It’s Fan Friday, and today I wanted to discuss a topic suggested by loyal podcast listener Paul. An artist himself, Paul wanted us to address an art history subject. His suggestion of the Nazi “Degenerate Art” show immediately piqued my interest. Candace and I have done a podcast on the Nazi propaganda machine, but we didn’t go into this particular aspect of it. Plus, the subject of Nazi art theory is especially timely: Next month, a collection of Adolf Hitler‘s paintings (including his first self-portrait) will go up for auction, reports Telegraph.

As Hitler himself was an artist, and (as we mentioned in the podcast) the Nazis actually tried to ban jazz music in Germany, it should come as no surprise that they had certain ideas about art. They attacked almost all schools of modern art, including Expressionism, Art Deco, Cubism, Purism, De Stijl and Dada, which Candace covered in a recent post.