Fuhrmeister, Christian Die Abteilung "Kunstschutz" in Italien. Kunstgeschichte, Politik und Propaganda 1936-1963

During the Second World War, German art historians worked in several occupied countries as part of the "Military Art Protection", including Italy from autumn 1943. Their tasks included recording buildings worthy of protection and supporting Italian museums and monument conservators. The book documents and contextualises these activities and examines above all the individual scope for decision-making and organisation in the field of tension between specialist science, politics and the war. At the centre of the analysis is the relationship between art history, cultural policy, cultural heritage protection and propaganda before, during and after the Second World War. Combining research into the motives and intentions of art historians with questions of institutional and organisational history, the author also argues for a holistic understanding of the history of science. This volume opens a new series in which future volumes will be published on various aspects and areas of the academic and art world under National Socialism: for example, the actors and their room for manoeuvre, the exhibition system, the institutions, the research agendas and the discourses in cultural policy, art criticism and art history.