In 1937 the Danish communist writer and artist Hans Scherfig published this fierce indictment of Nazi cultural policy, arguing that four years of Hitler’s rule had reduced Germany to a country without culture.
Not content with simply bemoaning the destruction, Scherfig explained why it was happening. To him the attack on modern art and artistic innovation was a logical and consistent step for the Nazis to take. The Nazi slur “cultural Bolshevism” was, to Scherfig, an apt description of modern art, one he considered a badge of honour. What made modern painting revolutionary was not its subject matter but its formal innovations: the way it broke with established norms to reveal new beauties and values. These small cultural revolutions were, he argued, integral to the greater movement toward emancipation.
He also warned that the assault was spilling across the border into Denmark. Linking the German purges to contemporary Danish attacks on artistic freedom, he argued that artists were natural allies of the workers’ movement. He reserved sharp criticism for the Danish Social Democrats, who patronised reactionary salon painters, not unlike those favoured by the Nazis, while ignoring modern art.
Written as the books were burning in Germany, Scherfig’s reminder that cultural and political progress are connected remains unsettlingly relevant in our age of rising fascism, increasing antiintellectualism, widespread treat-brained philistinism and soulless AI slop crowding out real art.
German Cultural Destruction And Denmark
- Hans Scherfig, 1937
Give me four years! Hitler said when he seized power in Germany in 1933. Four years. In that time he promised to transform the German Reich. And he has kept his promise.
After four years of Nazi rule, Germany has become a country without culture. Literally. If anyone has doubted that fascism means barbarism, the events in Germany have delivered a horrifying object-lesson.
German literature now exists only as emigrée literature. By the symbolic burning of books in 1933 Nazism demonstrated its cultural programme to an astonished world. German poets had to emigrate, like Thomas Mann. Or were imprisoned, like Ludwig Renn. Or were murdered, like Erich Mühsam. Their political convictions were not the decisive thing. It was enough that they were talented. Under the dictatorship of mediocrity, intelligence is a dangerous thing. Talent alone is enough to render a man odious.
And what befell German literature befell German theatre. German cinema. German music. German science. Scientists like Einstein were driven into exile, while jackbooted Nazi men seized their lecterns. It has been solemnly proclaimed that science in Germany must not be objective. Biology must be national. Mathematics must be subjective. Astronomy must be Nazi. The multiplication table must be antisemitic. Under the sound of heil-shouts and military drills, Germany’s student youth are being schooled to assume the leading posts of society.
And what befell literature and theatre and cinema and music and science, that also befell the visual arts. And in this domain the cultural destruction has been carried out with still greater openness and clarity. Hitler himself once dabbled in painting. And now the hour of vengeance has come for those artists and art institutions who would not acknowledge his dilettante endeavours.
Göring has proclaimed himself protector of the arts. And the professorships at the Prussian Academy he now awards to his friends and drinking buddies.
In Munich the palace of German art has been inaugurated by the Führer. And the hideous building has been filled with old saccharine panorama-pictures that are the artistic expression of Nazi Germany. Romance and heroism. Muscle-swelling strongmen. Colourful uniforms. Chaste women of the heavyweight class with flowing golden hair. Hitler on horseback in silver-white armour with lance and moustache. Waving banners and brave soldiers in mist and smoke. Vikings and champions and knights and pages, more repulsive and sickening than the worst daubs of the Slott-Møller couple[1].
And at the same time, the ‘removed’ art has been gathered into a so-called ‘chamber of horrors’ to serve as a warning. And the removed art—it is not only works by all the best German painters, but also by the most valuable foreign modern painters (such as Cézanne and van Gogh) who were represented in German museums.
Göring had been entrusted with deciding what is to become of these works of art hereafter. The police have been empiwered to break into private homes and remove those paintings whose manner of painting is not to the liking of the leading boot-Nazis.
An insane nightmare. Like the monkeys in the zoo who smash everything that falls into their hands, the Nazis rend every work of culture that ends up behind the bars of Hitler’s monkey cage.
Yet there is method in the madness. And what is now happening in Germany in the field of art is, if nothing else, instructive. If anyone still had doubts as to where modern painting stands, entirely apart from its content, its motifs and its subject matter, then Hitler has shown us with all desirable clarity. It is not the art that, through its choice of subject, has worked for the political revolution which Hitler is fighting. It is the art that, by its formal language, by its technique, by its exploitation of the purely painterly possibilities, was revolutionary, that is now struck by the anathema of Nazism.
