Biographies of artists supported by the nazi regime

Adolf Ziegler (1892-1959)

German painter and politician, best known for his work as a propaganda artist during the Nazi era. The son of an architect, Ziegler attended the Weimar Academy of Fine Arts and later the Angelo Jank’s drawing school at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts, from which he graduated in 1924. He was initially interested in Expressionism, fascinated by the style of artists such as Emil Nolde and Franz Marc. Unsuccessful, Ziegler switched to a more lucrative genre and began painting floral still lifes and portraits inspired by the classical masters for clients from the Munich bourgeoisie. In 1920 he married the adopted daughter of Albert Pietsch, a prominent industrialist, who introduced him to the ranks of the newly formed National Socialist Party, where Ziegler met Hitler. The Führer appreciated Ziegler’s art, particularly the physical expression of the nude, and began to buy his paintings depicting Aryan beauty, a symbol of purity and an ideal to be aspired to. In addition to Aryan beauty, Ziegler also painted war scenes and images representing the power of the Reich. Ziegler’s art was fully patronised by the regime and, in addition to this patronage, he was directly commissioned by Hitler to search and confiscate paintings considered to be degenerate art in all museums, galleries and collections in Germany. Ziegler dictated the guidelines for rounding up and emptying every place in Germany of works of art condemned by the regime. The commissions he set up searched studios, museums and galleries for forbidden works and confiscated more than 20,000 works, only some of which were destroyed. The most valuable were sold for foreign currency, those of medium value were exchanged abroad for what was considered ‘good German art’, and the rest were burned in the famous fire of 1939. He opened the exhibition Degenerate Art in Munich on 19 July 1937. Ziegler’s fame ended before the fall of the regime. Accused of using his contacts with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to ‘participate in peace efforts’, Ziegler lost all his positions in 1944 and was interned in Dachau for six weeks, from which he was released without further investigation. His conviction in connection with the peace process worked in Ziegler’s favour when like many other members of the regime, he was forced to attempt to ‘denazify’ his past – a partially successful attempt that allowed him to retire quietly first to Konstanz and then to Varnhalt, in the province of Baden-Baden, where he died in 1959.

Constantin Gerhardinger (1888 – 1970)

German artist. Gerhardinger was attracted to art from an early age and earned his living in various ways, including as an altar boy at St Peter’s. In his spare time he attended the Kunstgewerbeschule and from 1911 to 1914 he was a pupil of Angelo Jank (1868-1940) and Adolf Hengeler (1863-1927) at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich. During the First World War he worked mainly as a war artist in an infantry regiment. At the end of the war he exhibited with great success at the Glass Palace in Munich and in 1937 won the gold medal at the International Art Exhibition in Paris. From 1932 Gerhardinger lived in Törwang, but continued to work in his studio in Munich. He was not a member of the NSDAP but joined the Reichskammer der bildenden Künste. From 1937 to 1942 he was one of the artists chosen by the regime for the Great German Art Exhibitions. Many of his paintings were bought by the Reich Chancellery or by Joseph Goebbels. In 1938 he was awarded the title of ‘Professor’ and in 1939 he became a lecturer at the Munich Academy. In 1943 Gerhardinger came into conflict with Adolf Hitler and lost his teaching post. After the Second World War he successfully served as president of the Munich Painters’ Association. In addition to considerable financial support, Constantin Gerhardinger donated around 150 of his paintings to establish the Stadtgalerie in Rosenheim, a town in Bavaria, Germany.

Franz Eichhorst (1885 -1948)

