The Art Of National Propaganda
The deeply convinced National Socialist artist must logically lift his work -- be it a simple flower picture or The Last Judgment -- from the sticky miasma of an aesthetic baseness into the pure and cool air of devoted service for his Folk. In this way, with each of his works, he becomes -- quite unwittingly -- the proclaimer of that philosophy. In his work the philosophy will appear purer than in the hard battlefield of daily politics ..... we must go forward. If we don't have a National Socialist art, National Socialism will be deprived of its strongest and most effective armour. -- Professor Max Kutschmann, 1933 |
The National Socialists often proclaimed that the art of the Third Reich was the
result of a
Weltanschauung --
world view. Any evaluation of their art must
therefore begin by looking at the radical social and cultural changes that they
put into motion. According to the ideology of the National Socialists, art and
life were constantly brought together. Art grew directly out of the life of the
German Folk, and was judged by its social values and implications. The Youth
Movement, the homage to the family, the return to Nature, the mass meetings, the
glorification of the healthy body, the education for heroism, and the cult of
heroic death all found their expression in the visual arts. Similarly, in the
reverse sense, the pageantry, the mass marches, the sports arenas, the new homes
and factories, the motorways, the public buildings all had their cultural
significance, which was continually
stressed.
Having gotten rid of the enemy, the National Socialists launched the art of
propaganda. They correctly presented themselves as cultured people, in the
fullest sense of the word. Art was to be brought to the Folk.
Art belongs to the whole complex of the
racial values and gifts of the Folk, Hitler had said in 1935. Orchestras played in factories, with the work
of Beethoven, Brahms, and Bruckner featured heavily on the program. The music of
Jewish composers like Mendelssohn was banned. Writers spoke in schools, and
libraries delivered books to the tiniest villages. Small towns that never had a
theatre suddenly saw actors putting up stages in the local squares. Theatre was
no longer for an intellectual elite, it was for everybody. No one should opt
out. The new ideology had to reach everybody. Taking art to the Folk and away
from the elite did succeed. Cultural outings and events brought people together,
people who never thought that art could be for them.
A highly organised cultural machine was put to work. The
Deutsche Arbeitsfront --
DAF --
German Labour
Front was given a special
section -- Kraft durch
Freude --
KdF --
Strength Through Joy
-- to spread art and culture on a massive scale. It was the Party's way of
organising people's spare time.
Alfred Rosenberg and Robert Ley took over responsibility for organising and
coordinating the cultural will of the German Folk. Workers travelled for a
fraction of normal fares and stayed at reduced rates in special hotels. Tourism,
formerly the preserve of the rich, was now for all. Party sponsored mass
tourism, with visits to theatres and concerts, was accompanied by the
indoctrination of the travellers with racial knowledge and political ideas -- it
was all part of the package tour. Hitler, by all of these marvellous
initiatives, provided a new optimism, fun, and a sense of
belonging.
The great statesman of the
Germans is a kind of poet and thinker, declared Hermann Burte.
A new man has emerged from the depth of the Folk. He has forged new
theses ..... and he has created a new Folk, and raised it up from the same depth
out of which the great poems rise -- from the mothers, from blood and soil
.....
Hitler's highly civilised taste in culture appealed to popular taste and
prejudice, and could therefore count on rock solid support. Here suddenly was a
man who actually had the answer to everybody's problems! Everything was going to
be different in this brave new world. Life seemed to be a mass of festivities,
events, and folklore, and was certainly much better than
before.
Strength Through
Joy was also in charge of
fostering art education,
to
reinstate the organic link between Folk and artist in a systematic
education. In 1934 a special
Visual Arts
Section was founded. Its aim
too was to build a
bridge
between artist and worker.
Workers of the fist and
workers of the head shall join forces, Goebbels asserted. In the first year the
Visual Arts Section organised no less than 120 art exhibitions in factories. In
1937 there were 743 Work Exhibitions. The emphasis in these factory shows was
very much on education. Demonstrations of the making of a print or a woodcut, or
the construction of a building from its first concept to the final model were as
much a part of these as the examples of official art. Prices were kept low to
enable workers to buy the art. Workers were encouraged to write their
impressions, and prizes in the form of art were given for the best
essay.
The Government formed another special department of the German Labour Front in
1934 under the direction of Albert Speer:
Schönheit der Arbeit --
SdA -- Beauty Of Work. Its task was to embellish the workplace,
especially in small factories. It pleaded for green spaces in factories, and
fostered such uplifting campaigns as
Better Light, Better Work and Clean People In
Clean Factories. There were
competitions for the most beautiful factory, and the campaign
Warm Meals At Work led to the introduction of canteens into
the factories.
The Organisation demonstrated that Hitler cared for the well being of the
individual. It propagated the right furniture, the right cutlery, and the right
spirit. The modern canteens came complete with the bust of The Leader and some
new German art. Every improvement was celebrated in documentary films like
Beauty Of Work. Propaganda films showed the poor
conditions of the past and the beautiful ones already at hand and to come. They
skilfully used simple, emotional images. The new worker was healthy and useful.
