2020 IB Extended Essays

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display was a description of the piece where it was stated that the piece was “slander against the German heroes of the world war”. In 1940, after the conclusion of the Entartete Kunst exhibition, “The Trench” was sold by Nazi authorities for 200 US dollars and the location of the painting has been unknown since (Crockett, 1992). There was hardly a successor of the first world war after the stalemate that lasted for years and Dix, who served time in the war, was saddened over the country’s loss. In “The Trench”, he questions if there will ever be an outcome to war that will make all the violence committed worth. Hitler, who also served time in the war, was enraged by Germany’s loss and Treaty of Versailles, believing that it was extremely unjust and burdened the country with recompenses that were impossible to pay. Both individuals have been directly affected by Germany’s loss, however Dix takes the route of art to express his feelings about the violence while Hitler deals with the aftermath of violence through violent nationalism when he joins the German Workers Party that later develops into the Nazi Party (Evans, 2003). Although it was never explicitly explained, Hitler may have disliked Dix’s artwork as it suggests that the violence of war was not the answer to fixing international conflicts. “The Trench” was also a piece of Expressionism art which was very disliked by Hitler.