Censorship of artistic expression in Nazi Germany: Prof. Dr. Aya Soika shares expertise in German art history

Prof. Dr. Aya Soika was featured in the documentary Free to Speak - The Speech we Hate, sharing her expertise on Nazi-era art history. The three-part series was produced by the Free to Choose Network and is affiliated with PBS.

As part of a broader discussion on free expression and censorship in literature and the arts around the world, Soika was interviewed as an expert in German art history and featured in the section titled “Censoring Art.”

To demonstrate the dangers of artistic censorship, the documentary describes one of the most radical cleansing campaigns of modern art works from Germany’s public collections—the 1937 confiscation of so-called “Degenerate Art” that subsequently toured throughout the country in a large propaganda exhibition attended by millions of visitors. Soika explains in the documentary, “These works that were formerly kept in German museums were now ridiculed as ‘bad works’ that could spoil the German people. For many people, it was the first encounter with modern art ever, and many of them bought the propaganda.”

However, Soika notes that the documentary approaches German history in a rather traditional, simplified way, as necessitated by its time constraints. She stresses how BCB students are encouraged to think further and beyond, to learn about the complex continuities and contradictions when it comes to Nazi cultural politics. These complexities are of crucial importance in Soika’s recent research on figures within German art history—the painter Emil Nolde, the sculptor Georg Kolbe, and the architect Mies van der Rohe. Soika comments, “It is a shame that the documentary did not have the time to communicate these complications to their audience.”

View the entire documentary on YouTube.

Post Date: 11-14-2023