The building of sports and washing facilities stood high on the agenda. Through
cultural changes Hitler wanted to create the New Man.
The German Folk with its newly awakened
affirmation of life is seized with admiration for strength and beauty, and
therefore for that which is healthy and vigorous. Strength and
Beauty, these are the fanfares sounded by this age; clarity and
logic dominate its effort.
In carrying out social improvements, the Government set about directing people's
tastes and attitudes to a degree. Everywhere the same requests: simplicity,
traditional values -- a Folkish design. The Ministry Of Housing designed not
only houses but also furniture, porcelain, and lamps. Here, too, the National
Socialists borrowed from the past. The designs of the Bauhaus with their simple
lines suited the Folkish message and the shortage of materials, and found their
way into the new
production.
Communal work and harvesting were also encouraged. Paintings, films, and
photographs constantly showed young people working on the land. It was one way
to solve the problem of unemployment, but it also took on deeper meanings: it
was used to create a feeling of self confidence, and to transform manual labour
into a kind of religious experience. The reclamation of land and swamps became
the symbol of conquest and of belief in the future. The work was done with
military precision. These were no longer simple workers. They had become the
soldiers of the soil.
We
conquer land, what gets in our way we kill went a famous song. Hitler himself took part in numberless
inauguration ceremonies, digging, hammering, and trowelling. He opened trade
fairs and motor shows, and posters and propaganda films stressed the superiority
of German technology.
New national feast days were inaugurated with predetermined rituals, imitating
the christian calendar (which in its turn over hundreds of years had absolutely
deceitfully superimposed its ridiculous Middle Eastern witchdoctor rituals upon
the prior healthy Germanic folklore):
They consolidated an almost mythical Party history, with the inspiring and awesome figure of The Leader at its core. Hitler's assembly halls were to have bells, in order to become the churches of the future. In his speeches he borrowed freely from church liturgy in order to lend sacred overtones to his own services. His sense of theatre was combined with Nordic religiousness that involved frequent mention of God, Providence, and his divine mission. There were, of course, special days devoted to German art, culminating in the large processions of the
Day Of German Art in München to coincide with the opening of the inaugural Great German Art Exhibition, 1937.
There were a number of other rituals and public activities with quasireligious
overtones established with Party support. These had one purpose in common, to
enfold Party members and, by extension, all Germans in a seamless web of
propaganda. In due course a special Office was founded to stage and coordinate
these meetings, and to fix a calendar of public celebrations.
You, Too, Belong To The Leader, 1936.
Poster
Many events involved the young. Summer Solstice,
The March To
The Leader,
and nightly meetings with inspirational talks and songs drew the young away from
their homes into a marching and singing community. They happily borrowed the
best ideas from the Youth Movements of the Weimar Republic, with their marches
and their idealisation of an unspoiled countryside and the simple life. The
Reich Youth Leader, Baldur von Schirach, led millions of young Germans to
Hitler. The ecstatic lyricism of his songs resulted in a deeply satisfying
feeling of purpose and self confidence of those who followed their flag. He
urged youth to give up their individuality in order to enjoy a mystical union
with the Folk Community and, if necessary, even to be ready to die. His most
famous song pledges:
We follow the flag; it means more than death.
The cult of a heroic death became a major obsession in the arts. Painting,
sculpture, film, and literature constantly glorified death and the deeper
meaning of sacrifice. Ceremonies like the mass Oath Of Allegiance, the Blessing
Of The Flags, the singing of hymns were meant to weld the Folk Community into
one.
In an eternal struggle for Germany the National Socialists adopted venerated
monuments like the Teutoburg Monument (1875) in West Prussia, celebrating a
German victory over the Romans, and the Tannenberg Monument in East Prussia,
erected to commemorate a victory in the Great War.
The Walhalla, a hall of fame near Regensburg, built from 1830 to 1842, and the
Befreiungshalle --
Liberation Hall, near
Kelheim, built from 1842 to 1863 to mark the Napoleonic Wars, became important
meeting places for the National Socialists. In this way, the dead of the past
and those of the present became one.
The National Socialists built many monuments of their own to the dead. Hitler
not only wanted to honour those who had already fallen, but also wanted places
of respectful meditation for those who were prepared to do so. The architect
Wilhelm Kreis planned monuments, fortresses, and cult centres all over Germany.
Kreis, who had made a name for himself with his fantastic buildings for museums
and department stores, was soon working for the National Socialists. He became a
specialist in the design of the necropolises which Hitler wanted to build here
and there in the Reich, from the highest mountain to the loneliest stretch of
coast. For Berlin, Kreis planned a giant
Soldatenhalle --
Soldiers' Hall. Taking
people's minds off the horrors and sufferings of Churchill's war, this Hall was
an invitation to consider dying for the Party and the State. In its crypt were
to be housed the sarcophagi of the heroes. It would remind people that self
sacrifice was the ultimate gesture.
Another quasireligious movement was the
Thing Movement.
