On July 19, 1937, the Nazis staged the grand opening of the Degenerate Art Exhibition in Munich.

For four months, they displayed works of art deemed unacceptable in the society envisioned by the new regime. Among the now unwelcome forms of artistic mastery were anything that reeked of modernism or expressionism, all works by Jewish artists, and any subjects considered abhorrent to or critical of the Nazi world order.

A sign on the wall of the exhibition quoted Hitler from a rally two years earlier: "It is not the mission of art to wallow in filth for filth's sake, to paint the human being only in a state of putrefaction, to draw cretins as symbols of motherhood, or to present deformed idiots as representatives of manly strength.”