Painters who do not paint the sky in precisely that cobalt-blue colour which popular opinion holds that skies ought to have may have their eyes examined by a doctor. If a direct ocular defect is found, they must undergo treatment. But if their eyes are not at fault, it is out of malice that they have painted untraditionally. And then the penitentiary and the concentration camp await them. That is how Hitler himself formulated it in a speech.
For the first time in world history, artists are not being dictated to about what they may paint, but about how they must paint. And in this, Hitler demonstrates a grasp of modern art that is astonishing. He, or his advisers, knows that it is precisely that art which goes its own way, which experiments, which seeks out and discovers new technical possibilities, new formal means of expression, which revolutionizes within its own domain, that is revolutionary—also in a political sense.
The Nazi struggle against modern art is completely logical and consistent. The term “cultural Bolshevism” is excellent and apt. That is precisely what modern painting is: Bolshevism in the realm of culture. Even if it is only in a purely artistic and formal sense that it is revolutionary.
You can paint workers and peasants and factories and pictures of war and poor wives, and yet paint them so traditionally and reactionarily that Hitler can accept them. And you can paint a kerosene bottle in a new and surprising way, you can reveal wholly new beauties and values in a common cheap object, so that you can speak of a revolution within the domain of painting. The picture is then cultural Bolshevism. And it is logical when Hitler condemns it.
Every small advance is a link in the great chain. Every small revolution is a step in the right direction. The revolutions that have taken place within the limited and particular domain of painting are also significant, even if one cannot immediately perceive the connection, and even if the artist himself is perhaps not even aware of the significance of his work.
Let us hope that Hitler’s campaign against modern painting will at least have the one purely negative consequence of opening the eyes of those who have hitherto regarded modern painting with contempt. Modern painting must pose a threat to Nazism, since so much energy is being expended from that side to combat it. And when it constitutes a danger to Nazism, it must necessarily belong among the forces working to create a new and more service society.
But even though we recognize that what is now taking place in Germany in the field of fine art is only logical and consistent, insofar as reaction must combat progress in all its forms, and even though we have foreseen and predicted that political reaction necessarily leads to spiritual darkness, that fascism is identical with barbarism, what is now taking place in Germany is no less tragic.
And it is especially tragic and horrifying for us Danes, who for centuries have drawn our culture from the south, when suddenly the land to which we culturally owe so much has been transformed into a desert of barbarism, when after four years of Nazi rule German culture no longer exists within Germany’s borders. An uncultured Germany is fateful also for Denmark.
You only need to read Berlingske Tidende to see how quickly the new German art programme is being seized upon by reactionary circles here at home. The paper has devoted an editorial to the question in both its morning and evening editions. It proceeds cautiously. Makes slight excuses for Hitler. Talks of German thoroughness, and so on. Yet the logic of Hitler’s campaign against modern art seems to have dawned even upon the domestic reaction in Pilestræde and Ved Stranden[2]. The Danish conservatives are realising that the artistic revolution is part of the political one, that art’s form and technique are not irrelevant. Hear the voice of Julius Magnussen[3]:
Reaction has always, in due course, done away with faded modern movements and packed them off to the attic. And the reaction in Germany, expressing itself with such systematic thoroughness, is no doubt the same reaction now sweeping the entire worl, a reaction we know here at home as well, and which only days ago found expression in Copenhagen when the courts fined young Freddie for his surrealist filth[4]. A reckoning is underway with the artistic fraud of the past twenty years, which found such fertile soil in the swamps of the war. In every country, people are turning their backs on these two decades, each in his own fashion searching for something new, something more beautiful, something better able to uplift the spirit than those works that saw the light, in other artistic fields no less, during these critical years.
Here in Denmark, those who are wont to adorn themselves with the label broad-minded will wring their hands when they hear that Mr. Hitler wishes to have a new and better national art created.
