Shadows cast over the documenta in Germany's Kassel
Ingo Arend
February 27, 2020
The first documenta in 1955 is considered the founding manifesto of a new modernism in Germany. It showed art banned by Hitler's regime, but it's been revealed that a co-founder had been a Nazi party member.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Prestel Verlag
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Reconciliation with modernity, the rescue of "degenerate art" and commitment to abstraction are the principles associated with documenta, Germany's storied five-yearly art happening in Kassel.
Founded in 1955, the Weltkunstschau (World Art Show) that takes place next in 2022 in Kassel is regarded as a sign of the political purification of the Germans after the Second World War — and a symbol of a new cultural beginning.
Arnold Bode, the exhibition's founder, sought to introduce visitors above all to the works of artists ostracized in Germany during the Nazi era when their work was labelled as "degenerate art."
For this reason, the first exhibition in the ruins of the destroyed Fridericianum Museum on Kassel's Friedrichsplatz focused on abstract art, especially abstract painting of the 1920s and 1930s. Since then, documenta has developed into one of the most important art exhibitions in the world.
Arnold Bode, the founder of the documenta, was advised by HaftmannImage: picture-alliance/dpa
Werner Haftmann: Most important advisor to the founding father
But dark shadows now hang over documenta. Last year it became known that the art historian Werner Haftmann (pictured top), Arnold Bode's most important advisor, had been a member of the Nazi Party from 1937 to 1945.
The revelations mark an unexpected new stage in Germany's process of coming to terms with the past.
Only a few weeks ago, an amateur historian uncovered the Nazi involvement of Alfred Bauer, the founding director of the Berlinale film festival.
Now the unresolved past has caught up with the documenta. Since then, a fierce dispute has developed in the German public about the consequences for the documenta and the German art establishment.
Conference in Berlin makes Haftmann's Nazi past public
Cambridge historian Bernhard Fulda and Cologne art historian Julia Friedrich, director of the Graphic Collections of the Museum Ludwig, brought the findings to light.
During their research in the Federal Archives, they discovered Haftmann's Nazi Party membership card. At a German Historical Museum (DHM) conference in mid-October 2019, they presented their findings to a wider public.
Art historian Julia Friedrich (right) at the DHM conference in October 2019Image: DHM/David von Becker
Haftmann, who was born in 1912 and died in 1999, had studied art history in Berlin and Göttingen. After receiving his doctorate, he worked at the Institute of Art History in Florence in the late 1930s. Later he joined the German military art protection unit in Italy as an interpreter behind the front. Haftmann himself later claimed to have been only a simple Wehrmacht soldier.
After the war, Haftmann gained a reputation as a defender of modernism, lecturing at the Hamburg Art Academy and writing articles in the arts section of the weekly newspaper Die Zeit.
In 1955, 1959 and 1964 he developed the guiding ideas of the first three documenta exhibitions together with Arnold Bode. In 1976, a few years after leaving the documenta, he became the first director of the "Neue Nationalgalerie" (New National Gallery) in Mies van der Rohe's glass building in Berlin's Tiergarten.
Bernhard Fulda and Julia Friedrich also discovered an essay by Haftmann in the Nazi magazine "Kunst der Nation" (Art of the Nation), in which Haftmann praised expressionism as "German style" in 1934.
How Hitler and the Nazis defamed art
Before he was a dictator, Adolf Hitler was a painter. The "Führer" categorized works of art according to his personal taste. Works he hated were branded "degenerate art" and removed from museums.
Image: picture-alliance/akg-images
Degenerate art
Modern artworks whose style, artist or subject did not meet with the approval of Adolf Hitler and the National Socialists were labeled "degenerate art." From 1937, the Nazis confiscated such works from German museums. In a traveling exhibition, "degenerate art" was held up for public ridicule. Here we see Reich Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels and Hitler at the original exhibition in Munich.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Hitler's art
Hitler had an affinity for Romanticism and 19th century painting and preferred peaceful country scenes. His private collection included works by Cranach, Tintoretto and Bordone. Like his role models Ludwig I. of Bavaria and Frederick the Great, Hitler wanted to manage his own art exhibition at retirement, to be shown in the city of Linz on the River Danube in the "Führer Museum."
