The Archaic Postmodernity
National Socialist dignitaries devoted much energy to the promotion of German sculptors and helped them considerably in the execution of massive bas-reliefs and in the erection of monumental stone and bronze sculptures. The political goal was obvious: to bring German art as close as possible to the German people, so that any German citizen, regardless social standing, could identify himself or herself with a specific artistic achievement.
It should, therefore, come as no surprise that the German art of that time witnessed a return to classicism. Models from Antiquity and the Renaissance were to some extent adapted to the needs of National Socialist Germany. Numerous German sculptors benefited from the logistic and financial support of the political elite. Their sculptures resembled, either by form, or by composition, the works of Praxiteles or Phidias of ancient Greece, or the sculptures of Michelangelo during the Renaissance.

The most prominent German sculptors of that time were Arno Breker, Josef Thorak, and Fritz Klimsch, who although enjoying the significant logistical resources of the National Socialist regime, were never members of the N.S.D.A.P. Sculptures of naked women, such as “Flora” by Breker, “Girl” by Fehrle, or “Glance” by Klimsch, show excessively beautiful and geometrically pruned women who, sometimes, with their perfect bodies, with their narrow and lengthened ankles, with their well rounded and well-proportioned breasts, tire the eye of the observer.
In addition, the fact that many sculptures show naked males embracing naked females indicates that National Socialism was by no means a “conservative” or “reactionary” movement, and that Puritan Anglo-Saxon prudishness was completely alien to it. It is difficult to deny the great talent of Breker or Klimsch, even if some critics justly characterize their sculptures as workmanlike copies of classic artists.
As a young man, Breker lived in France where he was influenced by his future friend and sculptor, Aristide Maillol. After the war, many of Breker’s sculptures were destroyed by the American soldiers. In spite of his political troubles, Breker continued to work after the war making busts of his friends and protectors, (Salvador Dali, Hassan II, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, etc).
It should be noted that Breker, in the wake of the Allied occupation of Germany, was requested by the Soviets to continue his artistic career in the Soviet Union—an offer that he refused. It goes without saying that it is possible to draw certain parallels between the gigantism of the plastic art in National Socialist Germany and that of the Soviet Union (the naked Prometheus vis-à-vis the muscular and shirtless hammer-holding proletarian!). Yet the differences are again glaring: in Communist countries one could never find sculptures representing nude women and men—which confirms our thesis that Communism, although politically frightening, was primarily a prudish and conservative system. Indeed, even today, one can hardly encounter pictorial or plastic representations of embracing couples in China, Cuba, or in North Korea.
Neverthless, the sculptures of Venus or nymphs by Breker or Thorak display nothing provocative or pornographic; they never trigger sexual fantasies or erotic dreams, as is perhaps the case with the naked beauties painted by the Jewish-Italian artist Amadeo Modigliani. Upon the faces of the sculptures representing nude women made by German artists, one comes across an enigmatic and aristocratic smile and a deep sense of the tragic, which reflect, symbolically, the pessimism of a whole nation in search of its geopolitical identity. No trace can be found of female coquetry or flirtatiousness, such as one encounters among the nudes painted by the French realist, Gustave Courbet, by the Impressionist Edouard Manet, or by Paul Cézanne.
German painting of that time represents a chapter apart. Contrary to widespread ideas, “kitsch” was never part of art in National Socialist Germany. Indeed, the German National Socialist authorities adopted repressive measures against “kitsch” in the arts resembling those invoked against alleged “degenerate art.”
Regarding painting of that period, Germany suffered a considerable regression in the quality of its pictorial production. The early school of expressionism was abandoned and even severely repressed by the authorities as “degenerate art.” Expressionism, as opposed to Impressionism which originated in France, is paradoxically the typical feature of the German character and temperament, just as it is of other Germanic peoples (Flemings, Scandinavians).
Nevertheless, German artists of the expressionist school did not obtain the regime’s green light to exhibit their works. Schools of thought that had emerged from cultural circles such as Die Brücke or Neue Sachligkeit at the beginning of the twentieth century and had produced some of Europe’s great masters, were assailed by the National Socialist censorship.
