Szczecin Archives - bruckfamilyblog.com

POST 64: MY COUSIN AGNES STIEDA’S FATHER, ART HISTORIAN DR. HANS VOGEL

Note: This is a post about Dr. Hans Vogel, father of my Canadian third cousin Agnes Stieda née Vogel who was the subject of Posts 46 and 63. In this post, I briefly relate a few aspects of Dr. Vogel’s life and highlight one of his major accomplishments.

Figure 1. Undated photo of Dr. Hans Vogel and his wife Susanne Vogel née Neisser, Agnes Stieda’s parents

In the course of doing forensic investigations into my Jewish ancestors, I often learn they were renowned and very accomplished people. Where the forebears are unknown to me, I typically begin by searching their names on the Internet. Since all my father’s immediate ancestors were German, I also search for them on German Wikipedia. This post is the tale of one such individual, Dr. Hans Martin Erasmus Vogel, my third cousin Agnes Stieda née Vogel’s father. (Figures 1-2) Regular readers will recall that Agnes has been the subject of two earlier posts, and that her father has been mentioned in both. It is not my intention to present Dr. Vogel’s biography here, but merely to highlight a few relevant facts that reflect the era in which he lived and one of his major achievements.

I’ve previously told readers of my father’s family ties to Ratibor [today: Racibórz, Poland] in Upper Silesia, but there are other larger Prussian cities to which my extended family was connected, notably, Posen [today: Poznan, Poland], where my Pauly relatives were from, Breslau [today: Wrocław, Poland], and Stettin [today: Szczecin, Poland]. Dr. Hans Vogel was born in Stettin on the 28th of July 1897, and graduated from the Gymnasium, high school, there in 1916. Following his graduation until 1918, he was a Sergeant Major during WWI, and was badly wounded during the war. Upon his recuperation in 1919, he studied political science and in 1923 received his Dr. rer. pol. (Doctor rerum politicarum), Doctor of Political Science. Then, from 1923 to 1925, he studied art history in Marburg and Leipzig, and graduated with his Dr. phil. (Doctor philosophiae), Doctor of Philosophy.

Figure 3. Friedrich Heinrich Prinz von Preußen, member of the House of Hohenzollern, as a young man in his regimental uniform

From 1925 until 1932, Dr. Vogel worked as an art historian. He was a volunteer at the Kunstgewerbemuseum (Museum of Applied Arts) in Leipzig; established an art and local history museum in Zeulenroda in the state of Thuringia; was an assistant at the Städtisches Museum in Moritzburg; and was a lecturer for art history and a librarian at the Staatliche Kunstakademie in Kassel; after the Kunstakademie closed in 1932, he worked as a “wissenschaftlicher Hilfsarbeiter,” an unpaid scientific assistant, at the Gemäldegalerie and Landesmuseum in Kassel. In 1934, Dr. Vogel’s continued employment at the museum in Kassel was no longer possible because of his so-called “mixed marriage” to Agnes’s Jewish or “non-Aryan” mother, Susanne Vogel née Neisser. Between 1934 and 1935, while trying in vain to emigrate, he managed to secure a grant to inventory the building content and art collection of the Hohenzollern in Sigmaringen in southwestern Germany. This work caught the attention of Friedrich Heinrich Prinz von Preußen (Figure 3), who was a Prussian officer and member of the House of Hohenzollern, and led to a project in 1936 cataloging the Prince’s library and copperplate collection; by 1937 though Dr. Vogel was relegated to a clerical position in the property of the Prince.

Figure 4. Friedrich Heinrich Prinz von Preußen (1874-1940) in the 1930’s when Dr. Hans Vogel worked for him on his estate in Kamenz, Prussia [today: Kamieniec Ząbkowicki, Poland]

Figure 5. Another photo of Friedrich Heinrich Prinz von Preußen taken in the 1930’s

Dr. Vogel’s daughter Agnes has fond memories of Friedrich Heinrich Prinz von Preußen (1874-1940) (Figures 4-5), not the least because he protected her family and provided work for her father during the war. Friedrich Heinrich was an interesting character. He studied law at Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Bonn; upon graduation he joined the military under a position of à la suite, which was a military title given to those who were assigned to the army or a particular unit for honor’s sake, and entitled to wear a regimental uniform, but otherwise had no official position. However, in early 1907 he was relieved from his position à la suite as a regimental commander because of his homosexuality. He was excluded from the Prussian army for this reason, but at the beginning of WWI he was once again allowed to become a soldier, but only at the rank of Gefreiter, basically a Private First Class, with no opportunity for promotion.

