What criteria and slogans did Nazis use to define literature as 'un-German' or degenerate?
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Executive summary
The Nazis labeled modernist and politically oppositional culture “degenerate” (Entartete Kunst) and “un‑German,” seizing roughly thousands to tens of thousands of works and staging the 1937 Degenerate Art exhibition to shame them—650 works were shown in Munich and the purge removed between about 5,000 and 16,000 works from museums depending on source counts [1] [2] [3]. For literature the regime used slogans like “Action against the Un‑German Spirit,” blacklists, student‑led burnings on May 10, 1933, and administrative controls (Reich Cultural Chambers, Literary Chamber) that defined “un‑German” books as Jewish, Bolshevist, immoral, or inimical to Volk‑conscious culture [4] [5] [6].
1. How the Nazis framed the problem: “degenerate,” “un‑German,” “Jewish,” “Bolshevik”
Nazi officials presented a tidy causal story: modernist aesthetics and politically dissident ideas were symptoms of biological, moral, or mental decay and therefore “degenerate” or “un‑German.” Propaganda linked modern art and literature to Jewishness, Communism or “cultural Bolshevism,” arguing these works endangered public order and German racial purity [7] [8] [9]. The vocabulary—Entartete Kunst, “un‑German spirit,” “Jewish spirit of decomposition”—was explicit in student theses and official messaging used to mobilize public disgust [5] [6].
2. Criteria in practice: style, content, authors’ background, and political message
The label rested on mixed criteria. Stylistically, Expressionism, Dada, Surrealism, Cubism, Bauhaus and other modern movements were singled out as inherently suspect; subject matter that criticized war, exposed social ills, or celebrated “decadent” Weimar life was condemned [3] [8] [10]. Administratively, Jewish authors and leftist or pacifist writers were prioritized for exclusion: lists and blacklists named authors from Heine and Marx to Brecht and Mann [4] [11]. Officials coupled aesthetic rejection with racialized and political categories rather than consistent art‑historical criteria [9] [7].
3. Slogans and ritual acts: “Action against the Un‑German Spirit” and book burnings
The literary purge used memorable slogans and theatrical rituals. On April 8, 1933, student leaders announced the “Action against the Un‑German Spirit,” culminating in mass burnings—May 10, 1933—where thousands of volumes were cast into flames and the event was billed as a cleansing for “German renewal” [4] [5]. Placards and “Twelve Theses” attacked “Jewish intellectualism,” demanded a racially “pure” language and culture, and instructed students to “cleanse” libraries and collections [4] [5].
4. Institutional mechanics: Reich cultural bodies, confiscation, exhibitions, and laws
The Reich Ministry of Propaganda and affiliated bodies—Reich Chamber for Culture, Literary Chamber—systematized the purge. Commissions confiscated works from museums and libraries (the Munich show itself was organized by party officials), and by 1938 laws legalized confiscation without compensation; some works were sold abroad to fund the regime or destroyed [1] [3] [12]. The Degenerate Art exhibition was staged as propaganda: works were hung with mocking labels and juxtaposed with speeches attacking their “decay” [1] [13].
5. The purpose: control, homogenization, and legitimation of Nazi taste
Controlling what Germans read and saw served three goals: to eliminate ideological opponents, to normalize an officially approved “racially pure” aesthetic that supported Blut und Boden and militarist values, and to use spectacle to legitimize the regime’s cultural authority [1] [14] [8]. Success was partly paradoxical—the Degenerate Art show drew far more visitors than the state’s “Great German Art Exhibition,” exposing how propaganda could backfire even as policy punished artists and authors [1] [3].
6. Limits, variation, and internal competition inside the regime
Definitions were not monolithic. Early campaigns were locally organized; officials vied for influence—Rosenberg versus Goebbels—and that factionalism produced inconsistent definitions for years [7]. Some artists sympathetic to Nazis were nevertheless purged when their style or past did not match party taste; not every artist called “degenerate” was shown in Munich and not all banned books were burned in the same round [7] [15].
7. Aftermath and historical significance
The purge produced exile literature (Exilliteratur), clandestine reading, and a long postwar reckoning over looted or destroyed works; thousands of pieces were removed from collections, hundreds sold or burned, and the cultural landscape was permanently altered [16] [17] [3]. Institutional archives show the scale varied by count—estimates note confiscations from a few thousand to about 16,000 items—underscoring both the breadth of the purge and challenges of historical accounting [2] [3].
Limitations: available sources in this packet document the slogans, institutional mechanisms, exhibitions, burnings and broad criteria but do not supply verbatim all internal directives or a single formal checklist the Nazis used; local variation and evolving policy are emphasized in those records [7] [3].