Artifact Friday: 1938 German Nazi Newspaper

World War II has a highly publicized history with hundreds of books, articles, and movies made about it. We see photos and papers on the Allied side of the war, but we don’t see much Axis power media that was produced. Nazi propaganda is one of a kind but there were magazines and newspapers before the war that are less known. This week we are looking at a WWII Naxi Germany newspaper that highlights a German artist in the Haus der Kunst, AKA the House of German Art. This newspaper was published in 1938 and shows Hitler with the artist on the front page. The museum first showcased the Great German Art Exhibition to denounce modernism and put on display hyperrealistic, traditional, and idealistic artwork. This artwork typically showed German landscapes, arian idealism, and heroic soldiers. The artwork was a direct reflection of Nazi Germany and what they idealized; it was also a denunciation of any modernist and experimental artwork like Dadaism, Cubism, and Expressionism. The museum was commissioned by Adolf Hitler in 1933, was designed by Paul Ludwig Troost, and was the first major architectural project to showcase German supremacy. After World War II it was used as a US Army officers' mess hall. Since then, it has been rebranded and now rotates international modern art exhibits. This is a fascinating piece of history that we do not see every day in our history books. The House of German Art showcases how far Nazi life prevailed within its propaganda, and it shows the importance of historic newspapers, as this one does.