Thing, literally
assembly, referred to the old tribal council held
around an oak tree. The Thing Movement was
the reflection of a desire to return to a primitive earthbound religion, and to
revive Teutonic fertility cults. Its use was now extended to mean
national festivals, celebrated in
Thing Theatres. A
Thing
Theatre was a ceremonial place with a chorus as well as
audience participation, a combination of the open air theatre based on the Greek
amphitheatre and the church. The theatres mounted mostly mythical plays with a
kind of all embracing Folkish theme that was to foster a sense of national self
awareness. The National Socialists had planned four hundred such theatres
throughout Germany; about forty of them were built. One, in Berlin, the
Dietrich Eckart Stage, was built by the Architect
of the Olympic Stadium, Werner March.
Probably the most powerful weapon in the National Socialists' propaganda arsenal
were the mass meetings. Many of the public and communal meetings were modelled
on the theatre of the Weimar Republic. Collective dreams had been staged by Max
Reinhardt in carefully rehearsed performances in which actors, lights, and
public were all fused in a kind of total art, or
Gesamtkunstwerk. These productions and the
musicals, with their giant staircase for large casts, became the models for
Hitler's mass marches, although the communists and social democrats also marched
frequently and believed that the streets belonged to them. The massed ranks of
Hitler's followers marched for the first time on a grand scale in 1929 at the
big Party Rally in Nürnberg. Over 200,000 people arrived in special trains. The
colourful and noisy display of their banners, uniforms, and marches would become
a hallmark of future rallies. Wave after wave of people marched for five and a
half hours in front of a Leader who was not yet even in absolute command. In
these mass marches the enthusiasm for the regime was carefully orchestrated in
the form of a complex visual arrangement of uniforms and group formations,
choreographed like a ballet.
People are no longer a mass of individuals, a formless, artless
mass. Now they form a body in unison, moved by a will and a communal feeling.
They learn again to move in formations or to stand still, as if moulded by an
invisible hand. A new corporate feeling is born, beginning simply in the feature
of lifting the arm for the greeting and culminating in the mass march ..... The
notion of a communal body is becoming a reality. Noble passion is stirred up,
changing what is ephemeral into something lasting. (Werner
Hager, Bauwerke im Dritten Reich).
Here too elements taken from the liturgy completed the ritual. Hitler said that
the concluding meeting in Nürnberg must be exactly as solemnly
and ceremonially performed as a service of the Catholic Church.
The Party Rallies in Nürnberg became for all National Socialists a Wagnerian
Gesamtkunstwerk. The Rallies expressed power,
order, solemnity. The architecture, too, had its part to play, and the people
became the attribute and ornament of the buildings. They gathered in and around
their architecture, in orderly columns like those on their buildings. They
became architecture themselves, answering Hitler's call for a
formgiving will. Flesh and stone became one, as
stone and word had become one in
Das Wort aus Stein --
the word in stone, as he
called architecture. It was the expression of a political idea. In these
rallies, Hitler -- assisted by the mass orator Joseph Goebbels and the Architect
Albert Speer, who built the settings for these spectacles -- created the
ultimate stage productions. Every occasion became an awe inspiring event, a
fascinating geometry, marvelled at by the world. The mass became part of the set
in a gigantic happening, a communal
celebration.
All had the appearance of grand opera. Songs and the chanting of
Heil! prepared for The Leader's arrival, with the
chants finally erupting in a wave almost of ecstatic hysteria. Then Hitler would
go through the long channel cut through the crowd, a
VIA
TRIVMPHALIS as Goebbels described it, to take up his high,
solitary position, singled out like a God, standing aloof above the sea of
flags.
In 1934, the Heidelberg art critic Hubert Schrade
wrote:
We believe that the time has come for art to represent the
deeper meaning of our life ..... There are moments when this meaning becomes
visible in a mysterious way. We have lived such a moment in the morning hour of
last year's Party Rally, when we honoured the dead. The culmination came with
The Leader, after a slow march along the central road, pausing at the giant
wreath in meditation. His thoughts became audible to all ..... The orchestra
played I Had A Comrade. This ceremony was the ultimate
lifegiving form. It was achieved through greatness and mass. The Luitpold
Stadium covered by the brown of the uniforms was overshadowed by the red sea of
the flags, like a field of tulips, as a painter remarked. But it
is not for its pictorial splendor that we recall this hour, although photographs
and films have captured the unforgettable beauty for us. It was an hour of our
time, an hour during which life became form. It brought together power and
architecture; that is what gave it its shape and made it
special.
The timing of pauses and the stage management of climaxes were as important as
the music and the banners. Expectation was heightened by long pauses before
Hitler spoke his famous opening:
Countrymen and
countrywomen. Then he paused again, to let the thunderous
applause subside. The tension reached almost unbearable levels. His ending was
no less calculated. It usually came with a call for Germans to unite. Few
politicians have produced such adoration as Hitler. He carefully studied his
style and the effects he wanted to achieve. He moved vast crowds of different
kinds of people. He was a man with an iron will, driven by a single minded
vision that enabled him to mobilise forces in an unprecedented way. There was no
casual spectator; everyone played a part. Discipline, obedience, self sacrifice,
loyalty, duty -- these were the highest virtues. The individual had to enter the
mass.
