German Art and War in the Year 1932

Abstract

This article surveys German representations of the First World War in the year 1932. It focuses on four cases. Two are works by protagonists of the Weimar Republic’s modern artistic culture, Käthe Kollwitz and Otto Dix. Two are by less well-known artists outside the modernist position in the field of German artistic production, Ernst Vollbehr and Paul Merling. The article considers the form, materiality, and iconography of these works to show how they convey, from very different perspectives, the experience of modern technological warfare. It also outlines the reception of the works. The article thus expands our understanding of the field of German artistic representations of war during the Weimar Republic and provides a new analysis of the relationship between art and ideology in the political and economic crisis that preceded Hitler’s rise to power.