Reichskammer der bildenden Künste

Reichskammer der bildenden Künste
Name	Reichskammer der bildenden Künste
Formation	1933
Dissolved	1945
Type	State-controlled professional chamber
Headquarters	Berlin
Leader title	President
Parent organization	Reichskulturkammer

Reichskammer der bildenden Künste was the state-controlled chamber for visual arts established under the Reichskulturkammer in 1933, charged with regulating painters, sculptors, architects, graphic artists and art dealers across the Third Reich. It operated within the bureaucratic framework of the Reichskulturkammer, interacting with institutions such as the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, the Prussian Academy of Arts, and municipal cultural offices in Berlin, Munich, Dresden, and Vienna. Its administration and policies intersected with leading figures and organizations including Joseph Goebbels, Hermann Göring, Adolf Hitler, Alfred Rosenberg, the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, and the Deutsches Historisches Museum.

History

The chamber was created after the passage of laws and decrees following the Reichstag fire period and the Gleichschaltung policies that affected the Prussian Ministry of Culture, the Weimar Republic cultural apparatus, and regional entities like the Saxon State Ministry and the Württemberg Ministry of Culture. Early actions involved coordination with the Prussian Academy of Arts, the Bayerische Akademie der Schönen Künste, the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, and municipal authorities in Hamburg, Cologne, Leipzig, and Frankfurt. Purges and exhibitions—such as the 1933 campaigns against "degenerate art" leading to confiscations from the Neue Sachlichkeit, Expressionist, Dada, Bauhaus, and modernist circles—linked the chamber’s procedures to actions affecting artists associated with the Bauhaus, Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Emil Nolde, and Oskar Kokoschka. The chamber’s regulatory framework drew on legislation like the Reich Culture Chamber Law and administrative directives issued by the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda and was enforced by regional offices in Baden, Bavaria, Saxony, Thuringia, Hannover, and the Eastern territories including Danzig and Ostpreußen.

Organization and Structure

Administratively the chamber functioned as a branch of the Reichskulturkammer under the auspices of the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, with liaison roles to the Prussian State Ministry, the Bavarian State Ministry, and municipal cultural administrations in Stuttgart, Hannover, Nuremberg, and Breslau. Its hierarchy mirrored similar bodies like the Reichstheaterkammer and the Reichsmusikkammer and included divisions corresponding to painting, sculpture, architecture, decorative arts, and art trade, with oversight from offices connected to the Berlin municipal government and the Reichsbank for financial controls. Leadership positions involved officials who coordinated with committees of the Prussian Academy, the Akademie der bildenden Künste München, the Künstlerhaus Wien, the Deutscher Werkbund, the Reichsverband Bildender Künstler, and professional guilds in Hamburg, Bremen, and Lübeck.

Membership and Admission Criteria

Membership was mandatory for practitioners wishing to work legally in the professions regulated by the chamber, with registration requirements enforced through local offices in Düsseldorf, Mannheim, Karlsruhe, Bonn, and Magdeburg. Admission criteria referenced racial and political reliability as interpreted by agencies such as the Sicherheitsdienst, the Gestapo, and municipal police cultural departments, and involved verification against lists compiled by provincial cultural ministries in Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg, and Silesia. Artists associated with movements or personalities like László Moholy-Nagy, Lyonel Feininger, Max Beckmann, Käthe Kollwitz, Curt Herrmann, and Oskar Schlemmer often faced denial, while adherents of classical tradition linked to Anton von Werner, Adolph von Menzel, Arno Breker, and Karl Friedrich Schinkel-aligned schools were favored. Professional credentials from institutions such as the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts, the Städelschule, the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, and the Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg were assessed alongside recommendations from local chambers in Bremen and Augsburg.

Roles and Functions

The chamber regulated licensing, exhibition approvals, sales through auction houses like the Dorotheum and firms in Leipzig and Munich, and supervision of public commissions administered by city councils in Berlin, Munich, Dresden, and Stuttgart. It organized and sanctioned exhibitions in venues such as the Haus der Kunst, the Glaspalast, the Neue Nationalgalerie’s antecedents, and regional museums including the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, the Münchner Residenz, and the Kunsthalle Bremen. The chamber coordinated with cultural propaganda campaigns led by offices linked to the Reichstag, the Prussian Academy, the German Labour Front, the National Socialist Teachers League, and the Hitler Youth for visual representation in state events, rallies at Nuremberg and Bayreuth, and architectural projects tied to Albert Speer, Paul Troost, and the Reichsbauamt. It administered censorship, export controls affecting art trade with Switzerland, the Netherlands, and France, and seizure protocols that intersected with actions by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg and municipal confiscation committees.

Relationship with Nazi Cultural Policy

The chamber was integral to implementation of policies emanating from the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda and ideological guidance from figures like Alfred Rosenberg, Joseph Goebbels, Hermann Göring, and Baldur von Schirach, linking cultural orthodoxy to institutions such as the NAtional Socialist Women's League and the SS Cultural Office. Its standards reflected debates between proponents of monumental classicism favored by Hitler and proponents of regional folklore aesthetics endorsed by the Reichsnährstand, and it mediated tensions involving architectural programs by Albert Speer, Aenne Biermann-linked photographers, and proponents of traditionalist painting associated with the Blut und Boden movement. International consequences affected exchanges with institutions like the Louvre, the British Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and collectors including Jacques Seligmann, Henri Matisse’s circle, and families in Amsterdam and Paris.

Dissolution and Legacy

Following defeat in 1945, Allied occupation authorities including the Soviet Military Administration, the British Military Government, and the United States Office of Military Government for Germany ordered denazification measures that dissolved the chamber alongside the Reichskulturkammer, affecting repositories such as the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, the Nationalgalerie, and municipal collections in Cologne and Hanover. The postwar art world saw restitutions, provenance research by institutions like the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program, legal actions in tribunals addressing looted works linked to dealers and collectors in Paris, Amsterdam, Zurich, and New York, and the rehabilitation of artists connected to the Akademie der Künste, the Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg, and the Düsseldorf Academy. Its archival traces influenced later scholarship at universities including Humboldt University, the University of Munich, the University of Oxford, and the Institute of Contemporary History, and continue to inform studies conducted by provenance researchers, museum curators, and cultural historians examining links to the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg, the Degenerate Art exhibition, and restitution cases in Frankfurt, Berlin, Munich, and Salzburg.

Category:Art history institutions Category:Organizations of Nazi Germany