I’m in awe of the depth and breadth of Edmund de Waal’s knowledge of porcelain. His expertise is such that he can not only speak at length about obscure porcelain legends, but he can also use that knowledge view history through an entirely new lens.
Above image: A bivouac bowl and its original box. Photograph from Alamy.
Case in point: the Nazis were apparently fond of porcelain figurines. Yes, in addition to Wagner, the occult and Himmler’s ridiculous obsession with King Arthur, the Nazis were porcelain fanatics. In that medium (gleaming white, as you might have guessed) they found a way to praise German nationalism through art. They made their own factory to produce the works and to hear de Waal describe it, the Allach factory was almost like a propaganda arm of the Nazi party. Himmler wove the works into his other esoteric interests, perhaps in an attempt to nurture his brand of culture.
“Having your own porcelain factory allowed you to give gifts. In Himmler’s SS there were interminable rites of gift giving. Alfred Rosenberg, the theoretician of the party, was hard at work creating new rituals, new arcana to embed the people in their culture. Christmas became Julfest, an ersatz Nordic winter celebration, with sacred fire and candles and music. So Allach made Julleuchter – yule lanterns – to sit on the festive tables and glow as the family celebrated the new year, the new start for their country.
“Birthdays and weddings and the birth of a child to SS members all warranted presents of Allach porcelain. And there were porcelain bowls for presentation at the party rallies at Nuremberg, sporting medals, plaques to celebrate the Anschluss, a presentation vase to Hitler for his 50th birthday in 1939, huge white vases for the niches of the Chancellery. Who could have foreseen such demand for porcelain?”
Himmler presents Allach figurines on Hitler’s birthday in 1944. Photograph: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek/Heinrich Hoffman. Click to see a larger image.
They loved porcelain so much that when production at Allach was suspended due to the war, the Nazis moved the factory to Dachau concentration camp, where artisans were plucked from the prisoners and forced to craft the stuff. De Waal quotes the testimony of one prisoner who may owe his life to the fact that he could make horse figurines.
“Chilling” comes to mind. It’s a word that gets thrown around almost to the point of being trite when you start to describe the Nazis, but what other descriptor could one use? We profile works that look exactly like these by the hundreds on CFile and it would take a trained eye to separate those innocent ceramics from ones made at a death camp. At one point in the video de Waal opens an accounting ledger from Allach and starts to read the names of officers who were requesting bespoke pieces. Some of the most recognizable, most despicable ogres mankind has ever produced just had to have an adorable porcelain tea set. One of the stag figurines that graced the mantelpieces of SS soldiers was actually titled Bambi. Banality of evil, indeed.
A stag designed by Professor Kärner. Photograph from Alamy. Click to see a larger image.
Thanks to de Waal’s scholarship I’m left wondering, “Who the hell were these people?” And that’s an extremely valuable form of confusion. I’ve proudly killed thousands of Nazis in videogames and not a one of them would own things like this. We always run the risk of mythologizing evil, to Otherize it to the point that we assume it can’t be present and share the same space with us. That’s not the case. Monsters eat, sleep, breathe, love music, and appreciate art just like real people do.
The uncomfortable reality is that monsters are lurking within our cultural sphere. They may be searching for ways to pervert art to justify their own grotesque ideologies. That’s a favorite a tactic for Nazis, who in recent memory have glommed on to counterculture movements such as punk. It behooves us to be on the lookout for similar threads that could arise in contemporary art.
Bill Rodgers is the Managing Editor of cfile.daily.
Do you loathe or loathe this contemporary ceramic art? Let us know in the comments.
Himmler inspecting Allach porcelain at Dachau in January 1941. Photograph from Image Bank WW2 – NIOD/Amsterdam. Click to see a larger image.
