ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the recovery of the arts after the Second World War. In the immediate postwar period, artists, their advocates, and government officials advocated art as an autonomous realm. This position fit the prevailing American point of view and also helped align West Germany with its Cold War allies. In accordance with this line of thinking, West German policy makers and scholars generally protected the arts as an expression of freedom and moved to rehabilitate artists even when they had collaborated with the National Socialist regime. Despite this general policy toward art, the continuing disputes over the meaning of modernism not only encompassed prewar contentions but also the postwar struggle to overcome the cultural legacy inherited from the National Socialist regime, including its policies on degenerate art. Important voices during these debates include the painter Willi Baumeister, the art historian Hans Sedlmayr, and the anarchist network the Situationist International.
