Hitler's Last Hostages Page 10
Whereas Pillars was a commentary on the contemporary state of modern Germany, Eclipse of the Sun symbolized its future. President Hindenburg presides over headless bureaucrats taking notes at a table painted in red and green, colors then associated with blood and money, respectively. A donkey—the “jackass” representing the typical uninformed German—wears blinders and rushes toward a manger full of food perched over a pile of skeletons. A child, representing Germany’s future, looks out in horror beside them. Hindenburg’s advanced age shows in his wrinkled face as he sits in front of a funereal cross in the imperial German colors—Grosz’s reminder to viewers that a love of war will only result in more bloodshed. Clad in his old military uniform crammed with medals, Hindenburg receives orders from a war profiteer who is standing behind him and clutching modern weapons.
Both paintings are a frenetic mix of symbols painted in bold colors that mock the Expressionists and Brücke artists like Oskar Kokoschka and Emil Nolde, whom Grosz had once admired. Grosz was tremendously proud of these works, but they failed to sell. It immediately became clear to him that in this increasingly toxic political atmosphere, he needed to revert to creating works on paper that could be easily duplicated, sold at affordable prices, and hidden from the authorities when necessary.
Grosz completed Pillars and Eclipse of the Sun at the same time that President Hindenburg chose Max Liebermann, the Jewish German Impressionist artist who created Two Riders on the Beach, to paint his official portrait. Unlike Kaiser Wilhelm, President Hindenburg considered Liebermann a respectable German artist; the normally stingy Hindenburg, who abhorred wasting coal to warm up his office rooms, instructed his secretaries to heat up his official residence so that Liebermann would be comfortable during the sittings, a gesture that the artist greatly appreciated.38 Yet Liebermann, the same age as Hindenburg, found it curious that his new President had accepted the position at such an advanced age—and had asked a fellow septuagenarian to create his official portrait. “The two of us sat like old donkeys across from one another and I tried to keep him awake,” wrote Liebermann of the experience, admitting that he was also exhausted because the sessions took place after lunchtime, when he typically napped. Attempting small talk, Liebermann asked Hindenburg what books he was reading. “I read nothing. What should I read?” Hindenburg retorted. Liebermann suggested Goethe, the nation’s most famous and revered writer. “No, he is too immoral for me,” scoffed Hindenburg.39
In the portrait that Liebermann created and Hindenburg authorized, the President appears alert and statesmanlike, sitting upright in a chair, glancing away from the viewer with a dignified expression. Yet, as images of the portrait circulated, Liebermann received scorn from both the Communists and the Nazis due to his Jewish heritage. Communists were furious that a member of a persecuted community would paint a member of the military, irrationally believing this probably indicated that Liebermann was secretly a “National Socialist Jew.” The Nazis, by contrast, spread rumors that Liebermann was part of “the most sinister international conspiracy” against German artistic tradition. Rather than seeing this as a warning sign, Liebermann was puzzled, scoffing at a Nazi tract circulating throughout Germany at the time and condemning him as an artist. “A thing like that only makes me laugh,” he said, noting that President Hindenburg was well aware of his background. “I am only a painter after all, and what has painting to do with being a Jew?” Liebermann asked.40
In 1927, Hitler was developing a sinister answer to just that question. Aware of this, Grosz created his most provocative set of etchings yet, a portfolio that he titled Background. Through the works Grosz aimed to illustrate how Germany had remained in such a state of uncertainty and insecurity. Though he had only alluded to it in The Pillars of Society, Grosz warned that the state-sponsored church was advocating war rather seeking ways to encourage peace. In Dividends of the Holy Ghost, a clergyman with prominent cheekbones and a snout-like nose preaches to a group of scoundrels standing below his pulpit; bullets spew from his mouth. In the most inflammatory work of his career, Keep Your Mouth Shut and Do Your Duty, Grosz shows Jesus Christ on a tilting cross, a shining halo above his head, a small cross in his left hand; his right hand is nailed down, and he is forced to wear a gas mask from the Great War. Christ’s feet, in combat boots, are nailed to the cross.
