Vienna was a thriving, cosmopolitan city in the early years of the 20th century, a city where diversity and experimentation charged the atmosphere in the Hapsburg twilight.
But the influence of the city’s cultural life on the future Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, then an aspiring but unsuccessful art student, left him an embittered racist, pointed toward his attempted genocide in the Holocaust.
This summer, as part of the county-wide cultural focus on Vienna, the Williams College Museum of Art will feature the exhibition, Prelude to a Nightmare: Art, Politics, and Hitler’s Early Years in Vienna, 1906-1913.
Recently, MCMA Curator Deborah Rothschild talked about the exhibition, which demonstrates how Hitler’s experiences in Vienna shaped his thinking. It is not, Rothschild stressed, a criticism of Vienna.
But finding so many sources for Hitler’s ideas and actions during those formative years , she said, shows just how derivative he was. and not, as he has been generally considered, an unprecedented phenomenon.
“I’m hoping it also diminishes him,†she said.
“As an artist, he was a copier,†she said. “He never did anything original.
“All of his ideas were copied crackpot theories about race and intermixing.â€
For Rothschild, who is Jewish and who lost family members in the Holocaust, working on the exhibition has been a personal odyssey.
“There was a personal dimension,†said Rothschild.
“When I asked my parents about Hitler, they’d say ‘he was just evil,’†she said.
“But we need to explain what formed him.â€
“To me, it is very dangerous to say that something is a closed book, or to say that Hitler was a monster, an evil genius. That’s really saying it can’t happen again.
“Things happened to him, and they made him what he was.
“To explain something is not to excuse it,†said Rothschild,
“The last thing I would want to do is glorify him,†she said.
“I hope people come and see it,†she said. “It’s the most important project I’ve ever worked on. My heart’s really in it.â€
Vienna was, she said, “a very open, multinational, thriving city, where minorities had been given so much privilege by the Hapsburg rulers†that it prompted backlash.
The exhibition, said Rothschild, was inspired largely by Brigitte Hamann’s critically acclaimed book, Hitler’s Vienna: A Dictator’s Apprenticeship, 1999, traced the influences on his thinking.
The exhibition includes paintings, drawings, watercolors, prints, posters, theatrical designs, vintage film footage, photographs, books, pamphlets and other items.
According to information provided by the museum, Hitler’s initial intoxication with Vienna’s splendor turned to a lifelong grudge against the city after his “rejection from the art academy, failure to gain respectability, and discomfort with the multi-ethnic, cosmopolitan, and artistically progressive cast of the city.â€
As Führer, Hitler was obsessed with rivaling Vienna in his plans for the Third Reich centers of Berlin, Munich and Linz.
Hitler’s later public displays , said Rothschild, were heavily influenced by the pageants held in honor of the beloved Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Josef’s Jubilee Year in 1908, pageants that Hitler witnessed firsthand.
He modeled these Third Reich spectacles on the imperial pageantry. Images in the exhibition, such as those of young girls carrying flower garlands, underline the influences.
“Hitler lifted his ideas,†she said, listing the Heil salute, the term Führer, the swastika, all from the pan-germanic movement.
The ceremonies he planned provided an outlet for his failed artistic ambitions. And although he was a thwarted stage designer, “he learned to act as impresario, chief scenic designer, producer, director and leading actor in the Third Reich’s spectacles, “
according to the museum.
“He was especially fanatic about opera,†said Rothschild. “He had dreams of becoming a stage designer. But he went to see a famous set designer with a letter of introduction but he lost his nerve.â€
‘The Hapsburgs used festivals and processions — politicized aesthetics to keep up the myth of national unity and stability. They used costumes, grandeur, pomp and ritual to maintain an aesthetic myth around the monarchy,†said Rothschild.
“The Third Reich knew how to hold rallies. Hitler was very smart about that stuff. He really understood theater, how to manipulate people’s psyches,†she said.
Although the Jewish Museum in New York’s exhibition, Mirroring Evil/Nazi Imagery, Recent Art, has been highly controversial, that exhibition combines contemporary popular consumer culture with Nazi imagery.
Controversy there has centered on whether juxtaposition of Nazi imagery with, for example, a Prada bag or a Lego construction, trivializes the Holocaust.
But Rothschild said she does not think any examination “needs to be controversial.â€
“This is different,†she said. “This is about Vienna, and the sources of Hitler’s ideas. It’s looking at his formative years.â€
“It’s important material to get out there.â€
“I don’t know if it’s the most important thing I’ve ever done,†she said.
“I’m wondering if there is something in the time,†she said. “People are looking at Nazism again.â€
The exhibit also focuses on Hitler’s passion for opera, which he managed, despite his poverty, to attend regularly. His chief passion was the music of Richard Wagner, whose music and writings laid the groundwork for Hitler’s ideas of pan-Germanism, anti-Semitism and the cult of Nordic pure blood.
Rothschild compressed work on the exhibition into a short time.
“Usually, for a show like this, you’d have a three-year period,†she said. “I’ve only been working on this since July,†when she returned from sabbatical.
Rothschild is glad to be finished with organizing the exhibition.
And as intellectually gratifying as it has been to trace influences and make connections, she said, “As much as you try to understand, it’s not graspable.â€
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Winter Weather Advisory Issued for Berkshires
Another snowstorm is expected to move through the region overnight on Friday, bringing 3 to 6 inches of snow.
The National Weather Service in Albany, N.Y., has posted a winter weather advisory for all of Berkshire County and parts of eastern New York State beginning Friday at 4 p.m. through Saturday at 1 p.m.
The bulk of the storm will pass south of the region, into Connecticut, with heavy snowfall rates of 1 to 2 inches per hour. This could affect parts of Southern Berkshire.
If it trends northward, the Berkshires could see up to 8 inches in the higher elevations.
Drivers should exercise caution on Friday night and Saturday morning, as travel conditions may be hazardous.
Many homeowners are showing their holiday spirit by decorating their houses. We asked for submissions so those in the community can check out these fanciful lights and decor when they're out.
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