"Germany's Michelangelo", Hitler's favourite, on show

SCHWERIN, Germany, Aug 4: A naked man with the body of a Greek god, a textbook Aryan face and the haircut of a Nazi foot soldier. A muscular warrior brandishing a massive stone as he prepares for an act of vengeance.

These are among the items on display at a new exhibition of works by Adolf Hitler's favourite sculptor, Arno Breker, that has sparked controversy.

It is the first Breker exhibit at a publicly-funded German museum since World War Two and although thousands have flocked to the lakeside town of Schwerin to see it, it is still anathema to those who consider Breker a mere Nazi propagandist.

''These statues are ugly and dishonest,'' German author and journalist Ralph Giordano wrote about Breker's and other Nazi-era works still on display at Berlin's Olympic Stadium, which hosted this year's soccer World Cup final.

''They should be dismantled quickly, without a trace, and pulverised,'' he wrote before the World Cup began on June 9, incensed the sculptures would be visible during the tournament.

Artists and historians have also criticised the exhibition and demanded that it be closed, but the exhibition's curator, Rudolf Conrades, insists it will run until Oct. 22 as planned.

''Breker has to be shown. It should be up to the viewers to decide whether one likes or doesn't like his style, whether one is to condemn or praise him, or whether one considers him alongside (Salvador) Dali as one of the greatest sculptors of the 20th century or a mere producer of heroic kitsch,'' he said.

The roughly 70 works in the exhibition show the scope of Breker's artistic talent without trying to cover up his Nazi-era career. Many of his Nazi period statues are of men in almost neoclassical, melodramatic poses with swords and shields.

Others show Breker's ability to make stone and metal come to life -- such as the ghostly bronze statue of French poet and filmmaker Jean Cocteau or the wild-eyed bust of Dali.

CONTRADICTIONS

Breker, who died in 1991 at the age of 90, had a long career filled with contradictions. Born in Elberfeld in northern Germany, he moved to Paris in the 1920s to follow in the footsteps of his idol, the French sculptor Auguste Rodin. In France, he quickly developed a reputation as one of Europe's greatest sculptors. French Catalan sculptor Aristide Maillol once described him as ''Germany's Michelangelo''.

Although he never joined the Nazi party and was even called a ''degenerate'' by Nazi propagandist Alfred Rosenberg, his work was well liked by many top Nazis and Breker reaped the benefits.

Two of his statues flanked the entrance to the grandiose Reich Chancellery, Hitler's offices.

The Nazis used Breker for propaganda purposes, perhaps because his muscular warriors supported the Nazi myth of the Germans as a superior nation of Aryan heroes and conquerors.

Hitler's Russian campaign ended in early 1943 with the 6th Army's defeat at Stalingrad. A front page report on the defeat in the Voelkischer Beobachter, Rosenberg's newspaper, ran next to a photo of ''Vengeance'' -- Breker's bronze relief of a warrior who has thrown down his sword and shield and brandishes a rock.

In addition to making busts of top Nazis, Breker accepted even bigger Nazi commissions during the 12 years of the Third Reich, like the creation of statues ''Victory'' and ''Decathlon'' at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, built for the 1936 Olympics.

After the war, most of his sculptures were destroyed or confiscated by occupying soldiers.

STALIN LIKED HIM TOO

Although he was fined 100 German marks after the war for cooperating with the Nazis and was never fully rehabilitated, he was respected and remained active. He was regularly commissioned by world political and business leaders to do busts and statues.

His wide range of post-war portraits included busts of West German chancellor Konrad Adenauer, who restored relations with France, and Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat.

Even Soviet leader Josef Stalin, who helped oversee Hitler's demise, asked Breker to work for the Soviet Union after the war.

There is no doubt Breker benefited from the Nazi rule -- Hitler even gave him an estate in the countryside.

But at least once he used his good standing with the Nazi regime to help someone out, intervening to prevent the execution of Heinrich Peter Suhrkamp, a German publisher who was arrested in 1944 and accused of high treason.

''When I was arrested, he was the only person who at the request of my wife personally undertook steps to see that I was released,'' Suhrkamp wrote in 1946.

''Nor was he deterred by the fact that the charges against me were treason and high treason and intervening on my behalf could have meant extreme danger for himself.''

REUTERS