The Volkswagen Beetle, the swastika or Leni Riefenstahl's films: A museum in the Netherlands presents the first major retrospective of design of the Third Reich, showing how Nazis used it as a propaganda instrument.
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Propaganda of dark forces: 'Design of the Third Reich'
From orchestrated mass events to kitschy knick-knacks, the Nazis were aware of the importance of design. An exhibition in the Netherlands shows how they used it to achieve their destructive goals.
Image: Getty-Images/Time Life Pictures/H. Jaeger
Aesthetics for the masses
At the 1938 Nazi party rally in Nuremberg, thousands of members of the League of German Girls (BDM) stood in an impressive formation. Uniform, obedient, functioning: The message was clear. It was a political demonstration staged by Adolf Hitler's command staff.
Image: Getty-Images/Time Life Pictures/H. Jaeger
Fit for the Führer
Director Leni Riefenstahl documented the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin as an epic "Festival of Peoples" and "Festival of Beauty." More than 40 cameramen were in action. Riefenstahl's films were designed to be an ode to the body, a celebration of the Nazis' ideal of beauty. Hitler was enthusiastic fan of his "favorite director."
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Olympic Games opening ceremony 1936
In the above scene from the Olympics film, Riefenstahl captures the lighting of the Olympic flame while thousands of people stretch their arms in salutation to their leader. Using the masses as ornamentation is undoubtedly what makes the opening ceremony so impressive.
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Manifest power
Leni Riefenstahl called her propaganda film about the Nazi party's sixth rally in Nuremberg in 1934 "Triumph of the Will." Today, it is regarded as one of the director's most influential works. The German Wehrmacht is strong, devoted and determined; that was the political message.
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Megalomania cast in stone
Built in stone, Nazi architecture stood for their claim to power. Gigantic, with a hint of megalomania: That was the blueprint for the Nazi party rally grounds in Nuremberg. Impressive mass marches took place here, setting the visual stage for the spread of Nazi ideology.
Image: DW / Maksim Nelioubin
Bric-a-brac from Dachau
This, too, was Nazi-style design: a porcelain German Shepherd dog, manufactured by Munich-Allach. The company was a purveyor to the SS and their unscrupulous boss, Heinrich Himmler. Himmler presented such figurines to his comrades at "Das Schawrze Korps" (The Black Corps), the SS official newspaper. They were produced by prisoners at the Dachau concentration camp.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/M. Balk
Minute design even at the camps
The Nazis also designed symbols of identification to be worn by concentration camp prisoners, a uniform aesthetic for their extermination process. Examples are on display at the exhibition "Design of the Third Reich," on show at the Design Museum Den Bosch in the Netherlands until January 19, 2020.
Image: DW / Maksim Nelioubin
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It's no coincidence that the Design Museum in Den Bosch has chosen September 2019 to open the "Design of the Third Reich" exhibition: The city was liberated from German occupation 75 years ago.
The retrospective showcases exhibits from the Netherlands and Germany, including well-known designs such as the VW Beetle and the swastika, as well as films and photos from the era providing an impression of the impressive Nazi rallies and the 1936 Olympic Games. Films directed by Leni Riefenstahl, who expertly transferred Nazi ideology to the screen, are also featured across the museum. "It all shows how much creative design contributed to the emergence of the perfidious Nazi ideology," museum director Timo de Rijk told DW.
The Nazis presented a seductive image of prosperity and carefree pleasure to the outside world at a time when they were already building concentration camps, the show's organizers say.
Design is often presented as a contribution to a better world, but in this case it was an instrument of evil forces. "That's why you have to take the trouble to analyze how the propaganda of the time worked," the museum's curators argue to deflect criticism of the project. The Association of Dutch anti-fascists (AFVN) had rejected the show as "provocative" and called on the city administration to intervene.
Hanna Luden, director of the Center for Information and Documentation on Israel in The Hague, described the exhibition as a "tightrope act" but conceded that it is "fundamentally good" to explain how propaganda can manipulate people.
