The art around the nazi period with any great merit was generally classed as degenerate art, it was seen as an enemy of the state and in some cases destroyed.
Its a very interesting topic censorship, still very important today with the ever increasing world power of China. It can also be seen in Britain with painting, sometimes art can go too far, like in the case of the Myra Hindley portrait by Marcus Harvey which had ink and eggs thrown at it, many people wanted it removed so that feelings weren’t hurt, but then what kind of art world would we live in if that were the case.
Degenerate art included a variety of different artists including among the most famous Otto Dix (picture below right), Max Beckman, 
Marc Chagall, Max Ernst, George Grosz, Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Franz Marc and Mondrian. It was however very imporant that these avant-gardists were exiled because if they hadn’t maybe New York wouldnt have become the capital of the art world, and maybe conceptual art would not have come to fruition.
Many artists, musicians, actors and writers however were given the opppurtunity to not go to war as their art was seen as helpful to the state. They were written on the Gottbegnadeten List: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottbegnadeten_list
yes I know its wikipedia but its useful, okay.
Here is an example of one of the artist, Arno Breker’s, work.
The classic style was very in at that time, as it was used to invoke a nostalgic view of the power that Germany used to be and encourage patriotism. With this is used lots of Eagle insignia, red for passion, and of course the swastika.
This classic degenerate style was very unlike anything that would help Hitler promote his country to the people, many artists were exiled, and those who werent left anyway.
In a way this makes sense to the perfect world, art is necessary in many ways, entertainment, evolution, and documentation being some. But to Hitler’s ideals it only distracts from the way in which he saw the world. The classic style is very strong and would help promote patriotism, and this is precisely why he used it.
In H.G. Wells fantastic book “The first men in the moon” he talks of the alien life forms that live inside the moon, they are very similar to an ant colony as they all have different specialisms, and thats were art comes in, an artist is used to draw things realistically, documenting the way in which they live and help translate for the doctor character who I’ve forgotten the name of which is really quite bad considering i read it a few weeks ago.
gordon douglas 