German painter, graphic artist and illustrator. The son of the respected magistrate Wilhelm Eichhorst, he attended an arts and crafts school and later enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts as a student of the impressionist painter Friedrich Kallmorgen. In the early 1920s Eichhorst opened a studio in Matrei, East Tyrol, and in 1928 he created one of his most famous works, Girl with a Pitcher. Eichhorst became famous for his war paintings in support of the Nazi regime. In 1909 he was awarded the gold medal at the Great Berlin Art Exhibition. Study trips took him to Belgium, France, Spain and Italy in 1911 and to Holland in 1912. Eichhorst volunteered for the First World War and worked as a war painter on the Western Front. In the early 1920s, Eichhorst opened a studio in Matrei, East Tyrol, where he worked during the summer months. One of his most important and well-known paintings, ‘The Girl with the Pitcher’, was painted here in 1928. During the Nazi era, Eichhorst was best known for his war work. From 1935 to 1938 he produced a cycle of war paintings for the Schönberg Town Hall in Berlin.  In 1933, together with Raffael Schuster-Woldau from Munich, he was awarded second prize (by the Berlin Artists’ Association) for the painting of the ‘Great Ballroom in the Schöneberg Town Hall’. On 20 April 1938, Adolf Hitler made him a professor. Eichhorst exhibited 56 of his paintings at the Great German Art Exhibition at the Haus der Kunst in Munich, including battle scenes from the Second World War, particularly those from the conflicts with Poland and Russia.

Heinrich Johann von Zügel (1850 – 1941)

German painter. Born into a family of humble origins, his father was a sheep farmer in Murrhardt in the state of Baden-Württemberg, he nonetheless achieved high honours and recognition for his art during his lifetime. He is regarded as the most important animal painter of the turn of the century. Zügel’s artistic talent was obvious and Professor Holder of the Schwabisch Hall School of Arts and Crafts was able to persuade his parents to give the boy an art education. He received a scholarship from Prince Hermann of Saxony-Weimar to continue his artistic training. His career took off and in 1867, at the end of his scholarship, he enrolled at the Stuttgart Art School as a pupil of Bernhard Neher, a famous professor at the Royal Academy.After finishing his studies in Stuttgart, Zügel moved to Munich, where he perfected his painting style and devoted himself to the study of Swabian painting. From the very beginning of his artistic career, Zügel’s art was characterised by the depiction of animals, not simply the depiction of the subject itself, but a behavioural study of the animals themselves. In the 1880s, during his stay in the Dachau marshes, he produced his first outdoor paintings, the live-in-nature technique that would inspire many German painters. and it was precisely because of his characteristic animal paintings that he was awarded a professorship at the Karlsruhe Art Academy in 1894. Zügel’s academic career continued and in 1895 he was appointed as a lecturer at the Munich Art Academy and in 1907 he was awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Order of the Bavarian Crown, a title of nobility. His painting technique and subjects were so popular in the Reich that the Nazi art magazine Die Kunst im Deutschen Reich devoted much attention to his art and life, Zügel, although very old, managed to take part in the Great German Art Exhibition.

Hermann Gradl (1883-1964)

German painter, illustrator and teacher. He was the son of Jakob Gradl, a lawyer and district judge. Already at this time Gradl felt a passion for painting and studied the 19th century masters in the Neue Pinakothek, being particularly attracted to the German masters and trying to reproduce some of their works. He worked as an art consultant at the ceramics workshop of Johann Lipp in Mering, near Augsburg. In 1907 Gradl taught at the Königliche Kunstgewerbeschule in Nuremberg, now the Academy of Fine Arts. Rudolf Schiestl. In addition to teaching, Gradl devoted himself to painting and, as an autodidact, won the Nuremberg art competition in 1909. From then on he worked as a landscape painter and was so successful that the Nuremberg Municipal Gallery bought his first oil painting, Am Täubleinshof. Between 1924 and 1927 he produced more than 200 works, including oil paintings and drawings inspired by nature. After the rise of National Socialism in 1933, his painting style and works took a major turn, as they corresponded exactly to the artistic style propagated in the German Reich, National Socialist, oriented towards 19th century naturalism and functionally subordinated to ideological mediation. In a letter dated 19 October 1937 to the Mayor of Nuremberg, Willy Liebel, Gradl commented on Hitler’s visit to his studio: My opponents now left me alone, I was no longer harassed, on the contrary, all the gentlemen who had previously treated me with arrogance and malice now sought my friendship.Thanks to the Führer’s intervention I had become the most represented artist, (and) many of the high lords of the party and state now suddenly wanted a Gradl, since the Führer had repeatedly expressed that I was by far the best German landscape painter! Autobiography, after Roos, p. 56. Hitler, Hermann Göring and others such as Speer and Goebbels were among the purchasers of his paintings. In the Nazi art establishment he was one of the artists who had a strong presence with his works in all the Great German Art Exhibitions from 1937 to 1944 at the Haus der Kunst in Munich. In 1938, at Hitler’s behest, Gradl took over a landscape painting course at the Staatliche Kunstgewerbeschule in Nuremberg. After the war, during the denazification trials, Gradl was tried and sentenced to a fine of 2,000 marks. After the trial he was reinstated and became director of the academy.

