This talk by PROFESSOR DORIS BERGEN will use The Art of Dissent featuring the art of 1920s Cologne artist Willy Fick, to explore the complicated relationship between art and Nazism. The Nazi movement emerged after WWI, during a time of remarkable artistic creativity within Germany. A vibrant art scene developed around the political Left, and artists like Fick, many of them with ties to the Communist Party, were among the earliest and most outspoken critics of Nazism. Quite a few top Nazis had artistic interests – most notably Hitler himself - and they, too, viewed art as a force for social and political change. Once in power, the Nazis attacked art they deemed "degenerate" including the work of Jewish artists and, at the same time, they promoted art and rewarded artists considered helpful to their cause. In this way, art became simultaneously a battleground between Nazis and their opponents, a means of dissent and a tool of propaganda.

Professor Bergen is the Scholar-in-Residence for the 2008 Holocaust Education Week. See 10:00 am Friday Nov. 7 for her biography.