Cultural Bolshevism

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The term cultural Bolshevism is a political catchphrase that was used in a derogatory sense for artists, art, architecture and science who, according to the ideas of National Socialism , were rejected as too progressive and left-wing . It is derived from the term Bolshevism for the communist teaching with Russian characteristics. The term implies that the artists, scientists and works of art stamped with it were "pacemakers of the spreading political Bolshevism" in Germany at the time of the Weimar Republic and wanted to "prepare Bolshevism with art." Those attacked sat down - while they were still there was not forbidden - skillfully ironically defended, such as B. Carl von Ossietzky :

“When the Kapellmeister Klemperer takes the tempo differently than his colleague Furtwängler, when a painter brings a shade of evening red that you cannot perceive in Western Pomerania even on a bright day, when you are in favor of birth control, when you build a house with a flat roof , that means cultural Bolshevism as well as the representation of a caesarean section in the film. Cultural Bolshevism is practiced by the actor Chaplin, and when the physicist Einstein asserts that the principle of the constant speed of light can only be asserted where there is no gravitation, then this is cultural Bolshevism and a courtesy personally rendered to Mr. Stalin. "

- Carl von Ossietzky : Die Weltbühne, April 21, 1931

The term often used by Nazi propaganda (often also “Baubolshevism” or “Artistic Bolshevism”) was coined by the Bernese architect Alexander von Senger , who originally wanted to use it to brand modern architectural ideas that had their roots in Moscow. Until 1933, the catchphrase was part of the vocabulary of all bourgeois parties and denoted cultural decline in the broadest sense (see also: cultural pessimism ). After that it took on the meaning of the "fight against corrosive alien ... culture" and so-called " degenerate art ".

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ quoted from: Kurt Luther: From the German art report. Judgment of the civil senate of the Berlin Chamber of Commerce on December 6, 1937 in the matter of Professor Dr. Georg Biermann against the painter and writer Wolfgang Willrich and JFLehmann-Verlag Munich because of Willrich's book: Purification of the temple of art. In: Deutsche Kunstgesellschaft Karlsruhe (ed.): The picture. Monthly magazine for German art, past and present . No. February 2 , 1938.
  2. ↑ Carl von Ossietzky: "Kulturbolschewismus". In: The world stage. 1931, pp. 559-563 , accessed February 22, 2018 .
  3. ^ Paul Renner : Cultural Bolshevism? Zurich 1932. / as reprint : Frankfurt am Main 2003.
  4. ^ Trübner's German dictionary. Berlin / Leipzig 1936–1943.

literature

  • Eckhard John: Music Bolshevism - The Politicization of Music in Germany 1918–1938 , Stuttgart / Weimar: Metzler 1994, 437 pp.