Dismissed or trivialised by some as unserious and silly, Surrealist art was in fact largely born out of the brutal trauma of living under fascism, as these five striking works reveal.

It's a century since André Breton's Manifesto of Surrealism advocated a "mode of pure expression… dictated by thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason". Writing was the intended vehicle for this unbridled imagination; art was thought too unspontaneous. Yet, just a year later, on 13 November 1925, the first exhibition of Surrealist art was staged in Paris, unleashing a world of peculiar, dream-infused works by artists such as Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso, Man Ray and Max Ernst.

Given Surrealist art's fantastic forms – from Salvador Dalí's melting pocket watches and lobster telephone to Méret Oppenheim's furry cup and saucer – it's easy to dismiss or trivialise these outlandish works as more silly than serious. However, as galleries mark the Manifesto's centenary with exhibitions on Surrealism and its legacy, the movement's poignant response to the war years that spawned it is being brought to the fore.

The exhibition But live here? No thanks: Surrealism and Anti-fascism, at the Lenbachhaus in Munich, aims "to show that the movement of Surrealism formed at the same time as those fascist movements in Europe, and thus it is highly impactful and even constitutive, in many ways, of the political self-understanding of Surrealism", co-curator Stephanie Weber tells the BBC. The Surrealists – with the exception of Dalí – were anti-fascist, often with close ties to the French Communist Party. "All the artists in our exhibition were personally impacted by fascism," and "fought back", says Weber. "Many of them were persecuted, they had to go into exile, they fought in the Resistance… and many of them either fell in war or were deported and killed."

One of the featured artists is Romanian Jewish painter Victor Brauner. Faced with rising antisemitism, fanned by Romania's Iron Guard, he made a new life in Paris in the 1930s, only to be displaced again in 1940 by the Nazi occupation. His oeuvre was nevertheless prolific, and conveys, says Weber, "this pictorial sense of humour" seen in Totem of Wounded Subjectivity II (1948), the exhibition's flagship image. The oil painting features comical, cartoonish beings with arms for a nose or chin, but whose sharp teeth and spikes suggest menace. They clutch forms that evoke both fruit – a classic surrealist motif – and internal organs, hinting at something visceral and brutal. In the centre is the ubiquitous surrealist "egg", a symbol of the ambition for a new reality, driven by the imagination and distinct from the suffering of the past

In Paris, where Breton's Manifesto was penned, visitors to the Pompidou Centre's blockbuster exhibition Surrealism can now discover the original manuscript showcased at the heart of a labyrinthine journey through 40 years of mind-boggling art. The travelling exhibition began in Brussels, and will continue to Madrid, Hamburg and Philadelphia, but is currently at its most expansive, occupying a 2200-sq-m space. Highlights include René Magritte's vertiginous Personal Values (1952), an absurd and amusing rendition of a seemingly small room containing vastly oversized everyday objects. This comedy, however, has suffering as its source. Disillusioned by the rational thinking that led to the mass destruction of world war, artists such as Magritte and his Dadaist predecessors embraced the illogical, creating disconcerting works inspired by the subconscious world of dreams.