I believe Magnussen is right when he mentions the Freddie verdict and Hitler’s purge of art in the same breath. Whatever one may think of the surrealist conception of art in general, or of Freddie’s talent, it is disturbing to note that freedom of expression is now under attack in the domain of painting as well. Next time, it may be a better painter than Freddie who falls victim to the reaction. The fact that they have shown the cunning, in the first instance, to choose a painter who may perhaps have some difficulty getting his colleagues to stand up for him ought not to confuse us. The prosecution displayed the same cunning in its choice of victims when it brought charges against doctors for performing abortions. They carefully selected first those who could not count on too great a measure of confidence within the medical profession. But we must not allow that to make us forget what is at issue on principle.
The workers’ parties of Denmark must grasp that the assault on artistic freedom of expression is no trifling matter and does not lie outside the workers’ concern. And they must grasp that modern art fights on the same front as the workers. Even though what is revolutionary in art only reveals itself in the formal language it chooses.
It is more than regrettable that the largest workers’ party — the Social Democrats — have still not realised that modern art concerns the workers. Stauning[5] has himself portrayed by the committed Nazi and panopticon-painter “professor” Oscar Matthiesen[6]. The hack painter Saltoft[7] has become the Social Democrats’ court painter and raking in fat profits from decorating the workers’ buildings with his atrocious daubs. Either of these men would fit right in at Hitler’s new palace of art.
That the Danish painters themselves understand which front they belong to, we have seen time and again. The artists boycotted the Berlin Olympics, although the Academy’s professors sat on the Olympic committee. When Arbejderbladet[8] lacked funds, the best artists gave their works and had them sold for the benefit of the paper. Likewise, when it was a matter of helping the struggling Spanish people, the artists showed their willingness to sacrifice. That the Academy professors chose to hold themselves loftily aloof on that occasion only confirms the views set forth in this article.
It is reasonable that the artists feel their fate is bound to that of the working class. But it is unreasonable that Social Democrats have never shown modern art the slightest understanding, but on the contrary have always supported the most reactionary salon painting. Surely the fate of culture and of the working class in Germany could move the Social Democrats to take some interest in culture?
Modern painting developed under democracy. The revolutions in art broke out alongside and sometimes before the social and political revolutions. The emancipation of art has taken place simultaneously with the emancipation of the working class. That truth ought to make modern painting easier for the worker to understand.
The appreciation of art has never been easy. All art, the old included, takes effort to understand. I believe that the new and unfamiliar in modern painting will seem less incomprehensible to the workers when they compare the struggle for artistic freedom and artistic experiments with the social and political upheavals. Hitler’s hateful campaign against the new art should, here in this country, bring about increased sympathy and increased understanding for this art.
Original Danish text
Den tyske kulturdestruktion og Danmark
- Hans Scherfig, 1937
Giv mig fire år! sagde Hitler, da han i 1933 overtog magten i Tyskland. Fire år. På den tid lovede han at forvandle det tyske rige. Og han har holdt sit løfte.
Efter fire års nazistisk styre er Tyskland blevet et land uden kultur. Bogstavelig talt. Hvis nogen har været i tvivl om, at fascisme betyder barbari, har begivenhederne i Tyskland været et stykke forfærdende anskuelses-undervisning.
Den tyske literatur eksisterer nu kun som emigrant-literatur. Ved den symbolske opbrænding af bøger i 1933 demonstrerede nazismen sit kulturprogram over for en undrende verden. De tyske digtere måtte udvandre som Thomas Mann. Eller blev fængslet som Ludwig Renn. Eller blev myrdet som Eric [sic] Mühsam. Deres politiske anskuelser var ikke det afgørende. Det var nok, at de var talentfulde. I middelmådighedens diktaturstat er begavelse en farlig ting. Talent alene er nok til at gøre en mand misliebig.
Og som det gik den tyske literatur, er det gået med tysk teater. Med tysk film. Med tysk musik. Med tysk videnskab. Videnskabsmænd som Einstein måtte drage i landflygtighed, mens bestøvlede nazi-mænd overtog deres katedre. Det er højtideligt proklameret, at videnskaben i Tyskland ikke må være objektiv. Biologien skal være national. Matematikken skal være subjektiv. Astronomien skal være nazistisk. Den lille tabel skal være antisemitisk. Under heil-råb og eksercits uddannes den tyske studenterungdom, som skal overtage samfundets ledende embeder.
