Art trials
The term "Degenerate Art" (Entartete Kunst) was used by the Nazi regime to describe and condemn modern art that they considered unacceptable, un-German, or morally corrupt. Beginning when they came to power in 1933, the Nazis rejected styles such as Expressionism, Dada, New Objectivity, Cubism, and other forms of modernism, believing these works were politically dangerous and visually disturbing.
The 1937 Degenerate Art Exhibition
In 1937, the regime staged the Degenerate Art Exhibition in Munich to publically ridicule modern artworks. Over 650 works were seized from German museums and displayed in deliberately degrading conditions—hung crookedly on crowded walls and accompanied by insulting slogans and mocking captions. Despite the Nazis' intention to turn the public against these artists, it became one of the most visited exhibitions in history, with more than two million people attending in four months.
Conflicting Aesthetic Values
The Nazi condemnation of modern art was driven by a strict preference for works that promoted nationalism, strength, and traditional family values.
Nazi Preferences: They favoured idealised, realistic human figures, heroic depictions of soldiers, and art that showed order and obedience.
"Degenerate" Reality: In contrast, artists like Otto Dix, Max Beckmann, and George Grosz revealed the brutal, unheroic truth of war, the hypocrisy of those in power, and the psychological trauma of social collapse.
The Nazis found these artworks threatening not because they were "bad" art, but because they were truthful, directly challenging the regime's carefully constructed propaganda.
Key "Degenerate" Artists and Artworks
1. Otto Dix (1891–1969)
Dix was a machine gunner in World War I who felt a moral obligation to bear witness to the horrors of the trenches. His etching Wounded Man (Autumn 1916, Bapaume) from the series The War (1924) depicts a soldier crawling through mud with a face distorted by pain. This was branded degenerate because it replaced the Nazi ideal of the "heroic warrior" with the physical reality of a broken human body. Dix was dismissed from his teaching position in 1933 and forced to paint in secret.
2. Max Beckmann (1884–1950)
Beckmann’s practice focused on the "spiritual violence of the age" and existential anxiety. His painting The Night (1918–1919) uses a compressed, claustrophobic composition to show a chaotic scene of domestic torture and assault. The Nazis condemned the work for its distorted figures and its representation of modern life as a world without moral order. Beckmann fled Germany the day after the 1937 exhibition opened.
3. George Grosz (1893–1959)
Grosz used savage satire and caricature to attack the corruption of the German ruling class. In Pillars of Society (1926), he depicts institutional leaders as grotesque figures: a journalist with a chamber pot on his head, a priest whose cross is a military medal, and a soldier with a head full of cavalry horsemen. The work was labelled degenerate because it exposed the moral bankruptcy of the political, religious, and military authorities that the Nazis sought to celebrate.
Impact on Institutions and Other Artists
The Nazi crackdown extended to educational institutions, leading to the closure of the Bauhaus School in 1933. Other major figures, such as Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, also saw their work defamed and confiscated from public museums; Kirchner ultimately committed suicide in 1938 following the defamation of his practice. Ultimately, these artists demonstrated that in a society in crisis, the most powerful art is often that which refuses to look away from uncomfortable truths