World War 2 It is known that when he was stationed in Paris at the beginning of the war Gross went to see Picasso, with whom he had been a pupil before the war. Gross recalled that when he entered the studio, he became aware of the fact that he was wearing his Luftwaffe uniform and apologized to Picasso. However, according to Gross, Picasso graciously brushed the apology aside and simply said: “I only see the painter in you.” In 1940 Gross was called up and served in Luftwaffe Propaganda Kompanie 3 which had been set up by Hermann Goering and which was stationed in Paris. He was an Obergefreiter (Royal Air Force equivalent of Leading Aircraftman) and engaged as a Pressezeichner (press draughtsman). Such propaganda companies usually consisted of reporters, radio commentators, photographers, cameramen and artists, whose duty it was to provide reports of troops in action for publication by press and radio and to take film for inclusion in newsreels. Gross’ work in the propaganda unit involved him in a wide variety of activities. One of the more bizarre tasks he was called upon to undertake was to ‘doctor’ photographs of air battles. Photographs would be cut up and rearranged to show Hurricanes or Spitfires which had been attacking Messerschmitts or Heinkels being shown as caught in a hail of imaginary bullets from diving and triumphant Messerschmitts or Heinkels! These fake pictures had then to be approved by the propaganda section before being sent to the newspapers for printing. The faking of the photographs had to be done very speedily so that no- one would suspect the deception. The German people would then be provided with ‘evidence’ not only of the supremacy of the Luftwaffe but also the magnificent achievements of Reichsmarschall Goering, head of the Luftwaffe. The truth was that, during what later came to be called the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe was sustaining heavy losses, knowledge of which would certainly have dented national morale. Members of the Luftwaffe propaganda units were accorded certain privileges that were denied other servicemen: the most obvious being that they were equipped with pencils as opposed to rifles and expected to engage in creative as opposed to destructive work. Such privileges may have represented payment for their silence because they would be among the few who would have known what was really happening. All the drawings undertaken by Gross concerned the defences which were being constructed along the French coast – Kanalküste. From the topography it is almost certainly the chalk cliffs somewhere along the Normandy coast that are being shown. It had been the intention of Hitler’s Wall to reduce German military weakness in the West and thereby deter or impede an Allied invasion. The Todt Organization, a semi-independent agency under the Ministry of Armaments, was responsible for the Wall’s construction. Whilst Hitler boasted that he was the greatest fortress builder of all time, he never once visited the Channel fortifications. The intention of the German propaganda machine and presumably the purpose of Gross’s sketches was to emphasize the impregnability of these fortifications in the months prior to the D-Day landings. In the event, the Wall proved less effective than had been promised: it was breached on a single day – 6 June 1944 – by British, Canadian, and American troops. The question arises as to whether these carefully drawn sketches are simple and straightforward representations of what lay before Gross, or instead was he trying to communicate a hidden message, which if it had been detected would almost certainly have resulted in harsh punishment – possibly death? If it was the latter what was it that drove Gross to act in this way? It is doubtful if there was any one factor. He would have been angered at the dismissal by the Nazis of most of modern art as ‘degenerate’ – particularly the work of those Jewish artists like Chagall , Modigliani , and Soutine who he particularly admired. The wholesale pillaging of the art treasures of Paris by the Nazis that he witnessed would have depressed him, as Paris had been his beloved spiritual home. Sketch One Presumably, the intention in Sketch One is to take the bunker as the principal focal point, yet it is what lies beside the bunker that catches our attention. Is it accidental that in this sketch the discarded planks that lie alongside the bunker have fallen in the shape of a cross? At the top of the central plank there is a circle of barbed wire. Is it far fetched to imagine this as the crown of thorns on Christ’s brow? After the war Gross was obsessed with producing an endless series of dark brooding pictures of the crucifixion and resurrection. In studying the planks entangled in the barbed wire, is it also possible to detect a distorted Star of David swathed in