Translation of Hildegard Brenner's "Art in the Political Power Struggle of 1933/34 or DIE KUNST IM POLITISCHEN MACHTKAMPF DER JAHRE 1933/34” published in 1962 The Nazi art policy was formulated in its power structure during the years 1933/34. This phase began with the establishment of the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda (RMVAP) on March 11, 1933. The appointment of Goebbels as Reich Minister, the cultural- political character of his mission ("responsible for all tasks of spiritual in fl uence on the nation"), the demonstrative naming of the new ministry - these three facts not only initiated the "reorientation of public opinion" (Hitler) but, for this purpose, also a "reorientation" of the cultural-political leadership style. Different, new, and above all more fl exible methods than those available in völkisch practice seemed necessary to carry out this process of spiritual conquest of power. Developing such methods was considered one of the urgent tasks of the new ministry. This also announced a break with the völkisch tradition for National Socialist cultural and art policy, as had been evident in the political sphere since 1928 at the latest. The appointment of Goebbels came as a surprise not only to Goebbels himself. It also contained a rejection of Alfred Rosenberg's claim to cultural-political leadership, which this principle-oriented man was by no means prepared to accept. What justi fi ed his claim was the fact that Rosenberg had been the initiator and leader of the previously representative National Socialist cultural organization, the "Combat League for German Culture," and had trained the cultural-political cadre force of the new Reich within it. Established in August 1927 as the "National Socialist Society for German Culture, National Socialist Scienti fi c Society," incorporated and con fi rmed in the organizational structure of the NSDAP, the "Combat League for German Culture" had become a collecting point for predominantly resentment-driven individuals, groups, and, from 1931 onward, entire associations. As a network of bases, the organization now covered all of Germany. The numerous and militantly conducted actions essentially consisted of defaming the politics of the Weimar Republic (for example, with the disgrace exhibitions "Government Art from 1918 to 1933," "November Spirit, Art in the Service of Disintegration," "Art Bolshevism," etc.). The organizational, personnel, and ideological connections with the Thuringian Frick regime (1929-33) were close. The cultural-political program was identical. What the Rosenberg Cultural League had proclaimed from its headquarters in Munich was decreed in Thuringia, the experimental fi eld of National Socialist cultural and art policy (e.g., the decree "Against Negro Culture, for German Folk Character" of April 5, 1930) and implemented (book and fi lm censorship, museum "puri fi cations," dismissals of unwanted artists and art of fi cials, etc.). The National Socialist cultural offensive of 1931 had originated from Thuringia and was conducted under völkisch signs. What could claim to be National Socialist art policy up to 1933 had played out along the Munich- Weimar line. This policy called itself "völkisch" because its beginnings were inseparably connected with the active cultural-political activity of the völkisch groups, which were still largely independent in 1927. This activity had been seamlessly transferred to the new organizational forms or incorporated into the cultural reconstruction of the state of Thuringia, so that by the end of 1932, the völkisch groups provided both the broad audience for National Socialist cultural policy and its spokesmen (A. Bartels, Schultze-Naumburg, H. F. K. Günther, Darré, H. S. Ziegler, and others). Even after January 30, 1933, all signs indicated that this National Socialist-völkisch policy would be con fi rmed in its model character and now continued at the Reich level. The Thuringian Minister of the Interior and Education, Dr. Frick, had been appointed Reich Minister of the Interior. He brought his cultural functionaries with him to Berlin and once again appointed Prof. Schultze- Naumburg as his art advisor. The "Combat League for German Culture" had also been prepared for the seizure of power. The almost feverish activity that was unleashed everywhere since January 30, even in the most remote bases, revealed the plan to occupy the key cultural positions through rigorous personnel policy. The correspondence of the Reich leadership of the "Combat League for German Culture" shows a multitude of such targeted individual actions. However, it also shows how this seizure of power was already coming into con fl ict with competing institutions: the "Reich League for Folk Character and Homeland" with its energetic Reich leader Prof. Karl Alexander von Müller, the NS Teachers' League and, more seriously, with the Culture Department of the NSDAP. But only the establishment of the RMVAP threatened to