Nevertheless, Dr. Joseph Goebbels was a great admirer of expressionist artists, and was on friendly terms with the Norwegian forerunner of expressionism, the famous painter, Edvard Munch. In December 1933, Goebbels sent a telegram to Edvard Munch on his seventieth birthday describing him as the spiritual heir of the Nordic spirit. Goebbels was also among the first to send condolences to his family on the occasion of his death in January 1944.
There were thus serious differences among NS politicians and academics regarding the nature and artistic value of expressionism, not just in its pictorial form, but also as poetic expression, as indicated by a still much admired German expressionist poet and cultural pessimist, Gottfried Benn, who was himself very close to National Socialism, and who, in his earlier days, conceived of National Socialism as first and foremost a cultural movement.
This is important because it shows that the National Socialist experiment, contrary to the later liberal-communist propaganda, was by no means a monolithic movement and that considerable personal and esthetical differences prevailed among its high ranking members and sympathizers.
The German painters, who, between 1933 and 1945, gained considerable reputation were neo-classicist portraitists and landscape painters who avoided pathetic and exaggerated compositions, and attempted to rid artistic work of every trace of the influence of Cubism and abstract art. Overall, one can sense in their paintings the revival of the taste for primitive art and a return to the Flemish masters of the fifteenth century.
Certain parallels can again be drawn with the paintings known as “socialist-realist” in the Soviet Union and other communist countries. However, even here the difference is obvious. Whereas one can see on the paintings of Soviet artists peasants and workmen adorned with their perpetual grins and in the background a factory under construction, on the German paintings of that time seldom can one see signs of industrialization. Traces of the asphalt, chimneys spewing fumes, or factories in full gear—such as one can observe among “socialist-realist” painters (and in their titanic and apocalyptic form among the futuristic artists in fascistic Italy!), very rarely appear in the German paintings of that period. Just as one can draw a comparison between German sculptors and Soviet sculptors, one can also notice a difference between figurative art under Communism and figurative art under National Socialism.
In the art galleries of the Third Reich the scenes of handsome rural nymphs abound (Amadeus Dier, Johannes Beutner, Sepp Hilz, etc). These pastoral beauties, which can be observed on oil paintings, exude family harmony, and seem to anticipate a well-deserved rest after a hard day’s work in the cornfields. Also worth mentioning is the artist and a wood engraver, Ernst von Dombrowski, whose scenes of country life and young children playing, still win great praise from critics.
In conclusion, one can state that the German sculpture of that time, proclaims, at least as a rule, a message of racial and promethean hygiene, while the paintings of that time reveal a distinct and populist (völkisch) tendency that can hardly be misconstrued for any ideological or political speculation.
Ernst von Dombrowski (1896–1985), Scenes from peasant life in Germany (woodcuts)
Dr. Tom Sunic (websites here and here) is author, translator, former US professor in political science and a member of the Board of Directors of the American Third Position. He is the author of Homo americanus: Child of the Postmodern Age, prefaced by Kevin MacDonald (2007). The third edition of his book Against Democracy and Equality; the European New Right, prefaced by Alain de Benoist, has just been released.

















Facing the Future as a Minority




Tomislav Sunić:
“Yet the differences are again glaring: in Communist countries one could never find sculptures representing nude women and men—which confirms our thesis that Communism, although politically frightening, was primarily a prudish and conservative system.”
Don’t you remember the movies produced during communism in Yugoslavia???
Virtually all of them (except the “partisan films”) were semi-pornographic.
I’m only halfway through, and headed back to finish, very good so far, but I wanted to express my deepest sympathy to any lingering Goebbels relations, Ministers of Propaganda all, for the defaming title that must – by some pillar of our new religion, Holocaustianity – never be forgotten.
Facepalm
uritan Anglo-Saxon prudishness
Only a remarkably ignorant, or envious writer would describe our self restraint and respect for the sacredness of sexuality as ‘prudish’.
Of course, Sunic IS completely ignorant about Anglo Saxons, Puritians, etc. That doesn’t stop him from making asinine comments like this. Kind of like me saying “typical east european borishiness and boasting..” oh wait….
