Hermann Haber

Hermann Haber (born November 26, 1885 in Mülheim an der Ruhr ; † October 10, 1942 in Auschwitz ) was a painter , caricaturist and local patriot from Mülheim who was murdered in Auschwitz.

Life

Not much is known about the life of Hermann Haber. His friends called him a humorous original, a funny guy who loved his hometown. He studied at the Düsseldorf Academy. From 1911 to 1929 he lived in Delle 19 with his mother Fanny, his brother Albert and his half-sister Sibylle, who ran an art trade. The mother died in 1930, the father had died earlier. From 1927 to 1929 Hermann Haber was, so to speak, the in-house cartoonist of the Mülheimer Zeitung. Over 150 caricatures were published during this time. In 1929 Haber took part in the first annual exhibition of the Mülheim artists in the municipal museum, alongside Heinrich Siepmann , Hermann Lickfeld , Arthur Kaufmann , Werner Gilles , Otto Pankok , Carl Altena , Hermann Prüssmann and others. The exhibition was considered a sensation in the city's art life. In 1932 Haber moved to his girlfriend Hildegard Meyer in Charlottenstrasse. In 1933 they both fled to Rotterdam in Holland from Nazi persecution , where they married in 1937. After the German occupation of the Netherlands, they were arrested there in 1941 because of their Jewish origins. Hermann was deported to Auschwitz via the Westerbork transit camp on September 23, 1942. He was pronounced dead on October 10, 1942. The siblings Albert and Sibylle were also killed there.

plant

Haber painted pastels that were very popular in Mülheim. Some are owned by the Mülheim Museum, some are privately owned. The Mülheimer Zeitung wrote on December 18, 1929:

““ One of the most important at the exhibition is Hermann Haber, who has recently mainly dealt with caricatures of contemporary local history and also comes up with a number of cartoons, some of which are already known. Haber is probably the most versatile of the Mülheim painters, but he deliberately limits himself to the brief sketch in which a keen mind is most likely to find its own form. As simple as these little ink sketches look in their somewhat rigid, cold form, so much characteristic and essential research resides in them with the gaze of a true satirist. This work is done less diligently than with astonishing certainty, and those little pencil sketches show quite clearly how time and again the loose outline and light movement studies are necessary in order to find the contours in which skillfully from the shell of the portrait or the simple drawing the caricaturing moment is hit. In the context of large works, these funny sketches naturally appear a bit modest, if original, and the selection of the exhibited also gives rise to the desire to see Haber's versatile skills aimed at a wider range of tasks, in which he could draw significantly deeper. ““

Locations

Some of his works are now in the art museum in the Alte Post in Mülheim an der Ruhr , others are in private ownership, many have been lost. The caricatures can be found in the Mülheimer Stadtarchiv, Mülheimer Zeitung, years 1925 to 1930.

literature

• Barbara Kaufhold: Memories come back . Klartext Verlag, Essen 2002.
• Barbara Kaufhold: Jews in Mülheim an der Ruhr . Klartext Verlag, Essen 2004, pp. 182–187.
• Stender, Köhring and Schernstein: Mülheimer KunstStücke - The Second Look . Thierbach GmbH, Mülheim 2008.

Web links

• Hermann Haber Painter - Caricaturist - Local Patriot (with pictures)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Memorial book for Isaak Hermann Haber . Retrieved November 18, 2019.