This article was downloaded by: [Nelis, Jan]

On: 17 November 2008

Access details: Access Details: [subscription number 905589409]
Publisher Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House,
37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions

Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713636813

Modernist Neo-classicism and Antiquity in the Political Religion of Nazism:

Adolf Hitler as Poietes of the Third Reich
Jan Nelis a
a
University of Ghent,

Online Publication Date: 01 December 2008

To cite this Article Nelis, Jan(2008)'Modernist Neo-classicism and Antiquity in the Political Religion of Nazism: Adolf Hitler as Poietes
of the Third Reich',Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions,9:4,475 — 490
To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/14690760802436100
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14690760802436100

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdf

This article may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or
systematic reproduction, re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or
distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.
The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents
will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug doses
should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss,
actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly
or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.
[AUTHOR’S VERSION, differs very slightly from published version]

Modernist Neo-classicism and Antiquity in the Political Religion of Nazism: Adolf Hitler as
Poietes of the Third Reich

JAN NELIS1
University of Ghent, Belgium/F.W.O.-Vlaanderen

ABSTRACT: The debate surrounding the relation between Hitler’s interest in architectural neo-
classicism and his reception of antiquity has often proceeded from the assumption of a deep
nostalgia for a (deeply mythicised) classical ‘Aryan’ past and an instinctive drive to use anti-
modernist art for solely propagandistic ends.2 Whereas some have attempted to invert this causal
relationship,3 the present study situates Hitler’s artistic passion within his ‘biopolitical’ vision of
the new Germany, cleansed of all that was deemed degenerate (entartet) and unassimilable within
the national community (gemeinschaftsunfähig). Through an analysis of the Third Reich’s vast
civic building programmes, which takes into account Hitler’s personal discourse on the ancient
past, we will show how both elements, that is Hitler’s ‘modernised’ neo-classicism and his view on
antiquity, can be seen as essentially complementary, and integral to his political programme. We
will do so by firstly presenting an overview of the most typical examples of Hitler and Nazism’s use
of an idiosyncratic version of neo-classically inspired civic architecture. After this we will focus on
the Führer’s ‘artistic’ persona, both in the sense of his love for the arts, especially those referring
to the formal language of antiquity, as in the sense of his biopolitical conception of Nazi life as a
‘work of art in progress’. Finally, Hitler’s vision of artistic renaissance is located within a
discourse of racial renewal which embraced the past and future within a this-worldly ‘eternity’.

Nazi State architecture: a neo-classicism designed for eternity

The debate surrounding the role and nature of the arts under Nazism has often led to one-sided
judgements. Researchers such as Lehmann-Haupt4 and more recently Adam5 seem to confirm the
existence of a seemingly black and white situation in which ‘modern’ art was banned and the
abstract notion of ‘Nazi art’ was elevated to an absolute level. This ‘ideal’ situation doesnot,
however, correspond with reality. Especially in the sphere of architecture stylistic pluralism6
existed, which was basically in line with the essentially ‘futural’, vitalistic, creative thrust of the
regime. Nazism set out to ‘cleanse’ the German race for it to be reborn in a ‘healthy’ form, and its
architectural creations were to be subject to the same process of catharsis. The style and purpose of
the new buildings were inextricable: whereas an essentially functionalist and ‘modernist’ style was
often applied in industrial architecture, as well as in the Autobahnen, including the use of the most
modern and revolutionary materials such as glass and steel, most new private housing was to be
conceived in a –modernised- vernacular style. Civic buildings then were to be erected in a more
‘representative’ style, incarnating eternity and purity. A sort of neo-classicism was developed that
went back to the ‘essence’ and used traditional and original, ‘autarkic’ materials such as hand-
hewn natural stone, but exuding the ethos of a modern, technologically powerful style. In a sense,
one could speak of a ‘stripped’ neo-classicism,7 as it was a classicism devoid of ornament, and
hence of any reference to classical humanism. As it was a building style whose use limited itself to
civic buildings, most of the latter were commissioned and produced by the regime.
Undeniably, the classicism of Paul Ludwig Troost (1878-1934) and Albert Speer (1905-
1981) had roots in the traditional nineteenth-century neo-classicism of Carl Friedrich Schinkel
(1781-1841)8 and Leo von Klenze (1784-1864).9 The buildings and designs of these latter
architects stood for the nearby German Prussian (Schinkel) and Bavarian (von Klenze) past. The

1
Nazis generally approved of their neo-classical style, as it ‘seemed to be the only time when the
‘German spirit’ escaped suppression by alien fashions and was able to express itself in a form
appropriate to its nature’.10 For all their indebtedness to the nearby recent past, the regime’s
buildings remain easily recognisable as the personal creations of Nazi architects. For the most part,
they reflect the artistic canon of Adolf Hitler. They were considered to be everything that
‘degenerate’ art was not,11 an incarnation of the ‘Idea’, or rather of ‘Nordic thought’: pure, perfect,
eternal, the quintessential product of the creative energy of the German nature, of its Geist or spirit.
Indeed, in the total or totalitarian new State, all aspects of life were intimately intertwined. In the
context of Nazism as a regenerative, ‘revitalising’ force, aiming at a total reshaping of German,
Aryan life in all of its aspects,12 civic buildings and the arts in general were the creation as well as
the creator of the new German man.13 Much in the same way as the German body was forged in a
direct (medical, biological) and an indirect (through sculpture, cinema,…) manner, the German,
Aryan spirit was to exist in all of its creations, including architecture. Indeed, the new German
reality was in a very real sense conceived as a Gesamtkunstwerk, as both the emanation and the
source of the Volksgeist. It is not a coincidence that the earliest examples of Nazi neo-classicism
could be observed in Munich, the Haupstadt der Bewegung. Munich was, as it were, the Heimat of
Nazism. In von Klenze’s Königsplatz it had a perfect example of neo-classicist Raumordnung and
architecture. In the eyes of Hitler, who came to see himself as the successor to Schinkel and
Friedrich Gilly (1772-1800),14 the ‘Capital of the Movement’ –in itself the definition of Nazism as
a ‘movement’ is already indicative of its vitalistic nature- was the ideal place to unleash his
architectural passion15 and, maybe even more importantly, to identify himself as the successor to
King Ludwig I of Bavaria. Here the Führer already quite literally showed himself to be the
‘architect’ of his nation:

From his person was to flow all constructive energy, shaping temples with himself as the god, buildings
that were to crown cities each of which would be oriented along a central axis.16

Previously, while in the Landsberg prison (1923), Hitler had made plenty of sketches for his
architectural Neugestaltung of Germany, and Munich was to be the jewel in the crown. The
architect chosen for this task was Paul Troost, a classically trained architect and a Nazi since 1924.
He was perhaps Hitler’s first arbiter elegantiae.17 Troost was inspired by Schinkel and von
Klenze,18 particularly his refurbishment of the Königsplatz. Having been freed of traffic and paved
with stone slabs from German quarries (thereby fulfilling the policy of using ‘autarkic’ materials),
this square already flanked by the Glyptothek (a classical art museum) and a monumental
Propyläen entrance (a direct allusion to its classical Athenian ‘predecessor’), was now adorned
with two Ehrentempeln (1933-1935). These symmetrically placed buildings bear the imprint of a
stripped neoclassicism conceived on a massive scale to epitomise Aryan monumentality.
Dedicated to the sixteen ‘victims’ of the 1923 putsch, which was part of the mythic narrative of
Nazism’s origins, the temples were in a sense the altars of the new ‘political religion’, celebrating
Nazi martyrdom and confirming the movement’s central place in the nation’s sacralised history. It
was in this spirit that they were to be permanently watched over by members of the SS, the so-
called ‘eternal guard’ or Ewige Wache. Next to the Ehrentempeln, two government buildings were
also built, a Führerbau and a Verwaltungsbau (1933-1937). These almost identical constructions
evoked, with their stress on the horizontal and symmetrical, Italian renaissance palazzi and were
thought to incarnate the ‘soul of Nazi art’.19
Munich would also become the ‘capital of German art’,20 and for this occasion Hitler already
very early on ordered Troost to develop the Haus der Deutsche Kunst (‘House of German Art’,
finished in 1937), which Lehmann-Haupt21 and Van der Vat22 characterise as a ‘caricature of noble
antecedents’. However, one could also argue that the Haus, which in 1937 hosted the Grosse
Deutsche Kunstausstellung, is one of the most representative examples of the essence, and inner
logic, of Nazi classicism. Indeed it is a building which is undeniably inspired by the formal
language of antiquity, but no classical architect could have ever conceived this kind of temple:

2
stripped of ornament and of any reference to ancient Greek spirituality, it was seen as the creation
of the German ‘genius’, which reflected in the building’s pure, cold and ‘eternal’ style, going back
to, or rather re-presenting the essence, and hence undeniably a creation of modernity, albeit in a
spirit deliberately alien to the culture of liberal humanism or Bolshevism.
Apart from the Führer himself, the central figure in Nazi architecture was Albert Speer, the
‘successor’ to Troost. Speer studied architecture in Karlsruhe, Munich and Berlin, where he
eventually became assistant to Heinrich Tessenow (1876-1950). Like many of his contemporaries
he was a nationalist, but only became a party member in 1931 — in his own words — out of
fascination for Hitler.23 From then on Speer’s career and wealth took off,24 starting in 1934, when
he was commissioned to design the architectural ‘scenery’ of the Reichsparteitaggelände in
Nuremberg. Nazism set out to unite German society within the regenerated Volksgemeinschaft, a
goal that found tangible expression in oceanic public displays of national solidarity. Nuremberg
had already hosted Parteitage in 1927, 1929 and 1930, and seemed obvious evident that the city
would continue to serve this ritual function. Starting from an axial ground plan, Speer developed
the Reichsparteitaggelände, which consisted of a monumental entrance gate, a Kongresshalle,
public stands around the Zeppelinfeld, a Deutsches Stadion and a Märzfeld.
The Zeppelinfeld, measuring 300 by 300 metres, was to be flanked to the northeastern side by
a huge altar-like stand, for which the Pergamon Altar — displayed in Berlin since 1930 — was the
supposed model,25 while at the same time showing the influence of a design by Friedrich Gilly.26
The main stand had two corner towers projecting at either end. Inside there was a hall of
remembrance dedicated to Nazi liturgy and a type of chapel. The other sides comprised stands
broken up by a series of evenly spaced square towers. The Märzfeld, a parade ground used for
military demonstrations which was flanked by a reviewing stand for 150,000 spectators,27
remained unfinished. Of the twenty four planned towers only nine were built, while the Deutsches
Stadion never left the drawing table. With a capacity of 400,000 it was to become the largest
stadium humankind had ever witnessed. The ground plan was Greek, but Speer did not retain the
‘classical’ proportions, whereas the addition of a pillared portico above evoked the crypta of a
Roman theatre. The building was to be erected in natural stone, its vastness illustrative of the
change in both Speer and Hitler’s styles, which developed into a more and more monumental (and
some would say megalomaniacal) classicism.28 Finally, the Kongresshalle was one of the few
‘mammoth buildings’29 in Nuremberg that was not entirely the work of Speer.30 This hall, which
was only partially finished, recalls the Colosseum in Rome, but on an even more Titanic scale.31
In the collective historical imagination, the Reichsparteitaggelände in Nuremberg and the
rallies held there have become the supreme symbol of the new Volksgemeinschaft under Nazi rule,
hence of the pervasive ‘aestheticisation of politics’ and of public life under the regime. The
architecture, the vastness of the grounds, the crowds actively participating at the ceremonies, taken
in by Hitler’s charisma and a heightened ‘sense of belonging’, all identify Speer, and Hitler as the
high priests of the Nazi ‘cult’. Using searchlights of the Luftwaffe to light up the night sky, Speer
transformed the site into the archetypal ‘sacred space’ or, as the architect himself characterised the
astonishing visual effects (which he would often repeat throughout the thirties and early forties),
into a Lichtdom or ‘cathedral of light’. As such, the Nuremberg Parteitage and their architectural
surroundings are a perfect example of the way in which Nazism functioned as a highly elaborated
form of political religion.32
Already in his early years when Hitler was living in Vienna he was dreaming of the
architectural transformation of Berlin.33 He wanted to create a city that would stand the test of time
and flourish under the name of Germania. Once Führer he used his own sketches and called upon
Albert Speer to elaborate them. Speer started working on the Neugestaltung of Berlin as early as
1936 and was officially charged with the task of rebuilding the capital in 1937 when he became
Generalbauinspektor and Secretary of State.34 He was allowed to work largely autonomously,
reporting only to Hitler, who worked closely together with his architect, making suggestions,
alterations, and even offering his own architectural sketches.35 He spent many hours in Speer’s

3
study, and saw to it personally that enormous financial resources were made available to him.36
Hitler’s wishes were so far reaching, his plans so vast, that Speer was even forced to delegate part
of the work to colleagues.37 From 1941 onward, the architect was able to dedicate himself wholly
to the Berlin project. However, within a year he was obliged to postpone the plans, following the
death of Fritz Todt (1891-1942), whom he replaced as Minister of Arms and Munition.
Once he assumed in this new role, Speer in a sense became what Nazis at the time would
have referred to as their version of a homo universalis, dedicating his ‘genius’ to an even higher
goal, as it moved from the architectural shaping of the Volksgemeinschaft to a technocratic level.
In the context of German life as a Gesamtkunstwerk, war and the war effort were as much seen as
expressions of the German’s Aryan spirit as architecture was. Even the fact that the war economy
was highly dependent on the massive use of slave labour was consistent with Nazism’s internal
logic, as the Nazis’ exploitation of prisoners did not only produce the means to continue the
forging of the German Self through battle, but at the same time had the advantage of purging the
German race of all that which was considered as decadent and dysgenic, no matter how perverse
from a humanistic perspective.
Returning to the Neugestaltung of Berlin, for which the most important source of information
is the scale model Speer developed of the renewed capital. As in the Reichsparteitaggelände in
Nuremberg, Berlin would be given an axial groundplan, containing a round open square flanked by
official buildings in the centre. At the south point of the main axis a Siegestor (triumphal arch),
triple the height of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris,38 would be erected in honour of the victims of the
First World War, built on the basis of sketches provided by Hitler.39 At the other end an enormous
domed hall, the Grosse Halle, would rise. This was to become the epicentre of the Führer cult.40
Of the many plans made for Berlin, this is without a doubt the most imaginative and
representative, an Aryanised version of the utopian projects of visionary architects such as those of
Claude-Nicolas Ledoux (1736-1806) and Etienne-Louis Boullée (1728-1799).41 In front of the hall
there would be a square, surrounded by the old and new Reichstag, the Führer palace, the
headquarters of the army and the Neue Reichskanzlei (1938), one of few neo-classic buildings
actually constructed in Hitler’s Berlin. In record time Speer turned the building into the ‘first stone
monument of the Great German Reich’,42 an enormous natural stone building containing an
interior garden and courtyard. The courtyard and garden contained massive statues by Arno Breker
and Josef Thorak (1889-1952), and Speer used mainly marble for the interior decorations, frescos
and mosaics, as in the Mosaiksaal.43 Beside these ‘classical’ materials he used rosewood for the
ceilings, thereby evoking the völkisch concept of Blut und Boden (‘Blood and Soil’). The Neue
Reichskanzlei is the prototype of the Nazi party building created by and for the people.44 It at once
incarnated the eternal outlook of the Nazi ‘Idea’ which was projected onto history and onto the
future,45 the Idea of the renaissance of a new people imbued with the spirit of Germanness and
Aryanness, a people which was being resurrected not only spiritually, but also physically (hence
the importance of Breker’s muscular sculptures). The Neue Reichskanzlei was one of the few Nazi
buildings that were actually erected in Berlin. The capital’s Neugestaltung was planned for 1950,
but this goal was destined never to be met. Beside a few realised buildings, the plans never left the
drawing table. Berlin was only partially recreated by the Nazis. Ironically, the real Neugestaltung
would take place after the end of the 1000 Year Reich in the total reconstruction necessitated by
the Allies’ relentless blanket bombing campaigns.46

Adolf Hitler: a ‘political artist’

For the Nazi regime, art — and above all architecture — had supreme symbolic value. By means
of public buildings the State could exhibit, produce and reproduce itself, conveying a message of
force, cultural homogeneity, and ethnic purity. Nazism wanted to create a regenerated German
people, and all of this people’s creations would be the reflection of its essence, strength, and
vitality. Hence many public buildings were conceived in a severe, monumentally classic style, as
such a style could carry the same message of national regeneration. The formal sources of

