After power has been consolidated, a key tool that Single Party States use to maintain this power is the arts. T. Golomstock claims that in a ‘totalitarian system’ art performs the function of transforming the ‘raw material of dry ideology’ into the ‘fuel of images and myths intended for general consumption’. In the case of Nazi Germany, the arts were a vehicle for the transmission of Nazi Ideology by indoctrinating people with the Nazi Weltanschauung (world view), seeking to turn them into committed members of the Volksgemeinschaft as part of their policy of Gleichschaltung. Previously, Weimar Germany had been a center of artistic innovation, creativity and experimentation. Ideas of expressionism, utilitarianism and modernization prevailed in the visual arts, literature, architecture, film, music, etc. The Nazi Regime, however, exercised strict control over artistic life through the Ministry for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda and the Reich Chamber of Culture that banned art that went against Nazi ideology and promoted art that supported their views, in order to indoctrinate the masses and maintain power.
The Nazi’s exercised strict control over the arts. In the Weimar Republic, the arts had been marked by expressionism developing alongside a new emphasis on social comment and utilitarianism. The Nazis, however, viewed the culture of the Republic with disgust. Hitler called it ‘decadent and pathological’. This stemmed partly from the party’s conservative aesthetics, but more prominently from their determination to use the arts and culture as a form of propaganda to indoctrinate the masses. The modern, reflective and experimental art that flourished during the Republic’s rule was banned and artists who created art on those themes were issued a Malverbot by the reich Chamber Of Culture meaning they could no longer produce art. The Republican art was replaced by clear, visual and physically perfect, heroic images based on the style of Romantic realism that represented the strength of the Nazi Party. Art that emphasized the role of the Volksgemeinschaft, e.g. lauding female activities through the phrase ‘Kinder, Kuche, Kirche’, and art that exalted the ‘blood and soil’ values of racial purity, militarism and obedience flourished.
Furthermore, in 1934 Hitler decreed all new public buildings should be embellished by sculptures conveying the Nazi message which made this art form more immediately accessible to the people and were thus used to represent the Nazi virtues in perfect, flawless bodies representing the biologically pure, vigorous Aryan race. An illustration of Nazi impact on sculpture is Georg Kolbe, a sculptor; in 1930 his work showed ‘irregularities in anatomy and technique’, as pointed out by art critic Berthold Hinz, but in 1938, the textures of his statues were ‘smooth, encasing’ - irregularities had been eliminated due to the Nazi influence.
In 1937 2 parallel exhibitions were held in Munich; the Exhibition of Great German art and the Exhibition of Degenrate Art. The Exhibition of Great German art was an opportunity for the masses to see ‘true’ German art that represented the healthy instincts of the ‘master race’. The exhibition of degenerate art on the other hand displayed works labelled as those of the Jews, Bolsheviks, etc. This clearly reflected the disruption of established values under the Republic. Through this, the Nazi party gained the support of the traditional Germans who disliked the experimental style of Republican art, and also propagated Nazi ideas of the Weltanschauung and Volksgemeinschaft through the policy of Gleichschaltung, allowing them to maintain power.
The Nazi’s also had an impact on German literature. Under the Republic, literature that employed utilitarianism i.e. literature with a social and political purpose was favored, and this provoked reactions from both rightists and apolitical avant-garde writers. Erica Remarque’s anti-war novel ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’, for example, challenged the ‘stab in the back’ theory and portrayed the gritty and harsh realities of war. As a leader of a single party state, however, the aim is to keep the people in a constant state of emergency and by glorifying war, and this novel greatly conflicted with this aim. Thus, in 1933 there was a burning of the books ceremony where 20 000 books were burnt to ‘cleanse’ Germany and to discard any ‘degenerate’ ideas, which included Remarcue’s novel.
Writers were only allowed to write about a fixed set of themes including ‘Front experience’ which promoted the positives of war so as to aid in maintaining a constant state of emergency, the ‘World View’ which promoted Hilter’s views and the Weltanschauung, ‘Regional Novels’ which emphasized the excellence of various regions of Germany and ‘Racial doctrine’ that stressed the immutable racial superiority of the Aryans, stressed the German mission of expansion and warned against subversive, un-Germanic forces i.e. the Jews, Communists or Western liberals. As a result, around 2500 emigrated. This heavily contrasted to the Weimar Republic which was more open and experimental - here all authenticity and creativity was lost - only stereotypical pieces of art flourished. However employing these methods helped Hitler to maintain his power by indoctrinating the masses.
Performing arts were also impacted by the Nazis. Under the republic, film was characterized by expressionism and a stress on social reality. Theater employed realistic techniques and involved the audience directly by breaking the 4th wall and commenting on the political and social situation, e.g. Zeittheater (a theatre company) followed this style. Street theatre developed to take political drama to a mass audience as well. However under the Nazis, this experimentation and growth of the performing arts ended. Officially approved drama consisted of historical drama, and blood and soil stories which were run in subsidized theaters through the German Labour Front’s Strength Through Joy initiative. A new form of drama, Thingspielen was developed that glorified the pagan past in outdoor amphitheaters, giving it a traditional, Neo-classical experience. Film was also impacted as instead of a focus on social reality, the Nazi Party only promoted films that matched with they ideology and were largely propaganda. For example ‘Triumph of the Will’ which the Independent wrote in 2003 ‘persuaded’ many to ‘admire’ rather than ‘despise’ the Nazis. These films helped to keep support of the Nazis, and unlike the Republic, the Party was heavily involved in censoring movies that went against the Nazi ideology or Hitler.
Moreover music was also impacted. Under the republic, the experimental mood was evident in music e.g. with musicians use of atonality, particularly Schoenberg’s. Musicians advocated Gebrauchsmusik, music with a practical purpose and welcomed opportunities to reach a new mass audience with sound films, etc. Moreover the Zeitopera (opera of the time) developed to reflect modern issues from a radical left perspective. Under the Nazis, this music - which consisted of improvised breaks and pounding rhythms was seen as undermining German purity and discipline - and was thus deemed ‘decadent’ and labelled as ‘entartete musik’ which was banned from Germany. Thus, there were strict decrees imposed on the type of music produced in Germany that went to the nitty gritty details to describe the specific keys, tempos and percentages of compositions that instruments could play. This was unlike the Weimar Republic as it was not as open and demanded only a specific type of music with not much creativity.
The Nazis replaced and stifled all the experimental and creative advances of the Weimar Republic with government imposed guidelines of how to produce art and what art to produce. This was because, art was the mentioned in the introduction, art was what converted ‘dry ideology’ into ‘fuel’ for the masses and if left uncontrolled, it could destroy a single party’s state’s ‘omnipotence’ as said by Frank Whitford. The Nazis impacted the arts to show that individual identity had meaning only in terms of the ‘larger identity of the state’, as stated by Whitford. During the Weimar Republic, the regime was characterized by ideas of expressionism and New objectivity in the arts but once under Nazi Rule, this was denounced as ‘internationalist, ‘cosmopolitan, ‘Jewish’ and ‘Bolshevist’. The Nazi party impacted the arts by stripping the arts from all individuality and creativity through force and other techniques, and used the arts to solely propagate their own ideology to their benefit.
