SCHWERIN, GERMANY.- Works by sculptor Arno Breker, favored by the Nazis for his monumental, classically inspired figures, has gone on display at the Schleswig-Hostein-Haus amid controversy over Breker's links to Adolf Hitler and his flourishing career in the Third Reich. It will be the first exhibition of Breker's work in the post-war era. On display will be 70 sculptures from the private collection owned by Breker's widow.

Ironically, his artistic career in some ways mirrored the history of Germany in the 20th Century. During the Weimar Republic he was a well-known adherent of the Expressionist school and leftists admired his angular sculptures. But the Nazis also liked his style. After the war, he was a successful commercial sculptor.

The sculptor Arno Breker was born in Wuppertal in 1900 and died in Düsseldorf in 1991. Moved to Paris (1927), returned to Berlin (1933), where he taught at the school of fine arts (1938-45). He developed an ideal of beauty based on Antiquity and the Renaissance, which he adapted after 1933 to the Nazi philosophy. For this reason, Breker's work and stance has remained a source of controversy to this day. Those works, for example, sculptures for the olympic stadium (1936) and for many other representative state buildings have almost all been destroyed. After the war, Breker turned to bust portraiture and graphics and then concentrated on writing: in 1970, 'Hitler et moi' was published (Paris); in 1972 'Im Strahlungsfeld der Ereignisse'.