completely thwart the National Socialist- völkisch power strategy. The appointment of Goebbels to the new of fi ce, moreover, must have seemed all the more brusque as Goebbels held top party positions, including the Reich Propaganda Leadership of the NSDAP, but was powerless and "meritless" in the fi eld of culture. He assumed his cultural-political of fi ce as a king without land. For the history of National Socialist art policy, the establishment of this second cultural-political command center introduces an almost insoluble contradiction of practice and ideology, of reality and program, of slogans, polemics, replies, etc. Behind these expressions, partly through them, the complicated process of inner-party power integration took place. While the course of political events appeared externally as stages of coordination (Gleichschaltung), the well-known power struggles were fought out within the party. It was only in the course of these that the of fi cial National Socialist art policy was formed. It was all the more exposed to these power struggles as the "program" associated with Goebbels's name had a distinctly functional purpose of domination. It was not about maintaining an art policy line, nor about developing or ideologically consolidating a National Socialist art program. On the contrary, it was about adapting the slogans and practices of the "struggle period" to the political conditions of the conquered power, making them reusable, instrumentalizing them. Thus, the "methodization of the irrational" (Th. Heuss) in the fi eld of cultural and art policy initially meant the dismantling of doctrinal positions. It was the völkisch-Rosenberg wing that held these positions. In this process, there was one subject, one topic, that would mobilize the political interest groups and lead to a heated debate: the dispute over artistic, especially visual, modernism. The rivalry battles of the high party leaders had not remained hidden. Hopes of art-interested circles were ignited by them. At a time when the general reorganization of the fi rst months still kept the scope of public discussion relatively wide, they gave room to an oppositional current which - misjudging the priority of the power-political situation - believed it could still in fl uence the art- political line of the future. When even leading circles of the National Socialist German Student Union shared these hopes, became spokesmen for the opposition, and brought it to the public in the form of a revolt, fundamental decisions were challenged. Hitler ended the discussion authoritatively; he only adopted the keyword for his criticism of the völkisch from it. The struggle for artistic modernism was dismissed as an episode. And that is what it remained, seen in itself. But it has a further, clarifying signi fi cance: the confrontation over German Expressionism and Italian Futurism shows how coordination, the establishment of controls, etc., take place quasi from within, as a dynamic process, full of contradictions, considerations based on time and power, tactical attitudes. It further shows how, in the rivalry struggles of the high party leaders, the reorganization of the art policy sector is undertaken; how those tensions fi nally become factors of the new forms of rule. It is precisely the fact that the art discussion played "only" a role in this overarching (art)political clari fi cation process, which delimits it as an event and makes it manageable, that allows for all the more differentiated insights into the empiricism of political- totalitarian power integration, as brought about by the step from the conquest of power to its exercise. I It remains an open question why an art-political opposition formed speci fi cally in the fi eld of visual arts and, moreover, remained the only one among the arts that managed to break through to the public during that early phase of political and intellectual coordination. The fi rst criticisms were voiced when, after January 30, 1933, Alfred Rosenberg's Combat League troops broadly deployed their initiatives, when the practices of Thuringian National Socialist art policy threatened to become the standard for daily decisions. In metropolitan areas, people spoke of "reactionary art policy," of "excesses in the provinces." News arrived that Political Commissioners were already "cleansing" the collections and administrations of state museums. Unwanted teachers at art colleges were boycotted, private exhibitors threatened, modern artworks on public buildings destroyed. The museums in Karlsruhe, Halle, and Mannheim set up the fi rst so-called "chambers of horror": Non-public collections and erotic prints con fi scated from private studios were presented to the public as expensive museum acquisitions. This vandalism found resonance in a deceived public. Who were those who openly called such art policy "reactionary"? Consistently young people: painters, sculptors, graphic artists, students, and young lecturers in art history, art