Mr. Krämer, the art historian who first questioned whether it was appropriate to hang Nolde works in the chancellery, said he thought it was the right decision. “The chancellor’s fast reaction speaks in her favor,” he said in an interview.But Mr. Fulda wasn’t so sure. “If Angela Merkel had a picture of an eagle sitting on a swastika, we would say ‘Whoa, what is going on?’ ” he said. “But with Nolde, it’s very much a case of what you do with it. She could say to visitors, ‘The German past is a complex one. There is guilt, there is complicity, there is looking away, there is beauty.’ ”