I just read a book called Art of the Third Reich by Peter Adam.  It deals with the state-sponsored paintings, sculpture, and architecture of Germany from 1933 to 1945.  Published in 1992, the book reproduces dozens of images of German art from that period, plus some examples of earlier art showing precursors to Nazi era artworks.  Adolf Hitler was particularly taken with nineteenth century Bavarian landscapes and peasant scenes.  It's not surprising he favored, as leader (Fuhrer) of Germany, the same kinds of paintings: strong, iron-jawed men, stolid simple women, all dedicated to working the soil, the good German earth, the special blood of the Nordic race coursing through privileged capillaries. 
     Third Reich sculpture, similarly, represented monumental man, all individual identities ignored in favor of blank hard-planed servitude.  In Hitler's mind, and in the minds of his executive underlings, everything in sculpture and in architecture must be huge.  The word oppressive apparently never occurred to Hitler as he dreamed big, studying models of the future Berlin, the future Linz--where he planned to retire.  A photograph exists of Hitler examining his imaginary Linz.  It's the Spring of 1945.  He's in the bunker beneath the Reich Chancellery, his final home.  The Russians are coming.  As he looks at the model, is he thinking, "Yeah, I'm gonna make it happen, baby!"?
     Hitler, according to Art of the Third Reich, bought hundreds of paintings by approved German artists.  He didn't necessarily like all of these paintings.  He was, in fact, disappointed by the mediocrity of most of the work.  He had many of his purchases distributed to public buildings, keeping the works suitable to his taste. 
     Hitler's main artistic preoccupation was architecture.  He's often called a frustrated artist, his failure in 1907 to pass the entrance examination to the Vienna Academy regarded as a key factor in the upheavals of twentieth century world history.  Peter Adam points out, however, that of Hitler's 113 fellow artists taking the examination, eighty-five failed.  That sounds like a tough school to get into.
     Like George Costanza on Seinfeld, Adolf Hitler liked to think of himself as an architect.  As Fuhrer, he had a group of architects around him, the most famous being Albert Speer.  Hitler consulted often with these men, exchanging ideas about building projects, some of them realized, like the gargantuan Summer Olympics complex in Berlin.  Massiveness, harking back to Greek architecture but without Classical grace, was the main idea.  To strike awe in the spectator, to make worms and ants out of human beings.  Architect Hermann Giesler designed, but, fortunately, did not build, the most inhuman and scary-looking building I've ever seen.  It never got farther than a model, but was supposed to be the entrance tower of a proposed Nazi Party Academy complex in Chiemsee, Bavaria.  The tower, 360 feet in diameter and 394 feet in height, would've been the most hideous official building ever erected.  It manages to look funny and horrible, a monument to megalomania.  Had the Third Reich triumphed, the world under its sway would likely have been dotted with the ugliest fucking buildings ever conceived. 
     Other cultures have known how to build graceful and purposeful structures lasting over long periods of time.  The long gone Assyrian Empire, ending in 612 BC, produced some magnificent art, sculptures, bas reliefs.  The Assyrian city of Nimrud, before March 2015 a ruin but still viable as an archaeological site, has been vandalized, blown up, and bulldozed by ISIS.  The sons of bitches, being fundamentalists, have no sense of humor, sense of culture, or sense of history.  The Assyrians didn't worship Allah, therefore any works of theirs must be destroyed, even though, as one ISIS vandal put it, "they may be worth billions of dollars."  His mention of money in relation to priceless artifacts in a not to be replaced ancient city shows his crassness, even as he believes the God of Mohammad, who must have a sense of beauty--look at Medieval Muslim architecture--condemns the works of ancient civilizations.  Part of Mohammad's genius was to draw on the past, bringing into Islam important men of ancient cultures, like Noah, Abraham, and Jesus.  None of them were Muslims.  The cultures they arose from were not Muslim-influenced. 
     Third Reich art and architecture had to pass through a thin state-approved aperture of creativity.  This narrow-mindedness, reflected now by ISIS fighters and propagandists, demonstrated an interest in creation and building, even if the results were crap.  ISIS has yet to produce an art form, unless smashing the irreplaceable and shooting snuff videos constitutes something to appreciate.