Photo Gallery Third Reich Art
Hitler had big plans for art in the Third Reich. His "Great German Art Exhibitions" were a chance for the Führer to showcase his interpretation of contemporary art, which he thought should be heroic, triumphant and honest. Here, a sculpture of a muscular stag stands in Munich's Haus der Deutschen Kunst, or House of German Art, in 1940.
Artwork in the Third Reich was often kitschy and lewd. Naked women were a favorite motif for many artists, often depicted in erotic poses, as seen in this 1939 photograph of an installation in the House of German Art in Munich.
The "Great German Art Exhibitions" would show "only the most perfect, the most well-manufactured and the best artwork that Germany has to offer," according to an exhibition catalogue from 1937.
Hitler went to great lengths to suppress the contemporary art of the day, instead opting for the prosaic and predictable.
One look at the artwork unveiled in the databank reveals that the Nazis' sense of aesthetics was even more trivial, and sometimes even more vulgar than previously known. Here, an oil painting of a moose that was purchased by the SS is on display in 1942.
Seen here at the top of the stairs during an art exhibition in 1938 is a painting of a shipyard titled, "Sites of German Production." Adolf Hitler would eventually buy it for 1,800 reichsmarks.
He also bought Conrad Hommel's painting, "The Führer and Commander-in-Chief of the Army," in 1940 for 25,000 reichsmarks.
The photographs shown here are some of the 2,325 images of the so-called "Great German Art Exhibitions" from 1937 to 1944 that will be made accessible to the public on Oct. 20 by GDK Research .
