Note: This story is about an accomplished German Post-Impressionist painter, Emmy Gotzmann, whom my great-aunt Elsbeth Bruck in East Berlin was asked to help after WWII.
Forays into my family’s history occasionally reveal encounters relatives had with historic or renowned personages. Following WWII, my Uncle Fedor Bruck took over Hitler’s dentist’s office, recovered valuable historic documents, and was an indirect witness to the Fuhrer’s fate. My great-aunt, Franziska Bruck, the renowned florist, hosted the last Crown Princess of Prussia, Cecelie, in her shop and counted among her clients the last German Kaiser; she corresponded with the renowned German poet Rainer Maria Rilke, another client, letters of which survive. Going back to 1850, the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel in Ratibor hosted two symphonic performances by the famous Johann Strauss the Younger. This story is about a much lesser-known but enormously talented individual who crossed paths with one of my ancestors, my great-aunt Elsbeth Bruck, “la Communiste,” as she was referred to when I was growing up.
As readers may recall from Post 15, following my great-aunt Elsbeth’s exile in the United Kingdom during WWII, she returned to East Berlin and became a Communist Party apparatchik in the former German Democratic Republic. She was ultimately awarded the “Vaterländischer Verdienstorden in Silber,” the “Patriotic Order of Merit in Silver,” for “special services to the state and to the society.”
This story has to do with my family only insofar as it relates to a letter sent to my great-aunt Elsbeth by the niece of one of my second great-aunts. A little background is helpful. In Post 15, I told readers about the Stadtmuseum, located in Spandau, outside Berlin, where the surviving personal papers of two great-aunts, Elsbeth and Franziska Bruck, are archived. In 2014, my wife and I examined all these papers and took pictures of everything. After returning home, I sorted through what I’d acquired. It included hand-written letters sent between 1947 and 1954 by my grandmother, Else Bruck, née Berliner, to my great-aunt Elsbeth in Berlin from both Fayence, France, later from New York City. Interested in the content of these letters, I asked my distant cousin, Ronny Bruck, if he could translate them; all were written in Sütterlin, which Ronny learned in school. Mistakenly, I included a letter in Sütterlin also sent from New York by a similarly named woman, Else Milch. (Figures 1a & 1b)
Once I received the translation, I realized my mistake. While the letters written by my grandmother were interesting because they mentioned some of my relatives and myself, the letter written by Else Milch on February 26, 1948, was fascinating for altogether different reasons. For one thing, Else remarked on the superficiality of people she’d met in America; for another, Else referred to people I eventually learned were very accomplished in their fields of endeavor. I quote the relevant section of a longer letter:
Letter from Else Milch to Elsbeth Bruck, dated 26th of March 1948:
My Dear Elsbeth,
. . . People can say about the Germans whatever they want, but they loved and esteemed their character and their individuality.
I had an interesting life with a circle of really “living” people.
The “liveliness” of the people living here is only superficial and does not mean anything. But I suppose that if you want to become acquainted with somebody, then you must probably look for the most capable ones.
I think you have to live here a couple of years before you understand all of this. I am here now almost six years and I hope to travel in about four weeks to visit my youngest child in Brazil.
But, now, I come to the reason for this letter.
I don’t know whether you will have the time for this, if the transit system is yet operational, nor whether you’re willing to do this. But, I have the feeling you are the right person to ask.
I have a girlfriend, one of the last ones from my time living in Berlin. . .she is an artist, the former wife of Ludwig Hardt (long-ago divorced). Already, when I left in 1941 she was a renowned artist and formerly the Chairwoman of the “Verein Berliner Künstler” (Berlin Artist Association); politically, she has the same views as you. She could hate (and love), but now she seems to have collapsed. . .at first mentally, but I have heard she now also has heart issues.
I have sent parcels to her but can no longer do so. The last one I sent to her was in mid-December. I also sent a letter, but it has not yet arrived.
I asked friends to look in on her and they did so, but it didn’t work out because those friends were not like-minded. Now, I have the feeling you would be the right person for her.
Of course, she could come visit you if her heart is strong enough. She lives not too far away, in Berlin-Lichterfelde, in the part of the city that is closer to Berlin-Steglitz.
She is a Christian and has family ties to high-ranking officials and accomplished artists; she had mainly Jewish friends, despised the Nazis, and cared for hidden Jews during the war, but now is very lonely.
For a while, she had so-called “Starvation psychosis” [anorexia] meaning she talked about having to starve; I know this because someone told me. Unfortunately, she always needed a lot to eat, much more than me (although she was slim and athletic).
She lives in a dilapidated villa that belonged to her mother. A part of it is rented out. Absolutely lonely!! I wish she could get someone suitable in her house.
