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Description
Fritz Erler, ‘Adolf Hitler in SA-uniform’, August 30, 1931
Biography: Fritz Erler
This painting is based on a photo by Heinrich Hoffman (below), showing Adolf Hitler surrounded by students from the Münich SA-Führerschule, during the closing ceremony of the third course at 30 August, 1931. The third course was held from 9 August to 30 August 1931.
The photo was published by the newspaper ‘Süddeutsche Zeitung’ in 1932 and printed in the book ‘Deutschland Erwacht’, 1933. It was also printed on cigarette cards and on postcards issued by the Heinrich Hoffmann publishing company.
The Führerschule in Munich, located in the Briennerstrasse 44, was the first officer’s training school of the SA in the Third Reich.
Extreme scarce work of art
Art works considered as overt propaganda were massively destroyed
As described below, in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement of August 1945, the Allied Control Council laws and military government regulations, all collections of works of art related or dedicated to the perpetuation of German militarism or Nazism, were destroyed. Thousands of paintings were considered of ‘no value’ and burned. Around 8,722 artworks were shipped to military deposits in the U.S. In 1986 the largest part was returned to Germany, with the exception of 200 paintings which were considered as overt propaganda: depictions of German Soldiers, war sceneries, swastika’s and portraits of Nazi leaders.
Hitler visiting the Führerschule in Munich, August 30, 1931
Only the painters Conrad Hommel, Heinrich Knirr and Ferdinand Staeger are said to have received the privilege of a personal portrait sitting (‘Das Bild des Herrschers in Malerie und Grafik des Nationalsozialismus’, Ronge, 2009; ‘Die Sammlung deutscher Kriegskunst der US-Armee‘ in ‘Kunst und Propaganda in der Wehrmacht’, 2005, Gregory Martz, page 14; and ‘Hitler-Kult-Visualisierung’ in ‘Kunst und Propaganda’, 2007, Brigitte Schütz).
Otto Dietrich -SS officer, Press Chief and confidant of Adolf Hitler- stated in his memoires (‘The Hitler I Knew’, 1957, London) that the only portrait Hitler ever sat for was painted by Prof. Heinrich Knirr, who came and stayed at the Berghof for that purpose. All official Court Painters had to use photographs, mostly taken by Heinrich Hoffmann, as the basis for their paintings. German Art Gallery found the original Heinrich Hoffmann photograph that was the basis for this painting by Fritz Erler, depicted in the Süddeutsche Zeitung 1932, on cigarette- and postcards, and in the book ‘Deutschland Erwacht’, 1933. The text under the foto in ‘Deutschland Erwacht’ reads: ‘Adolf Hitler, with students of the Führerschule’. ‘Füherschulen’, later ‘Reichführerschulen’, founded by the NSDAP, were elite training schools for officers of the SA and SS. They were the equivalent of Britain’s Sandhurst and the USA’s West Point. These leadership schools provided a political-, military- and physical training to the leading cadre of the SA and SS. The candidates had to meet stringent requirements before being allowed into the officer schools; all SA/ SS officers had to be a minimum height of 1,74 centimeters and required was a ‘Greater Aryan certificate’, a certificate that traced the German family pedigree down to 1750. In 1937 the Füherschulen were transformed into SS-Junkerschulen, military academies for the children of the SS.
The original and complete Heinrich Hoffmann photo: Adolf Hitler surrounded by students from the Münich SA-Führerschule, during the closing ceremony of the third course at 30 August, 1931 (Foto: The Ian Sayer Archive).
Standing, first row from left to right: Theodor Berkelman (1894 – 1943) general, who held the rank of Obergruppenführer during World War II. Berkelman was a teacher at the Führerschool in Munich; Wilhelm Brückner (1884 – 1954), in 1934 appointed as SA-Obergruppenführer. Until 1940 he was Adolf Hitler’s chief adjutant In 1940 he went into the Wehrmacht and became a colonel by war’s end; Gottlob Berger (1896 – 1975), held the rank of SS-Obergruppenführer und General der Waffen-SS. Standing right next to Hitler: Kurt Kühme ( 1910 – 1978), a highly decorated Major in the Wehrmacht and an Oberstleutnant in the Bundeswehr. In the SA he was promoted to Obergruppenführer in 1933. Kühne was the Head of the Munich Führerschule from 1931 to 1934. The third man left to Hitler: Baron Otto Wächter (1901 – 1949), head of the Civil Administration in the Kraków and Galicia districts in the General Government, before being appointed as head of the German Military Administration in Fascist Italy. He finished his career with the honorary rank of SS-Gruppenführer.
Left: the Heinrich Hoffmann photo depicted in the book ‘Deutschland Erwacht’, 1933. The text under the foto reads: ‘Adolf Hitler, with students of the Führerschule’ (‘Adolf Hitler, im Kreise von Teilnehmern der Führerschule’).
