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Hans Schmitz-Wiedenbrück was the alias of Hans Schmitz (3 January 1907 - 7 December 1944) was a German painter of sacral, peasant and Nazi propaganda arts. He belonged to the Wiedenbrücker Schule school of arts.

Biography

Hans Schmitz was born in the Lippstadt / Westphalia as the son of a hotel caretaker. Beginning in 1923, he was trained in the studio of Heinrich Repke in the nearby city of Wiedenbrück where he worked for a total of 17 years, interrupted by studies in Kassel, Munich and Brussels and study trips to Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Italy. With his oil painting Familienbild (Family Painting) he won second prize in the arts competition Die neue deutsche Familie (The New German Family). In 1939 he was awarded the Großer Staatspreis der Preußischen Akademie der Künste (Great State Award of the Prussian Academy of Arts). Furthermore, he received the arts award Jung-Westfalen (Young Westphalia, 1939) and the Gaukulturpreis Westfalen-Süd (Gau Culture Award Southern Westphalia, 1941). Hans Schmitz-Wiedenbrück exhibited at the 22nd Venice Biennale. The artist is especially known for his 1941 triptych Arbeiter, Bauern und Soldaten (Workers, Farmers and Soldiers, sold to Adolf Hitler for a price of 30,000 reichsmark) and the oil painting Kämpfendes Volk (Fighting People, sold to Joseph Goebbels for a price of 56,000 reichsmark) which was exhibited at the 1941 Große Deutsche Kunstausstellung (Great German Arts Exhibition) in Munich. Hitler also bought Schmitz-Wiedenbrück's oil painting Bauern im Gewitter (Farmers in a Thunderstorm, 1939, 4,500 reichsmark) and Das Johannisfeuer (Saint John's Fire, 1940, 14,000 reichsmark) while Martin Bormann paid 25,000 reichsmark for the painting Tischgesellschaft (Table Companionship, 1944) and 20,000 reichsmark for Frau mit Stier (Woman with Bull, 1944). Many of Schmitz’ paintings from this period of time have to be considered Nazi propaganda art.

The fact that Joseph Goebbels suggested 36 year-old Hans Schmitz for a professorship at the Düsseldorf Arts Academy in 1943 illustrates the Nazi regime's sympathies for this artist. In the same year, Hans Schmitz was drafted and consequently worked as a war painter. He died from a heart attack on 7 December of the following year in Angermund.

Controversy

In his native city Rheda-Wiedenbrück, an open discussion about Hans Schmitz’ role during the time of National Socialism began in 2016. Up to this day, three of his paintings from the years 1937 and 1939 are publicly displayed in the historic city hall. Furthermore, a street is named after him.

References

1. Fünfzig Jahre Sammlung van der Grinten, 1946-1996: Museum Schloss Moyland, 20.3-5.9.1999. Exhibition Catalog. Bedburg-Hau 1999. P. 534.
2. Hans Schmitz-Wiedenbrück: Kämpfendes Volk. Published on the website of the German Historic Museum.
3. GDK-Research. Great German Arts Exhibition: Hans Schmitz-Wiedenbrück.
4. Andrew Beaujon: How a Trove of Nazi Art Wound Up Under Lock and Key on an Army Base in Virginia. Washingtonian, 12 November 2017.
5. Helena Ketter: Zum Bild der Frau in der Malerei des Nationalsozialismus. Eine Analyse von Kunstzeitschriften aus der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus. Berlin, Hamburg, Munster 2002.
6. Kunst im 3. Reich. Dokumente der Unterwerfung. Ed. by the Frankfurter Kunstverein. Frankfurt/Main 1975.
7. David Welch: "The Culture of War. Ideas, Arts and Propaganda". The Oxford Illustrated History of World War II. Ed. Richard Overy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015 (ISBN 978-0199605828), p. 387.
8. Wolfgang Ruppert: Vier Reiche, vier Führer? Der Freitag, 16 February 2007.
9. Ernst Klee: Das Kulturlexikon zum Dritten Reich. Wer war was vor und nach 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt/Main 2007.
10. Kritik an Nazi-Kunst im Rathaus. Die Glocke, 18 November 2016.
11. Nazi-Kunst: Expertise steht weiterhin aus. Die Glocke, 25 February 2017.
12. Schweres Kunsterbe aus dem NS-Giftschrank. Die Glocke, 22 November 2017.
13. Vortrag und Diskussion zur Kunst im Nationalsozialismus. Archived 2019-06-05 at the Wayback Machine Press release by the city of Rheda-Wiedenbrück, November 2017.
14. Infostele informiert über Hans Schmitz-Wiedenbrück. Archived 2019-06-05 at the Wayback Machine Press release by the city of Rheda-Wiedenbrück, October 2018.
15. Hans-Schmitz-Straße erhitzt die Gemüter. Die Glocke, 5 December 2019.

• 1944 deaths
• 20th-century German painters
• 20th-century German male artists
• 1907 births
• German male painters
• Nazi culture
• German military personnel of World War II