Apokalypse und Erlösung. Zum Geschichtsbild im Werk Werner Tübkes

The article is based on the assumption that the authoritarian regimes of the 20th century adopted both the visionary expectations of the end of times and redemption as well as the sacredly derived ritualization of the political from the world of Christian thought into their own ideological equipment. The symbolic forms of expression of ideologically shaped dictatorships, for example, remained characterized to a high degree by Christian ideas even when totalitarianism radically denied the transcendental character of these ideas. It can therefore be postulated that an analysis of the art production of totalitarian states only has a chance of success if it places their world of symbols in a frame of reference to the symbolic worlds of Christianity. This process can be observed in the GDR and is exemplified by the works of the Leipzig painter Werner Tübke. Against the backdrop of these assumptions, the article analyses Tübke's series of paintings on the history of the German working-class movement.