Bertha Sander

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Bertha Regina Sander (born March 7, 1901 in Cologne ; † July 23, 1990 in Bodiam near Robertsbridge , East Sussex , England ) was a German interior designer and specialist author of Jewish descent . Due to the increasingly Jews discriminatory living conditions after the seizure of power by the Nazis , she left Germany in 1936 and lived since then in England. Bertha Sander was one of the few women who worked as a (garden) architect, interior designer or craftsperson before 1945.

Life

Origin and education

Bertha Sander was the daughter of the lawyer from Erpel , Justizrat Gustav Sander, and his cousin Klara, geb. Looser. Her parents' wedding took place in the old Liège synagogue in 1897 , to whose community leader Klara's father, the former Saarlouis merchant Gabriel Loeser, had been elected shortly before. The marriage of Gustav and Klara Sander had three children: Otto (1898–1924), Gabriele and Bertha. The later concert singer and music teacher Gabriele Sander married the lawyer Walter Speyer in the mid-1920s . Both lived in Cologne in 1938 and have been without proof of life since then.

Her mother was formative for Bertha Sander's development. Growing up in Liège, Klara Sander , who studied music , advanced to become a social reformer and editor . Over a period of 16 years up until the early years of the Weimar Republic , she gave together with Else Wirminghaus, who was also a trained musician and piano teacher . Strackerjan (1867–1939) published the women's magazine “New women's clothing and women's culture”, which was closely related to the reform movements of the Deutscher Werkbund . The paper, which appeared in 29 years from 1905 to 1932/1933, was the organ of the “Association for German Women's Clothing and Culture”. During the Cologne Werkbund exhibition in 1914, Klara Sander gave lectures in the so-called "House of the Woman", which Margarete Knüppelholz-Roeser (1886–1949) had designed. Else Wirminghaus, in turn, was also chairwoman of the “Association of Women's Clothing and Women's Culture” within the “National Women's Community” and the wife of Alexander Wirminghaus (1863–1938), the former Chamber of Commerce syndic and now professor at the Cologne University of Commerce, which was founded in 1919 Cologne University emerged . Wirminghaus was also an active member of the Deutscher Werkbund and the "Association for Art in Commerce and Industry Cologne".

The acquaintance between Klara Sander and Else Wirminghaus began with the piano lessons that Bertha and Gabriele Sander gave. It was through this connection that Bertha Sander got to know the Wirminghaus son, Helmuth Wirminghaus , who was ten years her senior , who, after studying philosophy and art history, finally studied architecture in Munich and Aachen and from 1922 had a successful studio in Cologne. While her introverted father, a connoisseur of botany and local flora , conveyed to Bertha her love for plants, which she expressed in her wallpaper designs, Helmuth Wirminghaus probably directed her interest to architecture.

Bertha Sander attended the Höhere Töchterschule in St.-Apern-Straße in Cologne until 1917, and in the year of the Werkbund exhibition (1914) she received lessons twice a week in the student class of the "Applied Arts and Crafts School" directed by Emil Thormählen . Josef Hoffmann's former assistant , Philipp Häusler , also taught there . With the aim of becoming an interior designer, she then completed an apprenticeship as a carpenter from 1918/1919 with master carpenter Heinrich Adam Nix, who ran “workshops for elegant home furnishings, art furniture and all interior design” in Cologne. At the same time, she took instruction drawing in the evenings at the “Applied Arts and Crafts School”. After completing her training, she joined Häusler's studio in January 1920 as a draftsman for furniture and home furnishings , but fell ill with tuberculosis in May while Häusler moved to Vienna. After her recovery, in May 1921, she joined the newly founded Cologne studio of Bruno Paul as an employee for interior fittings and furniture design . Bruno Paul, who worked together with his brother-in-law Franz Weber, was busy designing three villas: for Otto Kaufmann (Bayenthal), for Max Philipp (Lindenthal) and for Karl Grosse (Deutz).