critics. For them, the fi rst post-war generation, the German Expressionists, "Die Brücke" and "Der Blaue Reiter" had been the decisive and still present educational experience. "Quality" and "truth" were connected for them with names like Kirchner, Heckel, Schmidt-Rottluff, Barlach, Nolde. Their own works stood in this tradition and were inconceivable without it. These exposed opponents of National Socialist-völkisch art policy gathered in and around the National Socialist German Students' League. The center of their activity was in Berlin. Their spokesman was the Deputy Student League Leader of District X (Berlin), the painter Otto Andreas Schreiber. His political career had led him from the Jesuit "Neu-Deutschland" through the SA to the NSDAP. He, who was also credited with the "conquest" of the School of Art Education in Berlin- Schöneberg, represented the four Berlin art schools in the National Socialist German Students' League in spring 1933. The fact that these young people stood on the foundation of National Socialism in their political convictions and left the political-racial dogmas untouched in their discussions gave them the chance to bring their art-political theses to the public—where, especially in art-liberal circles, considerable hopes were placed on them. Their opposition formed under the slogan "national." In this, it did not yet differ from the justi fi cation efforts widespread in bourgeois circles, which appeared everywhere in newspapers and magazines of the fi rst months. To make the circle of future permissible artworks as wide as possible, endangered works were preemptively pointed out for their "national" character, whether in subject, color quality, or compositional style. The "front experience" played a prominent role. In order to preserve at least the older Expressionists from the threatening ban, an extensive literature about "the Nordic in them" emerged in these fi rst months of National Socialist rule. The student opposition distinguished itself from these widespread defensive tendencies because it claimed for itself to be continuing the National Socialist revolution in the fi eld of visual arts. This linking of the art-political program with the political-ideological revolutionary thesis not only gave the entire action a strong impetus. It also makes it appear against a political background that was feared internally as the "Berlin Opposition" and was to be carefully shielded from the public. The political demonstration of National Socialist students in front of the Berlin Stock Exchange, the rally "Workers and Students" on the Tempelhof Field had been directed against the Hugenberg-von Papen course. Hitler's opponents had directed these protests. Speakers of this "Berlin Opposition," who could never completely deny their origin from the political left, were for the students the leader of the Berlin National Socialist German Students' League, Dr. Fritz Hippler, and his education leader Dr. Johann von Leers. Although Hippler and von Leers personally stood apart from the art-political aspirations, they nevertheless lent their protection to the discussions. At a series of student conferences and meetings, Otto Andreas Schreiber presented the art-political attack. He reported on the excesses of the "Combat League" in the provinces, on the existence of "blacklists" of artists, and characterized the threatening development for art in Germany that was emerging: "The family magazine artist and the literary painter are experiencing their great era, because the former imitates nature and claims that the people understand him, the latter paints Germanic content and claims his art is 'völkisch'." Schreiber quoted from the rejection that Nolde's application had received from the "Combat League for German Culture," and described the systematic defamation of Barlach, Heckel, Kirchner, Müller, Schmidt-Rottluff, and Nolde as a "crime against German culture." Rosenberg's "Combat League" was a "organization of ill-tempered brush-swingers," and with the resolution "We won't let National Socialist artists be foisted upon us!" the opponent was provoked. The decisive public demonstration, which would earn its spokesmen the dangerous fame of an artistic "Otto Strasser Movement," took place on June 29 in the Auditorium Maximum of Berlin's Humboldt University. For days, red posters on Berlin's advertising columns had called for the rally "Youth Fights for German Art." In addition, personal invitations had been issued. Fritz Hippler and the National Socialist German Students' League were listed as organizers. In front of a packed auditorium, Hippler and von Leers spoke generally against the restoration of Wilhelminian academicism and against any regimentation of art. Some art historical theses defending modernism were read, and as the last speaker at the rally, Otto Andreas Schreiber addressed current problems of the visual arts. "The attempt at art-historical dogma formation by uncreative people lies like a