Image: picture-alliance/Everett Collection/Actual Films
The confiscations
The National Socialists were not the first to persecute avant-garde artists, but they took it a step further by banning their works from museums. In 1937, the authorities had over 20,000 art works removed from 101 state-owned German museums. Anything that the Nazis didn't consider edifying to the German people was carted off.
Image: Victoria & Alber Museum
Hitler's national style
Abstract art had no place in Hitler's "national style," as grew clear when the "Great German Art Exhibition" put traditional landscape, historical and nude paintings by artists including Fritz Erler, Hermann Gradl and Franz Xaver Stahl on display in Munich on July 18, 1937. The closer the depicted subject to the actual model was, the more beautiful it was in the eyes of the Führer.
Image: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-C10110/CC-BY-SA
What was considered degenerate
Even those in Hitler's inner circle were highly unsure which artists he approved of. The 1937 "Great German Art Exhibition" and the simultaneous "Degerate Art" exhibition in Munich's Court Garden Arcades brought some clarity. Unwelcome were creative artists of the modern period including Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Max Pechstein.
Image: picture-alliance/akg-images
Degenerate art on tour
In the "Degerate Art" exhibition, 650 confiscated artworks from 32 German museums were on display, the exhibits equated with sketches by mentally handicapped persons and shown together with photos of crippled persons. The intention: to provoke revulsion and aversion among visitors. Over two million visitors saw the exhibition on its tour of various cities.
Image: cc-by-sa/Bundesarchiv
Legal foundation
The "Degenerate Artworks Confiscation Law" of May 31, 1938 retroactively legalized their unremunerated acquisition by the state. The law remained valid in the postwar years, the allies determining that it had simply been a redistribution of state property. Unlike stolen artworks, pieces that the Nazis labled "degenerate" and had removed from museums can be freely traded today.
Image: CC by Österreichische Nationalbibliothek
The "degenerate art" trade
The confiscated art was taken to storage facilities in Berlin and at Schönhausen Palace. Many works were sold by Hitler's four art merchants: Bernhard A. Böhmer, Karl Buchholz, Hildebrand Gurlitt and Ferdinand Möller. On March 20, 1939 the Berlin fire department burned approximately 5,000 unsold artifacts, calling it an "exercise."
125 works were earmarked for an auction in Switzerland. A commission charged by Hermann Göring and others with liquefying the "degenerate" art products estimated the minimum bidding prices and commissioned the Fischer Gallery in Lucerne to carry out the auction. Taking place on June 30, 1939, it met with eager interest worldwide.
Image: picture alliance/dpa
Much "degenerate art" in the Gurlitt collection
Over 21,000 works of "degenerate art" were confiscated. Estimates on the number subsequently sold differ; sources estimate 6,000 to 10,000. Others were destroyed or disappeared. Hundreds of artworks believed lost turned up in Cornelius Gurlitt's collection — and reignited the discussion.
Image: privat/Nachlass Cornelius Gurlitt
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After 1945, Haftmann turned his back on German national rhetoric and praised expressionism as a medium of European integration. In his standard work Painting of the XXth Century, published in 1954, he conjured up the global mission of modernism and coined the mantra of "abstraction as a world language."
This reorientation did not stop Haftmann from ennobling a painter like Emil Nolde as one of the "inner emigrants." Although Nolde had been branded "degenerate" by the Nazis, he tried to serve them and remained anti-Semitic.
Werner Haftmann speaks at the opening of documenta 2 in Kassel in 1959Image: picture-alliance/dpa
The wavering self-image of the documenta
In the light of the latest findings on Haftmann, the documenta's image has been shaken. The grand narrative of reparations for the ostracized and "degenerate," and the commitment to modernity suddenly appear implausible.
Now the documenta narrative appears as a tactical calculation and as a defence against the past.
"The preoccupation with modernism after 1945 served the purpose of self-cleansing, for those who were committed to modernism had no need to fear questions about their activities prior to 1945," said Munich art historian Christian Fuhrmeister.
Although the documenta may have developed into a show of critical world views at the latest by the time of its fifth edition in 1972, the myth has now been tarnished by the recent revelations.
Works on show at the Documenta 14 art exhibition
Art in times of uncertainty: Documenta 14, the international art exhibition opening in Kassel, is more political than ever.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/B.Roessle
Living in pipes
Stacked on top of each other by a construction crane, these 20 huge sewage pipes were furnished by students, who turned them into the different rooms of a home - such as a bathroom, a bedroom, and even a dog house. The installation by Kurdish-Iraqi artist Hiwa K recalls the situation of refugees stranded at the Athens harbor, seeking shelter from the wind and bad weather wherever they can.
