Transcript Total War, Totalitarianism, & the Arts

Total War, Totalitarianism, &
the Arts
World War I: Causes
1. Extreme nationalism (roots in the 19th
century)
2. Militaristic view of war as heroic; highest
expression of nation and individual
3. Hostile alliance system
What countries were allies in
WW I?
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France
Germany
Russia
Great Britain
Serbia
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Ottoman Empire
United States
Italy
Austria-Hungary
Belgium
World War I
Allied Powers
• Great Britain
• France
• Russia
• Belgium
• Serbia
• United States
• Italy
• Japan
Central Powers
• Germany
• Austria-Hungary
• Ottoman Empire
World War II
Allied Powers
• France
• Great Britain
• United States
• Soviet Union
Axis Powers
• Germany
• Italy
• Bulgaria
• Hungary
• Japan
Romantic Language of War
• Horse = steed,
charger
• Enemy= the foe
• Danger= peril
• Conquer= vanquish
• Brave= gallant
• The dead= the fallen
• To die= perish
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Warfare= strife
Actions= deeds
To win= conquer
Quick= swift
Sleep= slumber
Enlist= join the
colors
• Draft-notice=
summons
Modern Warfare: WW I
• Trenches, barbed wire, machine guns
• Long battles without consequence
(600,000 killed at Verdun, but no real
consequence)
• Propaganda necessary to keep soldiers
and civilians supporting the war
Modern Irony
NOTHING is to be written on this side except the
date and signature of the sender. Sentences not
required may be erased.
I am quite well.
I have been admitted into hospital
{sick, wounded} and am going on well.
and hope to be discharged
soon.
I have received your letter dated________
I have received no letter from you {lately/ for a
long
time}
Signature only
Date__________________________________
War and Irony in Literature
• Yeats, “The Second Coming” (1921) (p.
868)
• Jarrell, “The Death of the Ball Turret
Gunner” (1945) (p. 878)
• Joseph Heller, Catch-22 (1955) (p. 878)
• Stanley Kubrick, Dr. Strangelove (Film,
1964)
Rise of German Fascism:
Causes
• Humiliation from defeat in WW I
• Treaty of Versailles: $33 billion war
debt; German army limited to 100,000
• Inflation: Gov. printed more money to
pay debt; money becomes almost
worthless—then Great Depression
came in 1929
Adolf Hitler
• Born 1889, Austria: undisciplined, poor
student
• Went to Vienna to study art, rejected from
art academy
• Became anti-Semitic, and his hatred of
Jews meant hatred of Marxism too (Marx
was Jewish)
Rise of Hitler and National
Socialist Workers’ Party (Nazi)
• 1928: 12 seats in Reichstag (800,000
voters)
• 1930: 107 seats in Reichstag (6.5 mill
voters)
• 1933: Hitler becomes chancellor, then
Reichstag gives him dictatorial power
Note: Hitler was a product of democracy
Nazi ideology
• Celebrated German soil and German
blood
• Romantic view of German peasants
• The enemy: the city, industry, modernity
• The scapegoat: the Jews
Nazi View of Jews
• Outsiders: from outside Europe (corrupting
the German blood)
• Urbanites (corrupting the German land)
• Businessmen/financiers (corrupting the
German economy)
• Intellectuals and artists (corrupting
German culture) [Marx and Freud were
both Jewish]
Nazi View of Art
• Classicism and Romanticism are best
• Subjects: Good-looking German peasants;
rural scenes
• Form: Representational art (experimental,
distorted, and non-representational arts
are “degenerate”)
The Holocaust
• The Nazis passed laws to put Jews in
ghettos
• Then they passed laws to move Jews to
concentration camps, where 6,000,000
were murdered
• 5,000,000 non-Jews also died in the death
camps
The Holocaust: uniqueness
1. Focused: singled out Jews as target
ethnic group—but Roman Catholics,
gypsies, homosexuals, handicapped also
killed
2. Official: it was the law
3. Systematic: technology, bureaucracy,
industry all work toward this goal
4. Effective: 2/3 of Jewish population of
Europe murdered
Mid-Twentieth Century
World War II and After
Existentialism
• “Man is nothing else but what he makes of
himself.”—Jean Paul Sartre (Fiero 887)
– Our choices define our nature—no preexisting
nature
• Existence precedes essence
• “man first of all is the being who hurls
himself into the future”—Sartre
Theater of the Absurd
Samuel Beckett (Irish), Waiting for
Godot (1948)
Alberto Giacometti
(Swiss)
City Square (La Place) (1948)
Dog (1951)
Cat
Jackson Pollock
(American) “Jack the Dripper”
Color Field Painting
Convergence, 1952
Edward Hopper
(American)
Realism (American Scene
Painting)
Nighthawks, 1942
Cape Cod Evening, 1939
Office at Night, 1940
House by the Railroad, 1925
Rooms by the Sea, 1951