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Summer is here, and so we can expect regime media in Connecticut to make vacuous day-trip suggestions, presented with a sense of insider self-accomplishment. However, as you’d expect, at the Connecticut Centinal, an alternative path is offered with, shall we say, a little less in-crowd propaganda and a bit more bite.
Come along to Philip Johnson’s Glass House estate, built in 1949, now on 49 acres of prime real estate in leafy New Canaan. It’s a non-profit, tax-free enclave with post-WWII Modernism and a dark, Nazi thunder cloud hovering over it.
Sounds like fun, yes?
Donated by Johnson and presumably taken off the property tax rolls, it’s now owned by the “non-profit” National Trust of Historic Preservation. The house and site are a celebration of post-WWII post-Nazism, I mean Modernism, in relation to curator, architect and ex-Nazi propagandist Philip Johnson. It also has been a publicity object of interest as the daring and mediagenic Glass House for decades: Man lives in glass house.
However, since the 1990s, it has become infamous due to the back story of its designer and former Nazi-loving owner.
The following is a special Connecticut Centinal supplement for our critical readers, to accompany the typical architectural tourism literature.
1. Johnson (1906-2005) aspired to be the American Hitler by 1934
This can come as a surprise to those unfamiliar with the twisted history of Philip Johnson. Yes, the design and home of a real, aspiring Hitler was given “prestigious” designation for its Modern design, and not the Nazi history of its designer and owner, presumably.
An allegation is an allegation, but Johnson showed us his intent: for the next three years, 1935-37, Johnson was rallying new followers in his native Ohio, some described as thugs, and had various radio programs in the state. Johnson travelled to Germany annually from about 1928-1933, and then 1938-39. He was a major Nazi propagandist, an agent to some extent, attended a Hitler Youth and Hitler Nuremberg rally, can you hear the crowd roar for the Führer, and more.
2. Post-WWII cover-up effectively of Johnson’s Nazi past
Pockets in the elite Modern art and design world in New York knew about Nazi-loving Johnson since the early 1930s, into the 1950s and 1980s. But it was hush-hush in the media after WWII, while his architectural designs and more were publicized in the press.
In 1994 though, there was no denying it after the biography release by Franz Schulze with mention of a detailed FBI report.
Why wasn’t the public previously informed? Well, for this, you can place blame on the left-leaning cultural power elite, their aligned and intertwined academics, journalists, curators, funders, etc. This effective cover-up also occurred with a number of pro-Nazi elites in American business and the social set, in a period of “forgive and forget”. There was after all a very quick realignment of the US to West Germany for the Cold War battle against the Soviets.
For history, the question now is— how deep was Johnson involved with the German Nazi regime and also its German and American supporters in the US? Stateside, this included staff at the German Embassy in Washington, DC, and likely those at the German consulates in Cleveland, New York, and Boston.
Don’t look for guidance on Johnson’s Nazi past from those in Johnson’s sphere of stakeholders today, including elite architects and others associated with him. They may tell you the case is closed when in fact it is wide… open.
Sound familiar? Yes, the dynamic and structures of the elite left that we see today with trans, DEI, and illegal immigration, were also in play. They’ll tell us what they want to tell us, and how to think about it; then they'll throw up smoke and mirrors in front of whatever else is at stake.
Back to Johnson: how did he reply in the 1990s when it became publicly known that he was pro-Nazi and in deep?
Apart from the predictable responses about it being the most shameful part of his life, yes really, he got out in front of the press of the revealing biography release. In Vanity Fair, he said, “Sex and Nazi can work quite well”, in selling a book. You see, Johnson was gay, dived into pre-1933 Weimar decadence in Berlin, and described that as his “Isherwood period”. Who knows, or wants to know, what he concretely meant by that.
Johnson was flip at times, apologetic at times, but he also wasn’t joking.
3. Combining Modernism with Nazism
Fun fact: did you know that in the key year of 1933 when Hitler took power, Philip Johnson not only chose to visit Germany, but later back in America he advocated the following: the architecture of the Third Reich should be Modernism of the Mies van der Rohe variety. This sort of unsettles the notion of Modernism being exclusively anti-Nazi, promoted after WWII, and demands a rethink. It would seem then that Modernism could be applied like a skin to any regime, for Johnson at the least.
Read Philip Johnson in Hound and Horn advocating for Nazi Modernism.
There is speculation that Johnson, with the Glass House, actually referred to burnt out Jewish villages in Poland that he witnessed in 1939 as a propagandist / correspondent. This is a very disturbing allegation and needs further comprehensive research. (Search “Poland”.) What are we looking at here on the site in New Canaan?
4. Later Nazi war criminal in Johnson’s landmark 1932 exhibition
Unsurprisingly not put forth by decades of “expert” architectural historians is a little-known fact: a later convicted Nazi war criminal was featured in Johnson’s landmark curated exhibition, as a patron, bringing European Modernist architecture to America in 1932. The exhibition title was Modern Architecture, and it was held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and then travelled to several venues in the US, including in Hartford, CT and Johnson's native Cleveland.