Well, if you could write to her asking her to visit, perhaps she would come. I received her last letter at the end of October, and now she doesn’t answer anymore, and that’s why I’m so worried.
And, now the address:
Emmi Gotzmann
22 Devrienzway
Lichterfelde East
Letters such as these are intriguing. Naturally, I researched both Emmy Gotzmann, and her one-time husband, Ludwig Hardt. For Emmy Gotzmann, my Search Engine directed me to a website dubbed “Linosaurus,” which touts itself as “A Blog on the Lesser Gods and Goddesses of linoleum and woodblock printing. And all other things worth sharing.” I contacted the Blog Administrator, explaining I had uncovered an interesting letter mentioning Ms. Gotzmann, including a copy of the original and the translation; I received an enthusiastic reply from Mr. Gerbrand Caspers. He’d forwarded the items I sent to a Mr. Ferdinand Ruigrok van de Werve, who, coincidentally, had just published a biography on Ms. Gotzmann in November 2015. (Figure 2)
Mr. Caspers is a retired dentist and university teacher, who is currently researching and writing a book on German woman artists (painters) born between 1850 and 1900 who were pioneering with color woodblock printmaking from 1905 to 1940. And, Mr. Ruigrok van de Werve is a retired art dealer living in Flensburg, Germany, on the German-Danish border, where Ms. Gotzmann trained from around 1905 to 1909.
Ms. Gotzmann’s full name was “Emmy Auguste Elizabeth Gotzmann,” and she was born in Frankfurt am Main on March 19, 1881. (Figure 3) Emmy may have received her formal art training at the “Verein der Künstlerinnen und Kunstfreundinnen zu Berlin” between 1901 and 1904, although most of her training appears to have come at private schools and artist colonies. (Figure 4) German art historian Ulrich Schulte-Wülwer writes about this: “The triumph of open-air painting at the end of the 19th century was the birth of artists’ colonies. For painters who were denied access to the art academy, artist colonies offered a welcome opportunity to compete with their male counterparts. In Ekensund. . .Emmy Gotzmann-Conrad outclassed her contemporaries, painting in the style of van Gogh and French Pointillists.”
Gotzmann’s first marriage in 1905 to the lawyer Walter Conrad (Figure 5) lasted until 1913, but it is her second marriage (Figure 6) to the Jewish actor and “declamator” (i.e., one who declaims or speaks in a rhetorical manner), Ludwig Hardt (Figure 7), that is briefly mentioned in Else Milch’s letter. This marriage lasted until about 1928 and brought Emmy into contact with “literary expressionism” and its actors and moved her increasingly into Jewish circles. As Else Milch noted, Ms. Gotzmann was the Chairwoman of “Verein Berliner Künstler,” from 1928 to 1930. During the time of National Socialism, because her Post-Impressionist paintings were deemed “degenerate art,” she was cut off from the art business and became increasingly impoverished. Most of Emmy’s paintings were destroyed during WWII, and only those in her parents’ home and stored with relatives survived. The few paintings that survive speak to Ms. Gotzmann’s tremendous talent. (Figure 8)
Emmy passed away in Berlin on September 27, 1950, so almost 2 ½ years to the day after Else Milch wrote to my great-aunt. It is unclear whether Elsbeth Bruck and Emmy Gotzmann ever actually met, though I like to believe so.
Emmy Gotzmann’s second husband, the actor Ludwig “Leo” Hardt was born on January 16, 1886 in Neustadt, Upper Silesia, Germany (today: Prudnik, Opolskie, Poland); he immigrated to America, and passed away in New York City in 1947. Interestingly, he is interred in Mount Hebron Cemetery in Flushing, Queens, only a short distance from where I grew up.
The author of the letter to my great-aunt, Else Milch, née Kantorowicz, was born in Posen, Prussia (today: Poznan, Poland) on May 2, 1875, and died in Queens, New York on February 16, 1963. In February 1948, earlier the same year that Else Milch wrote to my great-aunt in East Berlin, she traveled to Brazil to visit her children. Attached to her Immigration Card from this visit to Brazil is her photograph. (Figure 9) In a story that will be related to readers in a future post, one of my German third cousins gave me a copy of a letter written to his father by one of Else Milch’s daughters from Porto Allegre, Brazil in 1989. Included in this letter were a few poor-quality images of a much older Else Milch. (Figure 10)
REFERENCES
Ruigrok van de Werve, Ferdinand
2015 Farbige Kraft in schwierigen Zeiten – Emmy Gotzmann. Verlag Ludwig, Kiel.
Schulte-Wülwer, Ulrich
2000 Künstlerkolonie Ekensund am Nordufer der Flensburger Förde (German). Boyens Buchverlag.