4
inspiration were obvious: vast Roman buildings such as the Pantheon and Coliseum (discernible in
the Grosse Halle in Berlin and the Kongresshalle in Nuremberg), the Pergamon altar (notably in
the main stand on the Zeppelinfeld) and the Parthenon (which is alluded to in the Haus der
Deutsche Kunst in Munich), whereas the main cities were to be reshaped according to the Roman
ground plan. Hitler’s genuine passion for the arts and architecture — even if a form of highly
‘selective osmosis’47 — of course encouraged their omnipresence and their importance in the New
Germany. Even if he had a highly ‘aesthetic’ Weltanschauung in common with most other
prominent Nazis, it was, following the Führerprinzip, above all his vision which was decisive. His
vision of architecture is constituent element in what could be called his ‘biopolitical’ drive to
create a pure, regenerated Germany and German race cleansed of everything he deemed ugly and
dysgenic, ‘based on the assumption that the Volk was a living organism to be healed of disease and
purged of parasites’.48
Already at a very young age the future Führer nurtured a great passion for the arts, especially
architecture. He was twice refused entry to the Wiener Kunstakademie, after which he dedicated
himself to painting and sculpture.49 For Hitler, art had to be clear, vital, clean, simple and
transparent. His love for the arts of antiquity was the consequence of the combination of his
interest in monumental classicism and a longing for the classical ideal of beauty as could be seen
in, for example, the Dyskobolos by Myron.50 These factors met racial, völkische demands through
an identification of Greek and German, both categorised as ‘Aryan’.51 Classical art and
architecture thus were the summum, the touchstone. The ideal of a sort of ‘Nordic (Aryan)-Greek’
art was what Hitler had always dreamt of once his youthful passion for Baroque pomposity has
passed. It was in line with his aesthetic preference for neo-classical art, while it at the same time
respected the need for an art that was rooted in German, völkische tradition. A true ‘German’ art
thus became the goal of Hitler’s artistic ideal, as was clear in his opening speech at the Grosse
Deutsche Kunstausstellung in 1937 when he asserted that ‘Never has man, in outlook or spirit,
stood closer to antiquity than today’.52
In his appreciation of classical art, he invoked the ‘noble simplicity and silent grandeur’
talked of by Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-1768),53 one of the cornerstones of German
artistic education and classical theory: ‘The Greek ideal of beauty is immortal because of the
wonderful connection between physical beauty, shining spirit and noble soul.’54 In the context of
the forging of the new German body and Volksgemeinschaft, ‘idealistic’ Greek art was of course
the most important blueprint, but the artistic production of imperial Rome also met the Führer’s
approval. This became clear during a visit to Italy in 1938, where Hitler was received by the king
and il duce Benito Mussolini. He showed a genuine interest in antiquity and its relics, as can be
seen in the journal of Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli (1900-1975), the art historian who
accompanied Hitler and Mussolini at the Mostra Augustea della Romanità (an exhibition held in
Rome, in honour of Augustus’ bimillennary celebration in 1937-1938). Whereas Mussolini seemed
annoyed by the spectacle, the Führer asked question after question and seemed profoundly
interested, even fascinated. Hitler, who visited the Mostra Augustea della Romanità twice, was
very impressed by Italy and its artistic wealth and in 1941 remembered his Italian trip in glowing
terms: ‘When we received the duce, we thought it was beautiful. But our trip to Italy, [...] that was
something else!’ It was not only the capital that awoke the artist in him, for he added, ‘Naples,
seen from the castle: it could have been Latin America! [...] I can only dream of wandering around
there as an unknown painter’.55
Hitler considered some currents in modern, ‘anti-classicist’ art as ‘degenerate’. For him, they
were all that classically inspired art was not: dark, unclear, untangible, abstract, un-pure and
unhealthy, a judgement which can be situated in his above-mentioned ‘idealistic’ world view. On
the one hand they were characterised as ugly, and on the other hand they were associated with
‘degenerate’, leftist political influence, mostly labelled under the name of ‘cultural bolshevism’, in
its turn a creation of the eternal Jewish scapegoat. Because of the opportunism and slavish
conformism with which these criteria were usually adopted,56 there was a lot of confusion and

5
arbitrariness in the use of the term entartete Kunst, which up until today has not been
unambiguously defined. Adding to this confusing image, one could argue, as Griffin and Maertz57
well pointed out, that some ‘official’ German artworks did indeed show signs of what a ‘black-
and-white’ analysis would probably label as forms of ‘degenerate’ aesthetic… but that is of course
a different, albeit related, subject.58
The arts and architecture are often seen as instruments in the service of political reality, in
other words as propaganda. Once Hitler’s personal vision is taken into account, the situation is
quite different. As we shall see, it could even be argued that his Weltanschauung and his notion of
history were highly influenced by his appreciation of the arts of antiquity. Werner Maser fully
sustains this point of view and asserts that in reality, the arts and Hitler’s appreciation for them
dictated politics, and not the other way around:

Like Schopenhauer, Hitler thought that man should approach art in a humble way [...], considering it as
a revelation of Being. In the same way he thought the individual had to wait for what the artwork would
tell him. [...] Hitler, who didn’t only want to be Atlas [...], but also the lord of the world which would be
able to form the earth according to his ideas, saw in his role as Führer und Reichskanzler — as Albert
Speer has confirmed —a means to express his artistic ideas through the medium of politics and political
power.59

Though this assertion doubtless overstates the primacy of the aesthetic impulse in Hitler’s lust for
power, it is broadly in line with the interpretation of Eric Michaud,60 who sees art and the aesthetic
as an integral part of Nazism, both reflecting and creating the Nazi ‘new man’, and thus
incorporating what Griffin has termed,61 the ‘sense of a beginning’.62 In this context, the German
Volksgemeinschaft and its creations, including the arts, were not seen, instrumentally, as parts of
the orchestration of propaganda, but as active constituents of the New Reich ‘in the making’.
Indeed, the Führer saw his Germany as a whole, as a total composition of which he was the main
‘artist’ or in any case the creator in the sense of the Greek poietes, who fashioned the new nation
out of the Volksgemeinschaft, a totalising act of ‘aestheticisation of politics’ carried out in a spirit
far removed from that which Walter Benjamin had in mind. He had a totalitarian vision on the
State, which he considered to be an organic whole in which everything functioned in harmony:
politics, economy, aesthetics were all part of the State, of power, to the degree that the limits
between these constituents faded. Politics became aestheticised and art politicised as the
precondition for the total cultural rebirth of Germany in a new order. As early as 1921 Hitler had
said:

shouldn’t we rather be moderate, aim the redundant force of our people at the purely spiritual and
renounce political power? No cultural greatness without political power! Look at Greece and Rome, the
rise of Prussia [...] What an enormous spiritual development in the field of poetry, painting and
architecture that would give!63

A year previously, he had already linked cultural development to politics:

Art flourishes first where a great political development gives it the possibility to flourish. We know that
in Greece art has reached its highest level when the young State gloriously triumphed over the Persian
lords. Then it began building the Acropolis. Rome didn’t become an art city until the end of the Punic
War.64

Apart from the work of Maser, it is only recently that adequate scholarly attention has been given
to Adolf Hitler as an ‘artist in politics’. More specifically Golomstock65 touched upon this idea and
made future research such as that of Spotts66 and above all Michaud67 possible:

The mission of the politician, more dangerously still, was similar to that of the artist. Hitler saw himself
as the architect of the Third Reich, who ‘creates according to the laws of beauty’, and Goebbels had

6
 Hitler in mind and was paraphrasing him only slightly when he said: ‘The true politician stands in the
same relationship to his nation as does the sculptor to marble.’68

When one investigates his writing, speeches and the records of his table-talks (Tischgespräche), it
is striking that the Führer spoke no more of politics than he did of art and aesthetics. Indeed, they
formed one whole, one intrinsically linked discourse reflecting his totalising Weltanschauung. In a
sense, he seems to have considered and conceptualised reality in aesthetic terms, conceiving of life
as a Gesamtkunstwerk in a way that was even more all-embracing than Wagner’s conception.69
Some say Hitler was an emotionless and gruesome psychopath,70 and there is without any doubt
some truth in that. However, when one observes him passionately making plans for his future
cities, he seems more like a child, with all the creative energy that goes with it, even if in his
biopolitical world view inevitably also meant the annihilation of all that was considered ugly and
dysgenic in the spirit of ‘creative destruction’. He considered ‘party’ politics a means to an end, a
way of ‘creating life artistically’. His creations would then function as his heritage, as his legacy to
the world. Regarding architecture, Hitler himself expressed these ideas in the following way:

