The Propaganda Exhibition “The Beautiful Town—Entschandelung and Design”: Stops in the “German East”, 1940–1942

A traveling exhibition, 'The Beautiful Town—Entschandelung and Design,' initiated by the Deutscher Heimatbund under Werner Lindner, significantly influenced German architecture during and after World War II. The exhibition, which toured the German Reich from 1938 to 1942, showcased buildings with 'advertising excesses' and their 'ridding of disgraces' (Entschandelung), aiming to establish design principles that were later adopted by official monument authorities. These measures, primarily focusing on building facades, laid the legal foundation for architectural changes that persisted into the postwar period. The exhibition's design goals, rooted in a perceived 'German East' building culture, aligned with National Socialist ideologies and Heinrich Himmler’s Volkstumspolitik, as evidenced by its presentations in Poznań (Posen), Łódź (Litzmannstadt), and Litoměřice (Leitmeritz). Traces of the exhibition's influence remain visible in surviving buildings today.

Wiese, Anja. (2021). The Propaganda Exhibition “The Beautiful Town—Entschandelung and Design”: Stops in the “German East”, 1940–1942. Zeitschrift Für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung, 70(4), 629–661. https://doi.org/10.25627/202170411054