Og som det er gået med literatur og teater og film og musik og videnskab, er det også gået med de bildende kunster. Og på dette område er kulturdestruktionen foretaget med endnu større åbenhed og tydelighed. Hitler har selv engang fusket i malerkunsten. Og nu er gengældelsens time kommet for de kunstnere og kunstinstitutioner, der ikke ville anerkende hans dilettantiske forsøg.
Göring har udnævnt sig til kunstens protektor. Og professorembederne ved det prøjsiske akademi tildeler han nu sine venner og soldekammerater.
I München er den tyske kunsts palads blevet indviet af føreren. Og den rædsomme bygning er blevet fyldt med gamle sødladne panoptikon-billeder, der er det kunstneriske udtryk for nazismens Tyskland. Romantik og heroisme. Muskel-svulmende kraftmennesker. Kulørte uniformer. Kyske kvinder af sværvægtsklassen med udslagent guld-hår. Hitler til hest i sølverhvid rustning med lanse og overskæg. Vajende faner og modige soldater i røg og damp. Vikinger og kæmper og riddere og gangerpilte, ledere og æklere end ægteparret Slott-Møllers værste plastre.
Og samtidig er den »udartede« kunst blevet samlet i et såkaldt »rædselskabinet« til skræk og advarsel. Og den udartede kunst det er ikke alene værker af alle de bedste tyske malere, men også af de værdifuldeste udenlandske moderne malere (som Cézanne og van Gogh), der var repræsenteret på tyske museer.
Det er blevet overdraget Göring at bestemme, hvad der siden skal ske med disse kunstværker. Politiet har fået fuldmagt til at bryde ind i private hjem og fjerne de billeder, hvis malemåde ikke falder i de ledende støvle-nazisters smag.
Et vanvittigt mareridt. Som aberne i zoologisk have, der ødelægger alt, hvad der falder i deres hænder, sådan flænger nazisterne de kulturværker, der kommer inden for tremmerne i Hitlers abebur.
Men der er metode i galskaben. Og det, der nu sker i Tyskland på kunstens område, er i det mindste lærerigt. Hvis man endnu har været i tvivl om, hvor den moderne malerkunst står, rent bortset fra dens indhold motiv og emnevalg, så har Hitler vist os det med al ønskelig tydelighed. Det er ikke den kunst, der gennem sit emnevalg har arbejdet for den politiske revolution, som Hitler bekæmper. Det er den kunst, som ved sit formsprog, ved sin teknik, ved sin brug af de rent maleriske muligheder var revolutionær, der nu rammes af nazismens bandstråle.
De malere, der ikke maler himlen med netop den cobalt-blå farve, som man populært synes, at himle bør have, kan lade deres øjne undersøge af en læge. Hvis de har en direkte øjenfejl, skal de underkastes behandling. Men hvis deres øjne ikke fejler noget, er det af ond vilje, at de har malet utraditionelt. Og så venter tugthuset og koncentrationslejren på dem. Sådan har Hitler selv formuleret det i en tale.
For første gang i verdenshistorien får kunstnerne ikke foreskrevet, hvad de skal male, men hvordan de skal male. Og her viser Hitler en forståelse af den moderne kunst, som er forbløffende. Han eller hans rådgivere ved, at netop den kunst, der går sine egne veje, der eksperimenterer, der søger og finder nye tekniske muligheder, nye formelle udtryksmidler, der revolutionerer inden for sit eget område, er revolutionær - også i politisk forstand.
Nazismens kamp mod den moderne kunst er fuldstændig logisk og konsekvent. Betegnelsen »kultur-bolsjevisme« er fortrinlig og dækkende. Det er netop, hvad den moderne malerkunst er, bolsjevisme på kulturens område. Selvom det kun er rent artistisk og formelt, at den er revolutionær.
Man kan godt male arbejdere og bønder og fabrikker og krigsbilleder og fattige koner og alligevel male det så traditionelt og reaktionært, at det kan accepteres af Hitler. Og man kan male en petroleums-flaske på en ny og overraskende måde, man kan afsløre helt nye skønheder og værdier ved en almindelig billig genstand sådan, at der kan tales om en revolution inden for maleriets område. Billedet er så kultur-bolsjevisme. Og det er logisk, når Hitler fordømmer det.
