Telling the real story is not always suggestive, and it has been preferred to generate basic and epic discourses, sometimes necessary as handles to get out of the darkness, but which in the long run are false reflections of reality and can undermine the potential and real value of the most important contributions to our culture. Being critical and seeing the lights without hiding the shadows under the rug does not allow us to generate a critical and more attentive vision against the always lurking seductions of fascism.
Under the mantle of the Bauhaus after 1945, a history that was not always rigorous was presented in which all its members were seen as heroes and martyrs who defied the Nazis, an illusion that generated the illusion that modernity – and with it Bauhaus – was the embodiment of the “good” and “persecuted.” The reality was more of a crossing of grey images.
The story of Otti Berger exemplifies this situation. Berger arrived at the Bauhaus in Dessau (the headquarters most commonly considered the Bauhaus) in 1927 and revolutionised the weaving workshop with Anni Albers and Gunta Stölzl. That same year the school opened an architecture section to which the Austrian Fritz Ertl would soon join, and given the small size of the school it is very possible that both knew each other at least by sight.
A few years later, in April 1944, Berger (partly deaf, Jewish and a communist) was arrested in her hometown, Zmajevac, in German-occupied Yugoslavia and transferred to Auschwitz on May 29, where she is never seen again. know anything about her. A place where her former companion, Fritz Ertl, by then a Nazi party member and SS Untersturmführer, had designed the crematoriums of the Auschwitz concentration camp, which were euphemistically reflected in the plans as Badeanstalten (swimming baths). Seven more Bauhaus students disappeared there.
Access to the Bauhaus building designed by Walter Gropius in Dessau-Roßlau, Germany. Photography by Moritz Kindler/Unsplash.
Under the mantle of the Bauhaus after 1945, a history that was not always rigorous was presented in which all its members were seen as heroes and martyrs who defied the Nazis, an illusion that generated the illusion that modernity – and with it Bauhaus – was the embodiment of the “good” and “persecuted.” The reality was more of a crossing of grey images.
The story of Otti Berger exemplifies this situation. Berger arrived at the Bauhaus in Dessau (the headquarters most commonly considered the Bauhaus) in 1927 and revolutionised the weaving workshop with Anni Albers and Gunta Stölzl. That same year the school opened an architecture section to which the Austrian Fritz Ertl would soon join, and given the small size of the school it is very possible that both knew each other at least by sight.
A few years later, in April 1944, Berger (partly deaf, Jewish and a communist) was arrested in her hometown, Zmajevac, in German-occupied Yugoslavia and transferred to Auschwitz on May 29, where she is never seen again. know anything about her. A place where her former companion, Fritz Ertl, by then a Nazi party member and SS Untersturmführer, had designed the crematoriums of the Auschwitz concentration camp, which were euphemistically reflected in the plans as Badeanstalten (swimming baths). Seven more Bauhaus students disappeared there.
Access to the Bauhaus building designed by Walter Gropius in Dessau-Roßlau, Germany. Photography by Moritz Kindler/Unsplash.
Under the title “The Bauhaus as a Site of Political Contest, 1919 –1933”, the show at Museum Neues Weimar illuminates artistic and political conflicts at the Bauhaus. These began with the founding of the art and design school in Weimar and continued unabated when the Bauhaus moved to Dessau and Berlin.
The Bauhaus Museum, “Removed – Confiscated – Assimilated,1930/1937” focuses on the “Degenerate Art” confiscations in 1937 and the campaign that preceded it in Weimar. As early as 1930, authorities had ordered the removal of over 70 works by artists such as Lyonel Feininger and Paul Klee from the Weimar Castle Museum. In 1937, more than 450 works were confiscated a cultural loss to Weimar’scollections that is still felt today.
The exhibition at the Schiller Museum, entitled “Living in the Dictatorship,1933-1945“, sheds light on how members of the Bauhaus adapted or succumbed to the new political circumstances after 1933. ManyBauhäusler had few choices; under an anti-leftist and racist regime, they lost their jobs and were forced into exile. At least twenty-one Bauhaus students perished in ghettos and concentration camps. However, the majority were not targets of the Nazi regime. They participated in propaganda exhibitions and design fairs and designed film posters, furniture, household goods, and even busts of Hitler.
The three parts of “Bauhaus and National Socialism” thus present a new, often uncomfortable history of the Bauhaus and its legacies. For, long after 1945, the illusion of modernism— and the Bauhaus with it — as uniquely “good” and “persecuted” persisted. As the fates of many Bauhaus members show, an innovative artistic attitude alone does not protect against the seductions of fascism.
The three-part exhibition is supplemented by the installation “Monument to Honesty” in the Bauhaus Museum Weimar by the artist trio Friedrich von Borries, Frieder Bohaumilitzky and Jens-UweFischer, comprised of the famous Type 602 furniture by the Bauhaus designer Franz Ehrlich. In a second installation, visitors can experience the legendary Bauhaus exhibition “Bauhaus 1919 – 1928” as it appeared in 1938 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Visitors, using VR glasses, can virtually walk through the MoMA’sexhibition rooms and view the show of 1938.
The Bauhaus Museum, “Removed – Confiscated – Assimilated,1930/1937” focuses on the “Degenerate Art” confiscations in 1937 and the campaign that preceded it in Weimar. As early as 1930, authorities had ordered the removal of over 70 works by artists such as Lyonel Feininger and Paul Klee from the Weimar Castle Museum. In 1937, more than 450 works were confiscated a cultural loss to Weimar’scollections that is still felt today.
The exhibition at the Schiller Museum, entitled “Living in the Dictatorship,1933-1945“, sheds light on how members of the Bauhaus adapted or succumbed to the new political circumstances after 1933. ManyBauhäusler had few choices; under an anti-leftist and racist regime, they lost their jobs and were forced into exile. At least twenty-one Bauhaus students perished in ghettos and concentration camps. However, the majority were not targets of the Nazi regime. They participated in propaganda exhibitions and design fairs and designed film posters, furniture, household goods, and even busts of Hitler.
The three parts of “Bauhaus and National Socialism” thus present a new, often uncomfortable history of the Bauhaus and its legacies. For, long after 1945, the illusion of modernism— and the Bauhaus with it — as uniquely “good” and “persecuted” persisted. As the fates of many Bauhaus members show, an innovative artistic attitude alone does not protect against the seductions of fascism.
The three-part exhibition is supplemented by the installation “Monument to Honesty” in the Bauhaus Museum Weimar by the artist trio Friedrich von Borries, Frieder Bohaumilitzky and Jens-UweFischer, comprised of the famous Type 602 furniture by the Bauhaus designer Franz Ehrlich. In a second installation, visitors can experience the legendary Bauhaus exhibition “Bauhaus 1919 – 1928” as it appeared in 1938 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Visitors, using VR glasses, can virtually walk through the MoMA’sexhibition rooms and view the show of 1938.
Almost thirty years later, in 1972, Fritz Ertl would be tried for his role in the crematorium project in which his partner would have disappeared. He responded that he had no idea of the use to which it was put and that he had only been an architect putting into practice what he had learned in Dessau. He was found not guilty.
