Joseph Beuys was full of contradictions—in his art and in his life. Born in Krefeld, Germany, in 1921, he enlisted in the Hitler Youth months before membership was mandatory. At 18, he worked in a circus, and two years later, he volunteered for the Nazi Air Force. After serving on the front lines of the wrong side of history, he crafted a public persona as Germany’s healer, identifying as a “shaman.” He died young, at 64, and is remembered as a leftist radical, even a naive utopian artist, as well as a founding member of the first Green Party. He helped usher in Germany’s *Erinnerungskultur* (“culture of remembrance”) and was dubbed by art historian Benjamin Buchloh the “first artist to address the history of fascism.” Beuys was a Nazi and then fashioned himself as a healer, stretching the saying “I contain multitudes” to the absolute limit.

From top: Courtesy Princeton University Press

Beuys never apologized, took responsibility, or even accounted for his role in the Nazi annihilation.…