Even if people should forget the accomplishments of our armies, the buildings, which will be erected in
Berlin, will, even after a thousand years, as they do now, speak of their glory: the triumphal arches, the
Soldier Hall [a projected hall in Berlin], the Hall of the People [presumably the planned Grosse Halle or
Great Hall]!71

It is known that Albert Speer even consciously designed his buildings to take account of the
eventual process of decay that they would be exposed to, a concept which he summarised in his so-
called “theory of ruin value”.72 This implied, among others, that his buildings were to survive the
test of time as ‘noble ruins’:

Hitler and Speer wanted buildings to speak to posterity of the greatness of the Third Reich in the same
way that classical monuments still attest to the greatness of Greece and Rome, even going so far as to
make sketches of what particular buildings would look like with fallen and ivy-covered columns. To
achieve this purpose, buildings were to be built not of concrete and steel but of brick, granite, and
marble. The structural failure of buildings was anticipated and they were designed so as to collapse in the
most dramatically effective way so they would, even in their ruined state, continue to celebrate the glory
of Hitler’s Germany.73

It could be argued that Hitler had a vision of reality that was to a certain extent ‘aesthetic’. In the
mind of this enigmatic man, politics and aesthetics seem to have been conceived as one
intrinsically linked whole. He blended a genuine passion for art with profound racism and a
fanatical (bio)political plan for national rebirth. In order to understand his personality, it is
important to acknowledge these premises,74 and realise that his obsession with the formal language
of classical antiquity reflected his aesthetic predisposition, as well as the Führer’s love for what he
considered to be pure, beautiful, essential and sane art. It was linked to the genius and spirit of the
German Volk and its Aryan creative genius. Hitler mentioned antiquity mainly in an aesthetic
context, that is as a producer of great art. However, this was not always the case, a fact that leads
us to consider more closely the position of the classical past within his discourse and
Weltanschauung.

Hitler’s view on antiquity

Adolf Hitler’s interest in antiquity was an integral, if not a central, part of his world view.75 A few
factors seem to have determined his reception and use of the classical past. First of all there is his
artistic canon, which is to be situated in the idealistic Weltanschauung he developed quite early in
life. The attraction of the Greek ideal of physical and mental beauty and of Roman imperial
architecture76 led to a sentimental admiration for the greatness of both civilisations, which were
seen as racially pure. A second factor is the Führer’s education, which familiarised him with the
history and culture of classical Greece and Rome, subjects which in his time were still regarded as

7
the foundation of a humanistic education (Bildung). He did not, however, master the classical
languages.77 A third factor is played by the occultist roots of the Führer’s world view. Like many
of his early companions in Vienna, he frequented occultist societies where racial theories such as
those of count Joseph Arthur de Gobineau (1816-1882) and Houston Stuart Chamberlain (1855-
1927)78 were discussed. In these circles a social-Darwinist vision of history was propagated
blended with alternative racialist and mystic philosophies of history, so it is no wonder that Sparta,
renowned for its rigid social organisation, was seen as a high point and a classic example of a
forceful, virile, pure, healthy and vital State.79 The fourth factor links directly to this picture: a
profound feeling of frustration regarding the absence of a German classical past. Together with his
aesthetic, architectural passion this feeling led Hitler to develop a strong, emotionally-charged
longing for the charisma of ‘predecessors’ such as Rome.80 No wonder then that for Hitler the
German past sometimes started with Arminius, but sometimes only with Theodoric. His comments
on excavations which Heinrich Himmler (1900-1945) planned to be carried out by his Ahnenerbe
in the search for archaeological evidence to prove the greatness of the German roots — are also
revealing:

Why do we call the whole world’s attention to the fact that we have no past? It isn’t enough that the
Romans were erecting great buildings when our forefathers were still living in mud huts; now Himmler
is starting to dig up these villages of mud huts and enthusing over every potsherd and stone axe he finds.
All we prove by that is that we were still throwing stone hatchets and crouching around open fires when
Greece and Rome had already reached the highest stage of culture. We really should do our best to keep
quiet about this past. Instead Himmler makes a great fuss about it all. The present-day Romans must be
having a laugh at these revelations.81

The religions of antiquity, the Greek polis and the Roman State religion, also contributed to the
image Hitler had of antiquity.82 The religious cults of Greece and Rome united the community, the
citizens, and that was precisely what Nazism was for Germany: a quasi-religious movement of
national coherence and regeneration. By means of public parades, mass gatherings and a
reorganisation of public life (in organisations as the Hitlerjugend, Kraft durch Freude,...) the
German ‘spirit’ was displayed and mobilised. Nazism acquired a very theatrical, cultic outlook and
became a direct opponent of the Church to the point where it can be seen as an ersatz religion.
Finally, even a Wagnerian opera, namely Rienzi (1842), seems to have contributed to the future
Führer’s interest in antiquity.83

Let us now examine the place of antiquity in Hitler’s discourse. It is known that the Führer
had a social Darwinist vision of history: for him history was struggle, struggle between peoples
(biological struggle, the conquest of Lebensraum) and nations (imperialism). From this
predisposition, linked to the above mentioned factors, it is no wonder that, from the vast reservoir
of antiquity, he chose two model civilisations: Sparta and Rome. Sparta was seen as the example
of how a militarist, physical education could support a strong, disciplined State. Rome and the
Roman Empire stood for agrarian roots, the spirit of which also left its imprint on Roman State
architecture. From a racial point of view, however, the situation was more difficult: whereas early
Rome was considered racially ‘pure’, the Roman Empire, which provided most of the architectural
examples praised by Hitler, was hardly mentioned. As can be expected, for the Führer assumed it
was because of the mixture of races, combined with the influence of Christianity, that caused
Rome eventually to fall. The link with the present-day political situation was made by putting
Christianity on the same level as that other twentieth-century ‘myth’, Communism. Because the
latter used the masses as the basis for its power, Communism was a direct opponent of Nazism.
Contrary to Communism, however, Nazism wanted to be the ideology for, not of, the masses. In
reality Hitler despised the masses, and this feeling translated itself into his vision of history:

Rome has been broken by Christianity, not by the Germans or the Huns. What bolshevism today shows
in the materialist-technical field, Christianity has done in the metaphysical-technical. [...] We should

8
 speak of Constantine the Traitor and Julian the Faithful, instead of the Great and the Apostate. What
Christianity has written against Julian, is the same nonsense the Jewish Scriptures have poured on us,
whereas the writings of Julian are pure truth. (citation from 1941)84

Through this association the Führer could depict Christianity as a Jewish conspiracy against the
Western world, so that in the end the Jews were at the base of Rome’s decadence and fall. While
Germans and Huns were cleared of all responsibilities, as early as 1920 Hitler held the Jews
responsible for the chaos following the assassination of Julius Caesar:

Later on, the Jew acquired the ability to penetrate a State, which he did in rising imperial Rome. We can
follow his trace in southern Italy, where, some 250 years before Christ, he is omnipresent and one
begins to fear him. [...] We know that in the end the danger grew bigger and bigger and that the uprising
after the assassination of Julius Caesar was mainly stimulated by Jews.85

On another occasion African slaves were depicted in the same way as Jews, namely as factors of
racial dissolution: ‘People point at ancient Rome as an example of class struggle. That is not right.
What happened in Rome, was a racial battle, the battle between Aryan Romans and the black
slaves from Syria and Africa.’ (citation from 1922)86 The Germans on the other hand were
promoted to the status of potential factor in the regeneration of the Roman Empire which had
never been realised:

Without Christianity there wouldn’t have been such a thing as Islam. If the Roman Empire had
developed into world domination under German leadership, humanity would not have been thrown back
fifteen hundred years in the civilising process. (citation from 1941)87

