Adolf Hitler was the dominant political figure in German Nazism. He became chairman of the Nazionalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei [the National Socialist German Workers’ Party or…
Born into a Jewish family in Munich, Lion Feuchtwanger lived in Berlin from 1925 to 1933 when Hitler’s accession to power forced him into exile,…
We are living in a very singular moment of history. It is a moment of crisis, in the literal sense of that word. In every…
As an aesthetic principle, montage, defined as the assemblage of disparate elements into a composite whole often by way of juxtaposition, is most often associated…
Abstract Expressionism was a movement initiated by a group of loosely affiliated artists that came together during the early 1940s, primarily in New York City.…
Expressionism was one of the foremost modernist movements to emerge in Europe in the early years of the twentieth-century. It had a profound effect on…
To appreciate that the various forms of fascism, particularly German National Socialism under Adolf Hitler’s Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP, National Socialist German Workers' Party commonly…
Triumph des Willens (Triumph of the Will) is a black and white propaganda film made by German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl. The film documents the 1934…
Siegfried Kracauer was a German cultural critic and theorist. He wrote film and cultural criticism for the Frankfurter Zeitung in the 1920s and early 1930s.…
Käthe Kollwitz (née Schmidt) was born in Königsberg, East Prussia in 1867, the fifth child of Karl and Katharina Schmidt. In 1884 she entered the…
Known as Il Duce (the Leader), the son of a Marxist blacksmith, Benito Mussolini was the ruler of Fascist Italy (1922–43). A master of populist…
George Grosz was a leading artist of Germany’s early 20th-century expressionist, Dada, and New Objectivity movements. His works from this period remain celebrated examples of…
Mishima Yukio is the pen name of Kimitake Hiraoka. He was an acclaimed novelist, playwright, poet, and essayist. He was nominated three times for the…
Nazi Modernism is not a contradiction in terms, even if Nazi-era rhetoric and propaganda directed against Entartete Kunst powerfully suggested that this was the case.…
The German term Volksgemeinschaft, normally translated as ‘national community’ or ‘people’s community’, expresses an ideal image of a harmonious and united society. The term draws…
The Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties signed on June 28, 1919, in the Palace of Versailles, by Germany and the Allied…
Fascist modernism is an artistic and literary movement emphasizing extreme nationalism, romantic anti-capitalism, and cultural renewal most closely associated with Fascist Italy, Vichy France, and…
The most salient first use of the term populism and its cognates can be found in late 19th-century Tsarist Russia. The Russian peasant Narodniki [populists]…
Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), an experimental film by Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid, is considered an American avant-garde watershed. The husband–wife team played the…
Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art) is a term that was used by Nazi authorities to identify, censure, and confiscate art they considered inconsistent with their ideology.…
Born Erich Paul Remark in Osnabrück, Germany, Erich Maria Remarque is best known for his influential anti-war novel Im Westen nichts Neues (1929, All Quiet…
Founded in Berlin in 1886 by Samuel Fischer, S. Fischer Verlag quickly became one of the most important publishing houses of German and European modernism.…
Gabriele Münter was a key figure in German Expressionism. Born in Berlin, she moved to Munich in 1901 where she became an active participant in…
Rudolf Kolisch was an Austrian-born violinist, teacher, and conductor. As leader of the Kolisch Quartet he premiered many important chamber works by the Second Viennese…
Recipient of the 1960 Nobel Prize for Literature, poet-diplomat Saint-John Perse (Alexis Leger) moved to France after a childhood in Guadeloupe and immediately began writing…