A soldier's bare white legs can be seen sticking out of the putrid morass in the upper right corner, and a desiccated corpse impaled on twisted steel bars hovers above the scene of carnage and despair. Dix created many such artworks based on his wartime memories, and rarely has the world seen such brutally honest statements concerning war's reality.

At the time Dix painted Der Kreig, the ruling elites of Germany were attempting to popularize war. German fascists were promising to rebuild Germany with "Blood and Iron"... it was not a time for pacifist images. A year after Dix created this painting Adolf Hitler came to power. Dix was accused by the Nazis of creating art that sapped "the will of the German people to defend themselves." The artist was immediately fired from his teaching position at the Dresden Academy of Art and he was prohibited from exhibiting his works. Instead, the Nazis included the works of Dix (and other Expressionist artists) in a propaganda exhibit designed to denigrate modern art. Dix had the honor of being ridiculed in no less than three pro-fascist art exhibits... the "Reflections of Degeneracy" show (Dresden 1933), "Art in the Service of Demoralization" (Stuttgart 1933), and the infamous "Degenerate Art" exhibition of Munich 1937.