nightmare on all young artists of our movement..." "The National Socialist students fi ght against art reaction because they believe in the living developmental power of art and because they want to prevent the denial of the German art generation that preceded today's and whose forces fl ow into the art of the future. The National Socialist youth... believes in nothing so fi rmly as in the victory of quality and truth." "The vital element of art is freedom..." Nolde, Barlach, Heckel, Schmidt-Rottluff were elevated to the program. A "new German art" was to be developed from their tradition. In conclusion, Schreiber declared the Rosenberg "Combat League" groups at the Berlin academies and art colleges dissolved and announced an exhibition of modern German artists who would enjoy the special protection of the National Socialist German Students' League. The applause of those present, among them Privy Councilor Ludwig Justi, was so strong that the revolt must have seemed successful. The fi rst declarations of solidarity from other university towns arrived. "The National Socialist Student Body of Halle declares its enthusiastic agreement with the demonstration of the Berlin National Socialist students against art reaction. The struggle of the SA man in the street must not be betrayed in the cultural fi eld. Long live the complete National Socialist Revolution." With this, a supra-regional forum had established itself. From the ranks of a National Socialist organization and with explicit reference to the "culturally creative mission of National Socialism," the National Socialist-völkisch wing's claim to art-political leadership had been rejected. The bourgeois-liberal press reacted with cautious optimism. Declarations of solidarity like the one from Halle were printed verbatim. The "Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung" once again published Otto Andreas Schreiber's theses. Prof. Karl Hofer published a discussion contribution. In art circles, the question was already being eagerly discussed whether this breakthrough into the public sphere would lead to a liberalization of previous art-political practice. Rumors were circulating, which incidentally would prove to be accurate: that Hitler himself regretted the rift with Barlach and had already established connections to reconcile him with the new regime; that Reich Minister Rust, according to a private statement, considered Nolde "the greatest living German painter"; that Goebbels had even had several originals by Nolde from the National Gallery's collection hung in his apartment; that the Reich Minister also already considered the rigorous measure of book burning (May 10, 1933), whose initiative he had taken over at the last moment, to be a "mistake," and so on. The partly confused speculations of the summer and autumn months of 1933 ultimately stuck to Goebbels, to his person and his of fi ce. They condensed into the assumption that it was Goebbels who followed the oppositional art-political current with a certain sympathy. This assumption, while accurate but misinterpreting the motives for this sympathy, was so widespread that it was even re fl ected in the foreign press. II The völkisch wing gathered for a counteraction, which would become evident in the following months as Rosenberg's art-political encirclement policy and was fi nally of fi cially con fi rmed in the functions of the Rosenberg Supervisory Of fi ce (January 1934). This policy was aided, at least indirectly, by Hitler's declaration that the National Socialist revolution was over (speeches on July 1 and 6). The student opposition was thereby deprived of its political argument for defending modernism. Rosenberg then also opened his polemic against the student revolt under this new political- ideological aspect. In two leading articles, "Revolution in the Visual Arts" (VB, July 6, 1933) and "Revolutionaries in Themselves!" (VB, July 14, 1933), he resumed his programmatic vili fi cations of Barlach and Nolde, now invoking the SA on his part, speci fi cally the approving judgment of every "healthy SA man," and denounced the spokesman of the art-political opposition, Otto Andreas Schreiber, as a "cultural Otto Strasser." This "Otto Strasser of the 'Black Front'" considered himself "as the real representative of the 'revolutionary National Socialist man'." "We have already had and fought an Otto Strasser tendency in the political fi eld, and we believe, to the bene fi t of the movement." In the Bach Hall, the meeting place of the "Combat League for German Culture" in western Berlin, Rosenberg once again addressed the topic "Revolution in the Visual Arts?" under the motto "Tradition and New Art" (July 14, 1933). He emphatically recommended not to conduct a " fi ght over concepts." "Coinages of the political power struggle" should "expediently... not be transferred to the struggle over the formation of the visual arts." In the depths of pseudo-concepts, he then described art-historical continuity