10 2010

“Swastikas? Ornaments!” as a Continuity of Repression

History-Political Conditions of a Public Art and Educational Institution

Eduard Freudmann

Translated by Lina Dokuzović

The following article is based on the work of the Platform History Politics, an initiative of students, activists and teachers, who are affiliated with the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, of which the author is also a member.[1] The Platform History Politics began in 2009, as a self-organized project, and defines itself – as were the other work groups which arose within the framework of the 2009/2010 Academy occupations[2] – as an open collective that strives towards anti-hierarchical organizational structures and discussion-based decision-making in its work process. History-political contentions, such as those carried out by the group, are based on the notion that the construction of history and its political interpretation are immanent to both the History Sciences as an academic discipline as well as to history production as a social practice. Memory can never be terminated. We consider remembering to rather be an active process, in which we aim at producing and mediating resistant knowledge which can be empowering for emancipatory interventions into the hegemonic images of history. With our work, we aim to evoke a continuous process within which the participation of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in colonialism, Austro-fascism and Nazism is critically reflected and dealt with publicly. Our activities have, however, consistently expanded the immanent borders of the institution, because it has proven necessary, through the observation of its involvement in regard to the far-reaching ramifications - in the fields of politics, art, culture, pedagogy, science and research, for example, meaning in the social contexts that the Academy is part of as a public art and educational institution.

***

A toast amidst swastikas

I remember the day I entered the assembly hall of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna for the first time. It was 1999, just a few days after I began my studies in Fine Arts there. On that day – I most likely ended up there for an exhibition opening – I stood in the middle of the room, stunned. It was certainly not because of the excessive imperial grandeur and patriarchal swank that filled the space, but because I saw how the Academy teachers, students and administrative employees exchanged news, wine glasses in tow, during the cheerful reunion after their summer vacation, amidst swastikas, surrounding the assembly hall in the form of ornaments.

A history-political tour[3]

First stop: memorial tablet
Semperdepot, Studio building of the Academy. Bullet holes have been preserved in the outer facade, surrounding a window on the ground floor. An acrylic plaque is mounted atop them with the inscription: WOUNDS OF MEMORY.

This memorial tablet is the only spatial manifestation with which the Academy has related to its history over the last few decades. It was hung in the 1990s, in the course of the adaptation of the building from the former theater and opera stage depot to the Academy studio building. What one notices right away when looking at it is how nebulous it is. It is not clear who is making the statement, meaning who marked the bullet holes and identified them as “wounds of memory.” The meaning of the statement also remains unclear: is it the bullet holes that leave behind wounds in the memory – if so, in the memory of what? Or is it the memory of the bullet holes that leaves behind the wounds – if so, then wounds in what?

The holes in the facade are – in all probability[4] – the consequences of the shelling by the Red Army during the so-called “Vienna Offensive” in April 1945. In leu of those circumstances, the observation of the space of memory shows that the use of the term “wound” for describing the evidence of Vienna’s liberation from Nazism represents a twofold self-victimization: if we look at the wounds from the perspective of the Nazis, according to their delusion of “racial hygiene,” these wounds are those which were inflicted by “the Bolshevik” onto the “healthy racial corpus” that had previously been “freed from the parasites”; from the post-Nazi perspective, according to victim mythologism,[5] they represent the wounds that were inflicted by “the raiding and pillaging Russian” onto the “disgraced body” of the “suffering Viennese civil society” in the “Inferno of the final warring days.” It is certainly clear what is not being remembered here: there is no memory of the disfranchisement, dispossession, persecution, expulsion and extermination, nor of the war of conquest and its “scorched earth,” nor of the involvement of art and its institutions.

Brewing post-war stew

For special occasions, such as anniversary celebrations, the Academy releases books about its history. Wolfgang Wagner, the author of a comprehensive chronicle for the 275-year anniversary, writes in 1967: “Hardly more than two decades after the end of WWII [...] the excessive damage of the war and the NS era is entirely eliminated [...] – undoubtedly impressive evidence of the unfractured vitality of this time-honored institution.”[6] While alluding to the reconstructed wing of the Academy building having been damaged after the attack, the author brews the usual post-war stew out of victim myth and reconstruction pathos,[7] presenting us with a riddle when referring to “excessive damage [...] of the NS era” that has to be seen as “entirely eliminated.” His summoning of glory, honor and unfractured vitality must, on the contrary, be deemed sheer mockery, especially since on all 492 pages of his comprehensive chronicle, he adamantly conceals the Academy and its affiliates’ involvement in Nazi crimes. As a matter of fact, Wagner does not thereby present an exception, but the rule – the institution’s involvement was worth no mention in any of the respective, subsequent publications either.[8]

Second stop: Kaisers’ relief

Assembly hall of the Academy. In the central point across from the entrance, a relief portrays two former Austrian rulers. Corresponding dedications are situated beside it: “To Kaiser Leopold I, founder of the Academy” and “Franz Joseph I, erector of this edifice.”

For the 200-year anniversary of the Academy, that room was dedicated to two individuals that the Academy feels ties to.[9] The latter set a world war into motion with an attack against Serbia. The former united two elements in his politics that were fundamental for the colonial, fascist and Nazi processes of this country: expansionism and anti-Judaism. Leopold I prompted the commencement of the so-called Great Turkish War (1683–1699), which subsequently led to the expulsion of the Ottomans from Central Europe and the ascent of Austria to a Great Power. All later expansionist politics must be seen as a continuity of this war of conquest towards the East; which includes the wars under the Habsburgs, such as WWI, as well as WWII’s conquest of extermination or the economic expansion politics of the last 20 years, the Austrian neocolonialism in East and Southeast Europe. Leopold I not only decreed the expulsion of the Ottomans from Central Europe, but also the expulsion of Jews from Vienna. Until 1670, there had been a relatively large and prosperous Jewish community, which lived in the area of today’s Leopoldstadt, the 2nd District of Vienna. Leopold’s Stadt (City)? The grateful profiteers did not allow anyone to take the possibility away from them of denominating the district in honor of the Kaiser who expelled the Jews for them, certainly not without first carrying out large-scale pogroms against them.

“Are there any Aryanized Objects in this Academy?”[10]

There was an old German style massive antique table with matching armchairs in the Academy’s conference room. After the number of participants in the collegial conferences rose, due to legal amendments, there would be a need to move to a larger room and to acquire a larger table. The massive antique table was then whisked away into the anteroom of two offices, where it remains to this day. Institution rumors claim that the table was “Aryanized,” meaning it was looted during the systematic dispossession of the Jews and everyone classified as such by the Nazis. Due to the given state of knowledge, it cannot be assessed whether or not that rumor is true or false. However, although the Academy Rector’s Office is aware of the rumor, the appropriate investigation has not been initiated to date. The maintenance of the condition of not-being-able-to-judge is remarkable insofar as it is symptomatic of the way the institution deals with the portion of its property which looted objects could be found in. The systematic research on the provenience of its furnishings and the inventory of its collections, as has been done in the Austrian federal collections as well as in comparable institutions such as the University for Applied Arts, has been missing to this day.[11]

Third stop: warriors’ memorial

A bronze sculpture in the right-hand corner of the assembly hall. It displays a nude male youth, in the neoclassical style, with the base showing the inscription “1914–1918.”

