Beginning in 1933, the Reich Culture Chamber (composed of chambers for film, music, theater, press, writing , fine arts and radio) regulated all aspects of German culture.
Denouncing modern, innovative art as “degenerate” or ‘Bolshevist,” Nazi artists such as Arthur Kampf and Adolf Ziegler glorified the peasantry, “Aryans” and military heroism.
German architects such as Paul Troost and Albert Speer constructed monumental edifices intended to convey the neoclassical greatness of Nazism.
Nazi writers such as Adolf Bartels and Hans Baumann were promoted, and politically unacceptable books were removed from public libraries. Peasant literature, historical Volk novels and war novels were considered most appropriate.
The state- subsidized motion picture industry was an important propaganda tool with films such as Leni Riefenstahl‘s “Triumph of the Will” and Wolfgang Liebeneiner’s “The Dismissal.”
In music, the Nazis promoted the works of German composers such as Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Anton Bruckner, and Richard Wagner, while prohibiting performances of works by “non-Aryans” such as Felix Mendelssohn and Gustav Mahler.
Theater companies produced National Socialist dramas and plays by great German writers such as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller .