50 Ernst Barlach, Als ich von dem Verbot der Berufsausubung bedroht war, written on 29/30th July 1937, quoted by Barlach in an exhibition catalogue published by the German Academy of Arts, Berlin 1951. In 1941 Karl Schmidt-Rottluff received from Adolf Ziegler, president of the Reich Chamber of Plastic Arts, a letter saying:
'Although ... you must be aware of the trail-blazing speeches of the Fuhrer at the inauguration of the Great German Art Exhibition in Munich, it is evident on the basis of your recent originals submitted for examination that even today you are still standing apart from the cultural ideas of the National Socialist state . . . [Therefore] your membership in the Reich Chamber of Plastic Arts is terminated and taking immediate effect you are proscribed from pursuing any professional — and extraprofessional — activity in the field of plastic arts' (quoted by Hofer, Der Nationalsozialismus).