Marktheidenfeld distances himself from Nazi painter Hermann Gradl – Bavaria

For decades, the Franconian town of Marktheidenfeld has been at odds about how to deal with the artist Hermann Gradl, who was born there and was Adolf Hitler’s “favourite landscape painter”. In the 1990s, the increasingly irreconcilable debate was also carried out in the national media, since then the fronts have been considered hardened. In the meantime, a consensus seemed difficult to imagine, but it has now come about: The city council distances itself from the honorary citizenship for Gradl, which was decided in 1942, confirmed immediately after the Nazi dictatorship and was awarded in 1955.

There was agreement in the council that such an honor would “no longer be considered from today’s perspective” due to Gradl’s involvement in the art world of the Nazi regime. As director of the Nuremberg Academy of Fine Arts, Gradl was a key official and functionary in the Nazi state. In the future, he should no longer be listed on lists of honorary citizens in Marktheidenfeld. The Gradlstraße, named in 1957, is also dedicated to the royal district officer Jakob Gradl, Gradl’s father. Additional signs should indicate this.

In addition, the city wants to transfer the previous Gradl documentation in the city cultural center to a special collection of the city library. There should continue to be a space for dealing with the life and work of Gradl. The writer Peter Roos, in particular, had violently attacked the city’s long uncritical treatment of Gradl, but encountered some bitter resistance there.