Emil Nolde was a German-Danish painter and printmaker. He was one of the first Expressionists, a member of Die Brücke, and was one of the first oil painting and watercolor painters of the early 20th century to explore color. He is known for his brushwork and expressive choice of colors. Golden yellows and deep reds appear frequently in his work, giving a luminous quality to otherwise somber tones. His watercolors include vivid, brooding storm-scapes and brilliant florals.
Degenerate art was a term adopted in the 1920s by the Nazi Party in Germany to describe modern art. During the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler, German modernist art, including many works of internationally renowned artists, was removed from state-owned museums and banned in Nazi Germany on the grounds that such art was an "insult to German feeling", un-German, Freemasonic, Jewish, or Communist in nature. Those identified as degenerate artists were subjected to sanctions that included being dismissed from teaching positions, being forbidden to exhibit or to sell their art, and in some cases being forbidden to produce art.
Hanns Johst was a German poet and playwright, directly aligned with Nazi philosophy, as a member of the officially approved writers’ organisations in the Third Reich. The statement “When I hear the word culture, I reach for my gun”, variously misattributed to Heinrich Himmler, Joseph Goebbels and Hermann Göring, was in fact a corrupted version of a line in his play Schlageter.
Othmar Spann was a conservative Austrian philosopher, sociologist and economist. His radical anti-liberal and anti-socialist views, based on early 19th century Romantic ideas expressed by Adam Müller et al. and popularized in his books and lecture courses, helped antagonise political factions in Austria during the interwar years.
Mary Wigman was a German dancer and choreographer, notable as the pioneer of expressionist dance, dance therapy, and movement training without pointe shoes. She is considered one of the most important figures in the history of modern dance. She became one of the most iconic figures of Weimar German culture and her work was hailed for bringing the deepest of existential experiences to the stage.
Austrian Nazism or Austrian National Socialism was a pan-German movement that was formed at the beginning of the 20th century. The movement took a concrete form on 15 November 1903 when the German Worker's Party (DAP) was established in Austria with its secretariat stationed in the town of Aussig. It was suppressed under the rule of Engelbert Dollfuss (1932–34), with its political organization, the DNSAP banned in early 1933, but revived and made part of the German Nazi Party after the German annexation of Austria in 1938.
Paul Schultze-Naumburg was a German traditionalist architect, painter, publicist and author. A leading critic of modern architecture, he joined the NSDAP in 1930 and became an important advocate of Nazi architecture.
Hans Hinkel was a German journalist and ministerial official in Nazi Germany. He studied at the University of Bonn, where he was a member of the academic fencing fraternity Sugambria. Hinkel had served in the Freikorps and joined the NSDAP in 1921. From 1930 to 1932 he was the editor of the Völkischer Beobachter in Berlin. After the Nazis seized power in 1933, he became Reich Organization Leader of the Militant League for German Culture and manager of the Reich Culture Chamber (Reichskulturkammer).
Fritz Hippler was a German filmmaker who ran the film department in the Propaganda Ministry of Nazi Germany, under Joseph Goebbels. He is best known as the director of the propaganda film Der Ewige Jude .
The Berlin Secession was an art movement established in Germany on May 2, 1898. Formed in reaction to the Association of Berlin Artists, and the restrictions on contemporary art imposed by Kaiser Wilhelm II, 65 artists "seceded," demonstrating against the standards of academic or government-endorsed art. The movement is classified as a form of German Modernism, and came on the heels of several other secessions in Germany, including Jugendstil and the Munich Secession.
The German Workers' Party in Austria-Hungary was the predecessor of the Austrian and Czechoslovak Deutsche Nationalsozialistische Arbeiterpartei (DNSAP), founded on 14 November 1903, in Aussig, Bohemia. Its founders were Karl Hermann Wolf, an earlier adherent of Georg von Schönerer, and Ferdinand Burschofsky.
Amt Rosenberg was an official body for cultural policy and surveillance within the Nazi party, headed by Alfred Rosenberg. It was established in 1934 under the name of Dienststelle Rosenberg, with offices at Margarethenstraße 17 in Berlin, to the west of Potsdamer Platz. Due to the long official name of Rosenberg's function, Beauftragter des Führers für die gesamte geistige und weltanschauliche Erziehung der NSDAP, the short description Reichsüberwachungsamt "Reich surveillance office" was used alongside, also shortened simply to Überwachungsamt "surveillance office".
Eberhard Achterberg was a religious scholar, a journalist, a high-ranking Nazi official in the Amt Rosenberg and later a leading member of the German Unitarian Religious Community and school and university teacher.
The Degenerate Art exhibition was an art exhibition organized by Adolf Ziegler and the Nazi Party in Munich from 19 July to 30 November 1937. The exhibition presented 650 works of art, confiscated from German museums, and was staged in counterpoint to the concurrent Great German Art Exhibition. The day before the exhibition started, Hitler delivered a speech declaring "merciless war" on cultural disintegration, attacking "chatterboxes, dilettantes and art swindlers". Degenerate art was defined as works that "insult German feeling, or destroy or confuse natural form or simply reveal an absence of adequate manual and artistic skill". One million people attended the exhibition in its first six weeks. A U.S. critic commented "there are probably plenty of people—art lovers—in Boston, who will side with Hitler in this particular purge".
Hans Severus Ziegler was a German publicist, theater manager, teacher and Nazi Party official. A leading cultural director under the Nazis, he was closely associated with the censorship and cultural co-ordination of the Third Reich.
Heinz Drewes (1903–1980) was a German conductor and in 1937–1944 head of division X (music) of Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda at the time when Reichsmusikkammer was led by Peter Raabe from 1935 onwards. He was one of the most influential people in German music world at that time. Drewes was head of division X (music) subordinated divisions: Reich Music Examination Office, Reichsstelle für Musikbearbeitungen, Auslandsstelle für Musik, Amt für Konzertwesen.
Hans Reinerth was a German archaeologist. He was a pioneer of Palynology and modern settlement archaeology, but is controversial because of his role before and during the period of National Socialism.
Otto Frickhoeffer was a German composer and conductor.
Karl August Walther was a German writer and publisher.
Hermann Erdlen was a German composer.
