Hans Adolf Bühler, Homecoming, 1936

An exhausted German soldier returns from war and lays his weary head in the lap of his sweetheart. She is young, beautiful, and pure; in short, the personification of Germany. We know that she will nurse him back to physical and mental health. The couple appears inside an old stone barn structure that has stood the test of time, while in the background we see the sun shining brightly over German farmland.
It should come as no surprise that Bühler was a prominent Nazi. When his party seized power in 1933, Bühler was put in charge of the Karlsruhe Academy where he worked and immediately started dismissing professors who disagreed with his politics. He became chief editor at Das Bild (a monthly magazine that reviewed German art) and organized one of the Chamber of Horrors exhibitions that were lead-ups to the infamous Degenerate Art exhibition of 1937 in Munich. I believe that this painting was shown in the nearby corresponding Great German Art exhibition, but I haven’t been able to confirm yet.

Leave a Reply