German Historical Art

9 Pages 2138 Words

Many people know that Adolph Hitler was an artist in his youth as an Austrian, but just how much art played a role in the National Socialist Germany seems to get underrated in history books. Just as a radical war waged against the Jewish population and the military fought the French and Slavic people, an artistic cleansing for the Germanic culture was also in progress. Special Nazi units were searching the ancient arts of antiquity for evidence of a great Germanic race that existed well before history. Hitler had monuments and museums built on a grand scale with carefully designed architecture that would last a thousand years. Art of this nature was a priority because Hitler wanted to capture Chronos, not Gaea. He wanted to dominate the rest of time, not the limits of the earth.

Hitler was born and raised in the town of Linz. As a youth he studied art, primarily as a painter capturing mostly the surrounding Alpine Mountain landscapes that he grew up with, but he also had an interest in architecture. When he turned eighteen he applied to the Vienna Art Academy, and was rejected. Along with art, Hitler was facinated with Linz, Antiquity, and Wagner. It was at this time in his youth that Hitler and his friend, Kubicheck would try to finish an opera that Wagner had abandoned. This opera was about a leader trying to establish the Roman Empire by overthrowing the Papal government, nation, and people. It is not just coincidence that he would be surrounded by National Socialist leaders with backgrounds in the arts. Joseph Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda and head of the Reich Chamber of Culture, was an experienced writer and aspiring poet. Rosenberg was a painter and Von Sherot wrote poetry. Hans Fredrick Munch of the Reich’s Chamber of Literat!
ure once said “This government born out of opposition to rationalism knows the peoples inner longings and dreams, which only the artist can give them” (Cohen).

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