Berlin: The Struggle of Art and War

Since the eighteenth century, Berlin has been a city that inspires progression and expression, and conversely, has worked against those very same ideals.  As the capital of Prussia, Berlin experienced a military growth under King Friedrich Wilhelm I, but when his son, later known as Friedrich the Great, came to power, focuses for Berlin began to shift to the performing arts and French Enlightenment.  This brief artistic and philosophical expansion was due to Friedrich the Great’s infatuation with philosophers such as Voltaire, with whom he corresponded with for several years.  While Friedrich II did not fully break away from his father’s warring aspirations, he lit a fire in Berlin’s heart that would not soon be extinguished.

George Grosz, The Funeral. (1918)

At the turn of the twentieth century, social and artistic movements were rising in the streets of Germany.  Born in Dresden, the German Expressionist movement took hold in Berlin and spread across Europe.  The artists credited with starting this form of modernism collectively called themselves Die Brücke, and was comprised of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Erich Heckel, Fritz Bleyl, and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff.  While not a movement easy to define, Expressionism just before and during the years of the Weimar Republic became an outlet for artists, musicians, and writers to criticize injustices, explore passions and sexuality, and make political statements.  Berlin at this time became a center for the expressionists, whose interest in human subjectivity and emotion and rejection of realism led them against the status quo of industrialized Germany.  Such rejection is evident in the works of Berlin’s own, George Grosz, a Dadaist caricaturist during the Weimar Republic years.  Critical of the rampant industrialism, Grosz’ iconic images depicted Berlin as home to the corrupt and scandalous.   This is especially clear in pieces such as Fit for Active Service and Made in Germany, openly criticizing the Weimar Republic’s approach to World War I, which he was subsequently fined for blasphemy and defaming the military. 

Adolf Hitler and prominent Nazi artist Adolf Ziegler
at the Degenerate Art Show, a collection with works
 from artists such as Kirchner and Beckmann.

During the years of the Weimar Republic, intellectual pursuits flourished in Berlin.  German Expressionism continued to be greatly influential in cinema and the fine arts, which also experienced elements of cubism, and as the decade went on, artists denouncing expressionism and futurism.  As the Weimar Republic experienced economic disparities and Adolf Hitler rose to power, many artists and intellectuals fled Berlin.  In the Third Reich, strict rules regarding the arts were implemented in accordance to Hitler’s position on equating classicism with his idea of Aryan purity.  This led to the creation of Reichskulturkammer, the Reich Culture Chamber, a membership group which regulated the arts shown in museums and gave approval to artists upholding their ideals.  They were notoriously anti-modernist and actively purged artworks they deemed as “Degenerate art.”  Instead, they encouraged works romanticizing war, depicting landscapes with natural colors, and classically-inspired figure and portrait paintings of ideal Germans.  Berlin, which had once been a birthplace of and home to progressive forms of art, had now become a showplace for the Nazi’s anti-Semitic propaganda, as seen in the 1940 film, The Eternal Jew.

           

Friedrich der Große statue on Unter den Linden.

As communism swept the nation, Berlin was divided into the Soviet East Berlin, capital of the German Democratic Republic, and West Berlin, the sector associated with America, England, and France but surrounded by the GDR.  In Matt Frei’s BBC documentary on Berlin, a woman who grew up in East Germany recalls the Soviet official version of Friedrich the Great.  The Soviets of the GDR, in an attempt to distance themselves as wholly as possible from Hitler and the Third Reich, perpetrated a vision of an exploitive and tyrannical Friedrich unworthy of the title “Great.”  This is mainly due to Hitler’s own infatuation with Friedrich the Great, and so to disassociate with Hitler, Berlin’s iconic statue of the Prussian king was removed in 1950.  However, the spirit of Friedrich II would transcend the Nazi association; as the Soviets were desperate to regain a symbol of German legitimacy, enlightenment, and militarism, they returned the statue in 1980.  While it may be easy to say there was a cultural and progressive stagnation in the divided Berlin, the movements of protests that eventually ended in the breaching and dismantling of the Berlin Wall could be attributed to the progressively-minded citizens who challenged their circumstances. In this regard, Friedrich the Great struggle between philosophical and military endeavors were merely the dawn of the same conflict Berlin would face time and again.

Martin Luther: Radical Divisor

Statue of Martin Luther outside St. Mary's Church, Berlin

                While not the first man to challenge the Roman Catholic Church and her abuses of power, Martin Luther, with the backing and protection of certain royals in German lands, was able to forge a groundbreaking movement we know as the Protestant Reformation.  Martin Luther, like Jan Hus and John Wyclif, argued against the papacy using heretical rhetoric.  In 1517, Luther made history by publicly calling out the Roman Catholic Church on her practices of absolution and misuse of wealth.  It was a bold move on All-Saint’s Eve to not only send a commentated handwritten copy of Luther’s The Ninety-Five Theses to the archbishop who promoted the sale of indulgences, but to also post it to the door of Wittenberg’s Castle Church to be seen by all.  Originally written and distributed in Latin, The Ninety-Five Theses on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences was soon distributed in the vernacular German, aided by the printing press, and only increased the popularity of Luther’s ideas.  Luther’s strides in his promotion of his version of Christianity may have also discouraged a sense of unification within certain German lands.  In Germany: A New History, Schulze describes Luther’s address of “the Christian nobility of the German Nation” was not to provoke political or cultural unity.  However, according to his contemporaries, Luther may have manifested a concept of German culture or nation, even as a camaraderie grew only among German-speaking regions where Luther’s Protestantism was flourishing, but a hostility emerged from the strongly Catholic German provinces. 

