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| Grenadiere 1943. Will Tschech |
As you know, Hitler in his youth used to make a living by
drawing the sights of Vienna. Even during the First World War, as a corporal of
the 16th Bavarian Reserve Regiment, in between fights, he painted landscapes in
Flanders. When this former street artist and retired corporal was appointed chancellor
of Germany, there were internationally renowned artists in the country -
the avant-garde and Expressionism. Such as Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee. The
work of such artists was declared "degenerate art", and their
pictures were taken out of the exhibition halls, and the artists themselves had
to flee Germany. In Nazi Germany there was only one direction of painting -
realism.
Before the war, German artists diligently painted rural landscapes, German workers and peasants, naked Germans. Pornography in the Third Reich was banned, but there was an
easy sensuality in classical painting style.
With
the start of the war, German painters, of course, began to paint battle scenes.
- because one of the first salvos of the new World War were volleys
280-mm guns.The German ship Schleswig-Holstein fired the first shots of World
War II when she fired at the Polish base at Westerplatte in the early morning
hours of 1 September 1939.. Submarines too were painted - the initial period
of the war, German U-boats beat all records of the tonnage of ships sunk - 420
thousand tonnes in the first four months of the war, and 14,119,413 tons in the
whole war!
In
one of the pictures we see a ship of the line " Bismarck "- a symbol
of the German Kriegsmarine. 50,000 900 tons full displacement, 8 guns
caliber 380 mm. To his credit - the British battle cruiser "Hood" (46
480 tons full displacement, 8 guns caliber 381 mm - the enemy of equal
"weight category"). On May 27, 1941 "Bismarck" was destroyed
in an unequal battle with the British fleet during the attempts to break into
the vast Atlantic.
In
the later paintings other combat arms - infantry, tanks, aircraft,
artillery were fully represented.
Of
course, German artists painted just soldiers, and war. Mass executions,
burning of villages, and other "exploits", which became a pretext for
carrying out numerous trials after the war, was not a source of inspiration for
German artists.
Most of the artists whose works are shown below, are long and well forgotten.
Most of the artists whose works are shown below, are long and well forgotten.
German U-Boat. 1941. Painting by Claus Bergen
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| Stalingrad. 1943. Painting by K. Bush |
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| U-Boat returning from a trip. Painting by Claus Bergen von Feindfahrt Zurück |
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Submarine U-003. Claus Bergen
Waffen SS 1943. Will Tschech
Kameraden, 1940. Will Tschech
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Engineers in Assault Boat May 10, 1940 by Mathias Padua. (Click here to see in large size)
A Messerschmitt 110 covers German storm troopers
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| German planes over England |
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| The big German transport plane,"Focke-Wulf-200" |
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| The Stuka Dive Bombers (JU 87) attack |
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German motorised infantry. Hans Liska |
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