John Heartfield is one of the most important European artists. He works in a field that he himself created: photomontage. Through this new art form, he engages in social critique. Firmly on the side of the working class, he exposed the forces of the Weimar Republic that were leading to war; once forced into exile, he fought against Hitler. The works of this great artist, most of which appeared in workers’ publications, are recognized by many – including myself – as classics.
Bertolt Brecht, 1949
Between Hitler’s rise to power in 1933 and the Munich Agreement of September 29, 1938, Czechoslovakia hosted around 10,000 officially registered refugees from Germany and Austria. Over 50 of these exiles were prominent artists, writers, and intellectuals, such as the writer Thomas Mann and the artists Oskar Kokoschka and John Heartfield. The latter, together with his brother, writer and publisher Wieland Herzfelde, organized anti-Nazi resistance in Prague.
The first major public artistic protest in Czechoslovakia against Hitler’s policies, the International Exhibition of Caricatures and Humor, took place in the exhibition spaces of the Mánes Association of Fine Artists in the spring of 1934. It featured a series of caricatures of contemporary politicians such as Hitler, Göring, Goebbels, and other representatives of the Third Reich, as well as Mussolini, Stalin, Trotsky, Masaryk, Beneš, and others. John Heartfield’s photomontages were among the most striking artworks in the exhibition; their expressive power was compared to Goya’s Disasters of War.
Critic Jaromír Pečírka described their display as “the wall where everyone’s laughter freezes in their throat.” The showcase facing the street featured the photomontage Adolf der Übermensch: Schluckt Gold und redet Blech (Adolf the Superman: Swallows Gold and Spouts Junk). Passersby were struck by the sight of Hitler’s head placed above an X-ray of his chest, with a stack of coins in place of his spine and a swastika instead of his heart. This infuriated the German ambassador, Walter Koch, who immediately informed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Berlin that German politicians were being defamed at the exhibition. As a result, seven works that provoked the strongest protests from the German government were removed from the show by the police.
However, Mánes used the former spot of Adolf der Übermensch to display a different anti-Nazi caricature every hour of the day. The showcase drew crowds of people, and the exhibition broke attendance records, becoming an important anti-fascist demonstration, also supported by the international press.