In late 1906, Friedrich Heinrich was nominated by Kaiser Wilhelm II as Lord Master of the Order of St. John as the successor to his late father who’d died earlier that year. The poorly kept secret of Friedrich Wilhelm’s homosexuality, however, caused him to ask the Kaiser to withdraw his nomination, which he did. Eventually, the press learned and published the motive for the change in leadership for the Knights of St. John, “because he [Friedrich Heinrich] suffers from the inherited perversion of the sex instinct.” Having been “outed,” he was urgently advised to leave Berlin. After stays in southern France and Egypt, Friedrich Heinrich lived from then on withdrawn on his Silesian estates where Dr. Vogel worked for him. According to published accounts, Friedrich Heinrich contributed greatly to the economic development of the southeastern part of the county of Glatz [today: Kłodzko, Poland] where his estate was located and was popular among his subjects because of his concern for their well-being.

Dr. Vogel remarked that living in the countryside in a state of complete social isolation left him with much time to continue his private art history studies, which served him well after the war. As the war progressed, Dr. Vogel was increasingly at risk from the Gestapo, on account of his “mixed marriage.” Forewarned in time, he fled to Potsdam, a suburb of Berlin. In Post 46, Agnes described it as such:

My father was responsible for bringing his Unit’s mail to the train, and when he noticed the train was headed to Berlin, he took that opportunity to jump onboard and defect, hoping to find us when he arrived in Potsdam; we had always found shelter there in the apartment of the mother of one my mother’s good friends. By defecting, my father had taken a huge risk since defectors were shot on sight. But he was not discovered and entered Berlin which was aflame.

Following the end of WWII, Dr. Vogel was unable to immediately find employment in a museum, so for a time worked at the local Municipal School Office in Potsdam retraining former teachers and training new ones. Then, in 1946, he was hired as the Director of the Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen Kassel (Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel). When Dr. Vogel arrived, he found a bomb-destroyed gallery, so the reconstruction of the Kassel Museum after the war was largely his doing. Many of the museum’s monuments and paintings had been moved elsewhere during the war for safekeeping. One of the most important events during Dr. Vogels’s tenure as Director was the return of the so-called “Viennese Pictures” in 1955; this involved the repatriation of 64 very precious paintings including Rembrandt’s “Jacob Blessing the Sons of Joseph,” as well as artworks by Albrecht Dürer, Titian, Rubens and von Dyck. (Figures 6a-b) Given the legitimate hostility countries felt towards Germany after WWII and the prevailing “cold war,” it was certainly not a given all countries would return art work that had been squirrelled away inside their borders; a few might reasonably have viewed retention of these valuable masterpieces as reparations. Regardless, the fact that Dr. Vogel, on behalf of the Museumslandschaft Hessen (Museum of Hessian History (MHK)) (Figures 7a-b), was able to recover the Viennese Pictures certainly stands as one of his most significant achievements, almost a “monuments men” moment.

Figure 6a. Dr. Hans Vogel in 1955 with the paintings he retrieved from Vienna, Austria that had been stored there for safekeeping during WWII

Figure 6b. Dr. Hans Vogel holding Albrecht Dürer’s, the “Portrait of Elsbeth Tucher,” painted in 1499, that was among the so-called “Viennese Pictures” he repatriated from Vienna in 1955

Figure 7a. The “Museumslandschaft Hessen” (Museum of Hessian History) in Kassel, Germany, where Dr. Vogel was the Director between 1946 and 1961

Figure 7b. One of the crated “Viennese Pictures” being carried into the “Museumslandschaft Hessen” in 1955

Dr. Vogel’s professional career, even circumscribed as it was by the Nazi era, was certainly more multi-faceted than the narrow description I’ve provided. MHK houses a diverse collection, carefully organized under Dr. Vogel’s tutelage, including the library and copper cabinet, picture gallery, pre- and early-historical collections, collections of folk art and costumes, the astronomical and physics cabinet, the collection of urban costumes, furniture and ceramics, as well as items from the former landgrave art chamber. On behalf of the museum, Dr. Vogel enriched the Old Masters Picture Gallery by acquiring 20 works by Jacob Jordaens, Thomas de Kayser, and an anonymous student of Rubens, as well as a series of paintings from the Tischbein Circle. He also purchased 14 Rembrandt etchings to form as a counterpart to the Rembrandt paintings hanging in Kassel retrieved from Vienna.

