Nazi Aesthetics

Introduction         The German Nazis of the 1930s and 1940s had an explicitly approved haoma of ruse. Unlike the other totalitarian regimes of the era, the approved forms of art were severely integrated into their iconography and ideology, and excluded any other art movement, including those that were popular at the time. These approved forms of art held a limited number of themes which were repeated as often as necessary, in order to limn the set the Nazis deemed relevant to their cause. These values were, of course, fundament on the wholey nationalistic, and those themes approved by the government were meant to glorify not besides the Aryan race, unless specifically the German nation.

The Harvest         The sufferting Out To Harvest, by Oskar Martin-Amorbach, is a typical, governmentally approved, work of Nazi art. It depicts a family of farmers spillage out to harvest on what seems to be a spend day in a typical German countryside. It shows tercet generations of that family, a young boy at about 4-5 historic period of age, his mother, and what appear to be his father, grandfather, and a young woman who capability be his older sister or aunt. As its title implies they are going out to harvest, for they are carrying scythes and rakes for fruit and a small handheld basket, presumably holding their tiffin for the day. In the background is portrayed a typical German landscape, rolling hills as far as they eye could see, exemplify the Nazis slogan of Blood and Soil.

Farm Life         What makes this painting a typical work of Nazi art is its glory of peasantry. Not completely is it mere peasantry it glorifies, but German peasantry. Now, eyepatch on the surface it may not sound a very Nazi-esque topic to the layman, it embodies umteen of the opinionls that the Nazis stood for, one of them being the aforementioned(prenominal) Blood and Soil, another being the portrayal of peasantry as a source of strength and purity. The reason peasantry was held in such proud wishing by the Nazis, was that the peasant family was seen as a self-reliant, mutually beneficial whole based on unity, that was portrayed as a symbol of strength and comradeship. Farmers were meant to be seen as a scurvy but proud battalion, being a fundamental go against of the German population, or, to quote the German minister of works at the time, Richard-Walther Darré, the raw material, and the foundation of the German race.

What all this is meant to symbolise is, of course, the Nazi idea of racial superiority, which has farsighted since become identical with the movement, and too the superiority of all that is German, including its people and landscape, up to now reaching as far as the German vegetation, which was also portrayed by the Nazis to be superior to that of the neighbouring countries. The Nazi center al fashions was that if a thing is German, it is superior to the equivalent non-German thing. The idea was that a German tree was hypothetic to be viewed as being superior to other trees, and German landscape was vatical to be much beautiful than the landscape of other countries, regardless of their actual qualities. All this was part of the Nazi propaganda, promoting the idea that all that is German is better than anything else.

The Family         This painting is not only a aura of the German landscape, but also a glorification of the German family. This comes as no surprise, as a large-scale family was praised in much the corresponding modal value as farmers were, by the Nazis. A large family with many healthy children was seen as a hefty thing, and a patriotic one at that, in Nazi Germany. Married women were encouraged to bear as many children as possible by the government, and families were not portrayed as parents and children, but as united wholes. In the same way as the peasant family, the regular family was to be seen as a united front so to speak, and in fact the specimen German family was a farmers family.

The Freudian contingency Wer Wissenschaft und Kunst besitzt, hat auch Religion; Wer jene beide nicht besitzt, der habe Religion! J. W. Goethe According to recently released files, on the Nazis agenda was the abolition of religion. Hitler has been quoted as saying that the christian values upheld among the Nazis, were only there to keep the people calm and complacent, trance otherwise not being necessary to Nazi rule. Although only officially released recently, it has been somewhat common knowledge for many geezerhood that the Nazis, and specifically Hitler, despised the Church.

        Sigmund Freud utilise to say that religion was only a painkiller for unhappiness, and a form of escapism from the pain of our day-to-day lives. In his writings he says, much in the vein of Schopenhauer, that art could be used to substitute God, and that confront the pain, instead of avoiding it, was the better way of dealing with it. Schopenhauer even say that while enjoying true art, the soul was freed of its pain, and the id lost consciousness, or rather self awareness.



As has been pointed out, the Nazis used art to contribute their ideology, and perhaps it is not too far fetched to assume that the art of the Third Reich was also intended to relieve its citizens of their daily agonies, while bringing them closer to to one another, at the same time.

The Purpose Of It All         An important part of understanding the aesthetics of Nazi paintings is the part that refers to the reality of these paintings. Nazi paintings were neer meant to reflect reality as such, but to portray role-models for the German citizen. The German citizen was meant to look at these paintings and think: This is how I want to be. Although they were not meant to look at the paintings and want to be farmers, for their paintings were more varied than that, the propaganda in spite of appearance these paintings was meant to affect their souls and self-esteem, so to speak. The message within was to have the German citizen longing to be proud and wet, a hard worker who comes home, tired after a long day at the factory, feeling proud and satisfied erudite that he had done his part for his country for the day. The message never was that it were the farmers that made the German race superior, the people of Germany were equal in that sense, but the reason farmers were held in such high regard was partially due to the fact that they were simple people. And simple people means simple pleasures, resulting in a somewhat Schopenhauerean/ Freudian kind of happiness for them, if they were to accept those simple pleasures as good life.

        The main purpose was of course to affect the citizens of the Third Reich on a psychological level. While the paintings were aimed at people in the form of propaganda, the message was somewhat subliminal. People were never specifically told that this was the way the Führer wanted them to be, but they were instead sibyllic to be influenced by it on an unconscious level, much in the same way anti-semitic propaganda movies were meant to affect them. These paintings were never used to key people how they should be and how they should think, but the people were supposed to read between the lines, so to speak, and figure it out by themselves. While the people probably sensed that conformity was the way to go, the purpose of paintings, such as Out To Harvest, wasnt to tell them how the government wanted them to be, but to influence them into wanting to be this way on their own accord, and therefore be the strong proud citizens that the Reich wanted them to be.

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