The Nazi regime didn't really like the modernist movement very much. Academic realism was more their style, assuming the content was agreeable to Hitler. The aesthetic taste of the regime was largely dictated by Hitler. Hitler fancied himself an artist, but he was largely retrospective in his work. Technical skill aside, Hitler was doomed as an artist, because he was out of touch with the avant-garde art endeavors, in this case, the modernists. His intolerance for this art which deviated from the normal depiction of the world as we know it led to the Entartete Kunst [degenerate art] exhibit, once he was in power. The degenerate art exhibit was filled with art of the Modernist movement as well as Surrealists and Dadaists.
Although realism is seemingly characteristic of fascism, the Italian fascists' headquarters [casa del fascio] was a modernist building, directly contrasting the inflated classical references that Nazi architecture insist on making. Another problem with characterising realism as fascist is that communist Russia used very similar art, both stylistically and contextually. The imagery of both the far left and far right during the second World War is principally propagandistic- showing the perfection of human form, and glorifying the worker.
Although Hitler's artistic values were retrospective; looking back to antiquity, the Nazi party used the imagery as an effective invocation of the great German history, elevating the grandeur and esteem of the party. Though it may not have been the avant-garde, the artistic identity of the Third Reich was very effective. [i.e. good.]
Modernism can be very effective as political art [consider Guernica by Picasso,] but it is ill suited to the Nazi cause. [i.e. bad]
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