Seen through the lens of the Nazi racialised history, antiquity thus became a Manichean
battle between good and evil. Greek, Roman, and German were frequently portrayed as ‘Aryan’ or
‘Nordic’ races pitted against Jewish, Black, African, Christian and Islamic ones. These theories
were promulgated with considerable bravura and force of conviction as an intrinsic part of the
Hitlerian world view that directly influenced the Führer’s rhetoric.88 The word can be a mighty
weapon, and Hitler knew this well. On the one hand, he used to speak in very condensed terms,
while on the other hand adopting rhetorical devices such as analogies, contrasts, similes and
associations. In some passages Berlin was identified with Rome, while England became mercantile
Carthage and the Second World War was the long awaited resurrection of the Punic Wars. All of
Germany’s enemies (the Jews, for example) were thus lumped together, while Germany fulfilled
the cultural mission once pursued by Rome and Greece:

Eleven years ago, National Socialism directly started the implementation of its programme, but, if there
is still time it still has to create the State [...] which is able to fulfil the European mission which in
antiquity Greece undertook against the Persians, Rome against the Carthaginians. (citation from 1944)89

Adolf Hitler thus had a very particular vision of the past, classical as well as German. For the
Führer, the past did not exist in itself, but was seen in a futural perspective as constituent of the
coming Reich. History sustained the basic ‘futural’, palingenetic90 thrust of the Third Reich to
project itself upon history and create a new era. Facts, cultures and persons were lifted out of the
past and inserted into the narrative of national rebirth conceived by Hitler. This grand récit
provided colour and sense to the present and it informed and rationalised policies such as imperial
aggression, anti-Semitism and, as we have also seen, an aesthetic predisposition for classical art. In
political hands history always becomes an ideological treatment of the past,91 and the use Hitler
and the Nazis made of it is an outstanding example.
As has been shown, Adolf Hitler’s vision of antiquity was basically a vitalistic and
mythicized vision of the past intended to enhance the creation of a perfect future. For the Führer,
the past only existed to the extent in which it was an adumbration of present and future ideal
values and forms, of life ‘as he intended it to be’. He wanted his Third Reich to echo and incarnate

9
certain idealised aspects of what he believed constituted the essence in the classical past, or at least
in some part of it. Through the identification of Greeks and Aryans, physical and spiritual beauty
and cleanliness, vitality, creativity and community spirit were traced back to the classical, mainly
Spartan (Doric) and Roman genius. They were expressions of the eternal German spirit and genius.
In a very real sense, Adolf Hitler tried to forge people’s minds and bodies, in the same way as he
wanted to create the buildings that represented and at the same time created the German
Volksgemeinschaft. That the ‘cleansing’ of Germany was to involve the prior destruction of all
elements which the Führer considered unfitting, did not matter. In many ways Hitler saw the
reshaping of German life to conform to his world view not just as the object of his political
‘struggle’, but as his magnum opus.

Bibliography
Adam, Peter. The Arts of the Third Reich (London: Thames & Hudson, 1992).
Arnold, Bettina. “The Past as Propaganda: Totalitarian Archaeology in Nazi Germany”, in Robert
Preucel and Ian Hodder (eds.), Contemporary Archaeology in Theory: a Reader (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1996), pp. 549-69.
Backes, Klaus. Hitler und die bildenden Künste (Cologne: DuMont, 1988).
Barron, Stephanie. Degenerate Art: The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany (Los Angeles:
Los Angeles County Museum, 1991).
Bärsch, Claus-Ekkehard. Die politische Religion des Nationalsozialismus. Die religiösen
Dimensionen der NS-Ideologie in den Schriften von Dietrich Eckart, Joseph Goebbels, Alfred
Rosenberg und Adolf Hitler (Munich: Fink, 2002).
Bartetzko, Dieter. Illusionen in Stein (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1985).
Bertman, Stephen. “Classical Architecture and Nazi Ideology”, Unpublished paper presented at the
1984 Meeting of the Classical Association of the Middle West and South.
Bianchi Bandinelli, Ranuccio. Dal diario di un borghese e altri scritti (Milan: Il Saggiatore, 1962
(1° 1948)).
Brenner, Hildegard. Die Kunstpolitik des Nationalsozialismus (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt,
1963).
Bültemann, Manfred. Architektur für das Dritte Reich (Berlin: Verlag für Architektur und
technische Wissenschaften, 1986).
Busch, Günter. Entartete Kunst: Geschichte und Moral (Frankfurt: Societäts-Verlag, 1969).
Cagnetta, Mariella. Antichisti e impero fascista (Bari: Dedalo, 1979).
Chiapparo, Maria Rosa. “Le mythe de la Terza Roma ou l’immense théâtre de la Rome fasciste”,
in Rémy Poignault (ed.), Présence de l’Antiquité grecque et romaine au XXe siècle. (Tours: Centre
de Recherches A. Piganiol, 2002), pp. 399-420.
Dal Co, Francesco. “The Stones of the Void”, Oppositions, 26 (1984), pp. 99-116.
Davidson, Mortimer G. Kunst in Deutschland 1933-1945: Skulpturen (Thüringen: Grabert, 1988).
Kunst in Deutschland 1933-1945: Malerei I (Thüringen: Grabert, 1991).
Kunst in Deutschland 1933-1945: Malerei II (Thüringen: Grabert, 1992).
Demandt, Alexander. “Klassik als Klischee: Hitler und die Antike”, Historische Zeitschrift, 274/2
(2002), pp. 281-313.
Domarus, Max. Hitler. Reden und Proklamationen 1932-1945 (Munich: Süddeutscher Verlag,
1965).
Fuhrmann, Manfred. “Die humanistische Bildungstradition im Dritten Reich”, Humanistische
Bildung, 8 (1984), pp. 139-61.
Galli, Giorgio. Hitler e il nazismo magico (Milan: Rizzoli, 1989).
Golomstock, Igor. Totalitarian Art in the Soviet Union, the Third Reich, fascist Italy and the
People’s Republic of China (London: Collins Harvill, 1990).

10
Golsan, Richard J. Fascism, Aesthetics, and Culture (Hanover: University Press of New England,
1992).
Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas. Die okkulten Wurzeln des Nationalsozialismus (Graz: Stocker, 1997
(1° 1992)).
Griffin, Roger. Modernism and Fascism. The Sense of a Beginning under Mussolini and Hitler
(Houndmills: Palgrave, 2007).
Grosshans, Henry. Hitler and the Artists (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1983).
Hitler, Adolf. Mein Kampf (Munich: Eher, 1925).
Jäckel, Eberhard, Axel Kuhn (eds.). Hitler. Sämtliche Aufzeichnungen 1905-1924 (Stuttgart:
Calmann-Lévy, 1980).
Jochmann, Werner. Adolf Hitler. Monologe im Führerhauptquartier 1941-1944. Die
Aufzeichnungen Heinrich Heims (Munich: Heyne, 1980).
Köhler, Joachim. Wagner’s Hitler. The Prophet and his Disciple (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000
(1° 1997)).
Larsson, Lars Olof. Albert Speer: Le plan de Berlin 1937-1943 (Brussels: AAM Editions, 1978).
Lease, Gary. “Nationalsozialismus und Religion. Eine Mythologie unserer Zeit”, Zeitschrift für
Religions- und Geistesgeschichte, 40/1 (1988), pp. 97-111.
Lehmann-Haupt, Helmut. Art under a Dictatorship (New York: Oxford University Press, 1954).
Lorenz, Stefan. “Hitler und die Antike”, Archiv für Kulturgeschichte, 82/ 2 (2000), pp. 407-31.
Losemann, Volker. Nationalsozialismus und Antike. Studien zur Entwicklung des Faches Alte
Geschichte 1933-1945 (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 1977).
“Arminius und Augustus. Die Römisch-Germanische Auseinandersetzung im Deutschen
Geschichtsbild”, in Karl Christ and Emilio Gabba (eds.), Caesar und Augustus (Como: New Press,
1989), pp. 129-63.
“The Nazi Concept of Rome”, in Catharine Edwards (ed.), Roman Presences. Receptions of
Rome in European Culture, 1789-1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 221-
35.
“Nationalsozialismus und Antike – Bemerkungen zur Forschungsgeschichte”, in Beat Näf
(ed.), Antike und Altertumswissenschaft in der Zeit von Faschismus und Nationalsozialismus
(Mandelbachtal: Edition Cicero, 2001), pp. 71-88.
Maertz, Gregory. “The Invisible Museum: Unearthing the Lost Modernist Art of the Third Reich”,
MODERNISM/modernity 15/1 (2008), pp. 63-85.
Marchal, Guy P. “Mythos im 20.Jahrhundert. Der Wille zum Mythos oder die Versuchung des
“neuen Mythos” in einer säkularisierten Welt”, in Fritz Graf (ed.), Mythos in mythenloser
Gesellschaft: das Paradigma Roms (Stuttgart: Teubner, 1993), pp. 204-29.
Maser, Werner. Adolf Hitler. Legende, Mythos, Wirklichkeit (Munich: Bechtle, 1971).
Matter, Jean. Wagner et Hitler (Lausanne: L’Age d’Homme, 1977).
Merker, Reinhard. Die bildenden Künste im Nationalsozialismus (Cologne: DuMont, 1983).
Michaud, Éric. Un art de l’éternité. L’image et le temps du national-socialisme (Paris: Gallimard,
1996).
Miller Lane, Barbara. Architecture and Politics in Germany 1918-1945 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1985).
Mittig, Hans-Ernst. “Antikbezüge nationalsozialistischer Propaganda-architektur und –skulptur”,
in Beat Näf (ed.), Antike und Altertumswissenschaft in der Zeit von Faschismus und
Nationalsozialismus (Mandelbachtal: Edition Cicero, 2001), pp. 245-65.
Mosse, George L. The Nationalization of the Masses (New York: Howard Fertig, 1975).
Nelis, Jan. “Classicismo nell’arte del nazismo”, Rivista Storica dell’Antichità 32 (2002), pp. 271-
86.
“Classical Nazis, Modern Romans: Antiquity, Dictatorship and the Masses”, in Michael
Aradas and Nicholas C.J. Pappas (eds.), Themes in European History: Essays from the 2nd
International Conference on European History (Athens: Atiner, 2005), pp. 157-70.