After Paul had to dismiss her in November 1922 due to a lack of orders, Bertha Sander went to Berlin in February 1923 , where she took up a position as a draftsman in the local branch of Paul Schultze-Naumburg's Saaleck workshops . In 1923/1924 she was finally in Vienna as a freelance colorist and draftsman in the textile department of the Wiener Werkstätte , where she primarily dealt with textile design . Dagobert Peche , whom she probably met through Häusler in 1921 , also lived in Vienna and who also lived in Sander's parents' house in Lindenthal when he worked in Cologne. According to her own memoirs, Bertha Sander was considered the "most talented young interior designer in Germany".

1924 to 1935

When Bertha Sander returned to Cologne, she started her own business as an interior designer in February 1924, with an office in her parents' house in Lindenthal. In addition, she taught the school class at the "Applied Arts and Crafts School of the City of Cologne", which was headed by Martin Elsaesser at the time . However, the increasing number of private assignments forced her to give up teaching. She designed the interior fittings for libraries , children's rooms and single-person apartments, including the furniture , fabrics and wallpaper . At times she employed up to four carpenters , a decorator and a painter to work on the practical work. During this phase, she published articles on modern living culture in various specialist publications, for example in the monthly magazine "Die Frau und ihr Haus".

However, their successful start came to a temporary end in 1927 when tuberculosis broke out again, this time dramatically. She spent the following three years healing in clinics in Arosa and Davos . Thanks to her good connections, however, after her return home she quickly received orders from the upper class of Cologne. She designed the costumes for a performance of Paul Hindemith's “We build a city”, which took place under the overall direction of Else Thalheimer during the Hanukkah month in 1934 in the house of the “Bürgergesellschaft”.

However, after the Nazis came to power, the everyday situation for Jews changed rapidly. Until the general work ban was issued in 1934, Bertha Sander was still able to operate as an interior designer. After that she was only allowed to work for Jewish clients, on the other hand she only advertised under “Bertha Sander (Housing Advice)” in Greven's address book from 1935. In the same year she also received her last major assignment, the redesign of the private rooms in the Jewish one Hospital in Ehrenfeld, whose director, Benjamin Auerbach , had a close friendship with the Sander family. Soon afterwards Bertha Sander decided to leave Germany with her sick mother and emigrate to England.

1936 to 1990

Bertha Sander and her mother Klara left Cologne in January 1936 to travel to England via Monaco , where Klara's sister Pauline Straus († June 1936 Monaco) lived. There they were initially supported by friends of their mother, whom they had met during an extended stay in England around 1895. Despite numerous advertisements, Bertha did not succeed in working in England in the profession she had previously carried out. In general, foreigners were largely forbidden from permanent professional activity. Bertha took on various auxiliary jobs, including as an accountant in small factories, as a flower seller or as an employee of a bookbinder . The capital that Klara and Bertha had been able to take with them when they left the country was enough to buy a row house in the London suburb of Hampstead . When “enemy foreigners” were forbidden to buy anything after the outbreak of war , they were forced to borrow money from the house.

Bertha Sander kept in contact with former Cologne companions by letter, such as the Cologne artist Joseph Fassbender (1903–1974), who had become a British prisoner of war , and soon after the end of the war in 1945 with her former teacher Philipp Häusler. But her hope for a new professional start after 1945 remained unfulfilled. Bertha Sander, who remained unmarried throughout her life, died in a retirement home in the English county of East Sussex.

Parts of her estate are in the NS Documentation Center of the City of Cologne , but mainly in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London since 1986 and 1988 , such as documents and designs from the years 1917 to 1936 and a number of paintings from around 1963.

"In retrospect, I have to say that the unfortunate developments since 1933 have thrown me out of my professional career through no fault of my own and that the severe damage that has ensued robbed me of any hope of ever being what I was before 1933."

