Robert Senkpiel (1946-1975)

The following interpretation was provided by Mary Cummings Grisanti, who was previously married to Robert Senkpiel.

The Chancellery in Berlin was an ancient palace that was used in much the same way as our White House. In 1938 Hitler assigned Martin Borman and Albert Speer to design and update it. Upon completion, Speer and Borman began to use the Chancellery as their own personal banquet space. It is most likely Boorman and Speer depicted in this lithograph.

The woman represents the Nazi ideal of German women. (This is clearly not what is considered ideal today). The Nazi government controlled every aspect of women’s lives. Their desired place in society was to breed future Nazis (the mechanical womb). Women were honored all over Germany on the second Sunday of May. The “Mutterehrekreuz” was an award given to mothers who gave birth successfully to blond-haired, blue-eyed Aryan babies. A bronze cross was given for 4 to 5 births. The silver cross was given for 6 to 7 births and the gold cross was awarded to a woman who gave birth to 7 or more Aryan children. Each cross had Hitler’s signature on the back. The journal “Frauen Warte” touted women’s patriotic duty. This is a scene from one such celebration. 

 A respectable German mother would be an earth mother like the Venus of Willendorf or a Brunhild as in the “Nibelungenlied.” “Bear a child for the Furhrer” and “Kinder, Kucke, und Kirche” (Children, Cake and Church) were often repeated in Nazi propaganda to remind women of their place in German society. It is not lost on the viewer that the figures represented in the lithograph are hardly ideal physical specimens. Subtly, the image allows one to contemplate the essential dishonesty of Nazi propaganda and the Eugenics they believed in without overtly referring to it.

1) “Mother’s For Germany: A look at the Ideal woman in Nazi Germany” by Karin Lynn Brasher 2015

2) “Kinder, Kuche und Kirche” by Helen Morgan 2020

While these theses are recent, their digging down into Nazi history clearly explains the truths of what the situation was for German women under Nazi rule.