Hvert lille fremskridt er et led i den store sam-menhæng. Hver lille revolution er et skridt i den rigtige retning. Også de revolutioner, der har fundet sted inden for malerkunstens begrænsede og specielle område har deres betydning, selvom man ikke straks kan få øje på sammenhængen, og selvom kunstneren måske ikke engang selv er klar over betydningen af sit arbejde.
Lad os håbe, at Hitlers aktion mod den moderne malerkunst i det mindste kan få den rent negative betydning, at den kan åbne øjnene på dem, der hidtil har betragtet det moderne maleri med ringeagt. Det moderne maleri må dog betyde en fare for nazismen, siden der fra den side anvendes så megen energi for at bekæmpe det. Og når det betyder en fare for nazismen, må det nødvendigvis høre med til de kræfter, der arbejder på at skabe et nyt og fornuftigere samfund.
Men selvom vi indser, at det, der nu sker i Tyskland på billedkunstens område, kun er logisk og konsekvent, for så vidt som reaktionen må bekæmpe fremskridtet i alle dets former, og selvom vi har forudset og forudsagt, at den politiske reaktion nødvendigvis må føre til åndeligt mørke, at fascisme er identisk med barbari, er det, der nu sker i Tyskland, ikke mindre tragisk.
Og det er særlig tragisk og uhyggeligt for os danske, der gennem århundreder har hentet vor kultur sydfra, når pludselig det land, som vi kulturelt skylder så meget, er forvandlet til en ørken af barbari, når efter fire års nazi-styre tysk kultur ikke mere findes inden for Tysklands grænser. Et kulturløst Tyskland er skæbnesvangert også for Danmark.
Man behøver kun at læse Berlingske Tidende for at se, hvor hurtigt det nye tyske kunstprogram bliver grebet af reaktionære kredse herhjemme. Bladet har ofret spørgsmålet en leder både i sin morgen- og aftenudgave. Det tager forsigtigt på sagen. Undskylder Hitler lidt. Taler om tysk grundighed o.s.v. Men logikken i Hitlers kamp mod den moderne kunst synes at være gået op også for den hjemlige reaktion i Pilestræde og Ved Stranden. De danske konservative indser, at den kunstneriske revolution er en del af den politiske, at kunstens form og teknik ikke er ligegyldig. Hør Julius Magnussens røst:
»En reaktion har før i tiden gjort det af med afblomstrede moderne retninger og kørt dem på loftet. Og den reaktion i Tyskland, som giver sig et så systematisk udtryk, er vistnok den samme reaktion, som i øjeblikket går over hele verden en reaktion, vi kender også herhjemme, og som for få dage siden gav sig et københavnsk udtryk i en bøde ved domstolen til den unge Freddie for hans surrealistiske griserier. Man er ved at gøre op med de sidste tyve års kunstneriske svindel, der havde en så frodig jordbund i krigens sumpe. I alle lande vender man sig bort fra disse tyve år og spejder hver på sin måde efter noget nyt, noget skønnere, noget, som bedre kan opløfte sindet end de kunstværker, der også på andre kunstneriske områder har set lyset i disse kritiske år.
Her i Danmark vil de, som plejer at pynte sig med betegnelsen frisindede, slå hænderne sammen, når de hører, at hr. Hitler ønsker skabt en ny og bedre national kunst.«
Jeg tror, at Magnussen har ret, når han nævner Freddie-dommen og Hitlers kunstudrensning i samme åndedræt. Ligegyldigt, hvad man mener om den surrealistiske kunstopfattelse i almindelighed eller om Freddies talent, er det uhyggeligt at konstatere, at ytringsfriheden nu også angribes på maleriets område. Næste gang er det måske en bedre maler end Freddie, der rammes af reaktionen. At man har vist den snedighed i første omgang at vælge en maler, der måske kan have nogen vanskelighed ved at få sine kolleger til at gå ind for sig, bør ikke forvirre. Den samme snedighed i udvælgelsen af ofre viste anklagemyndigheden, da den rejste tiltale mod lægerne for svangerskabsafbrydelse. Man valgte omhyggeligt dem først, der ikke kunne glæde sig ved alt for stor tillid inden for lægeverdenen. Men lad os ikke af den grund glemme det principielle.