Neither envious nor ignorant, but opinionated. Perhaps Sunic hit a soft spot there? However you want to call Victorian ideas about sexuality, you have to acknowledge that – from a middle-European perspective – “prudish” is a valid way to describe them. Yet, Anglo-Saxon culture is said to have spawned one of the industries most opposed to prudishness or dogmatic modesty or sexual restraint (pick one): the porn industry. Some even say, that prudishness as opposed to a natural attitude towards sexuality forced the very existence of pornography as cultural pressure valve.
I do not fully subscribe to that view, as I think that the fragmentation of our culture into various distorted and extremely opposed sub-cultures is in no small part cultural-marxist doing. And we all know, who the puppeteers behind that stage are. Furthermore, Anglo-American culture has never been homogenous, as America has never been ethnically homogenous. So there may indeed be elements of prudishness in its society, which just do not prevail everywhere. It would therefore be unjust to generalize these elements.
I have never appreciated Arno Breker’s gigantic muscular sculptures.For me they represent the NS regime’s megalomaniac Übermensch fantasies that became ultimately it’s misfortune.Even when he tries to express female gracefulness Breker ends in depicting male muscular Tüchtigkeit.
The female body is characterized by broad hips and narrow shoulders,the male body by broad shoulders and narrow hips.In this scuplture “Flora” of Arno Breker the “woman” has broad shoulders and narrow hips and gives more the impression of an athletic man than that of a graceful woman,though the female forms are also present.The result is a curious “hermaphroditic” experience.
I have been to hear Dr. Sunic in person and have met him a number of times and am always impressed with the depth of his knowledge. I think that there are few writers or commentators that are more acquainted with the personalities of European peoples whether they be Germans, Anglo-Saxons or Slavs, than Dr. Sunic. “Me” go back and adjust the covers on your dining room table legs, they are showing above the ankles!
It has been so long since Franklyn Ryckaert has seen the form of a young woman he thinks that it looks like a man! The reality is that this is what most young women used to look like in the nude before the modern diet.
Franklyn:
Our Texas German girls often tend to be heavy-boned…they often have gigantic fathers and brothers as well, maybe this is an accurate likeness of the “Borreby” type so common in central Europe?
Just a thought.
Yet, Anglo-Saxon culture is said to have spawned one of the industries most opposed to prudishness or dogmatic modesty or sexual restraint (pick one): the porn industry
yeah, wasps started the porn industry.
you have to acknowledge that – from a middle-European perspective – “prudish” is a valid way to describe them.
Oh yes they are so much more ‘manly’ then us. lets see. Roark’s Drift, Lucknow, Trafalgar, Midway, I can go on, and on and on… East Europeans, by comparison are incompetent cowards. Being driven or controlled by your lusts or passions is the very definition of uncivilized.
ome even say, that prudishness as opposed to a natural attitude towards sexuality forced the very existence of pornography as cultural pressure valve.
funny it didn’t exist in more ‘prudish’ 18th century america.. but we didn’t have as many east european jews then.
Mr. Me, or whatever that may me- ean is right. East Europeans are cowards, typical “homini sovietici” species, thinking now about the fast buck and Western glitz. ..No wonder considering that nations of Central and East Europe lost their best gene pool in late May 1945. Several hundred thousand Croat soldiers and civilians who had surrendered to the Brits in Carinthia, Austria were shipped back to Titos’ commie henchman. 12 million German civilians were outed from E. Europe with the benediction of Western powers. Ibid for Cossacks, Russian anticommunists, Hungarians, etc. In the name of Biblical prudishness, the code name Gomorrah, US boys firebombed Hamburg and Cologne in summer 1943. East Europe and Russia are now good enough for lone aged boys in heat from the West and the USA in search of good looking East European chicks who are not yet contaminated by the feminist mystique — which is just a secular version of former puritan prudishness. btw this type of inter-white dispute among us wont’ help us. As yourself a question, Who benefits from our infighting? Cui bono?
As yourself a question, Who benefits from our infighting? Cui bono?
Ask yourself the question why do you antagonize? You are no better than the eastern european jews who come into our nations and ‘critique’ our culture.
If you don’t’ like us, our culture, etc, go back to your own, simple as that. Fact is you were never ever to develop stable, high trust societies. Compared to our artists, writers, scientists, philosophers and inventors you have produced little of value.
