Nazi pasts of the documenta protagonists

One of the founding figures of documenta was August-Martin Euler, although he was not present on the front stage of the 1955 exhibition. Euler was born in Kassel in 1908. From the beginning of the war, he was a lawyer at IG Farben, where he was involved in the exploitation of forced laborers and concentration camp prisoners, among other things. In 1944, for example, he ordered the Buna works in Schkopau (Saxony-Anhalt) to “use Hungarian Jews” as workers. Euler was not a member of the NSDAP, nor did he belong to the SA or the SS. After the war, he was denazified as a non-affiliated person and began a stellar political career.

As state chairman of the Hessian FDP, he offered many former NSDAP members a new political home and sought proximity to right-wing extremist organizations. In the so-called Naumann affair, he also defended former National Socialists and war criminals who had attempted to infiltrate the FDP. At the same time, he campaigned in the Bundestag for the passing of several amnesty laws for National Socialist perpetrators.

During these years, Euler was involved in the preparations for the first documenta. He knew many of the people involved privately. The chairman of the first supporting association, Heinz Lemke, even testified on his behalf in Euler's denazification proceedings. Euler's political positions were certainly known. But Arnold Bode, like everyone else, did not seem to be bothered by this. After all, Euler was important for the documenta enterprise: he opened many doors in political Bonn. He was also the one who convinced Federal President Theodor Heuss to take over the patronage of the exhibition.