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Old July 10th, 2009 #1
Alex Linder
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Join Date: Nov 2003
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Default National Socialist Cultural Policy

From Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics (2002), by Frederic Spotts, an exceptional book, one of the most persuasive takes on Hitler I've seen.

Spotts discusses Hitler's antipathy toward Modernism in painting (p. 161):
Hitler's antipathy, however, had two unique elements. One was the centrality of anti-Semitism. The association of Jews with Modernism had no basis in fact. Chagall apart, there were no Jewish painters of note and only five or six minor ones, none the equivalent in painting to Schoenberg in music or Erich Mendelsohn in architecture. In truth, he tacitly recognized this fact. His speeches condemned not Jewish painters but Jewish influence on painting, which had made itself felt through art commentary in the Jewish-controlled press. He once explained to Christa Schroeder what he was driving at. Jews new very well, he said, that Modernist painting was worthless and decadent. But they bought it and made a tremendous fuss about it; as a result prices were inflated and they then sold it and made huge profits. With these they acquired valuable Old Masters for themselves. He believed this was borne out when private Jewish art collections began being seized in the late 1930s. 'What is so remarkable,' he told Goebbels, 'is that Jews -- as is now becoming evident from the confiscation of Jewish property -- spent all the money that they swindled from peopled for [Modernist] kitsch on outstandingly good and valuable pictures.'