Art and Life
Königsplatz; Lenbachhaus, Munich
Ah, the artful Oldies slipped another art gallery onto the agenda! This time, Lenbachhaus, which, I have to say, was well worth a visit. I loved the venue itself, where a modern extension is cleverly wrapped around one side of the original Lenbach villa. The main collection features famous names including Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc, many of whom were part of the ‘Blauer Reiter’ group. I came away with the impression of a wonderful use of colour. Sure, what’s not to love about blue and red horses and red, green and yellow cows?
The ‘Art and Life, 1918 to 1955’ exhibition featured a wide variety of artists, displayed simply in alphabetical order. The ‘Life’ part referred to the historic context of their work. I was horrified to learn the fate of some of these artists during the Nazi regime. Some were Nazi sympathisers of course, but many others, who, let’s say, did not ‘meet with approval’, were exiled, imprisoned or even murdered in concentration camps. Madness!
This madness was even more in evidence just a short walk away, at the far end of the Königsplatz.
It was a weird feeling to be standing on the very spot the National Socialist German Workers Party – the Nazi Party to you and me – had its headquarters, the former ‘Brown House’. But perhaps there could be no better location for the Munich Documentation Centre for the History of National Socialism than this. And I’m sure it’s no coincidence that the centre – an ultra-modern, white, cube-like structure – couldn’t look more different from the former Nazi HQ.
The Oldies were very quiet as they moved through the centre, as indeed were all the visitors. It’s no wonder. The posters, photographs, videos and documentation were harrowing and downright scary.
For me, by far the most frightening part of the whole thing was that much of what I saw and read about what happened in Germany back then sounds uncannily like what is happening in so many countries right now. I certainly hope I am wrong!
I had to shudder when we left the NS-Documentation Centre. Although the buildings around the Königsplatz predate the Nazi regime, the grandiose Grecian style of the square fitted in well with its ideologies. It certainly wasn’t difficult to visualise Nazi parades taking place in these surroundings.
I was puzzled by this large circular memorial in front of the Antikensammlung, the Museum of Antiquities, and tried to work out what was written on it. It turned out that these are titles of just some of the hundreds of books – by both German and international authors – that were put on Nazi ‘black lists’. Lists that were used by the organisers of book burnings that took place on this spot.
Imagine burning books, for goodness sake! At least that couldn’t happen today.
Then again, I hear that they are even starting to ban children’s books in some places nowadays…