11
 “Hitler, Classicism and Antiquity”, in Andrew Leach and Gill Matthewson (eds.),
Celebration (XXII Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians of Australia and
New Zealand) (Auckland: Sahanz, 2005), pp. 279-83.
“Un mythe contemporain entre religion et idéologie: la romanité fasciste”, Euphrosyne.
Revista de Filologia Clássica, 35 (2007), pp. 437-50.
“Constructing fascist identity: Benito Mussolini and the myth of romanità”, Classical
World, 100/4 (2007), pp. 391-415.
“La romanité (romanità) fasciste. Bilan des recherches et propositions pour le futur”,
Latomus. Revue d’Etudes Latines, 66/4 (2007), pp. 987-1006.
Petropoulos, Jonathan. Art as Politics in the Third Reich (Chapel Hill: Carolina Press, 1996).
Picker, Henry. Hitlers Tischgespräche im Führerhauptquartier 1941-42 (Bonn: Athenäum, 1951).
Poewe, Karla. New Religions and the Nazis (New York: Routledge, 2006).
Polverini, Leandro. “L”impero romano – antico e moderno”, in Beat Näf (ed.), Antike und
Altertumswissenschaft in der Zeit von Faschismus und Nationalsozialismus (Mandelbachtal:
Edition Cicero, 2001), pp. 145-63.
Raith, Frank-Bertolt. Der Heroische Stil (Berlin: Verlag für Bauwesen, 1997).
Reichhardt, Hans J., Wolfgang Schäche. Von Berlin nach Germania. Über die Zerstörungen der
Reichshauptstadt durch Albert Speers Neugestaltungsplanungen (Berlin: Transit, 1984).
Richard, Lionel. Le nazisme et la culture (Brussels: Complexe, 1988).
Schäche, Wolfgang. “Nationalsozialistische Architektur und Antikenrezeption. Kritik der
Neoklassizismus-These am Beispiel der Berliner Museumsplanung”, in Willmuth Arenhövel and
Christa Schreiber (eds.), Berlin und die Antike. Aufsätze (Ergänzungsband zum Katalog der
Ausstellung "Berlin und die Antike") (Berlin: Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, 1979), pp. 557-
70.
Die Bauwerke und Kunstdenkmäler von Berlin (Berlin: Mann, 1991).
Schneider, Romana. Moderne Architektur in Deutschland: 1900 bis 2000 (Stuttgart: Gerd Hatje,
1998).
Schnell, Ralf. Kunst und Kultur im deutschen Faschismus (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1978).
Scobie, Alex. Hitler’s State Architecture. The Impact of Classical Antiquity (University Park:
Pennsylvania State University Press, 1990).
Scriba, Friedemann. Augustus im Schwarzhemd? Die Mostra Augustea della Romanità in Rom
1937/38 (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1993).
“Il mito di Roma, l’estetica e gli intellettuali negli anni del consenso: la Mostra Augustea
della Romanità 1937/38”, Quaderni di storia, 41 (1995), pp. 67-84.
Sereny, Gitta. Albert Speer: His Battle With Truth (London: Picador, 1996).
Speer, Albert (ed.). Neue deutsche Baukunst (Prag: Volk und Reich, 1940).
Speer, Albert. Inside the Third Reich (New York: MacMillan, 1970).
Speer, Albert. et al. Albert Speer: Architecture (Brussels: AAM Editions, 1985).
Spotts, Frederic. Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics (London: Pimlico, 2002).
Steigmann-Gall, Richard. Holy Reich. Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919-1945 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2003).
Stone, Marla. “A flexible Rome: Fascism and the cult of romanità”, in Catharine Edwards (ed.),
Roman Presences. Receptions of Rome in European Culture, 1789-1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1999), pp. 205-20.
Taylor, Robert R. The Word in Stone: The Role of Architecture in the National Socialist Ideology
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974).
Teut, Anna. Architektur im Dritten Reich 1933-1945 (Berlin: Ullstein, 1967).
Van der Vat, Dan. The good Nazi: The Life and Lies of Albert Speer (London: Phoenix, 1997).
Villard, Pierre. “Antiquité et Weltanschauung hitlérienne”, Revue d’histoire de la deuxième guerre
mondiale, 88 (1972), pp. 1-18.

12
Visser, Romke. “Fascist Doctrine and the Cult of the Romanità”, Journal of Contemporary
History, 27/1 (1992), pp. 5-22.
Vondung, Klaus. “National Socialism as a Political Religion. Potentials and limits of an analytical
concept”, Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, 6/1 (2005), pp. 87-95.
Wulf, Joseph. Die bildenden Künste im Dritten Reich (Frankfurt am Main: Ullstein, 1982).

ENDNOTES
1
This full length article elaborates in part upon ideas presented in two shorter research papers of
mine, the first of which appeared in the conference proceedings of the 2nd International Conference
on European History of the Athens Institute for Education and Research (Jan Nelis, “Classical
Nazis, Modern Romans: Antiquity, Dictatorship and the Masses”, in Michael Aradas and Nicholas
C.J. Pappas (eds.), Themes in European History: Essays from the 2nd International Conference on
European History (Athens: Atiner, 2005), pp.157-63), and the second of which appeared in the
conference proceedings of the 22nd Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians
of Australia and New Zealand (Jan Nelis, “Hitler, Classicism and Antiquity”, in Andrew Leach
and Gill Matthewson (eds.), Celebration (XXII Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural
Historians of Australia and New Zealand) (Auckland: Sahanz, 2005), pp.279-83). I wish to express
my indebtedness to Prof. Stephen Bertman of Canada’s University of Windsor. Dr. Bertman
presented a paper entitled Classical Architecture and Nazi Ideology (“Classical Architecture and
Nazi Ideology”, Unpublished paper presented at the 1984 Meeting of the Classical Association of
the Middle West and South) at the 1984 Meeting of the Classical Association of the Middle West
and South. I also wish to express my appreciation to Prof. Freddy Decreus of the University of
Ghent, for his continuing support and friendship. Finally, a very special thanks goes to Paul
Jackson, Tudor Georgescu and, above all, to Roger Griffin, for his most stimulating and
enlightening comments.
2
This is notably the case in the work of Alex Scobie (Hitler’s State Architecture. The Impact of
Classical Antiquity (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1990)), who projects
Hitler’s ideology and world view (including an ideological vision of the classical past) onto his
preference for classically inspired art. For Scobie, art is still just an instrument at the service of the
demagogue, the politician. In doing so, he misses the fundamental, we would even dare say,
existential, importance of art to Hitler that is the theme of this article.
3
This is to some extent the case with Frederic Spotts (Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics (London:
Pimlico, 2002), as well as with Werner Maser (Adolf Hitler. Legende, Mythos, Wirklichkeit
(Munich: Bechtle, 1971).
4
Helmut Lehmann-Haupt, Art under a Dictatorship (New York: Oxford University Press, 1954).
5
Peter Adam, The Arts of the Third Reich (London: Thames & Hudson, 1992).
6
See Éric Michaud, Un art de l’éternité. L’image et le temps du national-socialisme (Paris:
Gallimard, 1996), pp.202-6.
7
Roger Griffin, Modernism and Fascism. The Sense of a Beginning under Mussolini and Hitler
(Houndmills: Palgrave, 2007), p.286.
8
Albert Speer (ed.), Neue deutsche Baukunst (Prag: Volk und Reich, 1940), pp.7-8.
9
Wolfgang Schäche, Die Bauwerke und Kunstdenkmäler von Berlin (Berlin: Mann, 1991), p.46.
Schäche, however, misses an important dimension of Nazi aesthetics when he asserts that,
generally speaking, Nazi classicism can be seen as the direct, be it exclusively formal,
consequence of German imperial classicism: ‘We can see that for the period 1933-1945, when seen
from the point of view of the reception of antiquity, not a direct tie with antiquity, through
classicism, can be noted. It can be interpreted as the adoption of imperial monumental architecture
of the Kaiserreich [...] which is reduced to its mere form’. See Schäche, ibid., p.570 (all
translations from non-English sources are my own).

