Art has always been a cause for controversy
in some, but a recent find in Berlin has been called “a late triumph” over the
Hitler’s Nazis and a very dark chapter in human history. Archaeologists digging
near Berlin’s City Hall while the area was being excavated for a new metro
line, had been hoping to find some remnant of the city’s medieval history, but
instead stumbled upon eleven sculptures that had been classified as
“degenerate” by the Nazi Regime.
The works included bronzes by Otto Baum, Marg
Moll, Edwin Scharff, Gustav Heinrich Wolff, Naum Slutzky and Karl Knappe. Also
included were remnants of ceramics by Otto Freundlich, and Emy Roeder, as well
as three pieces which have not been identified. The works were found in the basement of a bombed out house,
where they’d been undisturbed for more than 60 years.
Some of the pieces are famous, and were even used in Nazi
propaganda disparaging Jewish art dealers for selling such “degenerate” pieces.
The director of Berlin’s George Kolbe Museum, Ursel Berger, explained that the
reasons for which art may have been classified as “degenerate” were completely
arbitrary: “…it may have been because the figures were too fat, too thin or
because they had a bulbous nose.”
The mayor of Berlin, Klaus Wowereit told the press that the find
represented a “document of resistance” because they may have belonged to Erhard
Oewerdieck who had once owned a house on the property.
He was known to have
provided aid to Jews trying to escape the nazi regime during the Second World
War, and he and his wife were later awarded an honorary title: “Righteous
Amoung the Nations” at the war’s end.
One of the archaeologists from the site, Mattias Wemhoff explained that
the decision has been made not to restore the works to their original
appearance.
Instead, the team feels that some of the evidence of fire damage should remain, “so that the fire's effect on them is still visible -- that way they are testament to their own fate.” The works can be viewed on display at Berlin’s New Museum.