Hermann Otto Hoyer (1893 – 1968)

Hermann Otto Hoyer was born in Bremen, Germany. He studied glass painting and worked in Metz, Nancy and Basel. Before being drafted into the First World War, he spent a semester with Josef Goller at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Bremen in 1913-14. During the First World War he was wounded by shrapnel at the Battle of the Marne, captured and imprisoned; during his various attempts to escape, Hoyer managed to reach Switzerland with a severely. injured and broken right arm. With great difficulty he learned to work with his left hand and from 1919 to 1925 he studied at the Munich Art Academy under Hermann Groeber, a favourite pupil of Franz von Stuck and Carl von Marr. In 1925 Hoyer retired to his country house in Oberstdorf (Allgäu), where he found inspiration for landscape and portrait painting. Hoyer’s famous painting SA-Mann mit Hakenkreuzfahne und verwundeter Kamerad auf der Schulter (SA Man with Crossed Flag and Wounded Comrade on Shoulder) from 1933 placed his art in the service of the NSDAP (National Socialist German Workers’ Party). At the Great German Art Exhibition at the Haus der Kunst in Munich in 1937, Hermann Otto Hoyer presented the famous painting. In the Beginning was the Word, depicting Adolf Hitler addressing the citizens of Oberstdorf during the Battle of Oberstdorf, the beginning of the Nazi movement. Hitler bought the painting for the planned art gallery in Linz; it was later reproduced on thousands of propaganda postcards and magazines. In the art literature of the Third Reich, the painting is also presented as an example of the creation of the myth of the messianic dictator. At the end of the Second World War, the Allied Control Commission confiscated the work and placed it in a military depot, considering it dangerous and an inspiration to the Nazi regime. After 1945, Hoyer was imprisoned for a long time on political grounds. After his release in 1947, he lived with his daughter and son in Oberstdorf until his death on 30 May 1968.

Julius Paul Junghanns (1876 – 1958)

German painter, born in Vienna, best known for his animal paintings. He painted Germanic heroes, ploughing peasants and landscapes in a style reminiscent of the German Impressionist Max Liebermann (1847-1935), but his painting was also close to the realism of Rosa Bonheur (1822-1899) and Constant Troyon (1810-1865). In 1896 he enrolled at the Dresden Art Academy under Max Frey (1874-1944) and Leon Pohle (1841-1908). From 1899 he continued his studies at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts under the animal painter Heinrich von Zügel until 1904. His years with Zügel were of great importance to Junghanns’ training. In 1902 he contributed to the journal Jugend. In 1903 he became a member of the Munich Association of Drawing Artists. Later, on the advice of his professor Heinrich von Zügel, he was appointed head of the advanced course in animal painting at the Düsseldorf Art Academy for the winter semester. In 1905 he became a member of the Hagenbund. In 1906 he was appointed professor at the Düsseldorf Academy. He continued his studies by enrolling at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts in 1899, where he studied with the animal painter Heinrich von Hügel until 1904. In 1906 he was appointed professor at the Düsseldorf Academy and in 1907 he won a gold medal at the Great Berlin Art Exhibition. In March 1933, with the rise of National Socialism, Junghanns became acting director of the Düsseldorf Academy. Junghanns’ painting style pleased the regime and the artist enjoyed the trust and esteem of the hierarchs. As early as 1937 he took part in the Great German Art Exhibition with six of his paintings. In 1941 he was awarded the Goethe Medal for Art and Science. In 1944 Junghanns was included in the ‘Gottbegnadeten’ list, a list drawn up by Joseph Goebbels and Adolf Hitler of 1,041 artists considered important by the Nazi regime. His works are in the collections of the Pinakothek in Munich and the Kunsthalle in Düsseldorf.

