Sabine Brantl Haus Der Kunst, Munich a Locality and Its History in National Socialism

Sabine Brantl, born in 1969, is a historian and curator at Haus der Kunst in Munich. She freelanced for the Bavarian Television and Je- wish Museum Munich and was a research assistant at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich. On behalf of Haus der Kunst she conceptualised the design of the historical archive in 2004, which she has headed since 2005. Among other things, Sabine Brantl was curator of the exhibition “Histories in Conflict: Haus der Kunst and the Ideological Uses of Art, 1937–1955” (2012) and is responsible for the Archive Gallery, a permanent exhibition room on the history of Haus der Kunst (since 2014). Sabine Brantl Haus der Kunst, Munich A Locality and its History in National Socialism Published by Haus der Kunst, Munich Information on the publisher and its programme can be found at: www.allitera.de February 2017 Allitera Verlag A publishing house of Buch&media GmbH, Munich © 2017 Buch&media GmbH, München Translation: Dialogticket, Reinbek b. Hamburg Cover design using the photograph “Great German Art Exhibition” 1938 Selection of works by Adolf Hitler © Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Munich Printed in Germany isbn 978-3-86906-922-7 Table of Contents Foreword by Dieter Reiter, Lord Mayor of Munich ............ 7 Introduction by Sabine Brantl ............................ 9 1 A new Glass Palace .................................. 13 1.1 The Glass Palace fire ............................. 13 1.2 Adolf Abel’s preliminary project .................... 23 2 The “Führer’s First Builder” ........................... 29 2.1 Paul Ludwig Troost .............................. 29 2.2 The Troost Studio: Gerdy Troost and Leonhard Gall .... 36 3 The “House of German Art” ........................... 44 3.1 The surrounding urban development ................. 44 3.2. Design and implementation ........................ 48 3.3 Financing ...................................... 56 4 “Capital of German Art” .............................. 69 4.1 Laying the foundation on the “Day of German Art” ..... 69 4.2 The procession “2000 Years of German Culture” ....... 74 5 The year 1937 ...................................... 81 5.1 The first “Great German Art Exhibition” ............. 81 5.2 The vilifying exhibition “Degenerate Art” ............ 88 6 Art and propaganda .................................. 97 6.1 The “German Architecture and Handicraft Exhibition” .. 97 6.2 The role of Adolf Hitler ........................... 100 6.3 Running of the exhibition and its significance .......... 104 7 After 1945...................................... 112 8 Stiftung Haus der Kunst .......................... 122 Annex Notes ............................................. 130 Timeline ........................................... 153 Further reading ..................................... 156 Picture credits ...................................... 157 Foreword Munich cannot and does not intend to try to escape its historical burden as “Capital of the Movement”. The city is aware of this responsibility and faces up to this fact with all its consequences. The central role played by Munich in the birth and rise of National Socialism has long been historical common knowledge. At the turn of the century, anti-Semitic agitation was already present there; this was where the murder of the Jewish Prime Minister, Kurt Eisner, was venerated; where Adolf Hitler celebrated triumphs in gloomy beer cellars and was promoted by spon- sors from high society. Munich was the cradle and the control centre of the Nazi Party (NSDAP), was the setting for the failed 9th Novem- ber 1923 coup and Hitler’s trial for high treason that concluded with the most catastrophic error of judgement in German legal history. On 9 November 1938, fifteen years after the march on the Feldherrnhalle, Munich became the starting point for the terror of Kristallnacht, which marked the transition from exclusion, deprivation of rights and perse- cution, to the planned annihilation of Jews. From the very beginning, this was a place where the evil Nazi spirit was put into practice with the greatest anticipatory fervour. It was in Munich that the first concentra- tion camp was planned and, as early as in March 1933, established at Dachau, in front of the city gates; this was where the Sinti and Roma were systematically registered with murderous intent; this was where the “Brown House” stood and the “Völkischer Beobachter” was published. At that time, Munich was also made known as the “Capital of Ger- man Art”. This title was awarded at the ceremony for the laying of the foundation stone for the “Haus der Deutschen Kunst” (“House of German Art”) and refers to one of Munich’s other features: The city was thus a central location for National Socialist art (re)presenta- tion. This was where racist and nationalist ideals were shown, icons of the “national community” were created, and thus excluding all others who did not – or did not want to – conform to the National Socialists’ image of race, self-perception and understanding of art. They were denied the right to exist, first in the realm of “art” and then in reality. 