, 19 tweets, 5 min read Read on Twitter
You might have seen this popping into your timeline recently. You probably focused on the words, but let's examine the image.
It's a painting by Wolfgang Willrich, a leading artist of the Third Reich. He organised the Nazis' Degenerate Art exhibition. He refused party membership because he considered it *too soft* on modern "cultural bolshevist" art. arthistorians.info/willrichw
Don't think that the people behind this organisation don't know that. It didn't take me long to discover it. Third Reich Art to go with their Third Reich agenda.
The style alone set off alarm bells. I'm only an interested amateur in the field. I repeat: Third Reich Art to go with their Third Reich agenda.
I held back for a couple of days after discovering this, partly not to give these fascist scum any more publicity, partly to watch to see what developed. But seeing more references pop into the TL, I had to protect my "scoop"!
Wolfgang Willrich's art is still being promoted through dodgy Nazi image-associated websites. That's probably where the people behind this "rural conservative" glove puppet found the image. It was hard to find a link to a straight-forward art history resource.
You couldn't make it up. The *other* image on that website's homepage is also Nazi-era German art. For someone devoted to "rural Britain", our man certainly has a roving eye for art, that always seems to come to rest in the same place. commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brea…
Two out of two images from the Third Reich.
It's not as if there's a shortage of British rural images that could have been used. But I guess this fellow is going more for the "hey, Wayne!" crowd.
Wolfgang Willrich is a favourite of the extreme-right haters. heute.at/politik/news/s…
Update: creepy website has unprotected itself (although I am blocked). It has published a statement about its use of Third Reich images, now replaced with stock-art wheatfields.
It's the Twitter account that's been unprotected, obviously. The vile website has been open the whole time.
The website's images have now been sanitised. It's under new management while the founder "takes a rest". Before moving on, however, one more look at the other image that was there. (Willrich's culpability in supporting and promoting Third Reich artistic ideology is beyond doubt)
The other painting was Erntepause (Break in the Harvest) by Georg Günther, one of at least two artists by that name. Here is the detail as used on the website.
The painting is in @GNM_Nuernberg's collection. It provides this background. Hitler liked it so much that he personally acquired it at one of the approved German art exhibitions (where many of Willrich's works, incidentally, were displayed). Good choice to champion rural Britain.
Over the signature of the "acting leader", the fascism gets more explicit, if anything:
"Resting" founder probably isn't spending *all* his time watching Leni Riefenstahl films.
The bullet points keep getting tweaked. Oh, for the expertise of a Victor Klemperer to help parse the totalitarian perversion of language. But even the casual reader will notice the adoption of the Trumpian slogan in an effort to bring in alt-right Yank bucks.
I'm blocked but, as of earlier today at least, Washed-Up of Wrexham is still using the Third Reich image on his personal account, even though he now well knows the artist's key role in persecuting others on the Nazis' behalf. Perhaps this acts as his personal altar.
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