Peter Philippi (1866 – 1958)

German painter and portraitist. Philippi was the son of a bookbinder and bookseller from Trier. After attending the Königliches Gymnasium in Trier from 1876 to the end of 1883, he left Trier to study painting at the Düsseldorf Academy of Art from 1884 to 1898, with a one-year interruption when he volunteered for military service (1891). When he was about to graduate he joined the ‘Malkasten’ association of progressive artists, of which he was a student member in 1897/98 and a full member from 1899 to 1905. As early as 1885 he and other students, including Otto Modersohn, had founded the artists’ association ‘Akademischer Verein Tartarus’, which continued in its networks until at least 1913. Philippi used the pseudonym ‘Filbert’ in the association; he was described as a controversial figure, open to cultural and artistic criticism and capable of writing witty and sensitive verse. In November 1886, Philippi was expelled from the academy for four weeks after an incident with Thomas Theodor Heine. After completing his studies, Philippi remained in Düsseldorf, but maintained regular contact with his home town of Trier. In 1905 he married Constanze Schmitz, a fellow student from Berlin, in Düsseldorf. In 1906 Philippi moved from Düsseldorf to Rothenburg ob der Tauber in search of an ‘unspoilt environment’ and rented a spacious flat where he lived for the rest of his life. In 1906, the Kunstwart-Verlag published Philippi’s first portfolio of high-quality reproductions of his paintings, which was a great success reproductions of his paintings, which made him nationally known. In 1910 he was awarded the”Prussian Gold Medal for Art and Science’ and was made an associate member of the of the Düsseldorf Academy of Art. In 1923 Philippi, together with the painters Adolf Hosse, Gustav Lüttgens, Paul Lumnitzer, Hans Prentzel, Wilhelm Schacht, Rudolf Schacht and Arthur Wasse, he founded the Rothenburg Artists’ Association, to which the town provided a permanent exhibition space. In 1930 he became a founding member of the Society of Visual Artists and Friends of Art in Trier. In 1926, on the occasion of his 60th birthday, the Free State of Bavaria awarded him the title of Bavaria on the occasion of his 60th birthday. After the so-called seizure of power in 1933, he was admitted to the Reich Chamber of Culture – Reich Chamber of Fine Arts. He remained conservative in his approach, describing the Biedermeier period as ‘our last true stylistic era’. stylistic era’. His favourite subjects were old, provincial people in old-fashioned dress. Many of his paintings, or parts of them, were reproduced as popular postcards. In 1937 he took part in the Great German Art Exhibition at Hitler’s Haus der Kunst in Munich, which inspired him to publish a volume entitled The Small Town and Its People, a collection of his works, which also included his poems and anecdotes about his models. He took part in a total of 48 exhibitions until 1943. On his 75th birthday in 1941 he was awarded the Goethe Medal for Art and Science and was described as ‘politically reliable’. In 1944 he was included in the list of ‘God’s Blessed’ and the ‘List Gottbegnadeten’ of painters relevant to Nazi culture.

Richard Klein (1890 – 1967)

Was a German painter, sculptor, graphic artist, engraver and medallist. After attending a technical school for sculpture and stucco, Klein worked as a plasterer. From 1908 he studied under Angelo Jank and Franz von Stuck at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts. From 1914, with the outbreak of the First World War, he designed patriotic medals and postcards. From 1917 Klein worked in his own studio in Munich and became a member of the Munich Secession in 1919. In 1935 he was appointed director of the Munich State School of Applied Arts, and with the advent of National Socialism the art school was transformed into a university and Klein became one of its teachers. In 1936 Klein. also received the title of Advisor to the President of the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts. Joseph Goebbels had already appointed him to the Reich Cultural Senate in 1935, but in 1937 he also became a member of the artistic advisory board of the journal Die Kunst im Dritten Reich, together with Albert Speer, Fritz Todt and Leonhard Gall. In his artistic life Klein. produced bronze and terracotta sculptures, paintings and engravings. From 1933 he mainly designed medals, emblems and trophies, including the Nazi version of the Munich coat of arms and numerous postage stamps dedicated to Hitler. Klein was one of the artists included in the 1937 Great German Art Exhibition at the Haus der Kunst in Munich, which was dedicated to the propaganda of Nazi art against what was considered degenerate art (Entartete Kunst). Many of Klein’s works from the Great German Art Exhibition came from Hitler’s private collection. K. is also the author of the exhibition poster Das Erwachen, which was also used as the cover of the Nazi art journal Die Kunst im Deutschen Reich.

