Early Nazi Paintings/Pictures

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JLEES
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Early Nazi Paintings/Pictures

#1

Post by JLEES » 24 May 2003, 14:04

Hello,
I have this Nazi postcard depicting a young Hitler speaking during the early days of the struggle to a small solemnly listening crowd in the Munich Sterneckerbräu cellar. Hitler attended his first meeting of the German Labour Party (DAP) on September 12, 1919. As I understand the situation, the DAP was composed mainly of workman, craftsman and members of the lower middle class dissatisfied with Germany’s political situation. Earlier, Anton Drexler, who believed the worker should have a subordinate place within a strong, honored Germany, founded this party, which held their weekly meets in the Leiber Room of the Sterneckerbräu. Drexler noticing Hitler had “the gift of gab” asked him to join and was given the membership number #55, and simultaneously, the seventh member of the executive committee. The following month on October 16, Hitler gave his first public speech for the party at the Hofbräukeller in front of a hundred and eleven people and within a year had become its propaganda chief. During those early days he reportedly spoke of the inequality of the Versailles Treaty and the Jewish Problem. The card is based off of a painting that was one of the main works at the 1937 Great German Art Exhibition in Munich’s House of German Art and later hung in Brown House. In this example, Hoyer places Hitler almost on a biblical level with that of Jesus Christ in the semi-religious Nazi piece by entitling the work, First There Was the Word, which is a clear reference to the opening of the biblical Gospel of John. Hoyer accomplishes this artistically by placing him above his captivated audience, lighted with a dark background setting. By depicting him in this manner, Hoyer is communicating that Hitler is the new messiah, establishing a contemporary religion and will eventually lead the German people on a great crusade against the forces of evil, that is, the international Jewish conspiracy that is attempting to destroy the Reich from within and out. The propaganda image was reproduced by Hanfstaengl into postcard format and received wide production and dissemination in the later thirties, being eagerly purchased by German admirers.

Looking at the card several individuals in the audience have been placed in prominent positions by Hoyer. Like the woman immediately to the left of Hitler, the person holding the flag and the person sitting frontally at the extreme left of the table with green suit looking up at Hitler. Could the individual holding the flag be the same person shot during the Beer Hall Putsch? Could the individual in green suit be Drexler? There are also two additional people sitting frontally directly behind the table. Does anyone know who are they? I’m sure Hoyer placed them there for a reason. Can anyone identify any of them?
James
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AlifRafikKhan
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Re: Early Nazi Paintings/Pictures

#2

Post by AlifRafikKhan » 06 Jan 2015, 17:37

push


Mannheim
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Re: Early Nazi Paintings/Pictures

#3

Post by Mannheim » 06 Jan 2015, 23:25

As a matter of interest, I had to go to a formal ball back around 1970 and went into Sydney CBD to hire a dinner suit. The bloke who ran the business gave me his business card (which I still have somewhere) and I saw his name was Hans Drexler. He had an accent so I (bluntly) asked him if he was related to Anton Drexler. He told me Anton Drexler was his uncle or grandfather - I forget which - and said I was the first person in Australia to ask him about the connection. He could have been having me on bit I don't think so.
Kein Irrtum ist so groß, der nicht seinen Zuhörer hat.

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Timmy
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Re: Early Nazi Paintings/Pictures

#4

Post by Timmy » 26 Jan 2015, 17:54

This photograph was sold titled as "In the Begining was the Word". There is several websites that sell it as a poster.

I don't think anybody besides Hitler was ever identified in the photograph, I could be wrong though.

For further information on this read:

http://www.bytwerk.com/gpa/ah-art.htm

http://www.ushmm.org/information/press/ ... s-the-word

Harm Wulf
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Re: Early Nazi Paintings/Pictures

#5

Post by Harm Wulf » 06 Feb 2015, 18:24


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Wessel
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Re: Early Nazi Paintings/Pictures

#6

Post by Wessel » 14 May 2015, 22:38

Here's a nice painting in celebration of the Anschluss in 1938.
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Wessel
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Re: Early Nazi Paintings/Pictures

#7

Post by Wessel » 30 Jun 2015, 20:59

Another couple from 'Die Kunst im Deutschen Reich'.
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Frischluft
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Re: Early Nazi Paintings/Pictures

#8

Post by Frischluft » 15 Dec 2017, 21:59

JLEES wrote:Can anyone identify any of them?
Large picture: https://i.imgur.com/5Fxguae.jpg?1

The man might be Dietrich Eckart. The woman might be Eleonore Baur (the hairdo at least is similar :wink:).

The man to Hitler's right looks like Kaltenbrunner. However, that's not possible because he was not a party member in the 1920s.

The woman on the far left looks like Winifred Wagner the late 1930s.
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uhu
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Re: Early Nazi Paintings/Pictures

#9

Post by uhu » 16 Dec 2017, 02:00

Hope this isn't a duplicate, but here's some propaganda radio,
https://oldradioprograms.us/My%20Old%20 ... ervice.mp3

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Geoff Walden
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Re: Early Nazi Paintings/Pictures

#10

Post by Geoff Walden » 17 Dec 2017, 23:36

While I don't think that individual looks that much like Dietrich Eckart myself, I do agree that Hoyer most likely meant a lot of those in the painting to portray actual people (in addition to AH). On 9 Nov. 1923, the Blutfahne was borne by Heinrich Trambauer. Trambauer was wounded and dropped the flag (so the story goes), and Andreas Bauriedl fell mortally wounded and drenched the flag with his blood.

Here is a photo said to be Heinrich Trambauer ... to me, this certainly looks like it could be the man holding the flag in Hoyer's painting. Also a photo of Anton Drexler. I don't know ... minus the mustache and glasses, that could be him in green.
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"Ordnung ist das halbe Leben" - I live in the other half.
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Br. James
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Re: Early Nazi Paintings/Pictures

#11

Post by Br. James » 18 Dec 2017, 23:54

While I agree that the Hermann Otto Hoyer intended the audience in "In the Beginning was the Word" to look like real people, I think his goal was to make them look like ordinary people and not identifiable, specific individuals. If Hoyer did intend to capture specific people in his painting, we can see from his rendering of the young Hitler that he undoubtedly had the talent to do that effectively...and yet we can't identify anyone in that crowd as persons from the early times of the DAP/NSDAP. This seems to me to be in keeping with Hitler's thoughts on the masses of his listeners; this quote from "Mein Kampf," Volume 1, Chapter 6, is one of the many expressions of his thoughts on the place of the anonymous masses: "The function of propaganda does not lie in the scientific training of the individual, but in calling the masses' attention to certain facts, processes, necessities, etc., whose significance is thus for the first time placed within their field of vision." I believe Hoyer captured that thought in his powerful painting.

Br. James

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