Georg von Schnitzler, the no. 2 figure of the German I. G. Farben corporation was noted as a patron of a key Modern design, shown in the exhibition. He also was a close business associate to U. S. Standard Oil— with Rockefeller ties— in a Nazi Germany-US business tie-up. Rockefellers were also on the MoMA board and a trustee.
In 1934, the Rockefellers’ PR guy, Ivy Lee, also represented the American subsidiary of I. G. Farben. Lee was called out in congressional testimony for meeting Hitler, while Nazi propaganda was funneled through American I. G. Farben into the US.
Stitching further, Philip Johnson was pally with Von Schnitzler’s wife Lilly, a stylish socialite and a fabulous Modern art collector. The Von Schnitzler's daughter was Frau Scholz, a Nazi vixen nicknamed "Lelo", wife of the head of the Gestapo in America at the German Embassy. She was also a darling in the Washington, DC society pages, presumably talking up everyone she could, until the European war was declared on September 1, 1939. But I digress.
I wonder if Philip Johnson learned some of his impressive publicity skills from the master Ivy Lee. It would explain Johnson’s advanced knowledge of publicity strategies shown in his communications as early as 1932. In 1935-37, Johnson achieved outstanding press results in Ohio, while attempting to be a strongman in politics on the rise, flanked by thugs.
It's deeply unfortunate that Ivy Lee died of a "brain tumor" just months after his congressional testimony spilling the beans on Hitler and American I. G. Farben.
Above, we see Von Schnitzler at his Nuremberg trial after WWII, a special one for the company after the main trial. You’ll see he was associated with the gas used to kill those in concentration camps, and the usage of slave labor.
One wonders: were Von Schnitzler's stylish socialite wife and daughter in attendance? Where were the Washington, DC society editors and Philip Johnson when they heard the news?
5. Johnson was a correspondent for Social Justice. By November 1938 the magazine was without question pro-Nazi, after its owner / leader Father Coughlin blamed the Jews for the Nazi attacks against them across Germany via a radio broadcast.
Listen to Charles Coughlin blame the Jews for Kristallnacht on November 21, 1938, eleven days after the terror campaign across Germany. Coughlin is thought to have had the highest audience share ever for a program in the US. The segment begins at 24:45 on this webpage, and his speech is chilling.
Very little known, further research will confirm if Johnson jumped faster than Coughlin in his condemnation of Jews. Two days after Kristallnacht, Johnson is understood to have spoken on the national airwaves on a talk show, fully supporting the “German view”.
Through archival research, it seems possible that we’ll learn exactly what Herr Johnson said— in the coming years. One thing is certain, Johnson didn’t turn away from National Socialism after Kristallnacht, he dove in further.
Witness Johnson’s rant against Jews in the following article in Social Justice the following summer, and note its interesting name usage today:
"... Lack of leadership and direction in the State has let one group get control who always gain power in a nation’s time of weakness— the Jews..." – Philip Johnson (Paris, France). (July 24, 1939). In “Aliens reduce France to an ’English colony’”. Social Justice, p. 4
You’re subsidizing it
With non-profit designation, residents of New Canaan and the state of Connecticut, and United States taxpayers are subsidizing the post-Nazi Glass House, so you might as well check it out.
Most of all, don’t buy that Johnson was “far right” as the always trustful left likes to refer to him to their siloed audience. Left-leaners conveniently forget that Johnson’s first strongman obsession was Huey Long, the governor of Louisiana, and a Democrat. In 1936, Johnson won the primary to run for an Ohio state representative position, as a Democrat. He later dropped out to pursue national interests. It was in 1938 when Johnson, and Coughlin, also a former Democratic supporter, went full-tilt Nazi— from the far left to the far right.
Occasionally there are flare-ups of concern today about Johnson, his name, and buildings, like protests against the Museum of Modern Art in 2020-2021 calling for the removal of Johnson’s names from some of their galleries. Harvard University in Boston removed Johnson's name from a building in 2020. In Madison, a Johnson design on a Tremaine Foundation property has been an element of concern in an ongoing zoning battle. A design by Johnson in his native Cleveland met the wrecking ball and another in Miami was, as of 2022, set to be scrapped.
For Johnson’s Nazi-apologists, we’re told that Johnson publicly changed his ways, that is, after the FBI was completely on him and his Nazi pals were becoming the subjects of federal grand jury investigations. We’re told that Johnson should be forgiven, which presumably extends to the Glass House, with non-profit status and operating on a tax-free basis.
If you don’t buy into this though, no problem, apology programming is on offer. The site can be re-cast as one for thought and reflection, I kid you not.
We see elite left power once again trying to spin something away, insincerely, to the point of nausea.
Enjoy the post-Nazi, I mean Modernist Glass House.
