Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • The Critic Magazine

    The paradox of Nazi culture

    Nov 26, 2020 5 minutes
    Mark Falcoff

    HERMAN GOERING is famous for supposedly having said, “When I hear the word ‘culture’, I reach for my revolver.” In fact, the quote originated elsewhere. It would have been surprising if the case were otherwise, since the Nazis, being Germans, could hardly regard culture as something to be ignored or suppressed. Quite the contrary, they had their own complex and contradictory ideas about it — as Professor Moritz Föllmer’s new book explores in rich detail.

    What makes any study of culture in National Socialist Germany particularly interesting rests on two paradoxes. One is that while the Nazis thought they knew what they didn’t like in art, music, and film, there was never any final agreement on what they did.

    Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels was mildly friendly to certain

    You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

    More from The Critic Magazine

    The Critic Magazine4 min read
    Adam LeBor on Television
    I’M BECOMING AN EVER MORE loyal devotee of Walter Presents, the sub-channel on Channel Four devoted to European crime and thrillers. Walter curates a kaleidoscopic showcase of topical dramas in vivid settings. In the first season of Arctic Circle, Ni
    The Critic Magazine4 min read
    Michael Prodger on Art
    SOMETIME AROUND 1909, THE Romanian sculptor Constantin Brâncuși was approached by “a lady from Paris, a princess” with a commission to carve her portrait. Brâncuși, a leading Modernist, had a “miserably low opinion” of traditional sculpture, even des
    The Critic Magazine3 min read
    Put The Money Back Into Politics
    IT’S AN ELECTION YEAR, so political finance is back in the headlines. We have had the tawdry tale of Yorkshireman Frank Hester, the £10 million Conservative donor who said Diane Abbot makes you “want to hate all black women”. Then there was the hulla

    Related