John Willett (1) (1917–2002)

I have made my way through Jonathan Littell’s nearly thousand-page novel, The Kindly Ones, a fictional autobiography of a former Nazi SS officer who served on the Eastern front. This was not an easy book to read and listen to (I listened to the audio book); matter of fact, it is a tough book to stomach – at no point are we given the slightest break from the details of the first-person narrator's sordid, complex life. I have also recently listened to a series of illuminating podcasts show more about 20th century art, including the painting and sculpture and films made for the Nazi propaganda machine. Most insightful.

Littell’s novel and these podcasts prompted me to take another hard look at one of my favorite art books: Heartfield Versus Hitler by John Willett. Due to the strong anti-British mindset of Germans during World War 1, German photomontage artist Helmut Herzfeld changed his name to John Heartfield and during the 1930s created innovative, penetrating art portraying Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. There is something gripping about these photomontages and Willett’s book contains many excellent reproductions. Here are my comments on four of Heartfield’s works:

With Hitler’s Dove of Peace on the cover of one of the AIZ (Worker’s Illustrated Magazine), we see an ominous big-eyed hawk with a swastika armband on its wing, holding not an olive branch but a feather in its beak, as if perhaps fresh from devouring a prey. A coin bearing the stamp of a swastika is fastened to its leg. The hawk can’t be controlled, even by the handler, as evidenced by the long nasty gash at the base of the handler’s thumb. John Heartfield captures the spirit of Hitler’s peace, which, in fact, is the exact opposite of peace, as the hawk is the opposite of the dove.


Adolf, the Superman, Swallows Gold and Spouts Tin features Hitler doing what he does best – mouth wide open, barking his speech to the German people. We are given an x-ray of what Hitler is on the inside: a Nazi swastika in place of an organic human heart and not an organic, human respiratory system but a tall stack of gold coins running from Hitler’s diaphragm right up to the top of his throat. Also, gold coins are scattered in place of a flexible, human diaphragm. With keen artistic vision, John Heartfield in 1932, when this photomontage was created, could peer at the inner man Hitler and see a diabolical egotist who would strip the world of its wealth and, in return, give the world false coins of lies, illusion and destruction. Unfortunately for the world, Heartfield’s vision hit the bull’s-eye.


With the photomontage for a brochure cover, 1943, we have Adolf Hitler inhabiting the body of a gorilla, crouching atop a globe. The Hitler-Ape wears the Nazi swastika on its right upper arm as well as a Nazi helmet with devil horns and holds a sword in its right hand, a sword dripping with white liquid, not exactly blood but something that, no doubt, having satisfied its revolting desire to slice and stab. Heartfield portrays Hitler as the bestial, twisted, evil thug that he was. The Hitler-Ape looks up as if ready to grunt and wave its sword at victims in other worlds. We can almost smell the reeking, putrid stench of this most foul and deformed of creatures.


The German Oak Tree has a placid Hitler holding a watering can to dutifully water an oak tree with huge acorns, each acorn wearing a German Nazi helmet, an old Prussian-style helmet or a gas mask. John Heartfield understood clearly anything this wicked toad-scum by the name of Hitler touched, even something as innocent and life-giving as a tree, turns to militarism, violence, death and ruin.


John Heartfield had a vision ahead of his time: Hitler and the Nazis seen for exactly what they were: a force of diabolical evil and mass-destruction. Has there ever been a clearer instance of evil in the modern world? Has there ever been an artist who created art displaying to the world in more striking images exactly how evil and destructive this force? My dad landed on the first day of D-Day and fought against the Nazis as a sergeant of a tank. Ordinarily I take a pacifist stand but, in this case, I think my dad did the right thing. show less

This is a richly illustrated history of art, politics and “Zeitgeist” generally of the endlessly fascinating Weimar period in Europe from 1918-1933. Germany, the author explains, is at the heart of this story. He wants to explain a particular constructive vision:

“ . . . a new realism that sought methods of dealing both with real subjects and with real human needs, a sharply critical view of existing society and individuals, and a determination to master new media and discover new show more collective approaches to the communication of artistic concepts.”

He labels it “a new development of that mighty European renaissance in the arts that can be said to have begun with the French Fauves in 1905.”

But the productivity of the Weimar period, he argues, can be attributed mostly to the younger generation, those born no earlier than 1893. They were also the group most affected when the world war broke out. It was not only the shocks of the war experience that shaped them, but the Russian and German revolutions, all of which contributed to the transformation of art. For the few years of the Weimar period, the author argues, the arts of the European avant-garde began to have “an audience, a function, a unity, a vital core.”

That is, the “hateful pressures, largely unique to Germany” gave these young artists an uncompromising sense of urgency which was “often electrifying.”

