The Bauhaus artists who became Nazi collaborators

Why the Nazis hated the Bauhaus style

The Nazis viewed the Bauhaus internationalist and collectivist philosophy to be communist and considered its modernist aesthetic as an affront to the more classical German identity they wished to project. This article from the Conversation explores the history behind that conflict, which forced the Bauhaus to move several times before ultimately closing.

Analyzing the anti-Nazi history behind Bauhaus' sleek typography

Following World War I, the Nazi Party used the ornamental Fraktur typeface, hoping to give its materials a classical sheen. The Bauhaus school responded with a sleeker design style, including bolder, rounder fontfaces. Quartz digs into the history behind that decision and how the style can still be found in widely used typefaces like Helvetica.

The impact of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, the final Bauhaus director

The legendary modernist architect—known for maxims like "less is more" and "God is in the details"—had not yet designed some of his most famous buildings when he took over as director for the Bauhaus and steered the school to Berlin when the Nazis effectively closed its Dessau location. This Dezeen profile considers the artist's tenure at the school, which would shape his later work.

A guide to the Bauhaus' 3 German locations

The influential design school began in Weimar, then moved to Dessau and later to Berlin. This narrated timeline from Graphic Design History explains how Gropius' countercultural educational and artistic philosophies forced the school to move and, ultimately, leave Gropius behind.

Exploring the White City of Tel Aviv, the capital of the Bauhaus style

In 1933, around 60,000 German Jews fled the Nazi regime for what was then Mandatory Palestine. Among them were six Bauhaus students, who accommodated the influx by working with nearly 150 other architects to design over 4,000 buildings that reflected their alma mater's modernist style. This Smarthistory article on the area, now a UNESCO World Heritage site, allows you to see several of its buildings from the comfort of your couch.

How Lucia Moholy's photography captured the Bauhaus aesthetic

The photographer was one of the few affiliated with the school who photographed its locations, documenting the modern style long after the Nazis had driven its artists from Germany. This podcast episode explores why she went uncredited for so many years.

How one North Carolina college welcomed the Bauhaus

After the Bauhaus in Berlin closed because the school wouldn't comply with the Nazis' demands, many of its teachers, students, and affiliated artists—including Walter Gropius—left Germany and relocated at Black Mountain College, a quirky liberal arts school in the mountains of western North Carolina.

Browse some of the most iconic Bauhaus furniture

The Bauhaus style has become so commonplace that you might not have realized its influence on modern furniture, but the German school's impact is profound, from the Wassily and Barcelona chairs to Gropius' industrial style door knob.

Check out pictures from the Bauhaus' elaborate costume parties

Bauhaus is known for its innovation, but, at the end of the day, it was still an art school. That means parties were regular occurrences and often featured elaborate costumes—Gropius once dressed as the renowned architect Le Corbusier, while Kandinsky was known for pretending to be an antenna.

Adolf Hitler deeply admired Henry Ford, citing him as an inspiration for "Mein Kampf"

Hitler frequently praised Ford's anti-semitic viewpoints, both before and during the Holocaust. While Ford denied being sympathetic to the Nazi regime, Hitler kept a portrait of Ford on his desk, and Ford accepted the highest military award available to a foreign citizen from the Nazi government.

Some senior Nazis fled to South America and lived for decades

Using so-called "ratlines" through Spain, Italy, and into South American countries like Argentina, many of Adolf Hitler's closest associates evaded capture after the fall of Berlin in 1945. This video details the fate of eight, including infamous doctor Josef Mengele and logistics expert Adolf Eichmann.

How Bauhaus resonated in Norway

The Bauhaus style may have originated in Germany, but it had a major impact in Norway. This history unpacks the work of Marianne Brandt, Thorbjørn Lie-Jørgensen, Ola Mørk Sandvik, Hans Mollø-Christensen, and other Norwegian designers and architects

Looting art is often a byproduct of war

During WWII, Hitler orchestrated the theft of many masterpieces to eventually create his own museum. While many of these were recovered, iconic works such as Raphael's "[Portrait of a Young Man](https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/the-story-of-the-lost-raphaels-portrait-of-a-young-man/)" and Vincent van Gogh's "Painter on His Way to Work" remain missing or were destroyed by the Nazis.

Nazi Germany replaced Advent calendars with depictions of family life under Nazi rule

During World War II, the Nazi regime banned printed Advent calendars because of religious messaging. Officials instead produced state-approved versions featuring swastikas, tanks, and Nazi symbols.

Exploring Oskar Schlemmer's 'Triadic Ballet,' a Bauhaus-inspired performance piece

The "symphonic dance of threeness" brought together Bauhaus' varied artistic interests and offered a fable in which collectivism wins. This history and timeline of the work details its origins as well as its near-destruction at the hands of the Nazis, who considered it profane.

Dreaming under the Nazi Regime

Days after Hitler seized power, a man told psychoanalyst Charlotte Beradt that he had dreamed of being forced to raise his arm in a Nazi salute ("It took me half an hour to get my arm up, inch by inch"). Beradt recorded this dream and many others so they "might one day serve as evidence." This is an English translation of her work, "The Third Reich of Dreams."

Champagne played a role in resisting the Nazis

When France surrendered to the Nazis in 1940, the invaders occupied the north. This was home to wine regions like Champagne and Bordeaux, which the Nazis were eager to loot. Winemakers took a stand by sheltering dissidents in their cellars, passing intelligence across borders, and even giving their lives to the cause.