Image: DW/S. Dege
Parthenon of (forbidden) books
This is already a visitors' favorite: The Argentine conceptual artist Marta Minujín built a "Parthenon of Books," reproducing the size of the original monument in Athens. Forbidden books replace stone in the artwork. Many visitors spontaneously take pictures of this impressive installation.
Image: DW/S. Dege
Installation of refugee boats
Mexican artist Guillermo Galindi hung from the ceiling of the Documenta Hall remnants of boats used by refugees that were found at Greek coasts, in protest against the conditions that lead so many to risk their lives to cross over to Europe. Several works at this year's Documenta deal with this issue.
Image: Reuters/K. Pfaffenbach
Firefighters and art
Smoking art at the Documenta: The project of Romanian-born artist Daniel Knorr features white smoke from the tower of the Fridericianum museum, the show's main exhibition venue in Kassel. His work "Expiration Movement" is a reference to smoke as a means of communication. More than one concerned citizen has already called the firefighters about it.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/S. Pförtner
The one with the knife
Geta Brasescu created the film "Automatism." In it, a man repeatedly slashes a black canvas. When a person suddenly appears in from of him, he just keeps stabbing with his knife. At the Documenta, films - along with installations and performances - are among the most popular art forms.
Image: DW/S. Dege
Against oppression and exploitation
The Australian Gordon Hookey is a militant artist. Belonging to the Indigenous Waanyi people, he protests against colonial oppression and exploitation. To do so, he captures cultural references in the colorful monumental paintings of his series "Murriland!" on show at Kassel's Postamt, renamed Neue Neue Galerie by the art show.
Image: DW/S. Dege
Monumental video installation
Also on show at the Neue Neue Galerie, the monumental video installation "Atlas Fractured" by Theo Eshetu plays with the imagery of five traditional masks that were on a banner of the Ethnological Museum in Berlin. His work criticizes the geopolitical divisions of the world.
Image: DW/S. Dege
Greek artists in Kassel
The first part of the world's most important art show was exceptionally held in Athens this year. Now, in Kassel, Greek art is also prominently featured. An exhibition organized by the Athens' National Museum of Contemporary Art is on show at the Fridericianum. Pictured here is the work "Hopscotch," by Vlassis Caniaris.
Image: Reuters/K. Pfaffenbach
Welcoming with open arms
The obelisk by US artist Olu Oguibe has been erected on Königsplatz in Kassel. The over 16-meter-high (52-foot-high) artwork offers a statement in golden letters: "I was a stranger - and you took me in," in reference to Germany's immigrant-friendly policies.
Image: DW/S. Dege
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Werner Haftmann as the 'grey eminence'
The institutions in Kassel have reacted cautiously to the new findings. Cultural manager and literary scholar Sabine Schormann, General Director of the documenta Society since November 2018, welcomed the "independent, scholarly and critical examination of its own history."
On the official documenta website however, Werner Haftmann is still referred to as the "grey eminence" of the show, and there is no reference to the latest findings.
These details are also missing in the permanent exhibition "about documenta" at the "Neue Galerie" (New Gallery) in Kassel, which opened in late 2019 and deals with the history of the 14 editions of the show to date. Haftmann's leading role is emphasized in two rooms with quotations and photos.
The then-Federal President Theodor Heuss visited the first documenta in 1955Image: picture-alliance/dpa
A reappraisal of political history planned
According to director Schormann, documenta now wants to transfer further research into the Nazi past of its founding generation to the documenta Institute and the documenta Archive.
Whether that can be successful is questionable, as the new building for the institute, for which the state of Hesse has provided €6 million ($6.58 million), is far from ready. The documenta Archive is also only partially suitable for the task, with the relevant files scattered over archives throughout Germany and in areas occupied by the Nazis during the World War II.
Many scholars have therefore advocated for research to be done by an independent commission — similar to the ones recently set up by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and the Federal Constitutional Court to examine the those institutions' Nazi prehistory.
The debate is likely to reach a new high point when the German Historical Museum in Berlin (DHM) opens an exhibition on the "Political History of the documenta" next spring that will also focus on the documenta protagonists' reappraisal of their Nazi past.
