Painting For Hitler
Anyone who paints the meadow blue
And the sky green with yellow clouds
Should be sterilized or executed,
Adolf Hitler said.
For many years I waited with a response to that.
Finally on a spring morning I took a canvas and
With slow and measured brushstrokes I painted
The sky green with yellow clouds
And the meadow blue.
I did this not only as a symbolical act
Of defiance but also in reply to the present day
Followers of the Nazi dictator who continue
To admire and worship him.
Prior to his rise to power Adolf painted
Nostalgic landscapes. He also designed
The Nazi flag in which he reversed
The ancient Hindu and Buddhist icon
Of the swastika from a symbol of peace
To a symbol of violence and hatred.
As the supreme military commander
Of the Reich he liked to impress his minions
By quoting from memory encyclopaedic data
Such as the exact tonnage of each warship of
Every nation. However, General Franz Halder
Described Hitler as a grotesque neurotic
Who gave irrational orders. The fuehrer wanted
To outperform Napoleon and in the process
Fifty million people died in Europe.
Six million of them were Jews.
This monstrous criminal of history also posed
As art theorist although he failed to grasp
The principle of artistic freedom. He forbade
Aesthetic experimentation and raged at signs
Of the flight of imagination. He feared the idea
Of liberating perception from the tight hold of
Appearances because we can see what we cannot
See only through the unique eye of the free artist.
Anyone who paints the meadow blue
And the sky green with yellow clouds
Should be sterilized, or executed,
Hitler said on October 15,1933 in Munich
In a cornerstone laying speech
For the House of German Art.
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poem by Paul Hartal
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