Book Review: Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics by Frederic Spotts

I bought this book in a batch with several others and didn't read it right away. From the title I was expecting something very dry, very boring, very thick.

Boy, was I wrong!

First off, in the introduction, Spotts starts off strong, talking about how his book has been required reading in universities AND neo-nazi forums and websites. He talks about how he has been accused of being a Nazi apologist, or maybe even more... His work has been misunderstood and even used to show people how aesthetic opinions and value can change once the provenience of a work is known (he mentions someone shown a Hitler painting saying that its okay and a good quaint try by a beginner recoiling in horror when told who drew it!). But most of all, Spotts writes with incredible humor, tongue and cheek, spearing Hitler, the Nazis, and even art critics with barbs and jabs through the text which frequently made me laugh out loud! And that's just the introduction...

The book is very long, I warn you. It is "thickly" written... Spotts is an academic and will expect you to digest difficult ideas with sometimes convoluted sentences. He writes from the assumption that you already have a nodding familiarity with aesthetics, art history, art criticism, and WW2. Oh, he does explain things and gives some background but he does not spend much time on it. This is something I personally like because it bores me to death when a historian feels the need to digress for ten pages to explain something s/he just introduced until I have forgotten what the original point is!

Pictures! There are pictures on almost every page! This is something I totally love about this book. Even in the paperback copy, there was practically a picture on every page about something being talked about in the text. For this alone, I highly recommend this book.

Everything is covered in this book. Architecture, paintings, movies, even how Hitler got involved with the creation of the Volkswagen. The looting of valuable art by the Nazis is given in such detail that I had to skip through lengthy lists of artworks stolen by the Nazis (the overwhelming amount of data probably included by Spotts just to give an idea of the enormity of the deed).

And through it all Spotts will remind you of who's side he's on as he wryly snipes at the Nazis with entertaining quips and comments. Other armchair generals and historians have launched offensives against the Nazis in the areas of Nazi military stupidity, propaganda and their horrible war of extermination against the Jews and everyone else they didn't like. Many historians and documentaries try to make a meal of Hitler's initial failings in Vienna trying to get into the art school with many a wispy "what if..." Spotts will have none of that. I don't have the direct quote at hand but you'll know it when you read it because it made me guffaw... words to the effect that Hitler just sucked! This book truly is an art historian's offensive against the Nazis in support.

In all, I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in art history, World War 2, and the Nazis. It took me a long time to get through it, its lengthy and densely written at times, but its entertaining and even uplifting. Spotts holds back no punches in showing you not only in what the world lost but also the horror of what almost came to pass... and that's when its uplifting because you close the covers of the book and realize, even just in the art world alone, how lucky we all are that the Nazis failed.