Adolf Ziegler

Adolf Ziegler
Adolf Hitler, architect Gerdy Troost wife of Paul Ludwig Troost, Adolf Ziegler (with the bowtie), and Joseph Goebbels at the opening of the House of German Art (Haus der deutschen Kunst), May 1937
Born	(1892-10-16)16 October 1892 Bremen
Died	18 September 1959(1959-09-18) (aged 66) Varnhalt (today Baden-Baden)
Nationality	German
Education	Academy of Fine Arts Munich
Known for	Painting
Notable work	Judgement of Paris (1937)
Elected	President of the Reich Chamber of Art, 1936

Adolf Ziegler (16 October 1892 in Bremen – 18 September 1959 in Varnhalt, today Baden-Baden) was a German painter and politician. He was tasked by the Nazi Party to oversee the purging of what the Nazi Party described as "degenerate art", by most of the German modern artists. He was Hitler's favourite painter.

Born to an architect father and a family of architects on his mother’s side, Ziegler was always surrounded by artists. He studied at the Weimar Academy from 1910 under master of technique Max Doerner at the Academy of Fine Arts Munich. However, the First World War interrupted his studies when he signed up to become a front-line officer. After the war, he settled in Munich and continued his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts Munich in 1919, where he attended classes by art nouveau artist Angelo Jank. He ultimately achieved the position of professor at the Munich Academy in 1933, when the Nazis came to power. His works fitted the Nazi ideal of "racially pure" art, and, as the President of the Reich Chamber for the Visual Arts, he was entrusted with the task of eliminating avant-garde styles. This he did by expelling Expressionist artists such as Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. Writing to Rottluff, he forbade him from any artistic activity "professional or amateur".

Already a member of the Nazi Party in the early 1920s, he met Hitler in 1925 and became one of his advisors in artistic matters. Hitler commissioned Ziegler to paint a memoriam portrait of his niece, Geli Raubal, who had committed suicide. In 1937 he painted the Judgement of Paris, which Hitler personally acquired some time later, hanging it in his residence at Munich—Hitler later also hung Ziegler's The Four Elements at a residence in Munich. It became an overnight sensation through frequent reproduction. This painting was much liked, judging by the enormous numbers of postcards and reproductions of it sold. The National Socialist celebrations of the human figure without conflict or suffering were immensely popular. By this time, Ziegler had become the foremost official painter of the Third Reich and was awarded the Golden Party Badge, in recognition for outstanding service to the Nazi Party or State.