Having little to do with Dr. Vogel’s professional work, among his daughter Agnes’s papers, survives a very touching and simple hand-drawn picture by Dr. Vogel. It shows Dr. Vogel and his wife standing on the shore, depicted as a rabbit and a dog, watching sadly as Agnes, shown as a rabbit, sails aboard an ocean liner headed to Canada from Germany. (Figure 8)

Figure 8. Simple hand-drawn picture done by Dr. Hans Vogel showing his daughter Agnes’s departure from Germany aboard an ocean liner

Following his retirement in 1961, Dr. Vogel and his wife remained in Kassel where they are interred. (Figure 9)

Figure 9. Hans and Suse Vogel’s headstone in Kassel, Germany

POST 63: REMEMBERING SOME ANCESTORS THROUGH MY COUSIN AGNES STIEDA’S PHOTOS

Note: In this post, I recall through a series of sometimes poignant and touching images some of my ancestors, several of whom were murdered in the Shoah. The photos embedded in this post originate with my 92-year old third cousin who knew and was intimately acquainted with these individuals as a young child growing up in Germany before and during the Nazi Era.

Figure 1. Painting of Agnes Stieda née Vogel, granddaughter of Ernst and Margarethe Neisser, who comes from a family of fifth-generation musicians

Figure 2. Agnes’s great-grandmother, Rosalie Pauly née Mockrauer (1844-1927), younger sister of Friederike Bruck née Mockrauer

Figure 3. My great-grandmother, Friederike Bruck née Mockrauer (1836-1924), older sister of Rosalie Pauly née Mockrauer

I first introduced readers to my third cousin Agnes Stieda née Vogel in Blog Post 46. (Figure 1) Our respective great-grandmothers were sisters, Rosalie Pauly née Mockrauer (1844-1927) (Figure 2), and Friederike Bruck née Mockrauer (1836-1924). (Figure 3) I first learned about Agnes from another third cousin who, tired of incessant questions on family matters he couldn’t answer, referred me to her. We became acquainted in February of this year, and ever since we’ve engaged in a very active and lively email correspondence. I wrote about Agnes in Post 46. What’s made our exchanges so fascinating is that Agnes lived through historic events and was close to a few of the people I’ve researched and written about, including some who perished in the Holocaust. This post provides an opportunity to remember through photographs a few of these people seen in the throes of life before they knew what tragedy awaited them, and their lives were abruptly ended.

Figure 4. Agnes Stieda & me in Vancouver, Canada, August 2019

Figure 5. Agnes’s eldest daughter, Nicki Stieda, at her home in Vancouver, Canada

Agnes, I learned, lives in a retirement community in Victoria on Vancouver Island, about an hour-and-a-half west of Vancouver by ferry. Prior to meeting Agnes, my wife and I had already planned a cruise to Alaska departing from Vancouver to see the glaciers before climate-change deniers ensure their disappearance. After months of communication, it was only natural that Agnes and I should get together. (Figure 4) We arranged to meet in person at her eldest daughter Nicki Stieda’s home in Vancouver. (Figure 5) Nicki is the curator of her mother’s personal papers and photos, so upon learning of my upcoming visit, she organized all the items for my convenience. (Figure 6) Given that I neither speak nor read German, I focused on taking pictures of Agnes’s photos. Additionally, thanks to her perfect recall of the people in the images, we spent several enthralling hours talking about Agnes’s memories of them.

