General Information

Author/Creator

Petropoulos, Jonathan, 1961-

Language

English.

Published

New York, N.Y. : Oxford University Press, 2000.

Physical Description

xvii, 395 p. : ill. ; 25 cm.

Contents/Summary

Summary

Nazi art looting has been the subject of enormous international attention in recent years, and the subject of two history bestsellers, Hector Feliciano's The Lost Museum and Lynn Nicholas's The Rape of Europa. But such books leave us wondering: What made thoughtful, educated, artistic men and women decide to put their talents in the service of a brutal and inhuman regime? This question is the starting point for The Faustian Bargain, Jonathan Petropoulos's study of five key figure in the art world of Nazi Germany. Petropoulos follows the careers of these prominent individuals that like Faust, that German archetype chose to pursue artistic ends through collaboration with diabolical forces. Readers meet Ernst Buchner, the distinguished museum director and expert on Old Master paintings who "repatriated" Van Eyck's Ghent altarpiece to Germany, and Karl Haberstock, an art dealer who filled German museums with works bought virtually at gunpoint from Jewish collectors. Robert Scholz, an art critic in the Third Reich, became an officer in the chief art looting unit in France and Kajetan Muhlmanna leading art historian headed looting agencies in Poland and the Netherlands. Finally, there is Arno Breker, a gifted artist who exchanged his modernist style for monumental realism and became Hitler's favorite sculptor. If it is striking that these educated men became part of the Nazi machine, it is equally striking that most of them lived comfortably after the war. Based on previously unreleased information and recently declassified documents, The Faustian Bargain is a gripping read about the art world during this period, and a fascinating examination of the intense relationship between culture and politics in the Third Reich.

Subjects

Subject

National socialism and art.

Art and state > Germany > History > 20th century.

Art treasures in war > Germany.

Nazis > Germany > Art collections.

Art > Germany > Biography.

Germany > Cultural policy > History > 20th century.

Bibliographic Information

Responsibility

Jonathan Petropoulos.

Library Special Collection

The Roger Griffin ComFas Collection

ISBN

0195129644

Holdings

Item Type	Current Location	Collection	Call Number	Volume Info	Shelving Location	Public Note
Book	OSA Archivum Library	General collection	709/.43/09043 PET		General Stacks	-

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