as a "soul direction related to us." The only noteworthy aspect of this speech, later printed by Eher, is that Hitler in his culture speech at the Reich Party Congress of 1933 almost verbatim adopted Rosenberg's polemic against "skilled dialecticians" of a "völkisch expressionism." Elsewhere, too, the Berlin student revolt had been labeled with the signs of a political revolt. For example, Walter Hansen, later one of the initiators of the "Degenerate Art" exhibition, called the demonstration an "effective blow against the art policy of the Führer and Rosenberg," a "falsi fi cation maneuver against the national art and race concept," an "act of sabotage." And the "Journal for National Socialist Education," published by the Bavarian Minister of Culture Hans Schemm, described it as "openly directed against party authority." The journalistic part of the confrontations between Rosenberg and the leaders of the Berlin National Socialist German Students' League found its provisional conclusion in a "Declaration on Honor" by Schreiber in the "Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung" of July 14. It states "that the student youth indeed remains unwaveringly committed to its art-political convictions, but that... the student youth... does not polemicize against his [A. Rosenberg's] personal art views." The fact that Schreiber was no longer speaking on behalf of the National Socialist German Students' League indicates how, beyond political defamation, the art-political opposition was to be pushed away from its of fi cial claim. Additionally, State Commissioner Hans Hinkel threatened "the strictest measures" "against all discussions of National Socialist artists," if they were "directed against each other." Furthermore, in the future, "all those would be rendered harmless who twist the words of honest National Socialists and thereby introduce divisive attempts into the front for true new German art." However, the means that the "Combat League" brought into play to prevent the announced exhibition in the Ferdinand Moeller Gallery were not suf fi cient. On July 22, this much-discussed exhibition opened under the title "Thirty German Artists." The National Socialist German Students' League was listed as the organizer. Again, Rohlfs, Pechstein, Macke, Schmidt-Rottluff, Nolde, and Barlach were featured as representatives of German Expressionism with representative works, avoiding formal extremes. Isolated works of the younger generation, including those by Schreiber and Weidemann, suggested a moderate continuation of the contested tradition. "Pleasantly lively, fi lled with the will to quality and the contemporary," art critics registered the event. But just three days later, on July 25, Reich Minister of the Interior Dr. Frick had the exhibition closed. Two SS guards watched the entrance. Hippler and Schreiber were expelled from the National Socialist German Students' League. When the exhibition was allowed to be shown again after about a week, the National Socialist German Students' League was no longer listed as the organizer. Meanwhile, Prof. Schardt, supported by loans from private collections, had reorganized the collection of the Berlin Crown Prince's Palace, which was leading for modernism in Germany, and was waiting for the exhibition to be released. Himself a passionate defender of Expressionism, he had sought a way to justify modernism in the broader context of art history in such a way that it would be recognizable as a polemic against "national alienation," against "rationalism," etc. In a sensational lecture "What is German Art?" Schardt presented his concept. Prof. Schardt presented his program to the public (July 10, 1933). The "Neue Zürcher Zeitung" reported: "For him [Schardt], the speci fi c character of the Germanic, the German-völkisch, exists in the ecstatic, prophetic element. For him, there exists a connection between the non-representational ornamentation of the German Bronze Age and the painting of German Expressionism (e.g., that of Nolde, Marc, Feininger)! According to Schardt, the decline of German art already began in 1431, when naturalism penetrated expressive art. What was created in Germany after the fi rst third of the 15th century, in the 16th to 19th centuries, has, according to Schardt, only the value of a historical document and is essentially un-German..." Here, art history was made serviceable to defend art. However, cases were already multiplying where art history was made serviceable to defend the new art policy. Eyewitnesses of Schardt's reorganization of the Crown Prince's Palace report: Few pictures were hung on the pastel-tinted walls: On the ground fl oor, representatives of German Romanticism, Caspar David Friedrich and Blechen; on the middle fl oor, mainly Hans von Marées, selected works by Feuerbach and related artists; on the upper fl oor, Barlach, Nolde, Lehmbruck and Feininger, the painters of the "Blue Rider" and "Die Brücke." "The arrangement seemed strange, was