You claim our isolation helped us but that’s neither here nor there. Your cultures are far more rotten than ours, and you’re the last person on earth, besides Alan Dershowitz, i’d take advice from.
and i repeat anyone ignorant enough to simply call us ‘prudish’ has no understanding of our ways and mores. Self restraint and self control are the marks of civilized peoples. You only display your ignorance, for example when you refer to puritanical’ or prudish saxons – its like your understanding of our culture comes from reading the Scarlet Letter. Well, moron, the puritans saw sex as a great and good gift from God, and it was sinful to not engage in sex within marriage. Of course, people, presumably such as yourself, who come from cultures unable to practice self control (like africans) call that ‘prudish’.
@ kevin macdonald – why do you associate assh*les like Sunic? really what do you expect to gain from a guy who posts Anti-Anglo, Anti-Christian julius evola nonsense? Do you expect that to appeal to temperate minded Saxons? do you expect his ‘critique’ of our culture to benefit us? I believe an appeal to our traditional ways (not neopagan nonsense) , our traditional way of life before cultural marxism is the strongest force on earth – just look how even the recent royal wedding united and energized us…
I am not at all saying we can couldn’t stand improvement, and constructive criticism, but this is not it.
@me:
It was precisely your “civilized” nature that led to your downfall. The thing about history is that it doesn’t reward people for their civility, it rewards them for their willingness to survive. Rourke’s Drift, you say? You were only in Africa because the powerful Jewish merchant class sent your soldiers there for gold, silver, etc.
The thing about Eastern Europe is that it’s had a rough history. The Kiev Rus was a great superpower for quite a while until the Mongols came and ravaged everything. Eastern Europe has routinely acted as a kind of lightning rod, taking on the brunt of Asiatic aggression against Europe throughout the centuries.
Despite this, Russia was the last of the European nations to fall under Jewish control in 1917. Today the East European nations are arguably the least Judaized and most ethnocentric of White nations. The biggest problems are the low birth rates and poor health of the native populations. With some major overhauls in the governments that can change, but I fear that the problem with West Europeans is much more innate– they are absolutely hellbent on self-destruction.
@fender – you’re welcome to leave our anglo-saxon nations then, and leave us to ourselves. thank you.
Which is it? Is our civilization worth preserving? are we exceptional because of our civilization, or not? The idea that our civilization led to our downfall is just nonsense.. . -The fact that we could conquer and hold the Indian penusula with no more than 50,000 troops at one time, the fact that we could defeat the Spanish armada (twice) and vastly more powerful french and spanish fleets untold times, comes from our civilized, restrained nature. The ability to organize.. The ability to keep cool under fire.. .. – unlike east europeans.
The greater point is this, Sunic repeatedly posts articles here about how unmanly we are (and all north Europeans) and how manly East Europeans are. This is boastful, empty nonsense, like one hears from muslims (perhaps that’s where they got it) .
He is completely ignorant of our culture, he is completely ignorant of our ways.
I don’t think you’ll find many anglo-saxons who will warm up to his loony tune articles and postings.
I can’t think of a white society that couldn’t use a bit of “prudishness” now and then. It’s this self-control that went hand in hand with the civilization and creativity of the English. That they and the rest of us lurched into the opposite kind of behavior is nothing new. The swing of the pendulum.
I must confess to sympathy for me’s opinions. Tom’s writing on the US and homo Americus strike me as simply …off.
Prudery is a very good thing. It is what has kept us human, as opposed, for example, African. I watch a little American JewTV and long for “boy meets tractor” type films. We now routinely have non-prudish, almost explicit coitus on prime time. We are being literally de-Moralilzed by the sex-is-good crowd. Sex is actually mostly ridiculous. The proper place for sex is in the bedroom and nowhere else, and ought not to be considered as recreation. Prudes have something else to do besides act like animals in permanent heat.
I do not claim to know anything about sex in Europe except that it is now about as randy as sex here. Sexual Presentation is Everywhere. We even have a store in San Francisco called FCUK (I upbraided them for it a couple years ago.)
Howard Stern deserves to be castrated and cast out of our presence.
Psychoanalysis/Jews have helped to ruin us.
