Next week, the Arnhem Museum will open an exhibition of works by German artists under the Nazi regime. These also include paintings that Adolf Hitler used to hang on his wall.
Exhibition Art in the Third Reich – Seduction and Distraction It consists of ninety works created between 1933 and 1945. These are paintings and some sculptures.
The four elements by Adolf Ziegler is one of the works on display. Ziegler’s painting hung in the Fuhrerbau Museum in Munich, where Hitler received guests.
Through the exhibition, Arnhem Museum reflects on art from Nazi Germany. The museum mainly wants to show how Hitler’s regime used art to distract and manipulate the population.
Artworks were widely purchased by citizens, the state, and Nazi leaders. The participating artists benefited greatly from this. But the state also benefited: art distracted attention from the criminal practices of the Nazis and was a successful means of enticing their ideology.
This is the first time since 1944 that these works of art have been brought together in a single retrospective exhibition, and that the Dutch Museum has paid attention to this period on this scale.
Half of the pieces come from the warehouses of the German Historical Museum in Berlin. The exhibition can be viewed in Arnhem from 12 November to 24 March.
“Unable to type with boxing gloves on. Freelance organizer. Avid analyst. Friendly troublemaker. Bacon junkie.”