Extra security measures taken around Nazi Design exhibit in Den Bosch
The highly anticipated exhibition Design of the Third Reich opens at the Design Museum in Den Bosch on Sunday. Given the sensitivity of the subject, and possible visitors with a "worrying interest" in the subject, there will be three to four guards per room, instead of the usual one, NU.nl reports.
The exhibit includes posters, photos, uniforms, furniture, documents, and a car from the Nazi era. There will also be sculptures by Arno Breker, Hitler's favorite sculptor. Various films will be shown, including of how the Nazis imagined Munich would look like in the future.
The museum expects quite a bit of interest - most of the time slots for the first days are almost fully booked.
While the exhibition is on a very sensitive topic, the Design Museum believes it is important to show how a specific design method can contribute to the successful promotion of a criminal ideology. According to director Timo de Rijk, 75 years after the war it is both possible and necessary to "not only take the suffering" of that time as a guide for historiography. "I think it is dangerous to hide things away", he said, according to the newspaper. Art and applied art can also be used for nefarious purposes, precisely because we think "that art makes us better people", he warned.
The museum stressed that it will not make any attempt to nuance the horrors of the Second World War. What the shrewd approach of the Nazi designers and their clients ultimately led to will be made very clear in the audio guide that each visitor receives, a spokesperson for the museum said to NU.nl The museum isn't after sensation. "Then I would have made a very different exhibition", De Rijk said.
