The painting Die wilde Jagd (The Wild Chase), a work in the symbolism genre by Franz Stuck, depicts the German god Wotan (Odin) on horseback leading a spectral procession in a seemingly frenzied pursuit.
In Germanic and Norse mythology Wotan doubles as a god of war who received soldiers who died in the battlefield in Valhalla, and as a hunter who embodied the ability to control life, death and the elemental forces of nature.
It has often been remarked that the central figure in Stuck’s work bears an uncanny resemblance to Adolf Hitler who was born in 1889, the year the painting was completed.
And it is claimed that Hitler, who first saw the painting as a 13-year-old, modelled his adult appearance on Wotan’s depiction.
Von Stuck became his favourite painter.
A great believer in providence, Hitler often spoke of his coming to power, his survival from assassination attempts and his military victories as manifestations of his worldly destiny.
Some believe that Stuck’s painting prophesized the rise of Hitler. Mythology had a deep-seated hold on the German psyche, and this formed the basis of many examinations and prognostications by its philosophers, musicians and writers.
For instance, Heinrich Heine, the German poet and thinker, felt that the Christian religion only kept a tenuous lid on the darker aspects of the German soul. He feared that the veneer of relative German pacifism could be broken by the rise of a Germanic demagogue-thinker who would be able to use his primitive powers to summon up the demonic forces of German pantheism.
He was perhaps like Stuck’s painting prophesizing the rise of Adolf Hitler.
NB.
. He died on August 30th, 1928, at the age of 65
. He is buried in the Munich Waldfriedhof
. Die wilde Jagd resides at the Lenbachhaus Museum in Munich
© Adeyinka Makinde (2025).
Adeyinka Makinde is a writer
based in London, England.
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