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PRODUCED FOR THE 50th BIRTHDAY OF FRITZ TODT ‘ART AND TECHNOLOGY’ SUPERB HEAVILY ILLUSTRATED 1941 NAZI BOOK

Text and images copyright by USM, Inc.

Kunst und Technik (Art and Technology) by Dr. Wilhelm Rüdiger is an oversized heavily illustrated hardcover book prepared for the 50th birthday of Dr.- Ing. Fritz Todt on 4 September 1941. The high-quality 11 x 15-1/8 inch hardcover book has 50 full-page color and black & white reproductions of art depicting important industrial and technical projects done by various well-known German artists.

Holding a General's rank in the SS, SA and Luftwaffe, Nazi Armament and War Production Minister Fritz Todt was killed at age 52 in an airplane crash shortly after take-off from Rastenburg in East Prussia on 8 February 1942 where he had attended meetings with Adolf Hitler at his Wolf's Lair headquarters.

The art is by Da Vinci, Dürer, Adolph Menzel and Pieter Brueghel as well as Josef Thorak, Hans Breker, Sandrock, Geigenberger, Kley, Pauser, Zolnhofer, Hennig, Geßner, Panizza, Vollbehr, Zoberbier, Mayrhofer-Passau, Michalek, Kupferschmid, Schoedder, and several others.

In the first 24 pages of Kunst und Technik Dr. Wilhelm Rüdiger describes the connection between design, technology and art using realist geniuses like Leonardo da Vinci and Albrecht Dürer as examples. Their brilliant work was the foundation for many artists, engineers, architects and designers in the following centuries, according to Rüdiger.

This fine example of Kunst und Technik has big full-page color and black & white illustrations of paintings, watercolors and statues of industrial and technical subjects such as factories, construction tools, laborers, foundries, Reichsautobahn bridge design, shipyards, gas and steel works, miners, Nazi freeway construction, the Leuna factory, etc. that are seldom seen elsewhere.

An outstanding full-color portrait of Todt (shown right) by Bernhard Wichert is the stunning opening piece in this rare 80+ year old Nazi book. (Wichert was born in Mainz in 1919 and was commissioned to paint Todt’s portrait by Todt after the two met at the Grossdeutsche Kunstausstellung in Munich in 1940. He died in 1990.)

Author Dr. Wilhelm Rüdiger was an art historian, early member of the NSDAP and the mastermind behind the Nazi concept of exposing Entartete Kunst or Degenerate Art. In 1934 he became the art critic for the Nazi Party newspaper Völkische Beobachter and the art magazine Die Kunst im Deutschen Reich.

This superb 78 page glossy art paper book was properly published “under difficult war-time circumstances” by Verlag der deutschen Technik GmbH München 1941.

Short biographies of the artists are in the back, and all the illustrations are fully indexed.

Kunst und Technik was printed by Bruckmann KG of Munich (the company that also printed millions of copies of Mein Kampf and many other Nazi Party books). It is in very nice condition with a small repair to the top of the spine and a small library plate of a previous owner inside the front cover. No odor.