Already in the early days of National Socialism, the Nazis removed Hans Baluschek from his post as exhibition director in 1933 as a so-called "Marxist artist" and later banned him from working and exhibiting. They ostracised his works, classing them as "degenerate". However, between 1933 and 1934, his paintings were still exhibited at the Great Berlin Art Exhibition. The opening speech was given by the Prussian Minister of Culture Bernhard Rust. Excluded from the board of the Association of Berlin Women Artists, prominent Jewish artist Harriet von Rathlef withdrew her works from the Great Berlin Art Exhibition in Bellevue Palace as a consequence of the increasing anti-Semitic riots and the art policy of the Nazis. The exhibition for the year 1934 was presented in the exhibition rooms of the Prussian Academy of Arts, and works by Gustav Wunderwald were rejected.