Figure 6. Agnes’s personal papers and photos organized by her daughter

Let me provide a little more context. Agnes is the granddaughter of Dr. Ernst Neisser and Margareth “Gretl” Neisser née Pauly, both victims of the Holocaust who committed suicide in Berlin, respectively, in 1941 and 1942; this was the subject of Post 48. Gretl Neisser was one of nine children of Dr. Josef and Rosalie Pauly, all of whom have been discussed in earlier posts and all whose fates I’ve now worked out. Ernst and Gretl Neisser had two children, Agnes’s mother Susanne Dorothea Vogel née Niesser (1899-1984) and Agnes’s uncle Peter Heinrich Neisser (1906-1929).

Figure 7. Agnes’s grandfather, Dr. Ernst Neisser, in 1911 amongst a group of other doctors outside the hospital in Stettin, Germany, where he would later deliver his granddaughter

Dr. Ernst Neisser was a medical doctor in Stettin, Germany [today: Szczecin, Poland], who delivered Agnes. (Figure 7) Another Pauly daughter, Edith “Dietchen” Riezler née Pauly (Figure 8) also lived in Stettin with her husband, Dr. Walter Riezler (Figure 9), who was the Director of the Muzeum Narodowe w Szczecinie, the National Museum, Szczecin; Walter and Edith Riezler were the subjects of Post 53. In writing that post, I communicated with curators at the museum to try and procure photos of Dr. Riezler; I eventually obtained some from my third cousin Andi Pauly that I shared with the museum since they had none at the time. Among Agnes’s photos were yet more of Dr. Reizler that I’ve also sent them.

Figure 8. Edith “Dietchen” Riezler née Pauly (1880-1961)

Figure 9. Dr. Walter Riezler (1878-1965)

Figure 10. An intimate moment between Agnes’s grandparents, Ernst & Margarethe Neisser

Because of Agnes’s family ties to Stettin following her birth in 1927, many of her photos date from this period. They illustrate in intimate fashion the close bond Agnes grandparents had with one another (Figure 10) and with their granddaughter (Figures 11-13). Several also show the deep affection between Agnes and her great-aunt Dietchen Riezler (Figures 14-15); Agnes has particularly fond memories of all three. There are multiple images of Agnes as a child at the beach along the Baltic Ocean, which is about 100km or 60 miles north of Szczecin. This series naturally includes photos of her parents Hans and Suse Vogel. (Figure 16)

Figure 11. Agnes as a toddler with her beloved grandfather, Ernst Neisser

Figure 12. Another image of Agnes with her grandfather

Figure 13. Agnes as a ten-year old with her grandparents, Ernst and Margarethe Neisser, in 1937-38 in Eberhausen near Munich

Figure 14. Agnes with another of her beloved relatives, her great-aunt Edith “Dietchen” Riezler née Pauly

Figure 15. Agnes as a toddler with her great-aunt Dietchen Riezler

Figure 16. Agnes as a toddler at the beach surrounded by her grandparents, her great-aunt, and her youthful parents

Figure 17. Agnes’s father, Dr. Hans Vogel, following WWII when he served as Director of the Hessisches Landesmuseum in Kassel, Germany

Dr. Hans Vogel (Figure 17) will be the feature of an upcoming post. Suffice it for now to note that Dr. Vogel was, among other things, an art historian, and, like Dr. Walter Riezler, also the Director of a museum, the Hessisches Landesmuseum in Kassel, Germany. (Figure 18) In anticipation of writing a future post about Dr. Vogel, I’ve also communicated and shared images of him with them.

Figure 18. The Hessisches Landesmuseum in Kassel, Germany

Figure 19. Wedding photo of Hans & Suse Vogel taken the 31st of July 1926 in Berlin-Charlottenburg

One photo hanging in Nicki Stieda’s home is of her grandparents’ wedding in 1926 in Berlin. (Figure 19) Having learned from a tribute Suse Vogel née Neisser, Agnes’s mother, had written in honor of her father (Dr. Ernst Neisser) that she and Hans had gotten married in the Charlottenburg Borough of Berlin, I was able to track down and order from the Landesarchiv Berlin the original certificate. (Figures 20a-b) Finding a photo linked to a marriage certificate I’d obtained from a completely foreign source is one thing that makes doing forensic genealogy so entertaining.

