A. Paul Weber

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Memorial plaque for A. Paul Weber in the wall in front of his house in Großschretstaken

A. Paul Weber (born November 1, 1893 in Arnstadt , † November 9, 1980 in Schretstaken near Mölln , Schleswig-Holstein ; real name is Andreas Paul Weber ) was a German lithographer , draftsman and painter .

life and work

A. Paul Weber grew up in Arnstadt in Thuringia , where his father was an assistant in the railway. The young Paul was promoted in the literary and artistic-craft field by his mother and grandfather, the Arnstadt-based machine manufacturer Christian Kortmann. Paul attended secondary school in Arnstadt and then, for a short time, the Erfurt School of Applied Arts .

From 1908 to 1914 he was a member of the Jung-Wandervogel . This movement of bourgeois youth and young adults was stimulated by the ideals of romanticism , whose followers fled from the authoritarian pressure of society by hiking and living in a natural way in nature in order to live more according to their own convictions. A. Paul Weber also wandered through large parts of Germany, awakening his love of fatherland and nature. During this time, the first autodidactic attempts in lithographic technology were made. During the First World War he was drafted into military service and sent to the Eastern Front as a railway pioneer . There he worked as a draftsman and caricaturist for the 10th Army magazine and for the Leipziger Illustrierte Zeitung in 1916 . In 1918 he was transferred to Spa .

His marriage to Toni Klander, whom he married in 1920, had five children. In 1925 he founded the "Clan-Presse", in which he and his son Christian produce logos , bookplates and advertising graphics.

The rumor
A. Paul Weber , 1943/53
lithograph
40.5 x 56.2 cm
A. Paul Weber Museum, Ratzeburg

Link to the picture
(please note copyrights )

Weber left behind an extensive graphic and lithographic work, especially time-critical, satirical sheets. Among other things, he dealt with the topics of National Socialism , politics , the environment and medicine . He also designed commercial graphics and a number of book illustrations (for example on Reineke Fuchs , Till Eulenspiegel , Münchhausen and works by Hans Sachs ) and published the critical calendar . Other series of images are The Chess Players , portrait caricatures, satirical / allegorical depictions of animals and drawings for the magazine Resistance published by Ernst Niekisch . Journal of National Revolutionary Politics ; the best known is probably the lithograph Das Rumor . The evaluation of the series British Pictures (1941) and Leviathan , which were later criticized as war propaganda, is controversial .

Ideological background

A. Paul Weber's ideological background is the völkisch- national- revolutionary movement of the twenties. Even between the wars, he was openly anti-Semitic and worked with pithy ethnic stereotypes in his drawings . Particularly noteworthy are his cover illustration and the advertising poster for the anti-Semitic bestseller “Sin against the Blood” by Artur Dinter and Weber's cover illustration for “The advance. Leaves of the nationalist youth. Episode 9 ”, edited by Werner Laß . Another anti-Semitic work in which Weber was involved as an illustrator is Wilhelm Stapel's "Literate Wash" from 1930, published by the Resistance Verlag and full of polemics in the cultural-political struggle of the late Weimar Republic against Alfred Kerr , Alfred Döblin , Max Liebermann , Paul Cassirer , Max Brod , Heinrich Mann , Jakob Wassermann and many other left-liberal contemporaries. Weber's cover illustration shows three of them - Alfred Kerr can be recognized without a doubt - hanging lifelessly on the clothesline. Weber draws a picture of Kurt Tucholsky as an impaled louse. With this illustration Weber uses the anti-Semitic metaphor of vermin, including extermination: “At this time there is a lot of blood smell in the air. Literary anti-Semitism only provides the immaterial weapons for manslaughter ”, replied Carl von Ossietzky , referring to the dealings with Jewish writers, publishers and critics in the“ literary laundry ”. Another example are his illustrations for Hjalmar Kutzleb's racist text Mord an der Zukunft (1929), also published by the Resistance Publishing House .