On a recent road trip, I was in Jackson Wyoming and had a pleasant flirtation with a Serbian gal about 25. She was a sales gal and loved our White Nationalist stuff. Had been to college and was pretty well informed about Serbian and Balkan politics. She was very feminine and perhaps was coming on to me, and why not?, a Californian with brains, apparent money, and not-bad looks. She seemed ok to me in her self-presentation, very feminine, and still able to talk rationally about our stuff. This experience was certainly much more satisfying than trying to talk to the average USA college ejakated know-it-all liberal bitch. She was attractive, etc.(but I got something better maybe going on here at home.)
So, maybe Tom is confusing liberal femi-commie bitches with “prudes.”
European women are usually more feminine than our women, and that is attractive to any male. It is the old issue of how best to protect the womb from invasive species. Women guard or fail to guard the Gateway to the Future. Men bitch about “prudes” and also about “sluts.” Men are fundamentally male sluts, and should be compelled to behave themselves. Ditto women. To use terms like prude as an insult is insipid. Give me a woman who publicly presents as a ‘prude’ any day, over one who bares too much flesh or wears the tights that we now have everywhere that even outline the mound of Venus. God help us.
Joe
by the way, my experience of Expressionism is mostly negative. It is extreme emotion, was usually a tool of the jews and commies to attack Whites and “Bourgeois Society” (high Western Civ) and was vulgar in some slash and burn sense. It is with us now in our jew-movies of the greatest meaningless violence and animal sex. Who was that German Jew…Heartburn or someone…gawd! or George Grosze (sp?). Commies, pornographers, Jews, and Queers…that is what it was mostly.
We are starting to demolish some of the Modernist buildings, and only fools, jews, and hip college students go to modern art museums. Modernism was also the Ultimate Cynicism, the ultimate destination of LIberalism’s shipwreck. Joe
Modernism, Expressionism, Da-da, Futurism…all degenerate in my book. In this regard AH was completely correct. It is not so much that these ART movements were about the ugly, etc, it is that they were and are Wrong about the West, even the Liberal West. They were untruthful, and that is the worst thing. Lies; and lies about the White race. Hollywood is a whorehouse, run by jews, and degrading our people. Of course, probably a majority of Whites know this and refuse to go to movies, etc. Joe
going back to Tom’s third paragraph in which he disses the female representaions as “tiring” the eye, or “excessively beautiful”…etc…this sounds pretty strange to me. Are we talking about beauty here or what” What is ‘excessive’ beauty? Should we cultivate our own personal paunches (men) to make certain we are not excessively beautiful? Should our women put on even more weight than they are already carrying around? ( a study could be done on how much the GDP suffers from obesity, or fuel economy in cars is affected by carrying around tons of fat.) Beauty ‘tires’ the eye of the beholder? News to me. How about some ugly and fat kids…that would do the trick. ONe of the reasons for the beauty of children is that they are usually Not fat, have admirable bodies, and mostly at least the little ones, have sweet and angelic smiles and Openess in personality. Lets fix that and make them grim. Did not that Ultimate Evil One love kids? J
I am wondering how this debate drifted from Germany to Eastern Europeans. Sunic admittedly made some poignant remarks about ‘prudishness’, but is that really the issue? If I were confident that my ‘prudishness’ is mere modesty and sexual restraint, I would simply shrug off any culture criticism directed at it. I’d take it as a compliment. But some commentators here seem overly piqued, which leads me to suspect a lack of confidence in their own culture. As lack of confidence is central to the white racial neurosis, this is not unexpected.
Swinging around to German Art, please let me point out, that it was not prudishness or weakness nor a missing will to survive, that brought about the decline of Anglo-Saxon culture; a big part of it is the madness that gripped Anglo-Saxons all over the world not just once, but twice in the last century to cross the seven seas and stifle the last hope of our race. The soldiers who smashed Arno Breker’s sculptures are symbolic for bringing about the downfall of the civilization, they so foolishly thought to save.
Nobody questions Anglo-Saxon daring and prowess on the stage of history. But that did not stop you from letting yourselves be goaded to destroying white racial salvation.
@Joe Webb: this sounds pretty strange to me perhaps sunic is one of those neo-pagans like james o’meara who want a neoSparta with a man-boy relationsihp. I wouldn’t surprise me, seriously
@Michael: But some commentators here seem overly piqued, which leads me to suspect a lack of confidence in their own culture
this is not first time Sunic has posted this nonsense. I merely point it’s counter productive and tiresome. his comments, as I have said, show a complete lack of understanding of our culture.
do you honestly think we suffer from ‘prudishness’? really? as for lack of confidence, I have said we can stand a ton of improvement now, but I hardly think sunic is an improvement. Why MacDonald associates with him baffles me.