The controversy surrounding Grosz’s depiction of Christ in Duty spread rapidly, even reaching the United States. A prominent American magazine for Quakers, hardly active participants in the global art world, picked up on the scandal and defended Grosz’s push for pacifism, a crucial tenet of their own faith.
German government officials, however, were livid. Grosz already had two strikes on his record: his 1921 conviction for insulting the German army via God with Us and his punishment for creating obscene art in 1924. This time they charged Grosz with slander, initiating a three-year brouhaha that proved exactly what Grosz feared: the government was more preoccupied with persecuting those pointing out the Nazi threat than with combatting the Nazis themselves. In December 1928, a Berlin court fined Grosz and Wieland Herzfelde—who was still his publisher—2,000 marks each for slandering Jesus Christ. The government argued that they represented Christ on Earth and so had standing to bring a case against Grosz.
Grosz and Herzfelde appealed. A regional judge overturned the verdict, emphasizing that citizens in a free society had the right to criticize the government and religion of any creed, provided that they did not advocate violence.41 Within hours, the government appealed Grosz’s appeal.
The case dragged on. Finally, the national court in November 1931 followed the government prosecutor’s recommendation to convict Grosz and Herzfelde, ordering that the printing plates be destroyed.42 The whole saga, lasting four years, was a disorganized embarrassment for the government, church, and judiciary—all of which backed the prosecution of Grosz.
Their persistence only fueled international demand to see and buy copies of Duty, making Grosz even more famous. Simultaneously, the expensive and protracted public scandal, unheard of in the days of the emperor, legitimized the fears of many Germans that an elected government was a ridiculous, unsustainable notion. Much to Grosz’s horror, his case resigned many Germans to the idea that single-party rule, under a compelling leader, might be the best and most stable method of government.
After his failed Munich Putsch, Hitler quietly took stock of his party and the nation, hoping for a moment when the weary German electorate would crave his authoritarian style of leadership. Serving time in prison only emboldened him. Admiring guards gave Hitler special privileges, including a reserved table in the canteen, situated under a swastika. Despite his emphasis on physical fitness and his assertions that the German race depended on men “as hard as Krupp steel,” the guards exempted Hitler from the prison’s athletic requirements.
He received numerous letters of support, which he read in his cell when he took breaks from writing his memoir, Mein Kampf. Houston Stewart Chamberlain, his ideological hero whose wife had attended Catherine Hanfstaengl’s salons, wrote him encouraging epistles. “The fact that in the hour of her greatest need, Germany should produce a Hitler, is a sign that she is yet alive,” wrote Chamberlain to Hitler.43
Hitler also opened a letter from a recent PhD recipient in literature, who lauded him for his stirring, religious-sounding rhetoric. “What you stated is the catechism of a new political creed coming to birth in the midst of a collapsing, secularized world,” wrote Joseph Goebbels. “To you, a god has given the tongue with which to express our sufferings,” he gushed.44
Leaving prison, Hitler realized that he needed to gain power via legal means, causing his supporters to dub him “Adolphe Légalité.” The Nazi Party had floundered in his absence, which encouraged him as it made clear how dependent his followers were on his guidance. Soon Hitler’s acolytes increasingly referred to him by a term that surpassed “Adolphe Légalité” in reverence. Hitler was now “Der Führer” (the leader).