Arbejderpartierne i Danmark må forstå, at angrebet på kunstens ytringsfrihed ikke er noget ligegyldigt og ikke er arbejderne uvedkommende. Og de må forstå, at den moderne kunst kæmper på samme front som arbejderne. Selvom det revolutionære i kunsten kun viser sig i det formsprog, den vælger.
Det er mere end beklageligt, at det største arbejderparti - Socialdemokratiet - endnu ikke har indset, at den moderne kunst vedkommer arbejderne. Stauning lader sig portrættere af den overbeviste nazist og panoptikon-maler »professor« Oscar Matthiesen. Fidus-maleren Saltoft er blevet Socialdemokratiets hofmaler og tjener fedt på at udsmykke arbejdernes bygninger med sine umulige plastre. Begge disse malere kunne så udmærket godt tænkes repræsenteret i Hitlers nye kunstpalads.
At de danske malere selv har forståelsen af, på hvilken front de hører hjemme, har vi ofte set. Kunstnerne boykottede olympiaden i Berlin, skønt Akademiets professorer sad i olympiade-komiteen. Da Arbejderbladet manglede kontanter, gav de bedste kunstnere deres arbejder og lod dem sælge til fordel for bladet. Også da det gjaldt om at hjælpe det kæmpende spanske folk, viste kunstnerne deres offervillighed. At akademi-professorerne ved den lejlighed holdt sig fornemt tilbage, bekræfter kun de synspunkter, der er anført i denne artikel.
Det er rimeligt, at kunstnerne føler, at deres skæbne er knyttet til arbejderklassens. Men det er urimeligt, at Socialdemokratiet aldrig har vist den moderne kunst den ringeste forståelse, men tværtimod altid har støttet det mest reaktionære salon-maleri. Mon ikke kulturens og arbejderklassens skæbne i Tyskland kunne få Socialdemokratiet til at interessere sig lidt for kulturen?
Det moderne maleri har haft sin udvikling under demokratiet. Kunstens revolutioner er sket samtidig med eller før de sociale og politiske revolutioner. Kunstens frigørelse har fundet sted samtidig med arbejderklassens frigørelse. Denne kendsgerning må kunne lette arbejderen forståelsen af den moderne malerkunst.
Tilegnelsen af kunst har aldrig været let. Det kræver et arbejde at forstå al kunst også den gamle. Jeg tror, at det nye og uvante i det moderne maleri vil forekomme arbejderne mindre uforståeligt, når de sammenligner kunstens kamp for frihed og kunstens eksperimenter med de sociale og politiske omvæltninger. Hitlers hadefulde felttog mod den nye kunst må her i landet bevirke forøget sympati og forøget forståelse af denne kunst.
Refers to the painter and ceramist Georg Harald Slott-Møller (1864-1937) and the painter Agnes Slott-Møller (1862-1937). Their art was characterized by a romantic, medieval-inspired nationalism, drawing on Danish history, folklore, and folk songs. Scherfig considered them to be politically conservative and artistically outdated. ↩︎
Pilestræde and Ved Stranden are streets in Copenhagen housing the offices of the reactionary broadsheets Berlingske Tidende and the now-defunct Nationaltidende ↩︎
Julius Magnussen (1882-1940), author and polemicist who moved from progressive views in his youth towards reactionary views later in life. ↩︎
Wilhelm Freddie (1909-1995), surrealist painter and sculptor who caused outrage in polite society with his artistic treatment of sexuality. In 1937 his sculpture Sex-paralyseappeal was seized by the police from an exhibition and Freddie received a ten day jail sentence for pornography. ↩︎
Thorvald Stauning (1873-1942), leader of the Social Democrats and Prime Minister 1924-1926 and 1929-1942. ↩︎
Oscar Matthiesen (1861–1957), painter and titulary professor. Art critic at Berlingske Tidende and affiliated with the reactionary Association for National Art. ↩︎
Eduard Saltoft (1883-1939), painter. Popular portraitist among the bourgeoisie. Was criticised for lacking artistic depth. ↩︎
Newspaper (1921-1941) affiliated with the Communist Party of Denmark ↩︎
I think you’re missing some footnotes.
ⓘ This user is suspected of being a cat. Please report any suspicious behavior.
Thank you for noticing. It’s fixed now.
