From Art to Propaganda: Degenerate Art and Aesthetic and Ideological Manipulation in National Socialist Germany

Abstract

This article examines the discourse of “degenerate art” in Germany, from its initial gestation to its consolidation as a propaganda tool of National Socialism. It examines how this concept was instrumentalized to discredit, criminalise and censor German avantgarde artists, especially those who were Jewish. The study focuses on the Degenerate Art exhibition of 1937, comparing it with the antagonistic exhibition at the House of German Art in Munich. As this article shows, the instrumentalization of modern art in Germany not only affected the art and society of the time, but also had international repercussions, contributing to the stigmatization of modernism. It also examines the consequences of Nazi anti-modernity, including its influence in Spain at the time, and raising the challenge for museum spaces today to present works by artists who moved between the “degenerate” avant-garde and “pure German art”.