Em
boldened, the Führer began crafting a strategy to reconcile his doomsday rhetoric with Germany’s increasing prosperity. Germans, he acknowledged, needed a new reason to need him. He rented a rural retreat on the Obersalzberg in Bavaria, close to the border with Austria, a chalet with a gorgeous view and modest furnishings. Hitler increased his efforts to appear statesmanlike, kissing babies and even spontaneously bringing flowers to a man who was accidentally injured during one of his frenzied political rallies.45 Goebbels attached himself to Hitler, sharing his love of art and demonstrating a talent for generating propaganda. “This is how he is: like a child, good and merciful. Like a cat, cunning, prudent and agile; like a lion, roaring, great and gigantic,” wrote the obsequious Goebbels. “My kindly friend and master!” he added submissively.46
Goebbels, a Catholic, created rituals for Nazi rallies that Catholics, disillusioned with the church but missing the predictable rhythm and inspiring mysticism of mass, would find reassuring. This nod to religion resonated particularly well with women, who in the 1919 general election were newly exercising the suffrage they had acquired the year prior. In May 1928, a new Reichstag was elected, and the Nazis won 12 seats out of 491, an impressive showing for a grassroots party.47
Hitler’s worries that Germany’s growing prosperity would thwart his ambitions were dissipated on 24 October 1929 when the New York Stock Exchange crashed. Creditors withdrew short-term foreign loans that had underwritten Germany’s reentry into global markets. Demand for German exports plummeted, unemployment grew, and entrepreneurial optimism was crushed once more. “Never in my life have I been so well disposed and inwardly contented as in these days,” noted Hitler.48 He had his crisis. The financial crash helped the NSDAP make huge inroads into Germany’s eighteen- to thirty-five-year-old male demographic, which was hit the worst psychologically by the economic downturn. Rather than talking down to them as many elderly politicians did, Hitler spoke like an inspiring older brother.
Art remained a critical part of this inspiration, as Hitler considered it the ultimate physical manifestation of pure Aryan culture, a point he made repeatedly in speeches. On 21 May 1930, Hitler spoke to a large crowd at the Hotel Sanssouci in Berlin. Instead of focusing on politics or the military, he delivered a long polemic on the importance of German art. He reiterated his belief that Berlin’s leading artists, a group that certainly included Grosz, were promoting a pernicious movement; the only pure art, he insisted, was Aryan art that promoted Nazi values.49 Hitler still thought of himself as an artist who had become a politician to stop the false “revolution” of art that by now was underway. “No age can claim to free itself from its duty to foster art,” he repeated in his speeches, adding that under the Nazis, “blood and race will once more become the source of artistic intuition.”50
The 14 September 1930 elections were critical for the NSDAP. Hitler hoped for eighty seats though ordinary Nazis considered this a long shot. In the end, the NSDAP won an astounding 107 seats. Weimar officials were blindsided when the newly elected Nazis began stonewalling parliamentary negotiations, even walking out when rival parliamentarians took the floor. Goebbels began encouraging more open anti-Semitism within the party, and SA singing sessions provided the opportunity for wary members to ease into this bigotry by rowdily singing jingles, including “The Storm Troops stand at ready, the racial fight to lead, until the Jews are bleeding, we know we are not freed!”51 On 13 October 1930, as the parliament opened in Berlin, roughly three hundred Nazis ran through the streets around Potsdamer Platz shouting, “Death to Judah!” and “Heil Hitler!”52
While German officials made time to continue their interminable legal action against Grosz and other cultural critics, they still paid scant attention to the growing number of Nazi supporters outside large and mid-sized cities where Hitler held his rallies. In August 1931, Grosz took another vacation to the Baltic Sea and saw that anti-Semitism was increasing. At the local train station, boys and men with swastika flags harassed anyone in traditional Jewish dress or who even “looked” Jewish. “When one of them came,” wrote Grosz of an unlucky Jew, “this guy nearby went to him and, in this audacious and totally racist rage, barnstormed him with loud, commando-like comments that ripped into Judaism.” Traveling further through the region, he realized that even average voters were embracing Nazi ideology. Mainstream Germans had become gloomy, agitated, and “extremely, extremely politically right-wing,” wrote Grosz.