Figure 20a. Copy of page 1 of Hans & Susanne Vogel’s marriage certificate of the 31st of July 1926

Figure 20b. Copy of page 2 of Hans & Susanne Vogel’s marriage certificate of the 31st of July 1926

Figure 21. Peter Neisser, Agnes’s uncle, as a toddler

Figure 22. Another image of Peter Neisser as a toddler, taken in Stettin, Germany

Figure 23. Peter Neisser, Agnes’s uncle, who died prematurely of septicemia) on the 16th of April 1929

Figure 24. Peter Neisser (1906-1929), Agnes’s uncle

Figure 25. Peter Neisser as a toddler with his grandmother, Julie Neisser née Sabersky (1841-1927)

Particularly poignant images included among Agnes’s papers are some of her uncle Peter Neisser, who died prematurely of septicemia at 23 years of age in 1929 in Heidelberg, Germany as he was training to become a doctor. Photos of Peter span from when he was a toddler (Figures 21-22) to an adult (Figures 23-24), probably shortly before he died; one shows him with his grandmother, Julie Neisser née Sabersky (1841-1927). (Figure 25) I don’t expect readers to remember but I included one picture in Post 45 of a Pauly family get-together, reproduced here (Figure 26), estimated to have taken place around 1895, that included Julie Neisser. In examining Neisser family trees on ancestry.com, I came upon one that used as a profile image a painting of Julie Neisser, the original of which interestingly is in the possession of Agnes’s daughter Nicki Stieda. (Figure 27) This is yet another serendipitous connection.

Figure 26. Large Pauly family get-together, probably in the mid-1890’s, with Julie Neisser née Sabersky’s head circled

Figure 27. Painting of Julie Neisser née Sabersky, hanging in Nicki Stieda’s home in Vancouver

Another of Josef and Rosalie Pauly’s daughters with a connection to Stettin was Elizabeth “Ellchen” Herrnstadt née Pauly who was married to Arthur Herrnstadt (1865-1912); they had two daughters, Aenne Herrnstadt (1896-1942) and Ilse Herrnstadt (1897-1943). While Arthur died in Stettin well before the Nazis ascended to power, his wife and two daughters were all murdered in the Holocaust, at Theresienstadt. (Figure 28) Aenne Herrnstadt, it turns out, was Agnes’s godmother, and several photos survive (Figures 29-30), including the two of them together when Agnes was a toddler. Interestingly, while Aenne and Ilse were only a year apart, Agnes has no recollection of Ilse, and thinks she may have been institutionalized for unknown reasons.

Figure 28. Ilse Herrnstadt’s (1897-1943) death certificate from the Theresienstadt Ghetto, showing she died on the 21st of July 1943 and identifying her parents as Arthur and Elisabeth Herrnstadt

Figure 29. Agnes as a toddler with her godmother, Aenne Herrnstadt (1896-1942), murdered in the Theresienstadt

Figure 30. Another photo of Agnes with her godmother Aenne Herrnstadt

There exists a picture among Agnes photos reproduced here, showing Ellchen Herrnstadt, her daughter Aenne, and Agnes’s mother, Suse Vogel, taken between 1916 and 1918. (Figure 31)

Figure 31. Elizabeth “Ellchen” Herrnstadt née Pauly (left) and her daughter Aenne Herrnstadt (middle), both victims of the Holocaust, with Agnes’s mother, Suse Vogel, in a photo taken between 1916 and 1918

Helene Guttentag née Pauly was yet another of Josef and Rosalie Pauly’s daughters who, along with her husband Dr. Adolf Guttentag, committed suicide in Berlin in 1942 after being told to report for deportation. I told their story in Post 50. They had one son, Otto Guttentag, who escaped to America, served in the U.S. Army during the war, was stationed in Europe for a time after the war, and eventually became a doctor in California. While stationed in Europe, Agnes and Otto Guttentag met (Figure 32); they were first cousins once removed. (Figure 33)

Figure 32. Agnes with Otto Guttentag, her first cousin once removed, while he was stationed as a U.S. soldier in Germany following WWII

Figure 33. Dr. Otto Guttentag later in life

In closing, I concede this post (Figures 34-35) will be of limited interest to many, though I would only add that what may resonate with readers is the process by which they may pursue their own genealogical investigations to track down images and stories of their own ancestors. Admittedly, this can be a challenging though not insurmountable problem.

