Reich Chamber of Culture

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Reich Chamber of Culture 1937

The Reich Chamber of Culture ( RKK ) was an institution founded on the instigation of the Reich Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda Joseph Goebbels through the Reich Chamber of Culture Act ( RGBl. I, p. 661, promulgated on September 22, 1933) and an instrument of National Socialist cultural policy for harmonization all areas of cultural life and to regulate the social and economic interests of those working in culture . The Reich Chamber of Culture was based in Berlin . While the administration was housed together with the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda at Wilhelmplatz 8/9, the other chambers and associations were spread over numerous offices throughout the city.

founding

The subsequent legitimation of the RKK resulted from the First Ordinance for the Implementation of the Reich Chamber of Culture Act of November 1, 1933. Joseph Goebbels thus created an ad hoc professional umbrella organization with compulsory membership for all Germans active in the field of culture as a measure to defend against control claims of the Germans led by Robert Ley Labor Front (DAF). In the summer of 1933, this endeavored to extend compulsory membership in the DAF to include artists.

tasks

Prohibition of occupation for the Berlin musician Werner Liebenthal, signed by Peter Raabe, August 9, 1935

The main goal of the Reich Chamber of Culture was the state organization and supervision or control of the culture. Accordingly, the Reich Chamber of Culture served to bring culture into line in order to control all areas of society. Anyone who worked in the arts and, in the broadest sense, culture had to belong to the individual chamber responsible for them. Those who could not provide evidence of Aryan qualifications were not accepted or, if they already belonged to a chamber, were excluded again. At the end of 1936, Goebbels tightened these guidelines in strict confidence by including "all those who were married to half and quarter Jews" as " Jewish people ". This was tantamount to a professional ban that primarily affected Jewish cultural workers, but also those artists who, from the point of view of the Nazi regime, produced “ degenerate art ” and were contemptuously described by Goebbels as “ cultural Bolsheviks ”.

In 1936 modern art was banned and many works of art were removed from museums. Several works of art were shown in the “ Degenerate Art Exhibition ” in Munich in 1937 and some of them were subsequently sold abroad or destroyed. On July 18, 1937, the House of German Art was opened in Munich to bring “ German Art ” closer to the people . Good art in the sense of the National Socialists was defined as “healthy” and “appropriate to the species”. Blood and soil , abbreviated to Blubo, was a central slogan of National Socialism, also in the entire field of culture.

Construction and management

Organs of the Reich Chamber of Culture (1937)

Goebbels himself took over the chairmanship as President. The Reich Chamber of Culture was divided into seven individual chambers:

Vice-presidents of the Reich Chamber of Culture were Walther Funk , Leopold Gutterer , Karl Hanke and Werner Naumann . They also make the particularly close ties with the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda recognizable, because all vice presidents of the RKK were also state secretaries of the RMVP .

The managing directors of the RKK included Hans Schmidt-Leonhardt , Franz Moraller and Hans Hinkel . The latter was appointed by Goebbels with the special order to “de-Jewel German cultural life”.

Reichskultursenat

On November 15, 1935, Hinkel announced the establishment of a Reichskultursenat with people who had made a special contribution to cultural life. In fact, this Senate only had representative properties. Qua office were all chamber presidents, the respective presidential councilors, the vice presidents and the managing directors of the Reich Chamber of Culture, who until 1938 carried the title of "Reich Culture Administrator". For this purpose, prominent artists in the sense of NS were appointed as senators of culture.

Dissolution, archive and files

With the Control Council Act No. 2 of October 10, 1945, the Reich Chamber of Culture was banned by the Allied Control Council and its property was confiscated. Archival material of the Reich Chamber of Culture is now mainly administered by the Federal Archives (holdings R 56). The personal files are in the Berlin Document Center . The files of the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts - Berlin State Management are in the Berlin State Archives (A Rep. 243-04).

Contemporary publications

  • Karl-Friedrich Schrieber : The Reich Chamber of Culture . Junker und Dünnhaupt Verlag, Berlin 1934 ( PDF file from the Kunstverein in Hamburg )
  • Hans Schmidt-Leonhardt : The Reich Chamber of Culture . Berlin / Vienna 1936.
  • Hans Hinkel : Handbook of the Reich Chamber of Culture . German publishing house for politics and business, Berlin 1937.
  • Karl-Friedrich Schrieber u. a. (Ed.): The right of the Reich Chamber of Culture. Collection of the laws and ordinances applicable to the cultural status, the official orders and notices of the Reich Chamber of Culture and its individual chambers. 2 volumes . Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin 1943.

See also

literature

  • Hildegard Brenner : The Art Policy of National Socialism. Rowohlt-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Reinbek near Hamburg 1963.
  • Volker Dahm : Beginnings and ideology of the Reich Chamber of Culture. The “professional community” as an instrument of cultural-political control and social regulation. In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte (VfZ). 34, 1, 1986, pp. 53-84 ( online , PDF, 1.97 MB).
  • Peter Longerich : Goebbels. Biography. Siedler Verlag, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-88680-887-8 .
  • Bärbel Schrader: "Revocable at any time". The Reich Chamber of Culture and the special permits in theater and film of the Nazi state . Metropol, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-938690-70-3 .
  • Alan E. Steinweis : Art, Ideology and Economics in Nazi Germany. The Reich Chambers of Music, Theater and the Visual Arts. University of North Carolina Press, Chapell Hill NC 1996, ISBN 0-807-84607-4 .
  • Josef Wulf (Hrsg.): Culture in the Third Reich. 5 volumes. Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main a. a. 1989, ISBN 3-550-07060-8 (Library of Contemporary History) .
  • Wolfram Werner (edit.): Reich Chamber of Culture and its individual chambers: holdings R 56. Finding aids on holdings of the Federal Archives , vol. 31. Bundesarchiv, Koblenz 1987, ISBN 3-89192-009-1 .

Web links

Commons : Reich Chamber of Culture  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Reichskulturkammergesetz - Link to full text and ordinances
  2. ^ First regulation for the implementation of the Reich Chamber of Culture Act .
  3. ^ Ralf Georg Reuth: Joseph Goebbels Diaries. 3rd edition Munich 2003, ISBN 3-492-21414-2 , vol. 3, p. 966 with note 48.
  4. ↑ Bundesarchiv, R 56-I: Reichskulturkammer / Zentrale - inventory description [1] .
  5. ^ Finding aids on the holdings of the Federal Archives; Vol. 31, Koblenz 1987.
  6. ↑ Berlin Document Center ( Memento of the original from May 27, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bundesarchiv.de
  7. ↑ Landesarchiv Berlin, A Rep. 243-04, Findbuch. Retrieved July 7, 2020 . (PDF, 3.6 MB), database can be used for provenance research ( memento of the original from December 16, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at landesarchiv-berlin.de, accessed on December 14, 2012.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.landesarchiv-berlin.de