The German Genius

historical commission to investigate the ex-Nazis in the postwar German foreign service. 69 He also helped Arthur Schlesinger in the Kennedy White House.
    Stern agreed with Hajo Holborn that German Idealism was a crucial factor underlying everything, and that partly because of it, “The split between Germany and the West will of necessity always be an important theme for historians.” 70
    Stern successfully managed to be both German and American, never completely comfortable with what he called the “European arrogance” of Hannah Arendt. In his work (which I have leaned on heavily) he did a lot to explain how the “mood” that helped create National Socialism came about, especially in regard to German elites, but he concluded that, ultimately, the horror would never be explained fully.
     
     
    The “native tongue” of art history, according to one American scholar, “was German.” 71 Although there is a measure of truth in this, and although the most influential art historians of the postwar world were, arguably, Erwin Panofsky in the United States, and Ernst Gombrich in Great Britain, it is not true to say that there was no art history in either country until the refugees arrived. The first chair in art history in Germany, in Göttingen in 1813, did long predate any such position in America or Britain, yet the discipline had been organized since at least the 1920s, and Panofksy himself called that period a golden age in art historical scholarship.
    The Museum of Modern Art, the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University (IFA), and the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) had all opened their doors not too long before the refugees arrived, and all were well endowed. Among the art historians, the biggest impact, without question, was in New York where, at the Institute of Fine Arts, director Walter Cook invited several renowned academics to take up positions—Erwin Panofsky, Walter Friedländer, Max Friedlander, Richard Krautheimer, Rudolf Wittkower, Richard Ettinghausen, Karl Lehmann, Ernst Kris, and Rudolf Arnheim. As Cook liked to say, “Hitler is my best friend; he shakes the tree and I collect the apples.” 72
    Panofsky was no stranger to America—he had been teaching on and off at the Institute of Fine Arts since 1931 and held joint appointments there and in Hamburg, alternating terms between Germany and the United States. When the Nazis came to power, he simply stayed in America, eventually joining the IAS at Princeton while continuing to teach at the IFA. 73 Between eighty and one hundred refugee art historians arrived in America as a result of National Socialism, and through them many colleges began to offer art history courses. 74
    T HE O RIGINS OF P OP A RT
     
    As for the artists themselves, Joseph Albers, Hans Hofmann, and George Grosz became teachers as well as painters and the first two, in particular, exerted a major influence in that way. Albers taught at Black Mountain College where Robert Rauschenberg was among his students. Hans Hofmann, who had a Jewish wife and was on a visit to America when Hitler came to power, simply extended his stay, teaching for a time at the Art Students League in New York before opening his own school. There he became what one historian described as the most influential art teacher of his generation, teaching—among others—Helen Frankenthaler, Alan Kaprow, Louise Nevelson, and Larry Rivers. 75 He himself became a leading member of the school of Abstract Expressionists and may well have invented “action painting,” splashing pigment on canvases as early as 1938, several years before Jackson Pollock. George Grosz, arguably the most famous of the three when he arrived in America, had the unhappiest—and least successful—time. He too taught at the Art Students League before opening his own school but he seemed overly keen to adopt the American way. He became an illustrator for popular magazines and did a stint at Esquire . 76
    Unlike these three, Richard Lindner, Hans Richter, and Max Ernst never intended to stay in America, an attitude that limited their engagement with their temporary home. Lindner, however, is generally credited with being the founder, or at least one of the founders, of Pop Art. He described himself as “a tourist” in America, but a friendly tourist, whose visitor status meant that he saw New York “better than anyone who was born there,” which is why the everyday paraphernalia of modern American life fascinated