The ObserverUK news This article is more than 24 years oldRevealed: the Aryan art that Alred Hitler's fantasies
This article is more than 24 years oldEveryone knows that Adolf Hitler had poor taste in art. But the German public can now see for the first time since the war that it was banal rather than shocking.
A new exhibition of Hitler's personal art collection has opened in Weimar, European city of culture for 1999, containing romantic landscapes, classical nudes and depictions of the heroic endeavours of the German people under the Fuhrer. But there are few swastikas, no portraits of Hitler or his acolytes, and no depictions of Nazi rallies.
This is because the most offensive paintings in the collection were confiscated by the Americans in 1945 and remain in storage in Washington. In any case, contrary to popular perception, Hitler preferred nudes and landscapes - which make up almost half of the collection - to propaganda. He believed great art should have eternal validity and therefore should rise above everyday politics.
Nevertheless, there are paintings such as 'The Fuhrer's Streets' by Carl Theodor Protzen, depicting the construction of a vast autobahn bridge. There is also thinly veiled war propaganda such as 'The Guard' (1940) by Michael Mathias Kiefer, which shows two sea eagles swooping over the North Sea, symbolising the Luftwaffe going into action.
There are also countless romantic landscapes, blond-haired peasants at work in the fields and perfectly formed Aryan nudes in classical settings, many blatantly copied from more famous paintings by artists such as Botticelli.
The 120 paintings come from a collection of 500, many chosen personally by Hitler between 1937 and 1944, mainly for use in official buildings such as the Reich Chancellery in Berlin. For 50 years the collection has been locked away in Munich.
'Nazi art should be regarded as a normal part of art history,' said Susanne Meyer of the Weimar Art Collections, who is organising the exhibition. 'By hiding them away and not showing them, they are made to seem more interesting than they really are.'
The exhibition, in a building in Weimar which was itself built by the Nazis, illustrates Hitler's attempts to resist the tide of modernism which had swept through the European art world.
Many of the paintings were originally displayed at the 1937 Great German Art Exhibition in Munich, which was intended to showcase a renaissance in German art inspired by the Nazis. It was a counterpoint to the famous Degenerate Art exhibition - including many modernist masterpieces - which took place in the building opposite. The paintings were sold at inflated prices in an attempt to stimulate the development of a new art movement.
During the war the collection was moved to Austria for safekeeping, where it was discovered by the Americans in 1945. It was subsequently stored in a depot in Munich for more than 50 years, and as a result many of the paintings are in poor condition.
The show is taking place as part of a year of cultural activities in Weimar to coincide with the 250th birthday of Goethe, Germany's greatest poet. It forms part of a series of exhibitions entitled The Rise and Fall of Modern Art, which also features classic early modernist works, including the largest ever exhibition of art from the German Democratic Republic.
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