Elsa Bruckmann

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Elsa Bruckmann born Princess Cantacuzène (born February 23, 1865 in Gmunden ; † June 7, 1946 in Garmisch-Partenkirchen ) was a Munich salonnière and a supporter of Adolf Hitler .

Life

The daughter of the royal Bavarian Uhlan officer Prince Theodor Cantacuzène (1841–1895) from the old Byzantine noble family Kantakuzenos ( Cantacuzino branch ) met the young Hugo von Hofmannsthal in 1893 , with whom an enthusiastic but ultimately unhappy relationship developed.

In 1898 she married the Munich publisher Hugo Bruckmann (1863–1941).

With an author reading by Houston Stewart Chamberlains from his anti-Semitic book The Foundations of the XIX. At the beginning of the 20th century , Elsa Bruckmann opened her Munich salon on January 26, 1899, which developed into an important meeting place for socially influential people from politics, business, science and art and which she led until her husband's death in 1941. The meetings always took place on Fridays, initially at the headquarters of the Bruckmann Verlag at Nymphenburger Strasse 86, from 1908 in the Prinz-Georg-Palais at Karolinenplatz 5 and from 1931 at Leopoldstrasse 10. The guests included scientists such as Norbert von Hellingrath and Rudolf Kassner , Adolf Furtwängler , Heinrich Wölfflin and the architects Rudolf Alexander Schröder , Richard Riemerschmid and Paul Ludwig Troost , business leaders like Emil Kirdorf and writers like Rainer Maria Rilke , Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Stefan George along with members of the George circle like Alfred Schuler and Ludwig Klages . It was here that she met Maria Gundrum . Although Elsa Bruckmann was nationally and anti-Semitic at an early age, reformers and left-wing liberals such as Harry Graf Kessler and intellectuals who were later persecuted because of their Jewish descent, such as Karl, who was also part of the George circle , frequented her salon in the first two decades of its existence Wolfskehl . Thomas Mann may have been an occasional guest at the Bruckmann Salon.

In 1920 Bruckmann saw Adolf Hitler at a party event in the Krone Circus . Völkisch and revisionist- minded, she sought personal contact with him and soon drew him into her social circle. She visited him several times in Landsberg prison , where he was in fortress detention because of the Hitler-Ludendorff putsch . About her first visit on May 22, 1924, she wrote: "Now I met Adolf Hitler - in the Bavarian short wichs and yellow linenjöpperl - simple, natural and knightly and bright-eyed!" Similar to Hofmannsthal and her nephew earlier Norbert von Hellingrath , she began an enthusiastic relationship and felt called to support the much younger man in every respect. Immediately after his early release from prison, Hitler paid a visit to the Bruckmanns on December 23, 1924. Elsa Bruckmann introduced him to her salon, where from now on he and other Nazi greats such as Rudolf Hess , Alfred Rosenberg and Baldur von Schirach set the tone.

Soon she was next to Helene Bechstein the most important social sponsor of Hitler, who also provided him with valuable economic contacts. She provided him with evening wear and fashionable shoes and tried to give him a social polish by giving him e.g. B. explained how to eat an artichoke or a lobster, or how to kiss a woman's hand. She procured the furniture for the new party headquarters of the NSDAP, which opened in June 1925 at Schellingstrasse 50, as well as part of the furniture for Hitler's representative apartment at Prinzregentenplatz 16, for which the Bruckmann couple had also taken on a guarantee.

She used her experience as an author to help Hitler write the second volume of Mein Kampf . She made her palace available to Hitler again and again, for example in July 1927 for a meeting with his niece Angela Raubal's Abitur class and in the same month for a meeting with the industrialist Emil Kirdorf , at which the basis for the financial support of the NSDAP through large-scale industry was laid. On December 20, 1927, the wedding of Rudolf Hess was celebrated in the Bruckmann Palace.

She used her numerous social contacts to win members and sympathizers for the Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur, founded in 1928 . This commitment went so far that in the list of prominent supporters of the appeal published on January 11, 1929 in the Völkischer Beobachter with the title “Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur”, the name of Heinrich Wölfflin appeared against his will, which he referred to in several letters to Elsa Bruckmann complained.

Bruckmann joined the NSDAP in June 1932 . Her entry into the party was dated back to April 1, 1925 on Hitler's instructions, since she applied for admission to the party as early as 1925, but then at the request of Hitler, who said that she would initially be more useful to the party as an unofficial party member, initially to admission had waived.

In 1933 Bruckmann replaced Ida Dehmel, who was forced to resign because of her Jewish origins, as chairwoman of the GEDOK .

In October 1944 Thomas Mann wrote to Agnes E. Meyer about Bruckmann's anti-Semitism :

“ Golo read in the Basler National-Zeitung : The wife of the well-known publisher Bruckmann was in Lucerne for the festival . In society she passionately berates the Americans for deliberately bombing children's hospitals in Germany. One dares to doubt that and asks quietly about the terrible mass murders of children by the Germans. 'You can't compare that,' she says. 'They were Jewish children.' - The paper adds: the assumption that only the young generation in Germany is deprived is apparently based on an error. I know the woman. She must be over 70. "

- Thomas Mann : Letter to Agnes E. Meyer v. 10/22/1944

family

Elsa and Hugo Bruckmann had no children. Elsa had a particularly close relationship with her sister's son, Norbert von Hellingrath (1888–1916). Her nephew was a writer and Germanist promoted by Stefan George and Ludwig Klages . His death in the fighting off Verdun threw her off balance.