Figure 34. Agnes, with her husband Chris, as a young mother with her two oldest children, Nicki and Monica (seated on her father’s lap), pregnant with her third child, Vivian

Figure 35. My wife Ann and me aboard the cruise ship departing Vancouver in August 2019 following our visit with my third cousin Agnes Stieda

POST 53: “CULTURAL BOLSHEVIST!”

Note: In this brief post, I continue to explore the lives and fates of Josef and Rosalie Pauly’s nine children and their spouses, in this instance, Dr. Walter Riezler and his second wife, Edith Riezler née Pauly.

Figure 1. Article from June 1, 2012 issue of “Zulawy I Mierzeja,” Pomeranian newspaper, describing my 2012 visit to Nowy Dwór Gdański and the Muzeum Zulawskie

In 2012, I was invited to deliver a talk by the Muzeum Zulawskie in Nowy Dwór Gdański, Poland, formerly known as Tiegenhof, Free State of Danzig, where my Jewish-born father, Dr. Otto Bruck, was a dentist between 1932 and 1937. Following my presentation, discussing my father’s association with Tiegenhof and the photos he took there and in surrounding areas, copies of which I’ve donated to the museum, I was interviewed by a journalist from Pomerania, Mr. Andrzej Kasperek. (Figure 1) Ever since, Andrzej and I have periodically stayed in touch. Andrzej had once expressed an interest in writing about my father and his two siblings and their disparate fates during the Nazi era. (Figure 2) Thus, it came as no surprise when in 2018, Andrzej requested permission to use some of my father’s photos for an upcoming book. Naturally, I agreed to his entreaty.

Figure 2. Article from October 4, 2013 issue of “Dziennik Bałtycki,” Gdansk, Poland newspaper, describing the disparate fates of my father and his siblings during WWII

Recently, I received a copy of Andrzej’s book, entitled “Mój Płaski Kraj Żuławy” (My Flat Zulawy Country). An entire chapter of the book is devoted to my father and his two siblings. While I neither read nor speak Polish, I can tell Andrzej’s chapter is based on stories I’ve posted to my Blog. In perusing the rest of the book, a photo of one of Vincent van Gogh’s famous landscapes painted in 1888 in Arles, France, entitled “Langlois Bridge at Arles” (Figure 3), caught my attention. I presume the author included this image in his book because it is reminiscent of the drawbridges one sees in Żuławy, the nearly flat delta area of the Vistula River in northern Poland.

Figure 3. Vincent van Gogh’s 1888 painting of “Langlois Bridge at Arles”

Figure 4. A 1910 sculpture of Dr. Walter Riezler rendered by the famous German sculptor Bernhard Bleeker (© Andreas Pauly)

The van Gogh painting in Andrzej Kasperek’s book is remarkably like a van Gogh landscape Edith Pauly’s husband, Dr. Walter Riezler, acquired on behalf of the Muzeum Narodowe w Szczecinie, the National Museum, Szczecin [formerly Stettin, Germany], as its first director there between 1910 and 1933. (Figure 4) To remind readers, Edith Pauly was the seventh of my great-great-uncle and aunt Josef and Rosalie Pauly’s nine children (Figure 5), and the second of Dr. Riezler’s wives. She was a singing teacher, a mezzo-soprano. (Figure 6)

Figure 5. Edith Pauly (1880-1963) as a young girl in 1890 (© Andreas Pauly)

Figure 6. Edith Pauly as a mezzo-soprano in the 1900’s (© Andreas Pauly)

Figure 7. Dr. Walter Riezler in 1958 (© Andreas Pauly)

Edith’s husband, Dr. Walter Riezler (Figure 7), was an eminent classical archaeologist, art historian, design theoretician, museologist, and musicologist. As a student in Munich, he tutored the precocious son of his archaeology professor Dr. Adolf Furtwängler, Wilhelm, who would go on to become one of the greatest symphonic and operatic conductors of the 20^th Century. It is not my intention to relate the biography of this accomplished man, but merely to focus on a few things about his life that touch on subjects of broader historical interest or family history; readers can learn more about Dr. Riezler by going to German Wikipedia (Wikipedia.de), entering Riezler’s name, and translating the text.

