was engraved in profile on countless stamps (for which he received a hero’s
royalty every time one was used in occupied countries). But he was not the
sole hero.
The master German poster artist Ludwig Hohlwein, whose
Munich style (or Holhweinstil) eventually dominated German advertising
throughout the late 1920 s, 1930 s, and into the 1940 s, created the most
effective heroic realism. His depictions of Nazi Youth and SS Police were
given monumental stances and lit to accentuate their grandeur. He did not
engage in negative stereotypes, preferring to mythologize rather than
demonize. But he did set a standard against which Nazi poster iconography
must be judged. It is difficult to say definitively that Hohlwein invented
National Socialist (or Nazi) Realism, but his work was the paradigm. In a
1933 issue of Gebrausgraphik,he stated how such art must operate in the
service of his nation:
Today, art, as a cultural factor, is more than ever called upon to take a
leading place in building up and conserving cultural values. It must take
its place in the front ranks of the legion, which Europa has gathered to
preserve her individuality against the onslaughts from the East. Art is
the best possible disturbing agent for ideas and intellectual tendencies.
Commercial art is doubly effective in this sense for it stands in the very
forefront, giving form and expression to the daily panorama and forcibly
dominating even those who would ordinarily remain impervious to artistic
influences. May the best among us realize fully the significance of what
is at stake and their own responsibility and may labor creatively and with
conviction at the preservation of our cultural civilization and its
restoration to perfectly healthy conditions.Nazi heroic realism recalled ancient Rome, but it owed a debt to
Italian Fascism, which had taken its cues from Caesar. No one was more
ubiquitous than Mussolini—and not just in his embellished regalia, but
shirtless for the world to see. Hitler wouldn’t dare show his chest in public,
even if it were magically grafted onto a perfect Aryan body. When it came
to propagating the heroic image of the Italian leader throughout society,
Mussolini had no reservations about being the virile Roman man, and with
the graphic bravado unequaled by any national figure, his bald visage became
the logo for his regime. Even when reduced to its most elemental form, the
round, usually helmeted and domed head, protruding lip, and searing eyes
formed the quintessential icon—the biggest of “Big Brothers.” Which is
why, after his capture and execution, his beaten body dangling from the
hangman’s scaffold was an indelibly powerful symbol against his regime.