Abstract
This essay juxtaposes modern German design with cultural politics from 1919 to 1939, demonstrating the interlocking relationship of craft and industry during this pivotal period. Rejecting conventionally opposing categories of “hand” and “machine,” it reveals instead how material properties and technical processes became charged with political meaning. While the Nazis exploited modern handcraft (like the early, earthy ceramics from the Weimar Bauhaus) in service of their populist nationalism, they also deployed “clean,” progressive, industrial design (like Bauhaus-trained Wilhelm Wagenfeld’s sleek, transparent glassware) as visual and material propaganda, creating the illusion of a modern regime deeply invested in providing German citizens with cutting-edge conveniences in the latest style. Why did the Nazis appropriate an aesthetic rhetoric of transparency for their political agenda, which was so dependent on secrecy, hypocrisy, and opacity? The pages that follow explore how and why modern German design – and transparent glass objects in particular – slipped so easily into enemy hands.
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