Right: the painting by Fritz Erler.
Cigarette card, ‘Kampf um’s Dritte Reich’, Bild 40 ‘Führer und Gefolgschaft’. Issued by Jasmatzi Cigarettes Dresden, 1933. Size 6,3 x 4,7 cm.
The international tradition of collectable cards sold in cigarette cartons dates back to 1895, but the Nazi Regime marked a renaissance for the medium. These cards advertised a new start for the country using the slogan ‘Germany Awakens’ . Popular among young Germans who had grown up impoverished post World War I, the cards were manufactured limited edition sets which could be pasted into an album for safekeeping. Ironically, the cards were printed despite the Nazi’s rabid anti-smoking campaign. 
Left: the Heinrich Hoffmann photo depicted in the ‘Süddeutsche Zeitung’, 1932. The newspaper described the photo as: ‘Hitler surrounded by SA-men in uniform, Munich, 1932.’
Right: Heinrich Hoffmann postcard, date of issuance unknown.
Signature-book of the third course of the Munich Führerschule. Also signed by Alfred Rosenberg (24-8-1931) and Ernst Röhm (28-8-1931), probably in their role as teacher (source: The Ian Sayer Archive).
The first Führerschule, founded 15 June, 1931 in Munich
The very first Führerschule was founded at 15 June 1931, in Munich, Briennerstrasse 44. The photo below shows the closing ceremony of the first course at 4 Juli, 1931.
The Heinrich Hoffmann photo is also printed on the cover of the book ‘The Charisma of Adolf Hitler’, by Laurence Rees, published in 2012. The book and the related BBC-movie were published in various languages.
And published on the cover of the book ‘ADOLF HITLER UND SEINE KÄMPFER, -288 Braunhemden im Reichstag’, Eher Verlag, München 1933.
Fritz Erler, one of the 5 major ‘Court Painters’ of Hitler
The five major ‘Court Painters’ of Hitler were: Fritz Erler, Conrad Hommel, Heinrich Knirr, Franz Triebsch and Karl Truppe. Paintings by these artists depicting Hitler or other Nazi-leaders are extremely scarce since they were destructed in 1945 on a massive scale. Most of those that still exist were confiscated by the Americans at the end of the war and shipped to the U.S. Army Centre of Military History in Washington, D.C., where they are still stored. We know that only the following works of these Court Painters depicting Adolf Hitler have survived and are at the U.S. Army Centre of Military History in Washington D.C.:
– Conrad Hommel: ‘Hitler’ (Head in Profile, 1941) and ‘Portrait of Adolf Hitler’ (1941);
– Heinrich Knirr: ‘Hitler with Red Roses and a Chair’ (1936) and ‘Portrait of Hitler’ (1939);
– Franz Triebsch: ‘Portrait of Hitler’ (1939);
– Karl Truppe: lost;
– Fritz Erler: lost.
A Heinrich Knirr painting from 1937, ‘Portrait of Hitler’, is in the possession of the Imperial War Museum, Londen.
Adolf Hitler in SA-uniform
Hitler depicted in the SA-uniform with Swastika bracelet and cross belt. On his tie we see the self-designed golden tiepin with an eagle and swastika. Left at his breast we see the contours of the Iron Cross First Class, which Hitler was awarded in 1918, and his Wounded Mark (also earned in World War I). Later, after 1933, Hitler also wore the golden Nazi Party Badge, with the inscription on the back ‘Number 1’. This Party Badge was removed from his charred corpse in Berlin in 1945; later -in 2005- it was stolen from an exhibition in Moscow. Hitler often wore simple, modest clothes. Unlike the leaders of the Kaiserreich and the Weimar Republic, he did not wear flamboyant, expensive uniforms, covered with rows of distinctions. This was meant to cultivate the image -in line with the Prussian ideals of toughness, discipline and thrift -of a great man with outstanding moral authority. Part of the iconography of Hitler is his fanatical, grim facial expression. It is meant to display willingness, determination and strength, because politics is a battle.
Hitler’s attire from 1920 to 1945
The clothes and/or uniforms that Hitler wore were specific to the time of the portrait:
From 1920 to 1933: he wore the brown-shirt uniform with a cross belt. Before 1927 he also wore a trenchcoat, during the mid 1920’s a brown SA-shirt with black riding breeches and after 1930 he wore a brown SA-Uniform with black boots.
From 1933 to 1939: he wore a brown tunic plus a white shirt to express his statesmanship.
From 1939 to 1945: he wore a field-gray tunic with a white shirt.
Fritz Erler, ‘Portrait of the Leader’. Size 3,30 x 2 meter. Displayed in Room 1 of the Great German Art Exhibition in 1939. Depicted in ‘Kunst dem Volk’, 1939.
The work was bought for 25.000 Reichsmark by Edoardo Dino Alfieri, the Italian Minister of Culture and Propaganda. The painting shows rugged hands from Hitler. However, Fritz Erler hardly had time to follow the advice of Minister Adolf Wagner (below) in May 1940: as he died in December 1940.