We are standing in front of the “Memorial for the Fallen Art Academics” from the year 1925. Its creator, Josef Müllner, was deeply connected to the Academy for over half a century. After having studied at the institution, he was appointed Professor during the time of the Monarchy. He exercised his teaching activities during the First Republic, during Austro-Fascism and during Nazism all the way to his retirement during the Second Republic in 1948. Müllner was closely connected to German national Burschenschaften[12] during his entire professional life. He created the prototype for the war propagandistic “Wehrmann in Eisen,”  the racial-mythical “Siegfriedskopf” of the University of Vienna, a memorial for Vienna’s anti-Semitic Mayor, Karl Lueger, as well as a bust of Adolf Hitler, which was erected here at the central point of the assembly hall of the Academy. After the defeat of National Socialism, Müllner was completely absolved. The respective certification of de-Nazification attested that he “carried out no Nazi propaganda” and even more so “had spoken out frequently and fervently against the Nazi regiment [sic!].”[13] While the figure holds bay leaves in his right hand as a sign of the triumph within the defeat, he places his left hand on his forehead as a gesture of mourning. Thereby, the memorial suppresses both Austria’s responsibility for starting the war along with the fact that the art academics to be mourned are the result of the expansionist politics of Franz Joseph I, to whom homage is rendered within this very room. It thereby testifies to the self-victimization within the defeat, and should endow identity through the aestheticization of mass murder and mass death, legitimizing claims to sovereignty.[14]

The filibusterers vs. the student work group

In the foreword of the book, “Im Reich der Kunst – Die Wiener Akademie der bildenden Künste und die faschistische Kunstpolitik“[15] (“In the Reich of Art – The Vienna Academy of Fine Arts and Fascist Art Politics”), from 1990, editors Michael Lunardi, Peter Josef Populorum and Hans Seiger wrote: “There was initially an attempt to initiate a project that would be supported by all groups of Academy associates (students, mid-level faculty, Professors). That attempt failed because of the filibustering done by individual commission members. Ultimately there was a symposium organized on the subject ‘Art in Fascism/National Socialism and the Academy of Fine Arts’ in 1989, which ended up being organized by only one student work group in 1989. This publication has been produced as based on the event and as the conclusion to the entire project [...]. The hope remains that the issues which are missing or have fallen short, or also the questions that have arisen within the contributions, provide the occasion for further research to be stimulated by those responsible at the respective university facilities.”

Fourth stop: Schillerplatz
The park in front of the main building of the Academy at Schillerplatz.

Immediately after the Nazi takeover in Austria, the Academy expelled teachers, students and administrative employees who were Jewish or classified by the Nazis as Jewish, those married to Jews and those in political opposition to Nazism from the institution.[16] Subsequently, the Academy initiated the expulsion of Jews and those classified as such by the Nazis from this park. The Academy titled the following letter to the City of Vienna with the demand “Schillerplatz should become Jew-free,”:[17] “The Academy’s provisional direction perceived the approval of Schillerplatz as the whereabouts for the Jew with great astonishment. The unappealing strangers we would so eagerly like to see removed from the purlieus of our city now huddle by day, of all places, on the benches under our Schiller memorial, which summons reverence for our greatest poet within every race-conscious German. […] The fact that no disturbance of the peace has arisen until now can only be ascribed to the considerate, calm tactful composure of our students. [...] The Academy commission feels compelled to indicate these facts and to request their amendment.” In the following month, the Municipality of the City of Vienna conveyed that “the case concerning the visitation of the Schillerplatz garden by Jews [...] had been taken care of by the responsible authorities in the meantime.”[18] To this day, the Academy has made no gesture of repentance on that matter.[19]

Emphases within self-representation

The Academy’s website states that: “The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna has been a leading European training centre for artists for more than 300 years.”[20] A timetable lists three entries about the institution during Nazism; literally:

“1938: ‘Cleansing’ of the teaching body, appointment of provisional direction

1941: Master class for Art Education

1944–1945: “Teaching was resumed by the provisional Rector Herbert Boeckl in the badly damaged building at Schillerplatz in April 1945.”[21]

