To the surprise of many, aesthetics played a vital role in the lives of Nazis and their politics. Hitler was a failed painter, Goebbels a poet, and Göring a collector; other high-ranking officials likewise fashioned themselves as artists. In this course, we will examine how these personal predilections transformed into an aesthetic vision of politics: through the fascist cult of physical perfection, the theatrics of political media, anti-Semitic entertainment films, and the eroticization of the Führer-figure. We will investigate this marriage of beauty and violence and ask how it helped to make the “Third Reich” attractive to many Germans. Beginning with the great avant-garde experiments of the pre-Nazi era, we will analyze why Hitler banned this “degenerate” art – even though he adopted some of its style in propaganda posters. We will continue by examining the Nazis’ glorification of Greek and Roman images of beauty and their aesthetic justifications for genocide. Throughout the course, we will consider some of the high points of German culture – in philosophy, music, and literature – and ask: How did a society that produced such works of genius also create Nazism and the Holocaust? Is high culture necessarily a bulwark against barbarism? And do we have similarly seductive combinations of culture and politics in our world today? How might we notice such allures yet still mark their dangers, maintain our critical distance, and resist?0 GER credit
To the surprise of many, aesthetics played a vital role in the lives of Nazis and their politics. Hitler was a failed painter, Goebbels a poet, and Göring a collector; other high-ranking officials likewise fashioned themselves as artists. In this course, we will examine how these personal predilections transformed into an aesthetic vision of politics: through the fascist cult of physical perfection, the theatrics of political media, anti-Semitic entertainment films, and the eroticization of the Führer-figure. We will investigate this marriage of beauty and violence and ask how it helped to make the “Third Reich” attractive to many Germans. Beginning with the great avant-garde experiments of the pre-Nazi era, we will analyze why Hitler banned this “degenerate” art – even though he adopted some of its style in propaganda posters. We will continue by examining the Nazis’ glorification of Greek and Roman images of beauty and their aesthetic justifications for genocide. Throughout the course, we will consider some of the high points of German culture – in philosophy, music, and literature – and ask: How did a society that produced such works of genius also create Nazism and the Holocaust? Is high culture necessarily a bulwark against barbarism? And do we have similarly seductive combinations of culture and politics in our world today? How might we notice such allures yet still mark their dangers, maintain our critical distance, and resist?0 GER credit