Nazism had succeeded in tapping into man’s basest fears about the economy, the nation, and culture. Hitler, realized Grosz, was doomed to succeed if nothing was done to counteract his movement. “Behind it all is a creepy, animalistic, devout sincerity, that one in no way should be allowed to disregard,” he wrote to a friend.53
Even non-Germans now picked up on Hitler’s religious tenor. Political journalist Hubert Renfro Knickerbocker, who attended an NSDAP rally around this time, called Hitler the “Billy Sunday of German politics,” referencing the sixty-nine-year-old former Philadelphia Phillies player turned American evangelical preacher. Observing how Hitler’s rallies seemed to be menacing versions of Billy Sunday’s revival meetings, Knickerbocker wrote, “His converts moved with him, laughed with him, felt with him.” Remarking on the size of Hitler’s base, he said, “No one can number them precisely today, but the threatening tones of their mass defiance” made the passionate minority a significant force with which to reckon.54 Polite society now responded to criticism of the NSDAP with insecure silence, observed both Kessler and Grosz. “We have been living, after all, in a permanent state of war since 1914 and, naturally, this has brutalized us—we’re hardly capable of noticing real brutality and nuances anymore,” Grosz ruefully observed.55
Given the negativity and hostility brewing in Germany, Grosz decided it was time to explore the metropolis he had admired since childhood: New York. His family stayed in Berlin as he sailed to America on 26 May 1932, arriving on 3 June. Grosz was well known in New York’s art and media circles because his art portrayed specific politicians, such as Friedrich Ebert, Hitler, and Hindenburg, about whom American newspaper readers were inquisitive; he had gained further notoriety because of the protracted legal battles against him, something with which American artists did not have to grapple due to the First Amendment. Reporters met his boat hoping for a colorful story, only to be disappointed that he was courteous and appeared unremarkable.
Grosz quickly found eager drinking partners curious about Weimar culture and charmed that he endeavored to pick up English as best as he could. Harold Ross, editor of the New Yorker, met him for drinks at the Algonquin and invited him to contribute cartoons. Frank Crowninshield, editor of Vanity Fair, bought his drawings, as did many other New Yorkers. Over the summer, Grosz made about $2,000 in private sales, roughly $33,000 in current dollars.56 The Art Students League at 215 West 57th Street sponsored his visa, and he taught a class there, becoming an instant hit with the students; Grosz’s classes were the best attended in the school.57
Exploring New York’s nightlife, Grosz went to burlesque shows, which he found more graphic than those in Germany despite Berlin’s reputation as a sex mecca. He sketched stripteases at the famous club Minsky’s twice or more a week, but he also indulged in more wholesome American pastimes, mostly attending baseball games. He was thrilled to meet George Gershwin, who gave him a private mini-concert in exchange for an autograph of his personal copy of Grosz’s work Der Spießer Spiegel.58 Grosz reveled at the fashions, architectural styles, and customs that provided fresh fodder for his artistic output, which had waned during his trial. He jotted down his impressions: “Lots of women in light summer clothing, emphasizing hips, stomach and bosom (if they have one),” he wrote. “A lady, old and criss-crossed with wrinkles, with two Scottish Terriers; two broken down tramps drift along from the direction of Central Park; you can see they’ve spent the night there wrapped up in newspapers and are now out hunting for a nickel.”59
Throughout his career, Grosz had accepted many diverse vi
ewpoints and people, including homosexuals, sexually liberated females, and career women. Visiting New York meant encountering a population of black people astronomically larger than any in Europe, and Grosz initially expressed many derogatory views about them, opinions he would recant in later years. “The Negro has no thoughts of his own—they’re all imitations from the whites,” he wrote a friend in Germany. “For me he stands a step lower—he has no Euclid, no Plato, only a barbaric, superstitious concept of nature,” he wrote, adding that black people “are, however, wonderful actors, musicians and dancers.” At the same time, Grosz admired New York’s egalitarianism compared to that of Berlin. “A former cabaret singer can become mayor,” he lauded in a letter, while adding that New Yorkers tolerated controversial political viewpoints without violence. “Here, around the corner at Columbus Circle, every evening communist orators speak—no one bothers them,” he wrote.60