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?

• France• Germany• Russia• Great Britain• Serbia

• 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

• 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 onlyDate____________________________________

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 law3. Systematic: technology, bureaucracy,

industry all work toward this goal4. 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