- Bertha Sander, 1954 :

In honor of Bertha Sander, the NS Documentation Center of the City of Cologne presented the exhibition “A Whole Life in a Hat Box” from November 8, 2013 to March 9, 2014.

plant

As an interior designer

  • 1934–1935: Cologne-Ehrenfeld, Israelitisches Asylum, redesign of the rooms for private patients

Fonts (selection)

As a rule, Bertha Sander illustrated her publications with her own illustrations . The magazine For Our Children was published by her mother Klara Sander.

  • Dollhouse wallpaper for drawing through. In: For our children. 1st year 1924, issue 2, G. Braun, Karlsruhe 1924, pp. 37-39.
  • Children's play and work table. In: For our children. 2nd year 1924, issue 1, G. Braun, Karlsruhe 1925, pp. 13 and 22.
  • Of lighting and lighting fixtures. In: seeds. Illustrated monthly magazine for people's welfare. Edited by the Association of Swiss Consumers, November 1925 edition, Basel 1925, p. 164 f.
  • Unmodern furniture in modern homes and how to change the furniture. In: Deutsche Frauenzeitung. 39th year 1925/26, issue 40, Verlag Otto Beyer, Leipzig 1925, p. 18 f.
  • Practical children's furniture. In: The woman and her house. Journal of clothing, health, personal care and housing issues. 7th year 1926, issue 3 from December 1926, Berlin 1926.
  • About contemporary furniture. In: Kölner Baugenossenschaftsblatt. 2nd year 1927, p. 80 ff.
  • The consulting room and living room of a doctor by Bertha Sander, Cologne. In: The woman and her house. Journal of clothing, health, personal care and housing issues. Issue 7 from July 1933, Berlin 1933.

Honor

By resolution of the Ehrenfeld district council on November 28, 2016, a plan street ( location ) was named after Bertha Sander in Cologne's commercial and media park Ossendorf .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gustav Sander (* 1863; † 1928 Bad Reichenhall)
  2. ↑ Klara Sander, b. Loeser (born February 1, 1871 in Frankfurt am Main, † June 9, 1958 in London)
  3. ↑ Gabriel Loeser (* May 2, 1833 in Brauneberg / Mosel; † 1902 in Liège)
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Wolfram Hagspiel: Cologne and its Jewish architects.
  5. ↑ among other things: The fashion in the mirror of the war. (= War books from the industrial district, No. 12), Baedecker, Essen 1912.
  6. ^ Daniela Richter-Wittenfeld: The work of the association for German women's clothing and women's culture in the field of women's clothing from 1896 to 1935. (= Writings on cultural studies , Volume 64), Verlag Dr. Kovac, Hamburg 2006, ISBN 978-3-8300-2466-8 .
  7. ^ Wolfram Hagspiel: Cologne. Marienburg. Buildings and architects of a villa suburb. (= Stadtspuren. Monuments in Cologne, Volume 8), JP Bachem Verlag, Cologne 1996, ISBN 3-7616-1147-1 , 2nd part, p. 962 f.
  8. ↑ Philipp Häusler (born November 7, 1887 in Pancsova, Hungary; † 1966 in Frankfurt am Main)
  9. ↑ Else Thalheimer on herbert-henck.de accessed on February 17, 2013.
  10. ↑ “A Whole Life in a Hat Box”, accessed on April 12, 2014.
  11. ↑ 360-degree tour through the special exhibition. Accessed on April 12, 2014.
  12. ^ Barbara Becker-Jákli: The Jewish Hospital in Cologne. The history of the Israelite asylum for the sick and the elderly 1869–1945.
  13. ^ Official Journal of the City of Cologne, Volume 48, Number 25 of June 7, 2017, p. 227.
personal data
SURNAME Sander, Bertha
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sander, Bertha Regina (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German interior designer and specialist author of Jewish descent
DATE OF BIRTH March 7, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Cologne
DATE OF DEATH July 23, 1990
Place of death Bodiam at Robertsbridge , East Sussex , England