I THINK ALLACH PORCELAIN ARE FASCINATING!…. I HAVE THE HORSE AND IT IS BEAUTIFUL,… GO FUCK YOUR SELVES ALLACH HATERS! THE ANTI-NAZI PROPAGANDA THAT YOU LIVE IN IS PATHETIC, READ A BIT MORE OF HISTORY AND YOU WILL SEE THE FUCKED UP SHIT THE US DID TO GERMAN WOMEN RIGHT AFTER THE WAR, YOU IGNORANT GRINGOS.
In response to Jake (4-27-16 at 1:30 pm):
While I don’t disagree with many of the points you made in your rambling diatribe against the immoral policies (such as unnecessary and greed driven wars) taken by the U.S. government over the centuries, I do question your insinuations expressed in the final sentence: “It is always interesting to me how there are always people who find clever ways to profit from that which they have demonized and or profess to loathe.”
As an artist who has focused on examining the consequences of war and militarism in my art for nearly five decades, I would like to explain that one doesn’t choose to profit from such topics, which negatively impact on the number of collectors who are willing to purchase and live with such imagery. If profit was the motive, I would switch the focus of my art to sexual imagery. Tits and ass and penises are much more marketable than war imagery, resulting in a far greater collector pool and profit margin for an artist.
Every artist should work within the unique scope of his or her own passions. And whatever the chosen theme, concept, and/or aesthetic direction, artists, like all people, have to pay the rent and put beans on the table.
Jake, if I have misinterpreted your comment, please reply. And, as I don’t mind having my name attached to my comments, I hope you will be willing to let us know who you are, too.
Richard Notkin
Just a small example…
History is far more complex than some would like it to be.
http://www.nativeweb.org/pages/legal/amherst/lord_jeff.html
“Some of the most recognizable, most despicable ogres mankind has ever produced just had to have an adorable porcelain tea set.”
Yes, and I would add, they, ( the dispicable ogres that were The Nazi role models from the beginning of Colonialism’s trail of Horrors…), also just had to have all the land and oil on the American Continent, all the gold and diamand mines in South Africa, all the oil in Persia, along with all the wonderfull things that were made from them, etc, etc. I think you get my point. But they, (the Nazi role models) are not coloquially refered to as Monsters and there are no video games with which to vent on in the form of founding fathers and or the heros of the forging of the American Empire. Besides that, all obsessions are ridiculous not only those of the former Nazi’s. Monsters don’t craete history, human beings do, like the ones who build and deploy drones to murder innocent defensless Humans. It is always interesting to me how there are always people who find clever ways to profit from that which they have demonized and or profess to loathe.
Great article. Makes you wonder about Donald Trump, the modern iteration of the American neo-nazi. He likes yachts and gold-plated faucets. I wonder: does porcelain figures into his fantasies of extreme wealth and its proper display?
I agree with Trevor. Video games are utter fantasy. Similarly, if you took any delight at all watching Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) kill numerous nazis in “Raider of the Lost Ark”, does that make you evil, like a nazi, too?
Being Jewish, I have no sympathies for nazis, past or present. But let’s not connect Mr. Rodgers with such evil ideologies. His articles have brought to light some very unusual connections of clay and war, as in his article last year about the ceramic hand grenades produced by the Japanese army towards the end of WWII.
A great source of information regarding the use of clay and porcelain for propaganda purposes is the Wolfsonian Museum in South Miami Beach, Florida. Their collection also includes porcelain figurines of Hitler youth, Soviet propaganda porcelain, etc. As the collection includes objects mostly created between the 1880’s and the end of WWII, I don’t think that there are examples of Chinese ceramics celebrating Mao and the Chinese revolution, but examples of these are numerous and quite interesting as examples of art supporting questionable governmental policies, to put it mildly.
Keep up the good work, Mr. Rodgers.
Thanks, Richard! I’ll have to check out that collection. Sounds interesting.
It bothers me that you’ve proudly killed thousands of people in video games. Take away the technology and you sound like s nazi.
You are literally calling the author of this article a nazi.
Just think about that for a second.