Artists You Should Know: Adolph Ziegler

Reader B. Schwartz wrote to ask, " ... What was the name of the guy who confiscated all the 'modern' art under Hitler? Wasn't he an artist? Bad person, or victim of the Nazi party?" Hmmm. Well, B., another end-of-WWII anniversary has rolled around, hasn't it? Let's see - the guy's name was Adolph Ziegler. He painted nudes. (They are not to my taste, but Hitler was wowed.) He was instrumental in giving us the phrase "Degenerate Art." "Bad person" is a fairly subjective judgment. I happen to think the National Socialist party was chock-full of horribly, criminally bad policies. As far as Ziegler goes, I'd say, "Weak person. Petty, vindictive person - and bad artist." It's no pleasure for me to give this marginally-talented little Yes man much bandwidth but, in the interest of education, here you are. Thanks for writing and bringing up dangerous precedents.