Morally Degenerate Art
Dear Sophie from Fritz Hartnagel, sent from Occupied Poland, February 17, 1943
Context: Captain Fritz Hartnagel was one of the last Officers from the Sixth Army flown out of surrounded Stalingrad. Although this letter exists, it is doubtful that Sophie received it. It was written on the day before her last leaflet protest, capture and arrest. My dear…
Read MoreSophie Scholl Defiantly Enjoyed Art Labeled “Entartete Kunst” (Morally Degenerate)
Historical Context: Summer, 1937. There was no stopping “American Swing” from making its way across the ocean. “Negermusik” was the Nazis’ pejorative term for Jazz and Swing. In July at the newly built “House of German Art,” the Nazi Minister of Culture infamously put on his first exhibit of “degenerate” paintings. Many of these now…
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