He then describes in detail what made this period so unique, and the lessons we might take away from it in our polarized world today. show less

Oh, I dunno. I am truly not in the mood for the in-its-place-very-effective combination of the austere, the verfremdsy and the social realist that Brecht brings. I want real tearful people and psychological insights, here, now. And as a result I read with inattention and missed key things, like how not only was Shen Teh dressed up as her cousin Shui Ta but she was the only ever Shui Ta (I was waiting, to the degree I was waiting for anything, for real and fake Shui Ta to collide, with show more hijinx), like things like that. I get that this is a quotidian-main-street-fascist allegory, I get that the only way we can be good is to split ourselves in two, I get that the only way a woman can be good is to also be bad and a man, I get that good and evil are emergent properties of the relations of production, yeah yeah yeah. And Shen Teh certainly rises above her surroundings in a simple and affective way ("When I saw his sly smile I was afraid, but / When I saw the holes in his shoes I loved him dearly") But despite the shot of everyday Marx and the farcical gods and the grace notes, this felt very often like a thesis or exercise with events that did not rise from cliché to archetype. show less

I have made my way through Jonathan Littell’s nearly thousand-page novel, The Kindly Ones, a fictional autobiography of a former Nazi SS officer who served on the Eastern front. This was not an easy book to read and listen to (I listened to the audio book); matter of fact, it is a tough book to stomach – at no point are we given the slightest break from the details of the first-person narrator's sordid, complex life. I have also recently listened to a series of illuminating podcasts show more about 20th century art, including the painting and sculpture and films made for the Nazi propaganda machine. Most insightful.

Littell’s novel and these podcasts prompted me to take another hard look at one of my favorite art books: Heartfield Versus Hitler by John Willett. Due to the strong anti-British mindset of Germans during World War 1, German photomontage artist Helmut Herzfeld changed his name to John Heartfield and during the 1930s created innovative, penetrating art portraying Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. There is something gripping about these photomontages and Willett’s book contains many excellent reproductions. Here are my comments on four of Heartfield’s works:

With Hitler’s Dove of Peace on the cover of one of the AIZ (Worker’s Illustrated Magazine), we see an ominous big-eyed hawk with a swastika armband on its wing, holding not an olive branch but a feather in its beak, as if perhaps fresh from devouring a prey. A coin bearing the stamp of a swastika is fastened to its leg. The hawk can’t be controlled, even by the handler, as evidenced by the long nasty gash at the base of the handler’s thumb. John Heartfield captures the spirit of Hitler’s peace, which, in fact, is the exact opposite of peace, as the hawk is the opposite of the dove.


Adolf, the Superman, Swallows Gold and Spouts Tin features Hitler doing what he does best – mouth wide open, barking his speech to the German people. We are given an x-ray of what Hitler is on the inside: a Nazi swastika in place of an organic human heart and not an organic, human respiratory system but a tall stack of gold coins running from Hitler’s diaphragm right up to the top of his throat. Also, gold coins are scattered in place of a flexible, human diaphragm. With keen artistic vision, John Heartfield in 1932, when this photomontage was created, could peer at the inner man Hitler and see a diabolical egotist who would strip the world of its wealth and, in return, give the world false coins of lies, illusion and destruction. Unfortunately for the world, Heartfield’s vision hit the bull’s-eye.


With the photomontage for a brochure cover, 1943, we have Adolf Hitler inhabiting the body of a gorilla, crouching atop a globe. The Hitler-Ape wears the Nazi swastika on its right upper arm as well as a Nazi helmet with devil horns and holds a sword in its right hand, a sword dripping with white liquid, not exactly blood but something that, no doubt, having satisfied its revolting desire to slice and stab. Heartfield portrays Hitler as the bestial, twisted, evil thug that he was. The Hitler-Ape looks up as if ready to grunt and wave its sword at victims in other worlds. We can almost smell the reeking, putrid stench of this most foul and deformed of creatures.


The German Oak Tree has a placid Hitler holding a watering can to dutifully water an oak tree with huge acorns, each acorn wearing a German Nazi helmet, an old Prussian-style helmet or a gas mask. John Heartfield understood clearly anything this wicked toad-scum by the name of Hitler touched, even something as innocent and life-giving as a tree, turns to militarism, violence, death and ruin.


John Heartfield had a vision ahead of his time: Hitler and the Nazis seen for exactly what they were: a force of diabolical evil and mass-destruction. Has there ever been a clearer instance of evil in the modern world? Has there ever been an artist who created art displaying to the world in more striking images exactly how evil and destructive this force? My dad landed on the first day of D-Day and fought against the Nazis as a sergeant of a tank. Ordinarily I take a pacifist stand but, in this case, I think my dad did the right thing. show less