barbed wire? Might this be an allusion to the internment of Jews and others in concentration camps? What else might this sketch be saying? We are presented with a reinforced and sharply angular concrete building, the simplicity, functionality, and brutality of which mirror features of Bauhaus architecture. It is ironic that Bauhaus architecture was discredited by the Nazi regime not least because of its association with the Weimar Republic. A feature of the bunker itself is that the observation platform is empty. We have a skull-like construction that is eyeless and lacking vision. A curious aspect of this sketch is the haphazard way in which the barbed wire lies alongside the bunker. It seems improbable that any self-respecting German soldier would have tolerated such an inadequate and untidy defensive structure. One is tempted to conclude that Gross used artistic licence here to make a point. Whilst the bunker sketched by Gross gives all the appearance of something solid and permanent, the chalk cliffs behind it, which Gross highlights, remind us that nothing is enduring in the face of the sea. And so, it has proved, for most of the 15,000 bunkers and other defensive fortifications built along the Channel coast are in the process of disintegration, having been affected by erosion and rock falls. Was Gross implying that tyrannies, like bunkers, do not last forever? Sketch Two The meticulously clean, bloodless, and aseptic tiled underground operating theatre in Sketch Two is striking for several reasons. All the soldiers, including the person who is being operated upon, are accoutred in incongruously shiny jackboots a symbol later to be applied to cruel and authoritarian behaviour or rule. There is a high degree of irony here too in that even jackbooted soldiers are revealed as vulnerable and require dedicated care and attention to survive. The operation is conducted adjacent to a cupboard on which there is what one must assume to be a Red Cross - the symbol that is placed on humanitarian and medical vehicles and buildings to protect them from military attack! Whilst there is always a danger of reading too much into a drawing, it is noticeable that the stability of the trolley upon which this delicate operation is being performed is dependent on the cross bracing joining the legs. Without such cross bracing the table would collapse. Put another way, without the cross (i.e., Christianity), civilization will collapse. Sketch Three In Sketch Three it is tempting to see the three gigantic concrete mixers that are located at the top of a hill as a grotesque representation of Calvary – the site of Christ’s crucifixion. The paradox here is that the three mixers are only kept ‘alive’ through the nonstop efforts of slave labour. We are witnessing a modern day ‘crucifixion’ in which many of those working on these sea defences died. The inference that this sketch may be an allusion to Calvary is strengthened by reference to the succession of sketches that Gross drew of crucifixion scenes after the war. Was Gross seeking to communicate hidden messages in these sketches? Art in Northern Europe has been rich in hidden symbolism. For example, in the 15th century Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden , two masters of Northern Renaissance art, used symbols to communicate messages which would have been viewed as heretical and subversive if spoken or written at that time. Through their art they were able to allude to the kind of shortcomings in the Catholic Church that Martin Luther later condemned (e.g., van Eyck’s Virgin and Child with Chancellor Rolin: 1433 Musée du Louvre, Paris and van der Weyden’s The Seven Sacraments: 1445-50 Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp). This was risky because their livelihood depended to a significant degree on church patronage. They were taking a gamble just as Gross was doing; however, the stakes for Gross were much higher, as he was commenting critically not only about the brutal character of the Nazi regime but also its antipathy to art and religion. Towards the end of the war, Gross was posted to Poland and Russia, where he served as a guard for the command headquarters. There he had to endure bitterly cold winters with inadequate clothing and equipment. Whether Gross’ subsequent transfer to the Eastern Front stemmed from official concerns raised by his work as a war artist will never be known. It is more likely that the transfer was part of a major deployment of military personnel from the Western to the Eastern Front which was crumbling in the face of the remorseless Russian advance. It is not known how he managed to return to Germany after the collapse of the Eastern Front and the subsequent rout of the German army. However, we do know that his studio in Landsbergerstrasse, Berlin, was destroyed in an air raid in 1945.