Marta Mierendorff and the Stone Sculpture Workshops Arno Breker GmbH in Wriezen/Oder

In 1944, Marta Mierendorff was drafted for labour service as a stenographer in the stone sculpture workshops of the “divinely gifted” artist Arno Breker in Wriezen/Oder, where during the Second World War workers were forced to participate in the production of Breker’s monumental sculptures and reliefs. After the war she tried to inform the public about conditions in the workshops and to encourage critical reporting about Arno Breker – with little success, as Dr Swantje Greve, research associate for the exhibition “’Divinely Gifted’ National Socialism’s Favoured Artists in the Federal Republic”, describes below.