‘Portrait of the leader’ by Erler, original stamped photograph. The Italian text on the back reads: ‘Portrait of the leader’ (oil on canvas, 2 x 3,3 meter), work by the German artist Fritz Erler, purchased by the Duce at the exhibition of German art in Monaco and donated by the Minister of Culture to the headquarters of the Italian-German Association of Culture’.
1. Notice that with ‘Monaco’ is meant ‘Monaca di Baviera’ (‘Monaco von Bayern’), an Italian name for the city of Munich.
2. Minister Edoardo Dino Alfieri was until 1939 also chairman of the ‘German-Italian Cultural Society’ (‘Deutsch-Italienische Gesellschaft’, ‘Associazione Italo-Germanica di Cultura’).
As can been seen in both Erler paintings, the hands of Hitler were -just like on the photos- depicted quite gracelessly. In May 1940, Fritz Erler received a letter from the Ministry of Home Affairs, in which Minster Adolf Wagner advised him to pay more attention to the hands of the Führer.
‘Herr Staatsminister führte am 14. März 1940 anläslich des Besuches im Bernheimer Haus auss, das er z. B über das Führerbild von Prof. Erler deswegen entsetzt gewesen sei, weil dieser keine Ahnung von den Handen des Führers habe. Er habe sich in die letzte Tagen einschlägige Literatur und Bilder kommen lassen, aus denen die Künstler in reichem Mase die hände des Führers studieren können. Die Künstler machen es sich heute viel zu leicht. Sie arbeiten heute in der regel ein viel zu Kurzes Vorstudium des zu mahlen objektes aus. Herr Staatsminister beabsichtigt, die ober erwähnten Studien zusammenzufassen und den Müncherer Künstlern zu übersenden, damit sie einmal Gelegenheit haben, sich eingehend mit den Händen des Führers zu beschäftigen.’
Adolf Hitler (seen from behind) watching ‘Portrait of the Leader’ at the GDK 1939. Depicted in the ‘Salzburger Volksblatt, July 17, 1939.
‘Portrait of the Leader’ by Erler. Photo in the possession of the New York Public Library, -Digital Collections.
Hitler as art
Thirty-six paintings and busts of Hitler were displayed at the Great German Art Exhibitions from 1937 to 1944. The first painting that people saw when they entered the exhibition was one of Der Führer in Room 1. In similar fashion, the official exhibition catalogues all started with a picture of the ‘Schirmherr (patron) Des Haus der Deutschen Kunst’.
Around 450 portraits depicting Hitler and other Nazi-officials, Nazi-symbols, German Soldiers and battle fields are currently stored in the U.S. Army Center of Military History in Washington. Keeping this German War Art Collection in the US is not seen by the Americans as a violation of the 1907 Hague Convention and the 1970 UNESCO Treaty on cultural property, as they don’t classify these paintings as art.
In 2004 Brigadier General John Brown, outgoing head of the U.S. Army’s Center of Military History, was interviewed about the Army’s view of the legal status of these 450 objects in the German War Art Collection that remained in the custody of the United States. When asked if the Army’s continues sequestration of these works, which had been determined to be in volation of U.S. and German laws in 1947, could not also be construed as a volation of the 1907 Hague Convention and the 1970 UNESCO treaty on cultural property, he replied, “No. That would only be true if the objects in the German War Art Collection could be defined as cultural property or art. Our position is that these paintings are no art” (‘Nostalgia for the Future’, Gregory Maertz, 2019).
This remarkable point of view leads us to the following question: is a painting depicting Angela Merkel, Joseph Stalin, Benjamin Netanyahu or Mao Zedong art or non-art? And who decides this? Respectively German left-wing extremists? Russian civilians? Palestinians or Taiwanese civilians? Can people be interested in a portrait of Napoleon (or Hitler) because of it’s historical significance? Or does their interest mean that they are automatically right-wing extremists with the aim of conquering the whole of Europe? This last point of view echoes the theory of Hannah Ahrend who states: ‘The essence of terror lies in the immediate transition from accusation to conviction’. One thing we learned very well from the tragic 1930s and 1940s is that classifying art as ‘non-art’ is a dead-end-street, just like burning and forbidding books for political reasons. No matter how much one dislikes Hitler, Napoleon, Caligula or Stalin, and no matter how much their depictions were used as propaganda, a painting or sculpture of them cannot be reclassified as ‘non art’.
| – condition | : II |
| – size | : 116 x 94 cm, unframed 100 x 80 cm |
| – signed | : right, under. Created between 1931 – 1940 |
| – type | : oil on canvas |
| – misc. I | : written on the back: ‘Für Grete, Johann W.’ |
| – misc. II | : painting may have hung in the German embassy in Bratislava (formerly Pressburg), Slovakia. |
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