Assessing the Role of Architecture As Propaganda in the Third Reich
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Austria's Failed Denazification
Student Publications Student Scholarship Spring 2020 The Silent Reich: Austria’s Failed Denazification Henry F. Goodson Gettysburg College Follow this and additional works at: https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/student_scholarship Part of the European History Commons, and the Holocaust and Genocide Studies Commons Share feedback about the accessibility of this item. Recommended Citation Goodson, Henry F., "The Silent Reich: Austria’s Failed Denazification" (2020). Student Publications. 839. https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/student_scholarship/839 This open access student research paper is brought to you by The Cupola: Scholarship at Gettysburg College. It has been accepted for inclusion by an authorized administrator of The Cupola. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Silent Reich: Austria’s Failed Denazification Abstract Between 1945 and 1956, the Second Austrian Republic failed to address the large number of former Austrian Nazis. Due to Cold War tensions, the United States, Britain, and France helped to downplay Austria’s cooperation with the Nazi Reich in order to secure the state against the Soviets. In an effort to stall the spread of socialism, former fascists were even recruited by Western intelligence services to help inform on the activities of socialists and communists within Austria. Furthermore, the Austrian people were a deeply conservative society, which often supported many of the far-right’s positions, as can be seen throughout contemporary Austrian newspaper articles and editorials. Antisemitism, belief in the superiority of Austro-Germanic culture, disdain for immigrants, and desire for national sovereignty were all widely present in Austrian society before, during, and after the Nazi period. These cultural beliefs, combined with neglect from the Western powers, integrated the far-right into the political decision-making process. -
The Fate of National Socialist Visual Culture: Iconoclasm, Censorship, and Preservation in Germany, 1945–2020
City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works School of Arts & Sciences Theses Hunter College Fall 1-5-2021 The Fate of National Socialist Visual Culture: Iconoclasm, Censorship, and Preservation in Germany, 1945–2020 Denali Elizabeth Kemper CUNY Hunter College How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/hc_sas_etds/661 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] The Fate of National Socialist Visual Culture: Iconoclasm, Censorship, and Preservation in Germany, 1945–2020 By Denali Elizabeth Kemper Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Art History, Hunter College The City University of New York 2020 Thesis sponsor: January 5, 2021____ Emily Braun_________________________ Date Signature January 5, 2021____ Joachim Pissarro______________________ Date Signature Table of Contents Acronyms i List of Illustrations ii Introduction 1 Chapter 1: Points of Reckoning 14 Chapter 2: The Generational Shift 41 Chapter 3: The Return of the Repressed 63 Chapter 4: The Power of Nazi Images 74 Bibliography 93 Illustrations 101 i Acronyms CCP = Central Collecting Points FRG = Federal Republic of Germany, West Germany GDK = Grosse Deutsche Kunstaustellung (Great German Art Exhibitions) GDR = German Democratic Republic, East Germany HDK = Haus der Deutschen Kunst (House of German Art) MFAA = Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives Program NSDAP = Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Worker’s or Nazi Party) SS = Schutzstaffel, a former paramilitary organization in Nazi Germany ii List of Illustrations Figure 1: Anonymous photographer. -
Speer: an Artist Or a Monster?
