[NYTr] Cardinal in 'Nazi art term' row

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

BBC - Sep 15, 2007 via rick kissell
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/6996251.stm


Cardinal in 'Nazi art term' row

A German archbishop has sparked controversy by calling some modern art 
"degenerate" - a term used by the Nazi regime in its persecution of 
artists.

Cardinal Joachim Meisner, Archbishop of Cologne, was speaking as the 
Church inaugurated its Kolumba art museum.

Cardinal Meisner warned that when art became estranged from worship, 
culture became degenerate.

The cardinal had not intended to pay tribute to "old ideologies", a 
spokesman said.

Taboo

The BBC's Marianne Landzettel says this was no off-the-cuff remark by 
the cardinal, delivered in a sermon in Cologne Cathedral, but was 
precisely scripted.

She says the phrase degenerate art - "entartete Kunst" - in German has 
only one connotation: that of Nazi Germany and the persecution of 
artists, the banning of paintings and the burning of books.

"Entartete Kunst" was the name of an exhibition of works organised by 
the Nazis in 1937 in Munich as a warning to the German people.

In a newspaper interview, the North Rhine-Westphalia culture secretary, 
Hans-Dietrich Grosse-Brockhoff, said it was appalling that Cardinal 
Meisner had used such a word.

Former minister Michael Vesper also said he was shocked.

"I thought all this was history, and then it is a high-ranking member
of the Catholic clergy who uses it," he said.

After Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, the Nazi government started
to bring art under its control.

All modern art, and Expressionism in particular, was labelled
degenerate and was not to be shown in public.

More than 15,000 paintings were removed from German museums.

Recently Cardinal Meisner expressed opposition to a new stained-glass 
window in Cologne Cathedral.

The abstract work by renowned artist Gerhard Richter contains thousands 
of squares.

The archbishop's supporters say he is not opposed to modern art as such 
but wanted the window to be a more figurative representation, including 
of those who suffered under Nazi persecution.

Correspondents say any sign of agreement with the Nazis is taboo in 
Germany.

Last week, a top TV presenter was sacked for praising the Nazis'
respect for families and motherhood.