The US space program was built on former Nazi expertise through Operation Paperclip

After WWII, the US secretly recruited over 1,600 German scientists, including ex-Nazis like Wernher von Braun. They repurposed V‑2 rocket technology to create NASA’s core capabilities—pivotal in the Saturn V and Apollo missions.

Private home footage of Hitler and his wife, Eva Braun

Care to see what else Hitler and his wife, Eva Braun, were up to during World War II? Then check out this National Archives footage. Some of the videos have been colorized, and all were taken from a collection titled Motion Picture Films Confiscated from Foreign Countries and Sources, between 1940–44.

The Nazi Party was founded in Germany in 1920 and tried a failed coup in 1923

Founded in Germany in February 1920, the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazi Party) attempted its first major power grab in 1923 with the Beer Hall Putsch—a failed coup in Munich that killed about 16 Nazis and four police officers, led to Hitler’s arrest and treason trial, but ultimately elevated his public profile.

A 1980 Oktoberfest bombing killed 13 people

The event was the country's deadliest domestic terror attack since World War II, killing 13 people and injuring more than 200. The perpetrator was 21-year-old Gundolf Koehler, who hoped to use the attack to usher in a conservative chancellor.

The Holocaust was the systematic, state‑sponsored genocide of 6 million European Jews

Between 1933 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators implemented the “Final Solution”: a state-engineered campaign of antisemitic persecution and mass murder. By the end, two-thirds of Europe’s Jews—approximately 6 million individuals—had been exterminated through ghettos, mass shootings, and extermination camps.

German expressionism produced some of horror’s earliest classics

After World War I, German filmmakers turned from reality to the surreal, fusing experimental art with the nascent world of film. Some of the movement’s most notable films, like FW Murnau’s “Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror” and Robert Wiene’s “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari,” were intent on frightening their audiences.

Watch archival footage of Jesse Owens in the 1936 Berlin Olympics

The 1936 Berlin Games were the first Olympics to be shown live on television (though not broadcast). The Germans used a closed circuit television network to bring the Games to 25 viewing halls in black and white. View footage of American Olympic hero Jesse Owens winning his four gold medals, and his historic interaction with German long jumper Luz Long in Nazi Germany.

American dance legend Martha Graham, sometimes called 'the Picasso of dance,' refused to perform at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and conceived the piece 'Chronicle' in response to the experience.

Salvador Dalí’s collaborations with fashion designers

Dalí was known to dabble in the world of fashion and formed a bond with the bold Italian designer Elsa Schiaparelli. Their collaborations birthed iconic designs like a bureau-drawer suit and a lobster dress.

Mid-century modern graphic designers, known for their bright colors and bold lines in advertising, also found success with children's books.

Legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the SC Johnson headquarters in Wisconsin, aiming to make a cathedral-like workplace

The Brothers Grimm were lawyers before they were storytellers, and became interested in fairy tales as they began investigating how rules and customs had been passed down through cultures.

Against his wishes, Albert Einstein's brain was removed before his cremation, and the pathologist responsible stored it for decades in mason jars within a beer cooler.

In 1945, Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí and legendary animator Walt Disney began collaborating on a short film that was not completed until 2003, years after both men had died.

Clever Hans was a 1900s horse that was believed to be able to solve math equations, tell time, and read and comprehend German, until a psychology student discovered how he got his answers.

In 1915, workers recovered a submarine-like vessel from the Chicago River, prompting fears of German espionage

At the beginning of the 20th century, a group of young men ate standard American food—replete with food additives like borax and formaldehyde—as part of government research to better understand food safety.

See 33 images that became central to huge scandals, including a young Charles and Camilla, Michael Jackson's baby on a hotel balcony, and Hugh Grant's mugshot.

Budweiser stores yeast derived from the original 1800s strain in a secret bunker, which only the Head of Yeast Management can access—not even the CEO

Georgia O'Keeffe's flower paintings are often assumed to be sexual, though the artist claimed she was simply interested in highlighting the beauty of flowers that most people neglect

Existentialist writer Jean-Paul Sartre coined the famous phrase 'Hell is—other people' in his play 'No Exit'

Graffiti dates back to at least ancient Pompeii, where citizens scrawled messages to one another on public walls

Before writing 'Walden,' transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau nearly burned down his hometown with a campfire that grew out of control.

After her fellow cult members tried to kill her with an LSD-infused hamburger, one member of the Manson Family, the murderous cult led by Charles Manson, decided to testify against the group's leader.

See a ranking of the best (and worst) Federal Reserve Chairs since 1914 out of the 16 men and women who have held the office since.

During the French Revolution, a botanist's letter asking about "dear Rhus" (poison ivy) was intercepted, leading authorities to suspect he was conspiring with the Russians.

While atoms are normally made of protons, neutrons, and electrons, exotic ones have been built with antimatter—alternate versions of normal matter that live for fractions of a second and are about a billion times as rare.

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

The name 'Silicon Valley' arose from the founding of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Fairchild Semiconductor in 1956-57, founded near Stanford University in Palo Alto

In 1939, baseball star Lou Gehrig delivered his inspirational 'Luckiest Man' speech after retiring due to the health condition that now bears his name.

The Ramones' 'Pet Sematary,' the theme song for the Stephen King novel of the same name, was written while the band was admiring the writer's collection of horror memorabilia.

In 2019, a laptop loaded with six of the worst malware in history and described as 'an exhibit of historical weaponry' sold for $1.3M.

Hotels in Cannes, the glamorous city on the French Riviera, hire hawks to ward off seagulls during the city's famous film festival.