That means four words on the expulsion of teachers (the quotation marks do not make a difference regarding the disgusting affirmativeness of the expression used), four words on the Nazification of the institution (whereas that meaning can only understood by those knowing the obfuscated notions), five words on a field of activity which was introduced at the Academy then and which remains to this day (this – entirely uncontextualized – allusion to “achievement” reminds one of the commonly established manner of argumentation, referring to highway and employment policy)[22] and 19 words of self-victimization and Reconstruction Pathos. That means zero words on the expulsion of alleged and actual Jews, on the expulsion of political resistors, on the expulsion of students and administrative employees; zero words on the Nazi paintings, Nazi sculptures, Nazi buildings; zero words on the Nazi ideology and its continuities in teaching. Zero words on the ideological role of art and its institutions in Nazism, zero words on their contribution to the racial-national construction of identity as well as to war and extermination propaganda.

Fifth stop: Nazi bust

At the perimeter of Schillerplatz, in front of the Academy building: a bronze bust of the Nazi poet, Josef Weinheber.

This bust was created in 1940 by the Academy graduate, Josef Bock. The time when it was placed in this location has been untraceable for us until now. After 1945, it was painted over multiple times with anti-fascist slogans, once the bust was supposedly even hijacked by unknown activists. To simplify its cleaning and protect against theft afterwards, the City of Vienna replaced the original sandstone pedestal with this one here, in 1975: it is made from granite and sealed in a one-and-a-half by one-and-a-half meter concrete foundation hidden underground.[23]

The depicted, Josef Weinheber, entered the NSDAP in 1931 and was active from 1933 as the “Fachschaftsleiter für Schrifttum” (Leader of the Department for Literature) in the “Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur” (Combat League for German Culture). Adolf Hitler placed him on the so-called “Gottbegnadeten-Liste” (God-Gifted List) in 1944, a catalog of 1,041 NS artists, who were absolved from war service due to the importance of their work. In light of the inevitable defeat, Weinheber chose to take his own life on April 8th, 1945.

Agenda of the protocol from the first meeting of the professorial council after the liberation from the Nazis, June 27^th 1945; first item: “Obituary to the deceased honorary members Prof. Rudolf Bacher and Honorary Dr. Josef Weinheber. The Rector held a warm obit for both passed honorary members […]. During a minute’s silence the commemoration of the deceased was exceptionally venerated. Those present rose from their seats for the occasion.”[24]

 

Respectable traditions, prestigious commemoration?

“The list of the honorary members of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna reflects the history of this institution in an impressive way,” the Academy proclaimed in June 2010, after the Rector’s Office and the Senate decided to “revive this respectable tradition”[25] and award honorary membership to the painter, Maria Lassnig, and the author, Friederike Mayröcker.

An excerpt from the condolence letter from the Academy Rector to Hedwig Weinheber from June 6th, 1945: “I was deeply shaken upon receiving the news of the demise of your consort […] indisputably, the greatest Austrian lyricist of our time. […] With pride, we count the recently deceased as one of our honorary members, and filled with woe, we commemorate the great poet’s sojourn at our institution, particularly the lectures of his own work within the Circle of Friends of the Academy and the 250-year anniversary of the Academy in October 1942, which was upheaved by our honorary member through his presence and for which celebration he versified a glorious prologue for us.[26] The name of the passed will live on in the Academy building and his commemoration will be preserved high in honor forever.”[27] The promise was kept: Josef Weinheber’s name still remains on the Academy’s list of honorary members to this day.

Sixth stop: archived resistance

The denazification of the Academy’s personnel was limited to the dismissal of a handful of exposed individuals. In order to enable them remaining at the institution, however, the majority of the Nazis received a certificate attesting their so-called “minimal burden.”[28] How secure those in question were can be deduced by the impressive account of incriminating documents which can be found in the Academy archive – apparently no one saw reason to eliminate them.