understood by few, and did not convince everyone even among the friends of newer art, as one doubted whether the omission of so many artistic personalities and whether such an almost esoteric attempt at art interpretation through an atmosphere of consecration were right for a world city like Berlin." The examination commission headed by Minister Rust prohibited the exhibition. Schardt had disappointed the party's trust. He was not con fi rmed as Director of the National Gallery, and his return to Halle was also prevented. (When he opened a Franz Marc exhibition in 1936, he was arrested by the Gestapo in the exhibition rooms. Released again, he fl ed to the USA.) With the appointment of Dr. Eberhard Hanfstaengl, the excitement over the fate of the Berlin Crown Prince's Palace subsided. III The beginning of 1934 shows a changed art-political situation, again brought about by a decision of Hitler's. He had established an "Of fi ce for the Supervision of the Overall Spiritual and Ideological Training and Education of the NSDAP" and appointed Alfred Rosenberg as its head (January 24, 1934). The circumstances and motives that led to the founding of this monstrous of fi ce have hardly been clari fi ed to this day. One is certainly not wrong in connecting Hitler's authoritative revolutionary stop with the tasks of the new of fi ce in the broader context of the new phase of domestic political power conquest. Seen in this way, the art-political events of the previous summer may have contributed to convincing Hitler of the usefulness of such a party supervisory authority. The cultural and art-political public work of the "Combat League for German Culture" and the "Reich Association German Stage" launched by it now received the institutional backing that Alfred Rosenberg had incessantly demanded since January 30, 1933. In this respect, Hitler took into account an existing power relationship. Moreover, the establishment of the Rosenberg Of fi ce made clear how Hitler wanted the cultural- political rivalry between Goebbels and Rosenberg to be decided. Even the wording of the assignment of tasks shows that Hitler here again followed the principle of dividing power in order to use it himself more effectively. The structure of the new of fi ce was clearly accentuated in terms of cultural and art policy. Whether the lead that Goebbels had been given in this "tug-of-war" over National Socialist cultural and art policy would have a corrective effect on the völkisch concept could only be shown by the future. For the time being, the institutionalization of Rosenberg's leadership claims undoubtedly meant a strengthening of the völkisch wing, its practice and its ideology. It was due solely to Rosenberg's initially hesitant and uninspired administration of the of fi ce that the art-political opposition gathered for a second time and could make itself heard with considerable attention. This renewed gathering began already in the fall of 1933. After Rosenberg had succeeded in pushing the fi rst wave of opposition away from its party-of fi cial claim, its initiators found themselves relegated to private actions. Under the securing name "The North," the painters among them founded a group. "We reject any pedantic norm, formalism, intolerance, and pigeonholing," their program stated. They were students of Otto Mueller, Moll, Rohlfs, Nauen, Thorn-Prikker who joined together here, including Otto Andreas Schreiber and Hans Weidemann. They exhibited at Ferdinand Moeller's, later also at von der Heyde's. It was also the art dealer Ferdinand Moeller who alerted the young National Socialist art opponents in time to the future requirement for approval of new journals. To preempt this, and because all art journals that advocated for modernism had meanwhile had to cease publication, the journal "Kunst der Nation" (Art of the Nation) was founded at the end of October. The former director of "Weltkunst," Hartmann, and Otto Andreas Schreiber shared the business and editorial management. Almost two complete volumes of this excellently edited journal were able to appear. Although frequently attacked, the publishers succeeded in openly and combatively advocating for Expressionism without demonstrably being considered party- oppositional. Contributors included Werner Haftmann, Bruno E. Werner, Griebitzsch, Pinder, F. A. Dargel, Wilh. v. Schramm, Hans Schwippert, and others. "Kunst der Nation" had become the forum for modernism. (The journal had 3,500 regular subscribers when it was banned in 1935. The circulation was higher, however, as some copies were freely sold at kiosks.) In addition, the National Socialist art avant-garde succeeded in penetrating of fi cial positions again. When the leader of the "NS Community Strength through Joy," Dr. Robert Ley, guided by vague ideas of a "workers' culture," asserted his claims to his own cultural of fi ce, he asked Goebbels to fi ll the position of its director from his staff. Goebbels delegated his consultant Hans