@Michael:
… the madness that gripped Anglo-Saxons all over the world not just once, but twice in the last century to cross the seven seas and stifle the last hope of our race. The soldiers who smashed Arno Breker’s sculptures are symbolic for bringing about the downfall of the civilization, they so foolishly thought to save.
That’s the real point.
The same Anglo-Saxons who smashed the statues of Breker – and some are still proud of it – now, at the rhythm of Jewish whips, worship Rothko’s monocolor paintings, Tracey Emin’s “unmade beds” and Piero Manzoni’s “Artist’s Shit” cans.
A tragic bunch, indeed. White Mans’s tragedy in a nutshell.
@Joe Webb:
precisely
“Do not be proud of the fact that your grandmother was shocked at something which you are accustomed to seeing or hearing without being shocked. . . . It may mean that your grandmother was an extremely lively and vital animal; and that you are a paralytic.” – Chesterton.
thanks me. I am curious. I would bet about 3 to 1 that you are a woman. Most men, even our men, are still randy. We men have been screwed, so to speak, by the jews. Time to respect, not women, but that too, but one’s Whole Self and its Demands for honor, procreation, provisioning wife and children, and soldiering…when the time comes.
Character before Intellect. When Character is ripe, the genes will instruct on politics. Joe
Thanks for the article Tom. I enjoyed this one as well as your other articles on TOO. And I enjoy listening to the Sunic Journal on VOR. I think I see in some comments here what you call “petty nationalism” that you say is an issue in Europe but no so much in the U.S.
Perhaps we can just appreciate this article, and, insult less, its writer.
@George: perhaps he can insult ,i>us a little less. Perhaps he can seriously re-examine some of his presumptions.
@Joe Webb: i can understand why you’d assume that but.. no a man:) . It is only very very recently that lack of sexual control and chivlaric behavior was somehow considered ‘effeminate’ 19th century america and britian perfectly understood the distinction between gentleman and a dandy, and a cad did not equal a man, in fact the exact opposite.
“you’re welcome to leave our anglo-saxon nations then”
LOL. You have no “nations”, old man.
Artificial mothers of 2011 abuse their children.
The artificial woman (‘feminist” “independant” “free”) of 2011 is the end result of their own abusive childhood going all the way back to when mothers were connected to the land (before the industrial revolution)….many generations were required to bring motherhood to its current depth of degeneration.
Child abuse has always existed, but was in the distant past, tempered by the physical necessity of mother-child contact…(before daycare, formula, huggies, etc)…mothers had no choice but to nurse their children…THIS EARLY PHYSICAL AND EMOTIONAL STIMULATION IS VITAL TO SURVIVAL, not to mention subsequent development.
When we moved off the land, we lost contact with Nature and family, and became ARTIFICIAL creatures of SOCIETY.
Men and women traded their place at the plow and the hearth to compete for the SAME place on the assembly line.
In this way, over time, “equality” was born, and dignity died. Pornography was born and moral standards died. homosexuality was born and marriage died.
Picaso was born and the elaborately decorated quilt hand sewn by expert grandmotherly hands died.
It is not that young girls today don’t instinctivly want to be mothers…they no longer know how, and they couldn’t even if they did, competing with men is a full time job. There is only time to squirt them out, stick a bottle in their mouth, and drop them off at daycare.
And what of the men?? well that requires a whole other story.
Suffice to say that most of us were raised by ARTIFICIAL WOMEN.
Me…well a handshake to you. Your prose was manly enough…. there are far too few of us men who see it our way. I just watched the movie, Master and Commander, which has many nice moments. ONe of them was ship in port and Commander (married) acknowledging the smiles of dockside beauty with gentlemanly regard/smile and then a turn away. That, in one scene and four seconds instructs…but jew TV/movies got hundreds or thousands of hours of instruction in blackened sexual behavior for our people. When we set aside habitat for Jews and Blacks, they can get on famously. Freud meets ho-house Mama. Joe
http://www.gdk-research.de/db/apsisa.dll/ete
New Online Database Makes Third Reich Art Public
http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,792494,00.html