13
10
Robert R. Taylor, The Word in Stone: The Role of Architecture in the National Socialist
Ideology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), p.102.
11
For an analysis of Hitler’s artistic canon and his relation to artists, see Henry Grosshans, Hitler
and the Artists (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1983). For a general analysis of classicism in the arts
of Nazism, see Francesco Dal Co, “The Stones of the Void”, Oppositions, 26 (1984), pp.99-116,
Scobie (note 2); Hans-Ernst Mittig, “Antikbezüge nationalsozialistischer Propaganda-architektur
und –skulptur”, in Beat Näf (ed.), Antike und Altertumswissenschaft in der Zeit von Faschismus
und Nationalsozialismus (Mandelbachtal: Edition Cicero, 2001), pp.245-65 and Jan Nelis,
“Classicismo nell’arte del nazismo”, Rivista Storica dell’Antichità 32 (2002), p.271-86. A general
discussion on architecture under Nazism can be found in Anna Teut, Architektur im Dritten Reich
1933-1945 (Berlin: Ullstein, 1967) and Barbara Miller Lane, Architecture and Politics in Germany
1918-1945 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), whereas Michaud (note 6) wrote a
very incisive synthesis on Nazi art as an art designed ‘for eternity’.
12
In this regard, the movement could be characterized as a ‘biopolitical’ force. For more
information on what Griffin labelled Nazism’s ‘biopolitical modernism’, see Griffin (note 7),
pp.310-35.
13
Michaud (note 6), p.228.
14
Stefan Lorenz, “Hitler und die Antike”, Archiv für Kulturgeschichte, 82, No. 2 (2000), p.427.
15
Speer (note 8), p.10.
16
Lehmann-Haupt (note 4), p.91. For further analysis, see Reinhard Merker, Die bildenden Künste
im Nationalsozialismus (Cologne: DuMont, 1983), p.192 and Spotts (note 3), p.311-98.
17
Klaus Backes, Hitler und die bildenden Künste (Cologne: DuMont, 1988), pp.33-6 and Taylor
(note 10), p.67.
18
Lars Olof Larsson, Albert Speer: Le plan de Berlin 1937-1943 (Brussels: AAM Editions, 1978),
p.8.
19
Romana Schneider, Moderne Architektur in Deutschland: 1900 bis 2000 (Stuttgart: Gerd Hatje,
1998), p.106.
20
Backes (note 17), p.147.
21
Lehmann-Haupt (note 4), p.113.
22
Dan Van der Vat, The good Nazi: The Life and Lies of Albert Speer (London: Phoenix, 1997),
p.57.
23
Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich (New York: MacMillan, 1970), pp.17-9.
24
Lehmann-Haupt (note 4), pp.115-117 and Jonathan Petropoulos, Art as Politics in the Third
Reich (Chapel Hill: Carolina Press, 1996), pp.233-7.
25
Albert Speer et al., Albert Speer: Architecture (Brussels: AAM Editions, 1985), p.164.
26
Frank-Bertolt Raith, Der Heroische Stil (Berlin: Verlag für Bauwesen, 1997), p.83.
27
Bertman (note 1), p.4.
28
Hildegard Brenner, Die Kunstpolitik des Nationalsozialismus (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt,
1963), p.121.
29
Backes (note 17), p.160.
30
The architects were Ludwig Ruff (?-1934) and later Franz (1906-1979) Ruff.
31
Backes (note 17), p.160.
32
For more information on the scenography of architecture under the Nazi regime, see Dieter
Bartetzko, Illusionen in Stein (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1985). On the concept of Nazism
as a political religion, see Claus-Ekkehard Bärsch, Die politische Religion des
Nationalsozialismus. Die religiösen Dimensionen der NS-Ideologie in den Schriften von Dietrich
Eckart, Joseph Goebbels, Alfred Rosenberg und Adolf Hitler (Munich: Fink, 2002), Klaus
Vondung, “National Socialism as a Political Religion. Potentials and limits of an analytical
concept”, Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, 6/1 (2005), pp.87-95 and Griffin (note
7), pp.271-2. On Nazism’s efforts to substitute Christianity with a form of volkïsch, German

14
religion, see Karla Poewe, New Religions and the Nazis (New York: Routledge, 2006). For more
information on the Nazi transformations in Nuremberg, see Scobie (note 2), pp.69-92.
33
Backes (note 17), p.123.
34
Van der Vat (note 22), p.70.
35
Bertman (note 1), p.5.
36
Petropoulos (note 24), pp.233-7.
37
Larsson (note 18), p.43.
38
Bertman (note 1), p.5.
39
Brenner (note 28), p.127.
40
Speer (note 23), p.153.
41
The Kongresshalle as well as the Siegestor both appear in sketches made by Hitler.
42
Rudolf Wolters in Joseph Wulf, Die bildenden Künste im Dritten Reich (Frankfurt am Main:
Ullstein, 1982), p.248.
43
For an analysis of sculpture and painting in the Third Reich, see Mortimer G. Davidson, Kunst
in Deutschland 1933-1945: Skulpturen (Thüringen: Grabert, 1988), Kunst in Deutschland 1933-
1945: Malerei I (Thüringen: Grabert, 1991), Kunst in Deutschland 1933-1945: Malerei II
(Thüringen: Grabert, 1992) and Michaud (note 6).
44
Taylor (note 10), p.32.
45
Michaud (note 6), p.164.
46
For a detailed study of the Neugestaltung of Berlin, see Scobie (note 2), pp.97-108 and above all
Larsson (note 18) and Hans J. Reichhardt and Wolfgang Schäche, Von Berlin nach Germania.
Über die Zerstörungen der Reichshauptstadt durch Albert Speers Neugestaltungsplanungen
(Berlin: Transit, 1984). For Speer’s architecture in general, see Speer et al., (note 25).
47
Griffin (note 7), p.280.
48
Ibid., p.318.
49
For more information on the influence of Hitler’s early period on his artistic vision, see
Grosshans (note 11), pp.3-70 and Spotts (note 3), pp.3-15. An important contribution to
appreciating Nazi modernism in art will be Gregory Maertz, The Invisible Museum: Unearthing
the Lost Modernist Art of the Third Reich (Yale: Yale University Press, forthcoming).
50
Alexander Demandt, “Klassik als Klischee: Hitler und die Antike”, Historische Zeitschrift,
274/2 (2002), pp.291-3.
51
Taylor (note 10), pp.91-2, Grosshans (note 11), pp.84-5 and Spotts (note 3), pp.22-3. By Greek,
Hitler must have meant Doric, as becomes clear from Albert Speer’s judgement: “By the Greeks
he meant the Dorians. Presumably, his view was affected by the theory, fostered by the scientists
of his period, that the Dorian tribe which migrated into Greece from the north had been of
Germanic origin and that, therefore, its culture had not belonged to the Mediterranean world.”
Speer (note 23), p.97.
52
Lorenz (note 14), p.427.
53
Spotts (note 3), pp.20-1.
54
Lorenz (note 14), p.423.
55
Henry Picker, Hitlers Tischgespräche im Führerhauptquartier 1941-42 (Bonn: Athenäum,
1951), p.409, also in Werner Jochmann, Adolf Hitler. Monologe im Führerhauptquartier 1941-
1944. Die Aufzeichnungen Heinrich Heims (Munich: Heyne, 1980), p.44. For more information,
see Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli, Dal diario di un borghese e altri scritti (Milan: Il Saggiatore,
1962 (1° 1948)), pp.170-92. The Mostra Augustea della Romanità has been the subject of various
excellent studies, such as Friedemann Scriba, Augustus im Schwarzhemd? Die Mostra Augustea
della Romanità in Rom 1937/38 (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1993) and “Il mito di Roma,
l’estetica e gli intellettuali negli anni del consenso: la Mostra Augustea della Romanità 1937/38”,
Quaderni di storia, 41 (1995), pp.67-84. During the Fascist ventennio the reception of antiquity
translated itself in the ideal of romanità or ‘Romanness’. This myth was one of the cornerstones of