Sepp Hilz (1906 -1967)

He was a German painter from Bavaria, known as the peasant painter for his bucolic art. He was introduced to art by his father Georg Hilz, a respected painter and restorer of churches. From an early age he felt the desire to paint and after finishing primary school he decided to attend the school for young aspiring painters in Rosenheim, where he indulged his passion for art by reproducing works by great masters such as Dürer, Cranach and Altdorfer. From 1921 to 1927 he continued his studies at the Munich School of Applied Arts and at the public school of Moritz Heymann and Xavier Dietrech, a well-known church painter. From 1930 he mainly painted landscapes in the style of Wilhelm Leibl, the German painter (1844-1900) gained a certain notoriety and the nickname of the peasant painter for the scenes of rural life depicted in his canvases. With the opening of his studio in Munich, he began his renowned painting activity, holding many exhibitions and shows, as well as practising the reproduction of works of the Flemish School. His style is simple in the painting of subjects and rural scenes, while in portraits, especially large ones, he succeeds in capturing the soul, life and character of his subjects.. Hilz, who became an established artist and was highly esteemed by the Reich for his painting style, participated with twenty-two works in the House of German Art for the Great German Art Exhibition from 1937 to 1944. Both Reichsminister Goebbels and the Führer bought his works, such as ‘Nach Feierabend’, ‘After Work’ and ‘Bauern Venus’, among others. In 1937 he became a member of the artists’ association ‘Die Frauenwörther’. On 1 July 1943 he was made a professor and Hitler included him in the list of the most important painters ‘Blessed by God’, a privilege that allowed him not to be called up for the war. The following year he was awarded the Leibel Sperl Prize by the city of Rosenheim. After the Second World War, Hilz worked as a restorer of church paintings damaged during the conflict, and his work became increasingly devoted to religious themes. In 1956, during the various post-war trials, his collaboration with Hitler came back to haunt him and his works lost public interest.

Wolfgang Willrich (1897-1948)

German artist, best known for his propaganda work in the field of art during the Nazi period. The son of Hugo Willrich, professor of classical philology at the University of Göttingen and author of important works on Hellenism, W. showed precocious artistic talent from an early age and was able to compose music, paint, engrave and draw with great ease. After graduating from the Max Planck Gymnasium in Göttingen in 1915, he entered the Berlin School of Art in the same year, where he came into contact with various abstract art movements. During the First World War, he served as an infantryman in the 251st Infantry Regiment on the Western Front. After being held by the French as a prisoner of war for several years, he was released in 1920.  During his long imprisonment in Orleans, he produced numerous sketches and drawings and published a photograph of his first painting in a war magazine. Back in Germany, he enrolled at the Dresden Art Academy as a student of Richard Müller and later attended the school of plastic anatomy run by Prof. Hermann Dittrich. From 1933 to 1934 Wilrich worked at the Reich Chamber of Culture and was commissioned to create propaganda art for the regime, depicting idealised racial standards and portraits of soldiers and party officials. The commission did not last long as he was forced to quit his job because of his association with the Tannenberg Bund, a political movement no longer favoured by Hitler. He then went to work for Richard Walther Darré, the Reich Minister of Agriculture. In 1935 he refused to become a full member of the Nazi Party. Willrich also wrote two books on art, ‘Säuberung des Kunsttempels’ and ‘Des Edlen Ewigen Reichs’, which condemned the art of the Weimar Republic and encouraged the expression of racial consciousness in art. Wilrich’s philosophy offers a negative overview of modern art in Germany, vehemently condemning prominent modern artists such as Otto Dix, Emil Nolde, Marc Chagall and others. At the same time, he was a great supporter and inspirer of the cleansing of the temple of Germanic art that would lead to Hitler’s decision to declare degenerate all art that did not conform to the regime’s canon of artistic beauty. Willrich was one of the main exhibitors at the Great German Art Exhibition, which opened at the Haus der Deutschen Kunst in Munich on 18 July 1937.