Weidemann, and under his leadership, Otto Andreas Schreiber developed the Visual Arts Department in the "Strength through Joy" Cultural Of fi ce. Already in December, a competition was prepared that proposed jurors including Erich Heckel, Mies van der Rohe, Paul Hindemith, Richard Strauss. Toward the end of 1933, the organization of the "Factory Exhibitions KdF" also began, ultimately the only reservation, hidden from the public, that would remain for the National Socialist art avant-garde... Private art galleries supported the renewed effort: Collective exhibitions of Barlach, Nolde, Feininger, and others were again to be seen in Berlin, occasionally also in other German cities. The bourgeois-national press brought favorable reviews. Gottfried Benn made a comprehensive "Confession to Expressionism" as the "last great art uprising of Europe" in the weekly newspaper "Deutsche Zukunft" (November 5, 1933). Its "anti-liberal function" already contained the prelude to the National Socialist movement and its consistent spiritual naturalism ("Propaganda touches the germ cells, the word brushes the sex glands..."). And Max Sauerlandt rehabilitated, also in "Deutsche Zukunft" (January 7, 1934), the war generation of Expressionists—they had "painted from the spirit of the national movement"—and with them the student opposition from the previous summer: "Having made the fi rst attempt to clear the way again for these most genuine among the artists of the recent past, to extract them from the mass of 'know- nothings and charlatans,' will always remain the merit of the National Socialist German Student Body and its leaders." The "Völkischer Beobachter" already registered excitedly around the turn of the year this revival of public discussion, this energetic, if unorganized, pressure from below. The spokesman for Rosenberg's art policy and art reporter in the "Völkischer Beobachter" found ever new occasions to uncover "saboteur cliques" who "completely reverse the Nuremberg cultural proclamation of the Führer!"; in between, again open and hidden allusions to the student revolt or the recalcitrant "circle around the Berlin Crown Prince's Palace." "Especially in the fi eld of visual arts, a bitter and systematic resistance against the new ideal of a racially bound and mentally healthy art established by National Socialism has organized itself." "Almost as in the heyday of Marxism," "a lush boom in degenerate art is present everywhere." Even in the wider public, talk circulated of "two kinds of art in Germany." The high point of this second phase of confrontations over visual modernism was then the events surrounding the exhibition "Italian Futuristic Painting (Aeropittura)" in March 1934. Whether the suspicion expressed in wide circles, that a systematic attempt had been made via the detour of the state-of fi cial art of friendly fascist Italy to give credit to Germany's own modernism, was actually justi fi ed can hardly be proven. What was decisive was that the "Aeropittura" exhibition came to Germany at a moment when the struggle for artistic modernism no longer allowed a neutral position. Even Goebbels exposed himself for the fi rst time. As a member of the Reich government, he belonged, along with Göring and Rust, to the honorary committee; furthermore, on the German side, among others, the President of the Reich Chamber of Visual Arts Prof. Eugen Hönig, the new Director of the Berlin National Gallery Dr. Eberhard Hanfstaengl, August Wilhelm von Hohenzollern; on the Italian side, Mussolini's comrade-in-arms Marinetti, Ruggero Vasari, and Ambassador Cerutti. Despite this of fi cial protection, the Berlin exhibition began with a scandal. The spokesman of Rosenberg's art policy, Robert Scholz, declared on the morning of the opening day in the "Völkischer Beobachter" (March 28) that this exhibition already represented a second case of foreign interference. "This very conspicuous interest of certain circles at the moment" was designed "to make the predominant part of German art contemptible." In reality, young fascist Italy stood "in one front" with the young National Socialist artist generation "that is fi ghting for the emergence of an indigenous national art." In contrast, this "so-called 'Futurism'" represented "a direction insigni fi cant in Italy itself." The fascist revolution had long since carried out a "clari fi cation," a "complete transformation" of this art direction. - The "Völkischer Beobachter" was thereby picking up on an interview that Ruggero Vasari had given to the "Hamburger Nachrichten" on the occasion of the preceding exhibition at the Hamburg Art Association. There, Vasari had already had to defend himself against the accusation of "art Bolshevism." The fact that the "Völkischer Beobachter" now repeated its accusation and described the Italian guest exhibition as an art-political "attempt at in fl uence" may have ultimately determined the representatives of the Reich government to cautiously stay away from