Paul Thumann: Luther verbrennt die Papstbulle (1872)

With said popularity came a pursuit of Luther and his writings on behalf Pope Leo X after his demand that Luther renounce The Ninety-Five Theses.  With Luther’s unwavering refusal and continual activism came the inevitable persecution of Luther and his following, as had previously occurred to Hus.  As Luther’s teachings grew popular among some Germans, others vehemently opposed them in an anti-Reformation movement which became stronger as Protestantism grew.  Instead of unifying German lands, the Reformation divided the would-be nation.  This division attributed to Luther inspired cultural advancements on both sides of the opposition.  Protestant Germany excelled in linguistic advancements as evidenced by Luther’s translating the Bible into vernacular German and pieces of literature and propaganda produced via the printing press.  Schulze also notes that Catholic Germany flourished in the arts and architecture.  Not only were Luther’s ideas radical, but they caused a radical division spurring on cultural, political, and religious distinctions accredited to, and present in, where we know as Germany. 

Title page of Martin Luther's On the Jews and Their Lies. Wittenberg, 1543

Alongside an unintentional divisive cultural growth came an intolerance and hatred for the opponent, whom for Luther was anyone from peasants to Roman Catholics to followers of Judaism. Followers of Luther's teaching acted violently, overthrowing the Castle Church Wittenberg and slaying revolting peasants; Luther's extreme rhetoric went beyond dividing Germany, and it inspired chaos and malice. The Reformation began primarily out of Luther's vehement disapproval of the Roman Catholic Church, but they weren't the only ones receiving Luther's fury. In On the Jews and Their Lies, Luther, no longer concerned with the Jewish people's salvation, called on his followers to wreak havoc for these people whose practices Luther described as "filth," perhaps starting a "German" tradition of antisemitism. Luther's promotion of, at the very least, anti-Judaism may be sadly ironic, as he fought for freedom from the Roman Catholic Church—the freedom to choose to practice the Christianity he devised—, he'd determined the Jewish people weren't entitled to such a choice.

Albrecht Dürers Apocalypse

The Revelation of St John: Title page to the edition of 1498

                In the fifteenth century, one of, and possibly, the most notable German fine artist was Albrecht Dürer. At the time, one of Dürer’s major claims to fame was his series of woodcuts, Apocalypse with Pictures, published 1498. The historical popularity of Apocalypse shows the significance of Christendom to the German people during the Northern Renaissance. While this book of woodcuts was published pre-Reformation, there were already political and religious revolutions brewing, especially with the popular belief of nearing end-times. Initially two versions were published: Latin and German. The accessibility of the illustrations with and based on the German vernacular translation (Koberger's Bible) of selections from Revelation added to Apocalypse’s, and ergo Dürer’s, fame.

                Dürer’s Apocalypse featured fifteen woodcuts depicting scenes and ideas described in the Book of Revelation.  Stylistically Dürer breached the German Gothic form with a heavy classical Italian influence, utilizing the practices of printmaking which were particularly advanced in German lands due to demand for illustrations, even though they were seen as artistically inferior.  Dürer’s mastery of these techniques can be seen in several of his works, but one of his most striking pieces is found in Apocalypse.   “The Four Riders of the Apocalypse” is Dürer’s depiction of Revelation 6: 1-8, where John envisions the first four of seven seals opening, releasing the four horsemen: Conquest, War, Death, and Famine.  In prophetic interpretations of John’s visions in Revelation, the seals opening are signs of the impending apocalypse and ultimate judgment of humanity.

Albrecht Dürer, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

Unknown artist: Woodcut from the Cologne Bible of 1479 representing the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

                In Dürer’s illustration of the Four Horsemen, the riders are depicted as four facets to the same fateful occurrence, contrasting with the widely accepted belief in fifteenth-century Germany which explains the riders- the calamities they symbolize- occur distinctly.  While biblically inaccurate, this interpretation is compositionally advantageous, creating a strong sense of cohesion and direction in the piece, due to the four riders forming a line, facing the same direction.  Drawing on the trend in Italian art, Dürer incorporated kinetics of living figures while contrasting with still and traditional German imagery, such as the noble in mouth of hell.   Dürer’s Apocalypse gave the German people an understandable and thrilling representation of a future they believed was not so distant.