During the war, Dix kept a diary and a sketchbook with which he chroni — Otto Dix

"Im a man who is concerned with reality. I have to see everything. I have to plumb the depths of life. And so I go to war. Thats why I volunteered [in the German army]. And when I tell people that nowadays, they say, "Good grief, so Dix was an out-and-out militarist! How does that fit together? He painted a war picture that was so frightful, so horrific, and now he says he was a militarist?" Yes, thats just it! What I said was: "If you want to be a hero, you have to see this whole mess and still say yes to it."

"Lice, rats, barbed wire, fleas, shells, bombs, caves, corpses, blood, liquor, mice, cats, gas, artillery, filth, bullets, mortars, fire, steel: that is what war is! It is all the work of the Devil!"

"My nerves fell apart before I saw the front this time, the decaying corpses and piercing wire; for a while, they made me harmless, locking me up in order to undertake a special diagnosis of whatever military ability I might still have. The nerves, every last fiber, repugnance, repulsion!"

"If I cant be famous, I want at least to be infamous."

"RADIO – DADA DIX whose monumental painting Barricade [now lost] created such a sensation in Dresden"

"Nobody wants to look at it. What is it all supposed to mean.. ..the old whores and the old, worn out women, and of life is cares?. .It doesnt make anybody happy. No gallery wants to exhibit it.[ his work]. Why do you even bother to paint it."