15
fascist propaganda. It supposed a heritage from late Republican and early Imperial Rome. It was a
‘virtue’ which incorporated vague notions such as force, discipline, imperialism and in the end
even racial purity. For more information, see Romke Visser, “Fascist Doctrine and the Cult of the
Romanità”, Journal of Contemporary History, 27/1 (1992), pp.5-22 and Jan Nelis, “Un mythe
contemporain entre religion et idéologie: la romanité fasciste”, Euphrosyne. Revista de Filologia
Clássica, 35 (2007), pp.437-50 and “Constructing fascist identity: Benito Mussolini and the myth
of romanità”, Classical World, 100/4 (2007), pp.391-415. Romanità too had a decidedly futural,
modernising thrust (see Emilio Gentile, Fascismo di pietra (Bari: Laterza, 2007).
56
Petropoulos (note 24), p.75.
57
Griffin (note 7), pp.288-9 and Gregory Maertz, “The Invisible Museum: Unearthing the Lost
Modernist Art of the Third Reich”, MODERNISM/modernity 15/1 (2008), pp.63-85.
58
For more information on this debate, see Günter Busch, Entartete Kunst: Geschichte und Moral
(Frankfurt: Societäts-Verlag, 1969) and Stephanie Barron, Degenerate Art: The Fate of the Avant-
Garde in Nazi Germany (Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum, 1991). For Hitler’s role in it,
see Grosshans (note 11).
59
Maser, Adolf Hitler , pp.102-3.
60
Michaud (note 6).
61
Griffin (note 7).
62
See also ibid., p. 307: ‘art was held to be neither a deeply personal activity nor a commercial
activity, but a primary constituent of national identity and racial health, intimately bound up with
the social and the political spheres of life’.
63
Eberhard Jäckel and Axel Kuhn (eds.), Hitler. Sämtliche Aufzeichnungen 1905-1924 (Stuttgart:
Calmann-Lévy, 1980), p.427.
64
Ibid., p.187.
65
Igor Golomstock, Totalitarian Art in the Soviet Union, the Third Reich, fascist Italy and the
People’s Republic of China (London: Collins Harvill, 1990).
66
Spotts (note 3).
67
Michaud (note 6).
68
Golomstock, Totalitarian Art, p.166.
69
Cf. Grosshans (note 11), p.11: ‘Many of Hitler’s personality traits can be related, at least in part,
to his artistic temperament. His indifference to bureaucratic routine, his refusal to accept any
objective fact that contradicted his intuitive judgments, his hunger for what he thought of as
cosmic experience, all may be regarded as characteristics associated with a certain kind of artistic
insight, a confidence in a personalized, aesthetic perception of reality.’
70
Grosshans (note 11), pp.17-8.
71
Jochmann (note 55), p.93.
72
Speer (note 23), p.56. For more information, see Scobie (note 2), pp.93-6.
73
Bertman (note 1), p.6.
74
For more information on the ‘aestheticizing’ of politics under Nazism, see the excellent Spotts
(note 3). For a good and very early contextualization of this phenomenon, see George L. Mosse,
The Nationalization of the Masses (New York: Howard Fertig, 1975).
75
Demandt (note 50), p.307.
76
Volker Losemann, “The Nazi Concept of Rome”, in Catharine Edwards (ed.), Roman Presences.
Receptions of Rome in European Culture, 1789-1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1999), pp.223-4 and Spotts (note 3), p.21.
77
Demandt (note 50), p.287.
78
Ibid., p.282.
79
Partly because of the occult character of these societies it is not possible to identify precisely the
importance and nature of Hitler’s occultism as a component of his world view, let alone the role of
antiquity in it. For more information, see Giorgio Galli, Hitler e il nazismo magico (Milan: Rizzoli,

16
1989) and Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, Die okkulten Wurzeln des Nationalsozialismus (Graz:
Stocker, 1997 (1° 1992)).
80
Interesting in this context is Fuhrmann, who locates Hitler in what he calls the conservative
humanistische Bildungstradition. See Manfred Fuhrmann, “Die humanistische Bildungstradition
im Dritten Reich”, Humanistische Bildung, 8 (1984), pp.139-61.
81
Speer (note 23), pp.94-5. For an analysis of archaeology under Nazism, see Bettina Arnold,
“The Past as Propaganda: Totalitarian Archaeology in Nazi Germany”, in Robert Preucel and Ian
Hodder (eds.), Contemporary Archaeology in Theory: a Reader (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996),
pp.549-69.
82
Pierre Villard, “Antiquité et Weltanschauung hitlérienne”, Revue d’histoire de la deuxième
guerre mondiale, 88 (1972), p.8.
83
Demandt (note 50), p.283. This opera treated the figure of Cola di Rienzo (1313-1354), who in
1347 led a popular revolt against nobility in Rome. He acquired dictatorial powers and tried to
forge a unified Italy under Roman standards. He failed however, and was killed in 1354. For a
study of the ambiguity of Hitler’s attitude toward Wagner, see Jean Matter, Wagner et Hitler
(Lausanne: L’Age d’Homme, 1977) and Spotts (note 3), pp.223-63.
84
Picker, Hitlers Tischgespräche im Führerhauptquartier 1941-42, p.199.
85
Jäckel and Kuhn (note 63), p.191.
86
Ibid., p.591.
87
Jochmann (note 55), p.41.
88
To this we can add the fact that Hitler’s appropriation of the classical attracted minimal
resistance from the academic world, which in any case had roots in the nineteenth-century
conservative Altertumswissenschaft tradition. For more information on classical studies under Nazi
rule, see Volker Losemann, Nationalsozialismus und Antike. Studien zur Entwicklung des Faches
Alte Geschichte 1933-1945 (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 1977), “Arminius und Augustus.
Die Römisch-Germanische Auseinandersetzung im Deutschen Geschichtsbild”, in Karl Christ and
Emilio Gabba (eds.), Caesar und Augustus (Como: New Press, 1989), pp.129-63, “The Nazi
Concept of Rome” and “Nationalsozialismus und Antike – Bemerkungen zur
Forschungsgeschichte”, in Näf (ed.), Antike und Altertumswissenschaft in der Zeit von Faschismus
und Nationalsozialismus, pp.71-88. Under Italian Fascism the situation was quite equal, even if
there was somewhat more liberty, cf. Mariella Cagnetta, Antichisti e impero fascista (Bari: Dedalo,
1979), Leandro Polverini, “L”impero romano – antico e moderno”, in Näf (ed.), Antike und
Altertumswissenschaft in der Zeit von Faschismus und Nationalsozialismus, pp.145-63 and Jan
Nelis, “La romanité (romanità) fasciste. Bilan des recherches et propositions pour le futur”,
Latomus. Revue d’Etudes Latines, 66/4 (2007), pp.987-1006.
89
Hitler in Max Domarus, Hitler. Reden und Proklamationen 1932-1945 (Munich: Süddeutscher
Verlag, 1965), p.2084.
90
Griffin (note 7), pp.287, 294.
91
Alexander Demandt seems aware of this, but risks doing something which is ironic in the
context of a study of totalitarianism, namely dogmatically prescribing a canon, when he dictates to
his reader what should fascinate ‘us’ in the ancient past as liberal humanists: ‘We are fascinated by
the critical potential of Greek philosophy, the humanity of Roman legislation, the openness of
antiquity. [...] All States that call themselves Republic and Democracy, should remind themselves
of the Greco-Roman origin of these terms, and of classical texts’. Demandt (note 50), p.312.

17