Constructing the Past Volume 7 Issue 1 Article 14 2006 Speer: An Artist or a Monster? Emily K. Ergang Illinois Wesleyan University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/constructing Recommended Citation Ergang, Emily K. (2006) "Speer: An Artist or a Monster?," Constructing the Past: Vol. 7 : Iss. 1 , Article 14. Available at: https://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/constructing/vol7/iss1/14 This Article is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been brought to you by Digital Commons @ IWU with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this material in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s) directly, unless additional rights are indicated by a Creative Commons license in the record and/ or on the work itself. This material has been accepted for inclusion by editorial board of the Undergraduate Economic Review and the Economics Department at Illinois Wesleyan University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ©Copyright is owned by the author of this document. Speer: An Artist or a Monster? Abstract This article discusses the life of Albert Speer, who was hired as an architect by Hitler. It describes him as being someone who worked for a career and ignored the political implications of who he was working for. This article is available in Constructing the Past: https://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/constructing/vol7/iss1/14 Constructing the Past Speer: An Artist or a Monster? Emily Kay Ergang The regime of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party produced a number of complex and controversial. -
Hitler's Germania: Propaganda Writ in Stone
Bard College Bard Digital Commons Senior Projects Spring 2017 Bard Undergraduate Senior Projects Spring 2017 Hitler's Germania: Propaganda Writ in Stone Aaron Mumford Boehlert Bard College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/senproj_s2017 Part of the Architectural History and Criticism Commons This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License. Recommended Citation Boehlert, Aaron Mumford, "Hitler's Germania: Propaganda Writ in Stone" (2017). Senior Projects Spring 2017. 136. https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/senproj_s2017/136 This Open Access work is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been provided to you by Bard College's Stevenson Library with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this work in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights- holder(s) directly, unless additional rights are indicated by a Creative Commons license in the record and/or on the work itself. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Hitler’s Germania: Propaganda Writ in Stone Senior Project submitted to the Division of Arts of Bard College By Aaron Boehlert Annandale-on-Hudson, NY 2017 A. Boehlert 2 Acknowledgments This project would not have been possible without the infinite patience, support, and guidance of my advisor, Olga Touloumi, truly a force to be reckoned with in the best possible way. We’ve had laughs, fights, and some of the most incredible moments of collaboration, and I can’t imagine having spent this year working with anyone else. -
Beyond the Racial State
Beyond the Racial State Rethinking Nazi Germany Edited by DEVIN 0. PENDAS Boston College MARK ROSEMAN Indiana University and · RICHARD F. WETZELL German Historical Institute Washington, D.C. GERMAN lflSTORICAL INSTITUTE Washington, D.C. and CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS I Racial Discourse, Nazi Violence, and the Limits of the Racial State Model Mark Roseman It seems obvious that the Nazi regime was a racial state. The Nazis spoke a great deal about racial purity and racial difference. They identified racial enemies and murdered them. They devoted considerable attention to the health of their own "race," offering significant incentives for marriage and reproduction of desirable Aryans, and eliminating undesirable groups. While some forms of population eugenics were common in the interwar period, the sheer range of Nazi initiatives, coupled with the Nazis' willing ness to kill citizens they deemed physically or mentally substandard, was unique. "Racial state" seems not only a powerful shorthand for a regime that prioritized racial-biological imperatives but also above all a pithy and plausible explanatory model, establishing a strong causal link between racial thinking, on the one hand, and murderous population policy and genocide, on the other. There is nothing wrong with attaching "racial. state" as a descriptive label tci the Nazi regime. It successfully connotes a regime that both spoke a great deal about race and acted in the name of race. It enables us to see the links between a broad set of different population measures, some positively discriminatory, some murderously eliminatory. It reminds us how sttongly the Nazis believed that maximizing national power depended on managing the health and quality of the population. -
Jürgen Habermas and the Third Reich Max Schiller Claremont Mckenna College
Claremont Colleges Scholarship @ Claremont CMC Senior Theses CMC Student Scholarship 2012 Jürgen Habermas and the Third Reich Max Schiller Claremont McKenna College Recommended Citation Schiller, Max, "Jürgen Habermas and the Third Reich" (2012). CMC Senior Theses. Paper 358. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/358 This Open Access Senior Thesis is brought to you by Scholarship@Claremont. It has been accepted for inclusion in this collection by an authorized administrator. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Introduction The formation and subsequent actions of the Nazi government left a devastating and indelible impact on Europe and the world. In the midst of general technological and social progress that has occurred in Europe since the Enlightenment, the Nazis represent one of the greatest social regressions that has occurred in the modern world. Despite the development of a generally more humanitarian and socially progressive conditions in the western world over the past several hundred years, the Nazis instigated one of the most diabolic and genocidal programs known to man. And they did so using modern technologies in an expression of what historian Jeffrey Herf calls “reactionary modernism.” The idea, according to Herf is that, “Before and after the Nazi seizure of power, an important current within conservative and subsequently Nazi ideology was a reconciliation between the antimodernist, romantic, and irrantionalist ideas present in German nationalism and the most obvious manifestation of means ...modern technology.” 1 Nazi crimes were so extreme and barbaric precisely because they incorporated modern technologies into a process that violated modern ethical standards. Nazi crimes in the context of contemporary notions of ethics are almost inconceivable. -
