Expressionism debate

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The expressionism debate refers to the dispute about the art form of expressionism in the years 1933 to 1938 on the one hand among the National Socialists and on the other hand among the emigrated Marxists in the German section of the Union of Soviet Writers.

National Socialist Expressionism Debate

Immediately after the seizure of power , the contours of the National Socialist art policy were still blurred, the question of a “state style” was still open. Followers of modern art tried to establish a "Nordic Expressionism" in the folkish sense. In 1933 Joseph Goebbels wanted to proclaim the expressionists Emil Nolde and Ernst Barlach "prototypes of the Nordic artist", but met resistance from Alfred Rosenberg's Kampfbund for German culture .

In the summer of 1933 the National Socialist German Student Union organized the exhibition 30 German Artists in Berlin . Mainly works by modern, expressionist artists were shown. The exhibition met with the sharpest criticism from Alfred Rosenberg and was closed after only 3 days. After an intervention by the organizers with Joseph Goebbels via Walther Funk , the exhibition was reopened a few days later. The NS student union was no longer allowed to act as an organizer.

Hitler personally finally decided the "Expressionism Controversy". At the Nazi party rallies in 1933 and 1934, he did not make a clear statement in the Rosenberg-Goebbels conflict; both the “avant-garde modernity” and the “völkisch reaction” were rejected. On September 11, 1935, however, in his “Art Speech” he finally settled with modern art. Goebbels turned around, now eagerly pursued modern art, which from then on was ostracized as "degenerate".

On July 19, 1937, the touring exhibition Degenerate Art opened in Munich , which was designed as a contrast to the Great German Art Exhibition shown at the same time in Munich . Works by Ernst Barlach and Emil Nolde (who repeatedly declared himself an ardent supporter of the National Socialists) as well as works by the “Kiel Expressionist” Friedrich Peter Drömmer were also exhibited .

Marxist Expressionism Debate

The main focus of the discussion was the relationship between Expressionism and Fascism and National Socialism, as well as the alternative of a “materialistic aesthetic”.

Lukács presented his criticism in the essay "Size and Decay of Expressionism" in the magazine 'Internationale Literatur' (1934, issue 1). He defines his own position a. in the essay It's about realism together. The bourgeois realists and their successors are counter-ideal . According to Lukács, these would not reflect reality as it appears subjectively, but as it is objective.

The main part of the expressionism criticism was published in the Moscow émigré magazine Das Wort .

Opposite this criticism are u. a. Ernst Bloch , Bertolt Brecht and Hanns Eisler . These consist “u. a. on the recognition of the aesthetic and innovative character of the bourgeois avant-garde movements ”.

One of the points of contention is the judgment of Gottfried Benn . In an essay published on November 5, 1933 in the Deutsche Zukunft ( The Expressionism , published slightly changed in 1934 in Art and Power ), he initially joined the criticism of National Socialist expressionism. Uwe-K. Ketelsen speaks of 'traditionalizing' Expressionism "in a way that Nazi criticism was also familiar with, and integrating it into the German, even Aryan-European tradition, was indeed a tactical relief maneuver".

Alfred Kurella advocated the thesis that Benn's nihilism “only allows one somersault into Hitler's camp”; Ernst Bloch smugly commented on this in his 1938 essay, Discussion on Expressionism, with the remark that this judgment was “itself a kind of spiritual somersault”.

literature

  • Hildegard Brenner : The Art Policy of National Socialism. Rowohlt, Hamburg 1963, pp. 65-86.
  • Fritz J. Raddatz (ed.): Marxism and literature. A documentation in three volumes. Volume 2, Reinbek near Hamburg 1969.
  • Hans-Jürgen Schmitt (Ed.): The Expressionism Debate. Materials for a Marxist concept of realism. Frankfurt / Main 1973 (contains the essays published in Das Wort ) .
  • Jan Berg u. a .: The expressionism debate. In: Social history of German literature from 1918 to the present. Frankfurt am Main 1981, pp. 458-460.
  • Robert Cohen : Expressionism Debate. In: Wolfgang Fritz Haug (Ed.): Historical-critical dictionary of Marxism . Volume 3, Argument, Berlin 1997, pp. 1167-1183.
  • Dieter Schiller: The Expressionism Debate 1937 - 1939. From the editorial correspondence of the magazine "Das Wort" (= Pankower lectures 42), Helle Panke, Berlin 2002.
  • Detlev Schöttker: Expressionism, Realism and Avant-garde. Literary and media aesthetic debates in Soviet exile. In: Wilhelm Haefs (Ed.): National Socialism and Exile 1933-1945. Hanser, Munich / Vienna 2009, ISBN 9783446127845 , pp. 230–244.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ “The Bridge” as a statecraft of the Third Reich? The Nordic Expressionism Controversy in the summer of 1933 . In: NZZ , July 19, 2003; Retrieved April 24, 2014
  2. ↑ Michael Petrow: The poet as a leader? About Stefan George's effect in the “Third Reich”. Tectum Verlag, Marburg 1995, ISBN 3-929019-69-8 , p. 73.
  3. ↑ Martin Papenbrock, Gabriele Saure (Ed.): Art of the early 20th century in German exhibitions . Part 1. Exhibitions of German contemporary art during the Nazi era . Publishing house and database for the humanities, Weimar 2000, ISBN 3-89739-041-8 , p. 22 , doi : 10.1466 / 20061109.28 .
  4. ↑ Otto Andreas Schreiber : Seen from the coffin . Biographical comments
  5. ↑ Manfred Funke, Karl Dietrich Bracher , Hans Adolf Jacobsen (eds.): Germany 1933–1945. New Studies on National Socialist Rule. Federal Agency for Political Education , Düsseldorf 1993, ISBN 3-89331-185-8 , p. 261
  6. ↑ K.-M. Bogdal : Art, Artwork, 5th In: Historical Dictionary of Philosophy
  7. ↑ For a brief outline of the underlying aesthetic position cf. K.-M. Bogdal: Art, Artwork, 5th In: Historical Dictionary of Philosophy
  8. ^ Bertolt Brecht : Collected works . Volume 19, p. 290 ff.
  9. ↑ K.-M. Bogdal: Art, Artwork, 5th In: Historical Dictionary of Philosophy
  10. ↑ The thirties and forties . In: W. Hinderer (Ed.): Die deutsche Lyrik . Reclam, Stuttgart 1983, p. 491.
  11. ↑ Silvio Vietta: Problems - connections - methodical questions . In: ders. / Hans-Georg Kemper: Expressionism . Wilhelm Fink Verlag, Munich 1975, p. 208