The swastika, an unmistakable symbol of Nazi terrorImage: picture alliance/akg-images
Design is political
"Design is about every form of presence," says Cologne-based design expert Michael Erlhoff, and that includes the staging of mass marches, clothing, gestures, language — "everything that we now associate with branding and corporate identity."
It was something the Nazis were well aware of, Erlhoff says. Design, he adds, is "massively political" because it shapes society. "Everyone can appropriate it and use it for their own goals."
Museum director Timo de Rijk, meanwhile, isn't after sensations: "Otherwise, I would have made a completely different exhibition," he says, adding that he he could have loaned a war-time guillotine from Germany. But he didn't want that.
"Design of the Third Reich" opens at the Design Museum Den Bosch on September 8 and can be seen until January 19, 2020.
How the Nazis promoted anti-Semitism through film
The Nazis wove anti-Semitism into their films, often quite subtly, as part of their propaganda scheme. How should these films be treated today?
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Hitler's favorite director
Leni Riefenstahl was among the Nazi filmmakers who tried to redeem their reputations after 1945. She was responsible for filming the Nazi party's massive rallies and was an integral part of the propaganda machine. Anti-Semitism was inseparable from the party's ideology.
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Retelling history with anti-Semitic twist
"Jud Süss," one of the Nazis' most famous propaganda films, which is restricted today, was directed by Viet Harlan in 1940. Harlan tells the historical tale of 18th-century German-Jewish banker Joseph Süss Oppenheimer and places it in the context of anti-Semitic Nazi propaganda. "Jud Süss" was seen by millions of Germans when it was first released.
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Mixing anti-Semitism with 'art'
In Harlan's film, anti-Semitic prejudices are underlined by the plot and the way the characters are portrayed. The writer Ralph Giordano said, "Jud Süss" was the "most mean-spirited, cruel and refined form of 'artistic anti-Semitism.'" Michael Töteberg wrote, "The film openly mobilizes sexual fears and aggression and instrumentalizes them for anti-Semitic incitement."
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'The devil's director'
His biographer once called Veit Harlan "the devil's director," due to his unabashed service to Nazi ideology. Harlan had "qualified" himself to make "Jud Süss" after making his own films with anti-Semitic tendencies in the 1930s. After 1945, the director was able to continue working after going on trial and serving a temporary occupational ban.
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Dealing with propaganda films - in film
Much was written and said about Viet Harlan and his anti-Semitic film "Jud Süss" after the war. At least one response to Harlan's work was uttered in film form. Director Oskar Roehler dealt with the origin and effect of the propaganda film in his melodramatic, controversial film "Jud Suss: Rise and Fall" (2010).
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Concorde Filmverleih
Joseph Goebbels pulled the strings
The Nazis were quick to recognize that cinema could have a powerful effect in swaying the people. Joseph Goebbels and his Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda used the medium to promote their ideologies, including anti-Semitism. Besides feature films like "Jud Süss," cultural and educational films were also made.
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A so-called documentary
Another Nazi-made anti-Semitic film was "The Eternal Jew," released just a few months after "Jud Süss" in 1940. The film, made by Fritz Hippler, shows well-known Jewish artists, scenes from the Warsaw Ghetto and images of Jewish religious practices, combining them in a deceitful manner with excerpts from Hitler's speeches and SS marches. The propaganda work was billed as a documentary.
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Devil in the details
Most of the propaganda films the Nazis made between 1933 and 1945 used smaller doses of anti-Semitism and were not as overt as "Jud Süss." Some films were even toned down during production. The historical film "Bismarck" (1940) was originally planned as a much more aggressive anti-Semitic propaganda film.
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Anti-Semitism from the perspective of Charlie Chaplin
During the war, Hollywood produced a number of anti-Nazi films that condemned anti-Semitism. Charlie Chaplin humorously portrayed Hitler in "The Great Dictator" in 1940. After the war, Chaplin said he would have acted differently, had he been aware of the extent of the Nazis' extermination policy against the Jews.