From Charlemagne to Hitler: the Imperial Crown of the Holy Roman Empire and Its Symbolism
From Charlemagne to Hitler: The Imperial Crown of the Holy Roman Empire and its Symbolism Dagmar Paulus (University College London) [email protected] 2 The fabled Imperial Crown of the Holy Roman Empire is a striking visual image of political power whose symbolism influenced political discourse in the German-speaking lands over centuries. Together with other artefacts such as the Holy Lance or the Imperial Orb and Sword, the crown was part of the so-called Imperial Regalia, a collection of sacred objects that connotated royal authority and which were used at the coronations of kings and emperors during the Middle Ages and beyond. But even after the end of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the crown remained a powerful political symbol. In Germany, it was seen as the very embodiment of the Reichsidee, the concept or notion of the German Empire, which shaped the political landscape of Germany right up to National Socialism. In this paper, I will first present the crown itself as well as the political and religious connotations it carries. I will then move on to demonstrate how its symbolism was appropriated during the Second German Empire from 1871 onwards, and later by the Nazis in the so-called Third Reich, in order to legitimise political authority. I The crown, as part of the Regalia, had a symbolic and representational function that can be difficult for us to imagine today. On the one hand, it stood of course for royal authority. During coronations, the Regalia marked and established the transfer of authority from one ruler to his successor, ensuring continuity amidst the change that took place. -
Modern History
MODERN HISTORY Albert Speer (1905 – 1981) Examine the degree to which Albert Speer was culpable in Hitler’s organization and implementation of crimes against humanity from 1937 to 1945. In the perspective of Israeli historian Omer Bartov1: “…our understanding of the Third Reich, revealing it as a consensual dictatorship whose popularity was rooted in…the profits of crimes against humanity on an unimaginable scale.” There is no doubt, based on the historical evidence, that Albert Speer2 (1905-1981) was intimately culpable, to some degree, in Nazi Germany’s appalling crimes against humanity from 1937 to 1945. At the Nuremberg Trials3 in 1945, Speer was convicted and sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment - largely on the basis of evidence showing his participation as Reich Minister for Production and Armaments, in the use of deportation and forced labour. The Court found Speer innocent on Counts One and Two; ‘planning, initiating and waging war of aggression’ and ‘crimes against peace’ respectively, and guilty on the counts of ‘war crimes’ and ‘crimes against humanity’. The charges which Speer faced at Nuremberg did not include reference to his earlier involvement, as Adolf Hitler’s (1889-1945) (Chief) First Architect of the Third Reich, and responsibility for re-planning Berlin in the ‘Germania’ project, which resulted in the forced removal of Jewish citizens from their homes in the city for the new Reich capital. Speer’s level of involvement in enslavement, the persecution of the Jews and his level of knowledge of the Holocaust remain subjects of historical debate. The unanswered question, as to which Speer was given the benefit of the doubt at Nuremberg, is whether he had any knowledge of Hitler’s initiated crimes against humanity and the awful fate that awaited Jews who were deported and ‘resettled’. -
Fordism, Mass Tourism and the Third Reich Hasso Spode Today
The "Seaside Resort of the 20000": Fordism, Mass Tourism and the Third Reich Hasso Spode Today, sociologists and economists tell us that we live in a „post“ society: postmodern, post-Fordist, postindustrial. If 'industrial' means coal mines and steel mills, this is not entirely wrong, but if it means the basic principles that govern our world, it is a fallacy, mixing the ever changing surface with the hidden structure. This structure is known under terms such as division of labor, efficiency or rationality. Many elements of this structure can be traced back to the Early Modern Period, some even to the Middle Ages and to Antiquity; its concrete shape, however, emerged step by step since late 18th century, and its victory can be dated - metaphorically, if not literally – as having taken place in just one year: 1936. In 1936, the structure finally exceeded the boundaries of the sphere of production and started to invade the whole rest of the world - the computer was born. One might think that the history of the computer does not have much to do with the history of tourism. In fact, there are strong links. Although tourism is regarded (and sold to us) as a counterpart to our frantic, efficient everyday life, as a realm of relaxation, of playful values and practices - as a mass phenomenon, as everybody knows, tourism and tourists are inevitably part of the very same machinery which they try to elude. The flight from efficiency is organized by efficient means. Let us have a look at these means1. "Modern Times" In February 1936, Charlie Chaplin's new film was released: 'Modern Times', the tragicomic parable about depravation through technology. -
