Arno Breker

“God is beauty and Arno Breker is his Prophet.”

Salvador Dali, 1975.

”The Michelangelo of the Third Reich”
Arno Breker (1900 – 1991) was a German sculptor, best known for his public works in Nazi Germany, which were endorsed by the authorities as the antithesis of degenerate art. During his time in Paris in the twenties and early thirties he was influenced by Jean Cocteau, Jean Renoir, Pablo Picasso and Aristide Maillol. He maintained personal relationships with Albert Speer and with Hitler.

In 1936 he won the commission for two sculptures representing athletic prowess, to be entered in the 1936 Olympic games arts competition in Berlin, one representing a Decathlete ("Zehnkämpfer"), which won the silver medal for statues, and the other The Victress ("Die Siegerin"). In 1937 he married Demetra Messala (Δήμητρα Μεσσάλα), a Greek model. The same year, Breker joined the Nazi Party and was made "official state sculptor" by Hitler.

Albert Speer, Adolf Hilter and Arno Breker visiting Paris after the Occupation.

In 1937 Breker joined the Nazi Party and was made ‘official state sculptor’ by Hitler. He was given a large property and provided a studio with forty-three assistants. As main sculptor and more or less number one on the Gottbegnadeten list (devinly gifted), he was exempted from military service. His twin sculptures The Party and The Army held a prominent position at the entrance to Albert Speer’s New Reich Chancellery.

The Party and The Army Sculptures outside the Reich chancellery 1942

Demetra Messala and Arno Brecker

While nearly all of his sculptures survived World War II, more than 90% of his public work was destroyed by the Allies after the war. In 1946 Breker was offered a commission by Joseph Stalin but he refused and stated ‘One dictatorship is sufficient for me’.
After the war he continued to receive commissions for sculptures, producing a number of works in his familiar classical style, working for businesses and individual patrons. He also produced many bronze female sculptures, in smaller sizes. Some of these were casts from original models designed before 1945. His works can be seen in the Breker Museum in Schloss Nörvenich in Germany.

Arno Breker was represented at the Great German Art Exhibitions with 42 works. The neoclassical nature of his work, with titles like ‘Comradschip’, ‘Torchbearer’ and ‘Sacrifice’, typified Nazi ideals, and suited the characteristics of Nazi architecture. On closer inspection, though, the proportions of his figures, the highly colorful treatment of his surfaces (the strong contrasts between dark and light accents), and the melodramatic tension of their musculatures perhaps invites comparison with the Italian Mannerist sculptors of the 16th century.
Four works by Breker were part of the art collection of Hermann Göring and destinated for the ‘Norddeutsche Gallery’ ( Herman Goering’s Gallery -The Norddeutsche Gallery was to be erected as an annex to Karinhall in the big forest of the Schorfheide, near Berlin).

An original marble relief ‘Du und Ich’, as well as three bronze life size sculptures by Breker, were displayed at the exhibition ‘Nazi Design’, Design Museum Den Bosch, The Netherlands, 8 September 2019 – 1 March 2020. This world-wide highly publicized exhibition attracted over 130.000 visitors in six months. The exhibition was covered on the front page of the New York Times and Bild, and i.a. in the Guardian, Le Monde, Le Figaro, Paris Match, Spiegel, Welt, Tagesspiegel, El Pais and all Dutch News papers. On television the exposition was covered i.a. by the ARD, ZDF, DW News, Aljazeera, AFP News Agency, SBS World News, and all mayor television chanels in The Netherlands. Because of the enormous popularity of the exhibition, the museum extended opening hours, opened its doors also on Mondays, and finally it extended the exhibition by 6 weeks.

Albert Speer posing for his sculpture

Arno Breker’s Grave and Memorial