being only in a statefaction, to draw cretins as symbols of mothe.hood, o. tdeformed idiots as representatives of manly strength-,;,0These texts were intended to emerge as the ,,voices

the midst of the Nazi-contrived atmosphere of visuar teralso provided the organizers with morar and poriticarjusleft the visitor in no possible douht rher rhe o-t ;t-;+:^^ .

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Figure 12. Walter Dexel, Lokomotive, c.1921, o/c, 70 x 82cm, location unknown. Entartete Kunst, Room 3.

Figure 13. Poster for Entartete Kunst, Dortmund, 1935.

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Figure 14. Poster for Entartete Kunst, Munich, 1936.

Figure 15. El Lissitzky. Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge, 1919. Lithograph.

Nicolou 27

Figure 16. Sign for Entartete Kunst on the façade of the Archäologisches Institut, Munich, 1937.

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Figure 18. Sign for Entartete Kunst on the façade of the Kunstpalast Ehrenhof, Düsseldorf, 1938.

Figure 19. Der Ewige Jude (The Eternal Jew) Exhibition poster, 1937.

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Figure 20. Sign for Der Ewige Jude on the façade of the Libraries of the German Museums, 1937.

Figure 21. Yellow Star of David badge with Hebraic lettering of “Jude”.

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Figure 22. Exhibition installation of composer Arnold Schönberg in Entartete Musik, 1938.

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