It is unknown whether any documents, which would testify to records of anti-fascist resistance, have disappeared. One case, however, can certainly be reconstructed with the help of existing material: It pertains to one of the students Adrian Egger, Josef Grogger, Karl Hauser, Othmar Jaindl, Hermann Leitner, Peter Marchl, Kurt Posner, Ferdinand Ruesch, Franz Staud, Richard Steinhofer and Egon Weth’s 1938 signed intervention for the reinstatement of the Professor for Sculpture, Albert Bechtold, [29] who had been expelled for political reasons. It remained unsuccessful after all. Bechtold’s reinstatement at the Academy following the liberation from Nazism, which he had to apply for on his own initiative, was rejected by the professorial council under flimsy substantiation. 51 years after Bechtold’s expulsion, Irene Nierhaus states: “For the record, the Academy has found no gesture of recognition for Bechtold to this day.”[30] For the record, to this day nothing has changed, 22 years after Nierhaus’ statement.

“Swastikas? Ornaments!”

Back when I was stunned by the confrontation of the revelers, amidst the swastikas, I did not have the guts to ask about the pattern on the floor. The actions of the attendees seemed so natural that I feared any expressed doubts would trigger doubts about my sanity. Several years later, for a similar occasion, I stood with a group of teachers and told them about that occurrence. In the end, I asked if they were not irritated by the pattern on the floor – “No, why?” – because it consists of swastikas after all. “These are not swastikas, but rather a doubled-meander pattern,” they explained, “which were avidly used as a reference to Greek antiquity in neoclassicism.” That was clear to me, but considering the conducted appropriation of the symbol here in this region through racial-national Germanic movements and their not unsubstantial influence on the history of this country, this city, this institution, the swastika in this pattern cannot simply be repudiated. They seemed irritated: “This pattern could not have had anything to do with swastikas. After all, the admired architect worked during a time when no trace of the Nazis could be found far and wide.” They then looked at me with pity and determined: “Who claims the contrary either disregards the history of the occident or suffers from persecutional mania.”

 

Intervening in history-writings, attacking politics of oppression

Art is never outside, it is never uninvolved in social disparity, but is always involved in it – along with its institutions. The autonomy of art is nothing other than a frequently debunked myth. However, the way that the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna relates to its own history certainly raises the question of whether that recognition has reached the institution or not. After the appropriate contention of the history-politics of the institution, one is inclined to no longer wonder about anything anymore – not about the not-wanting-to-recognize swastikas nor about the attempt to pathologize the ability to recognize them. However, breaking the perpetuation and normalization of the practices of trivialization, repression and collective oblivion, which characteristically take place in this country, and thereby always examining, denominating and contesting the coalescence of art and power anew is incumbent on each of those of us who participate in the arts as a cultural ideological state apparatus.[31]

It is thereby essential to become aware of the time and content-oriented relations of various systems of exploitation without losing sight of their discontinuities. Nazism, for example, which is eagerly particularized as an “entirely abrupt epoch”[32] in this country, cannot be viewed as an isolated phenomenon, albeit the singularity of its crimes. To do so would be a denial of the coherence and continuities with colonialism[33] and capitalism.[34] Which relations of impact do the Habsburgian politics of expansion, the Austro-Fascist crusader identity, the Nazi “Drang nach Osten” (“Drive towards the East”)[35] and current economic neocolonialism have to one another? How deeply are Catholic anti-Judaism and genocidal anti-Semitism interwoven; how deeply are historical anti-Slavism, anti-Turkism and contemporary racist policies of exclusion interwoven?

Looking at these complexes from an anti-capitalist, anti-fascist, anti-anti-Semitic and post-colonial perspective and thereby considering the genealogies of local expansionism and local racialization is the precondition for intervening into hegemonic history-writing and attacking contemporary politics of oppression. These are emancipatory processes to which the disclosure of history-political monstrocities could possibly make a small contribution. This being said, I would like to conclude with a quote by the artist, Ivan Jurica: “Due to the processes of extermination and exclusion on all levels, due to the missing critical positions in history and art history in knowledge production and in our studies, I claim – and this statement is my artwork – ‘By my best will, I can see swastikas everywhere!’”[36]