Georg Baselitz, German artist who confronted Nazi past, dies at 87

Georg Baselitz, the German painter and sculptor who forced his country to confront its Nazi past through provocative works including a masturbating Hitler, has died. Born in 1938, he was one of the last living artists with direct childhood memories of the Third Reich. His early 'Heroes' series depicted mangled, bloodied figures in German forests, while later works turned to intimate portrayals of himself and his wife nude, capturing human frailty. Baselitz's art consistently addressed themes of guilt, trauma, and the fractured German identity, making him a pivotal figure in postwar art.