Volkswagen, Volksempfänger, Volksgemeinschaft: "Volksprodukte" Im Dritten Reich: Vom Scheitern Einer Nationalsozialistischen Konsumgesellschaft'
H-German Fraunholz on König, 'Volkswagen, Volksempfänger, Volksgemeinschaft: "Volksprodukte" im Dritten Reich: Vom Scheitern einer nationalsozialistischen Konsumgesellschaft' Review published on Wednesday, June 1, 2005 Wolfgang König. Volkswagen, Volksempfänger, Volksgemeinschaft: "Volksprodukte" im Dritten Reich: Vom Scheitern einer nationalsozialistischen Konsumgesellschaft. Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh Verlag, 2004. 310 S. + 21 Abb. EUR 36.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-3-506-71733-7. Reviewed by Uwe Fraunholz (Institute for the History of Technology and Engineering Sciences, Technische Universität Dresden) Published on H-German (June, 2005) Propaganda and Illusion In his study of so-called "people's products" in the Third Reich, historian of technology Wolfgang König impressively deconstructs die-hard myths concerning pretended mass consumption under Nazi rule. "People's products" were defined as inexpensive goods and services of high quality for the broad masses. Presenting, for the first time, a consistent history of these products, which were initiated by NS politics and jointly produced by industry or party- and state-owned companies, König does pioneering work. He not only covers technical consumer durables like radio receivers, television sets, refrigerators, and motorcars, but includes social housing construction and mass tourism as well. The stated purpose of the book is to evaluate the function of "people's products" in the context of national socialist policy. The author understands the promotion of these goods as an attempt to establish a particular Nazi version of consumer society. But the effort was complicated by conflicting goals: armament and an orientation towards autarchy actually limited the possibilities for consumption. Since it proved impossible to advance both massive armament and mass consumption, the vision of a consuming Volksgemeinschaft could not be realized. -
United States
Cultural Policy and Political Oppression: Nazi Architecture and the Development of SS Forced Labor Concentration Camps* Paul B. Jaskot Beyond its use as propaganda, art was thoroughly integrated into the implementation of Nazi state and party policies. Because artistic and political goals were integrated, art was not only subject to repressive policies but also in turn influenced the formulation of those very repressive measures. In the Third Reich, art policy was increasingly authoritarian in character; however, art production also became one means by which other authoritarian institutions could develop their ability to oppress. The Problem We can analyze the particular political function of art by looking at the interest of the SS in orienting its forced labor operations to the monumental building economy. The SS control of forced labor concentration camps after 1936 linked state architectural policy to the political function of incarcerating and punishing perceived enemies of National Socialist Germany.1 The specific example of the Nuremberg Reich Party Rally Grounds reveals three key aspects of this SS process of adaptation. The first aspect is the relationship between architectural decisions at Nuremberg and developments in the German building economy during the early war years. Before the turning tide of the war led to a cessation of work at the site, agencies and firms involved with the design and construction of the Nuremberg buildings secured a steady and profitable supply of work as a result of Hitler’s emphasis on a few large architectural projects. The second aspect focuses on how the SS quarrying enterprises in the forced labor concentration camps were comparable to their private-sector competitors. -
The Nazi Party Rally Grounds in Nuremberg. a Difficult Heritage and a Public Space
Print: ISBN 978-1-78969-873-2 Online: ISSN 2531-8810 EX NOVO Journal of Archaeology, Volume 5, December 2020: 63-78 63 Published Online: Dec 2020 The Nazi Party Rally Grounds in Nuremberg. A Difficult Heritage and a Public Space Alexander Schmidt Documentation Centre Nazi Party Rally Grounds, Nuremberg Abstract The former Nazi Party Rally Grounds in Nuremberg reflect politics and public debates in Germany between suppression, non-observance and direct reference to the National Socialist Past since 1945. Within this debate, various ways of dealing with the architectural heritage of the National Socialism exist. Those approaches are often contradictory. Since 1945 (and until today), the former Nazi Party Rally Grounds have been perceived as an important heritage. However, despite innumerable tourists visiting the area, parts of the buildings were removed and through ignoring the historic past of the Nazi Party Rally Grounds, an everyday usage of the area was established. As of the public representation of the city, Nuremberg’s Nazi Past was played down and hidden. Simultaneously, considerable efforts were made to maintain and renovate areas of the Party Rally Grounds, partly out of a pragmatic manner as well as to document and educate about history. The special role Nuremberg played under National Socialism, led to a particularly prominent culture of remembrance (Erinnerungskultur). However, this isn’t the outcome of a simple success story coming from initial public suppression to a conscious examination of the National Socialist Past. It has been a rather contradictory non – linear process, continuing until today. Keywords: Nuremberg, heritage, Nazi Party Rally Grounds Introduction Together with Tempelhof Airport and the Olympic Stadium, both in Berlin, as well as the unfinished Kraft durch Freude (Strength Through Joy) seaside resort Prora on Rügen Island, the Nuremberg Nazi Party Rally Grounds are among the most extensive architectural remains from the time of National Socialism in Germany (Doosry 2002; Schmidt & Urban 2006; Schmidt 2017a).