It is possible to gain an overview of artists during the Third Reich because they were regulated by the professional organization, the Reich Chamber for the Visual Arts. Although this neocorporatist body turned professionalization models on their head because the organization stemmed from above, rather than from the members themselves, there can be no doubt about a professional identity for the vast majority of the practicing artists during the Third Reich. The Reich Chamber for the Visual Arts was designated a public law corporation and, as such, had the power to regulate the issues that were important to the artists' professional livelihood: training, economic conditions, awards, among others. (Steinweis, Art, Ideology, and Economics, 46) Because membership in one of the seven Reich Chambers of Culture was required of all individuals "who participated in the 'creation, reproduction, intellectual or technical processing, dissemination, preservation, and sale of cultural goods'" and because the First Decree for the Implementation of the Reich Chamber of Culture Law included a crucial provision in paragraph 10, according to which "admission into a cham ber may be refused, or a member may be expelled, when there exist facts from which it is evident that the person in question does not possess the necessary reliability and aptitude for the practice of this activity," the Reich Chamber for the Visual Arts quickly emerged as the decisive body regulating the lives and work of artists.
While the arts-specific chambers comprising the Reich Chamber of Culture were unprecedented in many respects, Goebbels and his colleagues who oversaw their creation attempted to link them with the professional associations and lobbying organizations (the Berufsverbände and Interessenverbände) that had existed previously. They did this not only by noting the common qualities and functions shared by the preand post-1933 bodies, but by arranging for the actual incorporation or subsumation of the preexisting organizations into the Reich Chamber of Culture. This occurred primarily in late 1933 and 1934, although in a few cases, associations maintained their independence for a few years. (Steinweis, Art, Ideology, and Economics, 42) But in general, the Reich Chamber of Culture complex took over the cultural sphere in a rapid and comprehensive manner. The reasons for this are manifold and complex, but Alan Steinweis is correct to observe, "the readiness of several prominent non-Nazis to accept important positions in the new chambers reflected broad approval, or at least acceptance, of the new institutional framework for the arts professions."( Steinweis, Art, Ideology, and Economics, 44)
According to the occupational census of 1933, there were 14,750 visual artists in Germany, divided among various subfields such as painters, sculptors, and illustrators. Later that year, when the Reich Chamber for the Visual Arts was formed, it counted 35,060 members, largely because of the inclusion of architects, as well as dealers and others in auxiliary professions. These numbers remained fairly constant until the second half of the war, when conscription and wartime service for artists reduced the number to 22,000. Most of the artists lived in German cities, specifically, in "cultural centers" like Munich, Dresden, and Berlin The percentage of the workforce involved in the arts varied in these cities from about 1 to 2 percent, with Munich having the highest concentration at 2.04 percent. (Steinweis, Art, Ideology, and Economics, 45)
When the National Socialists came to power in 1933, artists, like many others in Germany, were suffering from the Depression. But for many in the arts these difficulties extended back further. Alan Steinweis noted that their economic difficulties extended back to the early years of the Weimar Republic and that "the plight of artists in the early 1920s was seen as symptomatic of a more general, widely recognized 'crisis of intellectual workers.'”( Steinweis, Art, Ideology, and Economics, 47

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