Owen, Rachel (2025) Materialising Power: The Role of looted European Cultural Objects in Nazi Elite Self-fashioning. Masters thesis, University of Wales Trinity Saint David.
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Abstract
This dissertation examines how Nazi elites instrumentalised looted cultural objects as tools of power, ideology, and self-fashioning. It argues that looting was not a by-product of war but a deliberate strategy central to Nazi cultural policy, disguising theft as legality while reinforcing the regime’s symbolic authority. Focusing on Adolf Hitler, Hermann Göring, and Heinrich Himmler, the study reveals how each leader used material culture differently. For Hitler, imperial regalia and funerary remains constructed a mythic narrative of German continuity, legitimising his role as heir to imperial tradition. Göring transformed his estate, Carinhall, into both a private collection and a projection of cultural authority, aligning with Nazi aesthetics while pursuing personal wealth. Himmler employed religious relics and artefacts to promote a mythic Aryan prehistory, legitimising the SS as both racial forerunner and spiritual order. Using an interdisciplinary approach, archival research, art history, biography, and material culture studies, the dissertation situates these practices within broader institutions such as the Reichskulturkammer, the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg, and the Ahnenerbe. It concludes that material culture was an active force in Nazi Germany: legitimising authority, reinforcing ideology, and elevating leaders, while also serving emotive ambitions of prestige, rivalry, and personal gain.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Masters) |
|---|---|
| Subjects: | D History General and Old World > DD Germany N Fine Arts > NX Arts in general |
| Divisions: | Theses and Dissertations > Masters Dissertations |
| Identification Number: | https://doi.org/10.82227/repository.uwtsd.ac.uk.00004117 |
| Depositing User: | Victoria Hankinson |
| Date Deposited: | 11 Feb 2026 14:41 |
| Last Modified: | 12 Feb 2026 16:00 |
| URI: | https://repository.uwtsd.ac.uk/id/eprint/4117 |
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