7 It is all the more important to consciously return this part of history to its authentic location thus giving Haus der Kunst an important place in the topography of the city’s remembrance. The efforts on the part of Haus der Kunst to constantly engage in its own past and to use permanent and temporary exhibitions, its website and the present publication, to place this history into a context with the historical and structural inheritance of today’s institution, cannot in any way be valued highly enough. This same success is also seen in the other volumes in this series on the University of Music and Performing Arts at Königsplatz (once the “Führer’s building” in which the “Munich Agreement” was signed in 1938) and Hildebrandhaus in Bogenhausen (today’s “Monacensia”). This makes them an important and neces- sary component in a cross- city network of remembrance supported by institutions and citizens alike, gradually putting various places and forms of remembrance into an extensive context. The duty of the city is to encourage and promote such responsible, lively remembrance and educational work, as well as performing this work itself. With the inauguration of the Documentation Centre for the History of National Socialism in 2015 as a place of remembrance and as a central place of historical and political learning on the site of the former “Brown House”, we have closed a yawning gap in Munich’s landscape of remembrance after many decades. This building, whose existence is not least due to the efforts of committed citizens of our city, makes it unambiguously clear that Munich is facing up to its Nazi past. And this history also specifically includes the so-called honorary title of “Capital of the Movement” and “Capital of German Art”. With this, I wish for this publication a broad readership that engages, in an open and differentiated manner, with those places in our city that bear witness to the regime of terror by the National Socialists and remind us that dealing with the Nazi past remains a perpetual task and moral obligation. Munich, January 2017 Dieter Reiter Lord Mayor of Munich, Capital City of Bavaria 8 Introduction “Will buildings once misused for ideological or commercial purposes remain tainted for eternity or are buildings stronger than ideologies?” was the question posed by Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron in April 2006 in the context of their exhibition shown at Haus der Kunst. For many years now, contemporary artists and intellectuals have been confronted by the history of the location. Every exhibition of free art is already a comment in itself. Walls do not bear any guilt but they are places that contain memories and that are permanently linked to specific persons, events and func- tions. Haus der Kunst is probably one of the most renowned places for po- sitions in contemporary art. With its programme, this art institution underscores the fact that contemporary art is developing on a com- plex, global scale and cannot be subject to geographical, conceptual and cultural constraints. At the same time, the building contains re- minders of the disastrous combination of art, politics and propaganda in the “Third Reich”. Designed in 1933 by Hitler’s favourite architect, Paul Ludwig Troost, to present “German” art, “House of German Art” [Haus der Deutschen Kunst] was the first monumental show- case project by the Nazi rulers and a central location for National So- cialist propaganda. While the cultural “restoration” of Germany was planned to take place here, artistic freedom and the creative power of the individual ceased to apply. Adolf Hitler inaugurated the building on 18 July 1937 in conjunction with the first “Great German Art Exhibition” [Große Deutsche Kunstausstellung]. In an unprecedented act the very next day, what is known today as classical modernism and its creators were presented in the neighbouring Hofgarten arcades and mocked as “degenerate”, sealing their fate for a long time to come. “All of Munich was turned on its head in these days, and not only Munich”, wrote John Heartfield from exile in Prague. “The twenty- two stone columns standing in line before the ‘Temple of German Art’ should have bent over before Hitler’s blast of rage and bluster against ‘Cultural Bolshevism’, against ‘artistic infatuation’. He threatened any 9 painters who did not cease ‘daring’ to paint green skies instead of blue ones, or even blue meadows, that they would be taken to the mad- house or emasculated.

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