publication

In 1938 she published a German translation of Sokrates and Xanthippe. Seriousness and irony about the “wisest of all people” by Alfredo Panzini in her Munich publishing house.

literature

  • Klaus E. Bohnenkamp: Hofmannsthals Egeria. Elsa Princess Cantacuzène, later married Bruckmann, in correspondence with the poet from November 24, 1893 to January 10, 1894 in Vienna . Ed .: Hugo von Hofmannsthal Society (=  Hofmannsthal yearbook . Volume 18). Rombach, 2010, ISSN  0946-4018 , p. 9-104 .
  • Ulrike Leutheusser : Hitler and the women . Deutsche Verlagsanstalt , Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 978-3-421-05557-6 , pp. 46-49
  • Fabrice d'Almeida : swastika and caviar. The glamorous life under National Socialism . Patmos, Düsseldorf 2007, ISBN 978-3-491-35013-7
  • Wolfgang Martynkewicz : Salon Germany. Spirit and Power 1900–1945 . Structure, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-351-02706-3 ( text excerpts [PDF; 68 kB ; accessed on September 4, 2012]).
    • detailed Review v. Volker Weiß : At the table with Rainer Maria Rilke and Hitler. The salon of the Munich publisher couple ... in the jungle. Supplement to jungle world No. 45, November 11, 2010, pp. 8–11 (available online)
  • Martha Schad : You loved the Führer. How women adored Hitler , Herbig, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-7766-2613-1 , pp. 11-40
  • Miriam Käfer: Hitler's early patrons from the upper class - the publisher couple Elsa and Hugo Bruckmann . In: Marita Krauss (Ed.): Right careers in Munich. From the Weimar period to the post-war years , Volk Verlag, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-937200-53-8 , pp. 52–79
  • Karl Stankiewitz : Off is and off is! Taverns, theaters, cafés, night clubs and other lost places of Munich conviviality . Allitera Verlag, Munich 2018, ISBN 978-3-96233-023-1 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Through the years with Hofmannsthal . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . August 16, 2012 ( online [accessed September 4, 2012]).
  2. ^ A b Oliver Pfohlmann: Salon Germany. "How nice it is here" . In: Frankfurter Rundschau . January 6, 2010 ( online [accessed September 4, 2012]).
  3. ^ Anne Bechstedt, Anja Deutsch and Daniela Stoppel: The publishing house F. Bruckmann in the national socialism . In: Ruth Heftrig, Olaf Peters and Barbara Schellewald (eds.): Art history in the “Third Reich”. Theories, methods, practices (=  writings on modern art historiography . Volume 1 ). Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-05-004448-4 , pp. 287 ( digitized version [accessed September 4, 2012]).
  4. ^ Dorothea Roth: Salon Bruckmann, Schuler, Klages, Gundrum. In: Basler Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Altertumskunde, Vol. 96, 1966. Retrieved on November 17, 2019 .
  5. ^ Paul Bruppacher: Adolf Hitler and the history of the NSDAP . 2nd Edition. Part 1: 1889 to 1937. Norderstedt 2009, ISBN 978-3-8334-8660-9 , pp. 127 ( digitized version [accessed September 4, 2012]).
  6. ^ Katrin Hillgruber: Salon Bruckmann. The unfortunate Friday company . In: Der Tagesspiegel . January 10, 2010 ( online [accessed September 4, 2012]).
  7. ^ Bruppacher: Adolf Hitler and the history of the NSDAP . S. 133 ( digitized version ).
  8. ^ David Clay Large: Hitler's Munich. The rise and fall of the capital of the movement . Beck, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-406-44195-5 , pp. 198 (English: Where ghosts walked . Translated by Karl Heinz Siber).
  9. ^ Bruppacher: Adolf Hitler and the history of the NSDAP . S. 182 ( digitized version ).
  10. ^ Bruppacher: Adolf Hitler and the history of the NSDAP . S. 153 ( digitized version ).
  11. ^ Bruppacher: Adolf Hitler and the history of the NSDAP . S. 162 ( digitized version ).
  12. ^ Bruppacher: Adolf Hitler and the history of the NSDAP . S. 165 ( digitized version ).
  13. ^ Jürgen Gimmel: The political organization of cultural resentment. The “Combat League for German Culture” and the uneasiness of the educated middle class about modernity (=  series of publications by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation scholarship holders . Volume 10 ). LIT, Münster 2001, ISBN 3-8258-5418-3 , p. 20 ( digitized version [accessed September 4, 2012]).
  14. ↑ Bechstedt u. a .: The publishing house F. Bruckmann under National Socialism . 2008, p. 289 ( digitized version ).
  15. ^ Elke Lauterbach-Phillip: The GEDOK (Association of Artists and Art Funders eV) - their history with special consideration of the fine and applied arts . Utzverlag, Munich 2005 ([Online] [PDF; 362 kB ; accessed on May 20, 2019] Table of Contents and Introduction).
  16. ↑ Thomas Mann / Agnes E. Meyer, Briefwechsel (1992, S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main), pp. 594–596 (595)
  17. ↑ Stefan Breuer: Just a stylish wildness . Review in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on January 8, 2010.
personal data
SURNAME Bruckmann, Elsa
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cantacuzène, Elsa
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Munich Salonnière, Adolf Hitler's patron
DATE OF BIRTH February 23, 1865
PLACE OF BIRTH Gmunden
DATE OF DEATH June 7, 1946
Place of death Garmisch-Partenkirchen