The van Gogh painting acquired by Dr. Riezler as Director of the National Museum in Szczecin is contemporaneous with a series of landscapes rendered by van Gogh between 1888-1889 when the artist lived in Arles, in the southern part of France. The title of the painting acquired by Riezler is entitled “A Lane Near Arles.” It depicts a lane surrounded by trees running between the fields outside Arles, with a yellow house at the side of the lane. (Figure 8)

Figure 8. Vincent van Gogh’s 1888 painting “A Lane Near Arles”

Riezler’s acquisition of van Gogh’s painting comported with his view of a modern art collection. From the time of his arrival in Szczecin in April 1910, Riezler was involved in the development of a collection of modern art, especially 19^th century paintings and contemporary artistic trends, such as expressionism and New Objectivity. Riezler felt it necessary to focus on the acquisition of works of art that were a representative collection of the latest trends that would unite the present with the past; he felt this approach would result in one of the best collections nationally and would attract art lovers and researchers from around the globe. Riezler even orchestrated the sale of one of the museum’s most valuable works, the painting of a man by the Dutch painter Frans Hals, because the painting did not fit into the museum’s scope of collections; he compensated for it by purchasing other works of great importance. Knowing the adverse reaction this painting’s sale would provoke in opposition circles, he kept it confidential at the time. It seems clear that throughout his tenure as museum director, Riezler was opposed by conservative German artists who, among other things, critiqued his allegedly anti-patriotic love of French art. Ultimately, all this would lead to his downfall when the Nazis rose to power, even though he was not Jewish. He was accused by the Nazis of “cultural Bolshevism” (German: Kulturbolschewismus) which led to his leave of absence in April 1933.

I confess, I’d never previously heard this term. I’ve come to learn it is sometimes specifically referred to as “art Bolshevism” or “music Bolshevism,” and “was a term widely used by critics in Nazi Germany to denounce modernist movements in the arts.” What makes this issue so fascinating is that the Nazis successfully linked the expansion of modern art, which had roots going back to the 1860’s, to the October 1917 Revolution in Russia. Though these events occurred at around the same time, the connection between modernism and Bolshevism was tenuous at best. What they appear to have had in common is that both existed at the same unsettled time in European history, and the fact that some artists drew inspiration from revolutionary ideals. In Mein Kampf, Hitler devotes a chapter to the association of modernism and Bolshevism. With Hitler’s ascension to power, the Nazis denounced several contemporary styles, including abstract art and impressionism.

While Riezler’s supporters maintained the accusation he was a cultural Bolshevist was completely groundless, citing the diversified acquisitions during his tenure as museum Director, the Nazis deprived him of his roles as editor and museum director, so he retired. He settled outside Munich, studying musicology, and, in 1936, published a book on the works of Ludwig von Beethoven, and left an unfinished manuscript on Schubert upon his death.

One family-related matter of interest is that Dr. Walter Riezler was good friends with Klaus Pauly, whom I’ve discussed in previous posts. Readers will recall that Klaus developed the detailed Pauly family tree I’ve often referred to. Both Dr. Riezler and Klaus were lovers of music and would often attend musical performances together in Munich. Returning from a performance one evening, a car struck the vehicle they were riding in, and Dr. Riezler was killed on impact. He died on 22^nd January 1965.

As to the van Gogh painting Dr. Walter Riezler acquired on behalf of the National Museum, Szczecin during his tenure as director there, it is now owned by the Pomeranian State Museum in Greifswald (Mecklenburg, West Pomerania), Germany, 105 miles distant. Likely, the painting was moved to this quiet civil servant town during the war on account of Allied bombing of the shipyards located in Szczecin, and there it’s remained. Apparently, the Polish authorities feared that by requesting its return after the war from the government of the German Democratic Republic, of which Greifswald was a part, this might in turn prompt a request by the Germans for the return of works of art relocated to Poland from places like Berlin, Dresden, and Leipzig during the war. (Personal communication: Paul Newerla)

REFERENCE

Kubiak, Szymon Piotr and Dariusz Kacprzak (editors)

2013 Katalog Der Ausstellung, Zum Hundertjährigen Eröffnungsjubiläum, Des Hauptgebäudes Des Nationalmuseums Stettin. Szczecin.