the Berlin opening ceremony. The celebration in the exhibition rooms of the former Flechtheim Gallery on Lützowufer became a demonstration - the forum ultimately an art-political tribunal. Rudolf Blümner, who emerged from "Sturm" and DADA circles, in his greeting defended Futurism against the accusation of "subversive tendencies." He pointed to the German abstractionists related to the Futurists. Both had succeeded in grasping the spirit of the epoch as a unity of meaning from a new standpoint, the "stato d'animo." For this, pictorial realism no longer provided the means. In his essay "Flight Painting, Modern Art and Reaction," Ruggero Vasari recalled the development and impact of Futurism from the publication of the fi rst manifesto in the "Figaro" to Aeropittura. He characterized as a "falsi fi cation of art history" the "devious paths of reaction" that sought to defame Futurism as an art of Bolshevist origin. He quoted Gauguin: "In art, there are only revolutionaries or plagiarists!" and invoked Mussolini when he demanded: "A new state, a new people can fl ourish only if all art is revolutionized as well." Marinetti then de fi ned the intellectual-historical place of this new genre of Italian futuristic painting and presented it as a national-heroic life and art form inextricably connected with race. The " fl ying power" heralded a new spirituality, a vitalization of existence in the rhythm of machines, motors, and geometric forms. In the leitmotif subjects of storm troopers and Fascist legions, he wanted futuristic apotheoses of the fascist idea to be recognized. He contrasted their "dynamic conception" with a "static" one that related one-sidedly to so-called enduring contents, representations, etc. As Vice President of the Union of National Writers, Gottfried Benn then invoked his "imperative world empire." "Discipline and form as symbols of domination" were to shape the "cold style of the future" also in the realm of art. It was not the exhibition itself that justi fi ed this effort. The works of Aeropittura were disappointing. Even their best representatives Prampolini, Fillia, Oriani, Ambrosi, Gitio did not in any way reopen the painterly problem of Futurism for discussion. However, "as evidence of the connection between political forces and the artistic aspirations of a people friendly to us," wrote "Weltkunst" (April 8, 1934), this exhibition was "invaluable" in its signi fi cance. Indeed, it once again called into question Rosenberg's dogmatization claim, refuted his arguments, and seemed to rehabilitate the student demands of the previous year with the indication that Mussolini had declared Futurism to be fascist state art. The public art discussion gained further momentum. "Mussolini is the political Futurist," wrote G. H. Theunissen in "Kunst der Nation" (April 15, 1934), "without him, Italy today would be a dusty postcard. Marinetti and his disciples in the manifesto are the artistic incarnations of a thought that emerged around 1909 from Marinetti's Vesuvius brain and hell heart, to seize time, that is: time itself, to drag it by the forelock across Europe's asphalt streets polished by balloon tires... Airplanes, automobiles, and Marinettis populate the new continent." "We welcome the futuristic exhibition at Lützowufer in Berlin... as a pleasing testimony to the diversity of artistic endeavors and to the justi fi cation of this diversity," wrote "Kunst der Nation" (April 15, 1934). Again it was Otto Andreas Schreiber who, as an eloquent spokesman, took up the Italian example of a consistently modern art program but then cautiously distanced himself in the interest of the concrete German situation, in order to fi nally advocate all the more emphatically for Expressionism as the historical parallel to Italian Futurism that was appropriate to the "German North." Aeropittura was "too much of a Romanic stamp," Schreiber conceded to of fi cial criticism, but then pleaded for his own cause: Where Italian Futurism strove to establish only one method of painterly realization, "we establish in contrast that surface, color, perception (inner and outer) remain the categories of painting. Furthermore, that the principled rejection of motifs is an inartistic undertaking." Under the slogan "Continuation of Expressionism," Schreiber pointed the way for future German painting, which regarded Expressionism itself only as a beginning, a transitional stage: "...today's young painters... continue to build on the artistic experiences in the fi eld of color and form that they fi nd. Through this organic continuity, a higher development of German painting can be hoped for. Beyond that, they do not allow themselves to be taken in tow by any other painter, neither of the past nor of the present, by no school and no 'style,' but they make their progress self-con fi dently, so that painting progresses." Already in April, the Ferdinand Moeller Gallery in Berlin showed over 60 watercolors and lithographs by Nolde. Exhibition