AH Idea: Nazism as a Artistic Movement

Despite Nazis being the perfect evil enemies, everyone has to admit that the Nazis did one thing right, their appearance.

So is there any way we could get the art without the murder? Could Nationalist Realism be an art form or something?
 
It would be like Socialist Realism, but louder in every way. Everything would be immense, loud, and bombastic for its own sake. They would claim Wagner's legacy in music, but be louder than Wagner could ever dream of, and more obnoxious than Stravinsky. Loud brass everywhere...[shudder] I can only hope that they keep 19th century Prussian marches in vogue, so that there might be some order to this madness.

Their architecture...enough has been said about that elsewhere.

Other visual art would be, as I said, like Socialist Realism, only with nationalist overtones emphasized.
 
I understand there are way more high-ranking SS uniforms in Hollywood than there ever were in Berlin. Hollywood certainly has borrowed pretty heavily from Nazi sources.
 
I understand there are way more high-ranking SS uniforms in Hollywood than there ever were in Berlin. Hollywood certainly has borrowed pretty heavily from Nazi sources.

Because the Nazi's make such perfect villains, combining immense evil with immaculate design. Hell Hugo Boss designed the SS uniforms.
 
Because the Nazi's make such perfect villains, combining immense evil with immaculate design. Hell Hugo Boss designed the SS uniforms.

Indeed, they had a certain style. As P J O'Rourke once put it - "Nobody in the entire history of sexual perversion has ever fantasised about being thrown on a bed and ravished by somebody dressed as a liberal.":cool:
 
This reminds of the Max - had John Cusack playing an avant garde Jewish art dealer in 1920s Berlin who falls in love with the futuristic yet ancient imagery of a down on his look artist - take a guess who.

Its all fiction and suggests Hitler came up with all of Albert Speer's gargantuan horrors himself on an old notepad but its food for thought in this direction.

Given tastes for eugenics and futurism at the time, I can see National Socialist Realism being a niche but influential idea.
 
It would be like Socialist Realism, but louder in every way. Everything would be immense, loud, and bombastic for its own sake. They would claim Wagner's legacy in music, but be louder than Wagner could ever dream of, and more obnoxious than Stravinsky. Loud brass everywhere...[shudder] I can only hope that they keep 19th century Prussian marches in vogue, so that there might be some order to this madness.

Their architecture...enough has been said about that elsewhere.

Other visual art would be, as I said, like Socialist Realism, only with nationalist overtones emphasized.

There were really at least two threads in "Nazi" artistic sensibility. One was the stylish deco-ish, streamline, S&M uniform, massive slab architecture stuff. There other was the emphasis on folk images: plump Germanic peasant women making bread while their aryan hubbies built roads and bridges. This latter is almost indistinguishable from Socialist Realism and actually is a lot like US (Works Progress Administration) public art.
 
This could make for an interesting ATL with Hitler focusing even more on his art and funneling his political ideals into a new art movement, maybe perhaps a foil for Dadaism, where the latter focused on obsurdity and chaos in response to the horrors of WWI, the latter goes a more orderly and authoritarian way.

So I guess the POD would be, WI Max actually happened? Except the art dealer doesn't suffer the same fate this time.

I would be very intrigued if someone did this TL.
 
This could make for an interesting ATL with Hitler focusing even more on his art and funneling his political ideals into a new art movement, maybe perhaps a foil for Dadaism, where the latter focused on obsurdity and chaos in response to the horrors of WWI, the latter goes a more orderly and authoritarian way.

So I guess the POD would be, WI Max actually happened? Except the art dealer doesn't suffer the same fate this time.

I would be very intrigued if someone did this TL.

It would be interesting, but to be honest, you' might need an earlier pod to change Hitler's artistic direction. In the movie, the Hitler character's art that excited Max was the Speeresque, emotional, and fantastic depiction of massive buildings, soldiers, war violence, eagles, etc. The real Hitler apparently limited himself to realistic still lifes and landscapes with no emotional content.

But it would be interesting...and I guess Max did offer that PoD to some extent because it was Max who pushed Hitler to go in the "let your hateful emotions all out" direction.

I would say that the movie did have one of the most powerful film depictions of a POD in that final scene where Hitler is waiting to complete his art deal with Max in the restaurant, but Max never comes becuase he's been killed by thugs Hitler earlier incited in a Nazi party rally. Its a really powerful image in an odd and under-appreciated film.
 
Last edited:
Despite Nazis being the perfect evil enemies, everyone has to admit that the Nazis did one thing right, their appearance.
I beg to differ. Personally I've always thought they looked quite silly, what with the tacky pompousness and all that. But then again I'm one of those "bizarre" people who thinks practical things look better. As a famous artist once said, beauty is when there's nothing unnecessary, nothing obtuse. The Nazis were anything but practical and therefore look like pompous crap.
 
How would you dress as a liberal?

"One day this summer I was riding through Letchworth when the bus stopped and two dreadful-looking old men got on to it. They were both about sixty, both very short, pink, and chubby, and both hatless. One of them was obscenely bald, the other had long grey hair bobbed in the Lloyd George style. They were dressed in pistachio-coloured shirts and khaki shorts into which their huge bottoms were crammed so tightly that you could study every dimple. Their appearance created a mild stir of horror on top of the bus." -George Orwell, Road to Wigan Pier

At least in Britain, it's been constant ever since Orwell's day. Sandals, shorts, bright colours, and all of it organic and fair trade.


As for the iconography though, I'm not sure you can get the art without the politics. You need the singularity of vision to build these sorts of structures. Fascist architecture, from the wedding cake in Rome to the Nazi stand at the Paris World's fair, is striking for the same reason as the goose step. It's ridiculous but no-one dares laugh at it.

Similarly, for the outfits, a lot of the fascination comes from the darkness. Tom of Finland is never going to become fixated with a purely artistic movement, and that gay and S&M subculture that keeps it around, and of course feeds in to Hollywood, is as much about the death-camps as the leather. For the Punk movement, it's the ultimate rejection of their parents. Without the war that won't be the case.

While it's a very cool idea, I just don't think you can get the style without the evil. The Devil has all the best threads.
 

DAMIEN

Banned
I beg to differ. Personally I've always thought they looked quite silly, what with the tacky pompousness and all that. But then again I'm one of those "bizarre" people who thinks practical things look better. As a famous artist once said, beauty is when there's nothing unnecessary, nothing obtuse. The Nazis were anything but practical and therefore look like pompous crap.

You do realize he is meaning the Clothing and not the architecture.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
Coincidentally, I saw a new book in the store yesterday entitled Totalitarian Art shortly before finding this thread. It was an impressive book to say the least and was loaded with hundreds of examples of art from Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, Mao's China, and a handful of other dictatorships whose ideologies are totalitarian in nature.

Here's the Amazon link.
 
Top