Führermuseum, Hitler's Museum

Where did Hitler's taste for art come from?

Before becoming one of the most famous and controversial heads of state of the 20th century, adolf hitler it had pretensions far removed from political meetings and heated speeches. In 1907, at just 18 years of age, hitler he left the town of Branau to try his life as an artist in the city of Vienna. Carrying a series of drawings, he made his first entry into the Schillerplatz School of Fine Arts admission competition.

Contrary to his expectations, the young aspiring artist had his entrance refused when he was branded as a draftsman with little creativity and a lot of inexperience. For those who like a conspiracy, this would be another one of the frustrations that led Adolf Hitler to enter a military career and, years later, to become the most expressive leader of Nazism. Despite this being the real trigger of his life, this does not mean that the Führer has abandoned his taste for art.

Führermuseum: the project to create the largest museum in the world

In the year 1939, Hitler organized a commission specially developed for the creation of what would be the biggest museum in the whole world. O "Fuhrermuseum” (Führer Museum) was to be built in Linz, an Austrian city that was very close to the place where Hitler was born. More than a simple declaration of love for the arts, the development of this project clearly revealed some of the ideals and actions that Nazi Germany took.

In the foreground, a construction of such dimensions was clearly in the interest of reinforcing the ideal of superiority that guided the Nazi totalitarian discourse. Since the Germans were ancestors of one of the peoples who supported European civilization, it would be natural for Germany to be the holder of great symbols and manifestations of New World culture. In this respect, we reached the point where we questioned how the Nazis would get the works that would make up the museum.

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The raising of funds for the maintenance of the project was made possible by the collection made from the sales of the book "Mein Kampf" - work in which Hitler lays the foundations of Nazi thought - and stamps with the image of the dictator German. Having available money, the team then had the difficult task of making the acquisitions and selecting the works that would constitute the cultural-historical space.

Looting and Forced Purchases of Artwork by the Nazis

According to some researchers, the Führermuseum project was fueled by a series of forced withdrawals and purchases. In the first case, the war situation and anti-Semitism itself opened doors for various officers to steal paintings and other artistic rarities disposed of in personal collections. In the other case, the intimidation undertaken by the Nazi regime itself coerced many individuals to sell their precious items for derisory values.

At the end of the Second war, the advance of the allied troops was discovering the various deposits in which the chosen works were kept. Luckily, a significant amount of these were properly recovered. In addition to doing justice for the recovery, the encounter and maintenance of each of the works became a kind of trophy for the military forces that fought against Nazism. And, in this way, art broke its aesthetic limits to assume a curious political dimension.
By Rainer Sousa
Graduated in History

Would you like to reference this text in a school or academic work? Look:

SOUSA, Rainer Gonçalves. "Führermuseum: Hitler's art museum"; Brazil School. Available in: https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/guerras/fuhrermuseum.htm. Accessed on June 27, 2021.