Since the 1930s Weber worked with the national Bolshevik resistance group around Ernst Niekisch . 1931–1936 Weber was co-editor of the magazine Resistance alongside Niekisch . Journal for national revolutionary politics , resistance publishing house, Berlin, for which he designed the logo . For the resistance publishing house he made numerous political-satirical illustrations, including for the font "Hitler - ein deutsches Verfassnis". For this reason he was sent to the Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp on July 2, 1937 and was imprisoned in prisons in Berlin and Nuremberg until December 15. The resistance, which has been at issue here since 1928, was directed against democracy and the Weimar Republic, but also against Hitler and the NSDAP from a point of view that accuses Hitler and the NSDAP of suppressing the (western) victorious powers of the World War I, subjugating the Jews (and capital), and also opposes the fact that Hitler and the NSDAP preferred to be legitimized through elections instead of a coup to power. Because of this supposed lack of determination and the "wrong" approach, the resistance group saw Hitler as a German fate, with no trace of anti-fascism and wise foresight. So Niekisch and his resistance group can be assigned to the circles, similar to Gregor Strasser or Ernst Röhm from the SA ( Röhm Putsch ), who were definitely in competition with Hitler for power. His “anti-fascism” is ambivalent: It belonged to the national revolutionary critics of National Socialism, he also produced anti-Semitic caricatures for Nazi papers and publishers, which corresponded to his national worldview even before the transfer of power in 1933, and later belligerent propaganda, such as his between 1939 and 1939 1941 created picture cycle "Wealth and Tears" ("British Pictures - 45 Political Drawings") and Ludwig Weißauer's "Soldier's Spirit", which, in addition to Weber's illustrations, also contained a preface by Heinrich Himmler . His cycle of paintings contains massive criticism of English history (occupation of Ireland and Gibraltar, slave trade, Boer War and the strong social differences in British society). The Nibelungen-Verlag, in which the picture cycle appeared in 1941, was an agency of the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda under Joseph Goebbels . In 1944/45 he was called up for military service again.

After 1945

A. Paul Weber Museum in Ratzeburg (2010)

After 1945 A. Paul Weber lived in Großschretstaken near Mölln. In 1951 the A.-Paul-Weber-Circle was founded in the Griffelkunst-Vereinigung Hamburg - for which Weber had worked since 1940 . From then on he received financial support from the Griffelkunst-Vereinigung.

In 1955 he was awarded the Schleswig-Holstein State Art Prize and in 1963 the Ludwig Thoma Medal . In 1971 he received an honorary professorship from the state of Schleswig-Holstein “in recognition of his complete work as a graphic artist” . Weber was also awarded the Great Cross of Merit in 1971 by the then Federal President Gustav Heinemann . Heinemann was one of his great admirers and it was also the one who opened the A. Paul Weber Museum on the cathedral peninsula in Ratzeburg on the occasion of Weber's 80th birthday in 1973 .

On the website of the A. Paul Weber Museum you can read, among other things: “Weber drew - especially in the twenties - some pictures with anti-Semitic content that were created as book illustrations on behalf of the respective publishers. However, there is no evidence that Weber was personally anti-Semitic. "

Awards (selection)

Fonts or illustrations (selection)

  • How do Herr Hauptmann order? and other things. 6 funny characters in the field. Signed A. Paul Weber. Wolfenbüttel: Julius Zwisslers Verlag, [1916]
  • Sunbeams. Eight pictures of lovely little children. Leipzig: Matthes, [1918]
  • Title page or anti-Semitic advertising poster for Arthur Dinter , Sin against the Blood. 1917/1921, Mathes and Tost Verlag. Anti-Semitic title page or anti-Semitic advertising poster. Mathes and Tost Verlag, 1917/1921
  • Illustrirte Zeitung 151 (1918), No. 3934 [complete illustration of a booklet]
  • The fool's mirror. The 55 pictures from the 10 carnival games of Hans Sachs. Gez. by A. Paul Weber. Leipzig; Hartenstein: Matthes, 1921, 56 sheets.
  • How a printer's mark is made. Preface: Otto Säuberlich. Leipzig: Oscar Brandstetter, 1922, 16 pages:
  • Critical calendar. Cross-section. Ed. U. a. by Arnold Köster. Munich: Bruckmann
  • Manfred v. Killinger: Serious and cheerful from the putsch life. With drawings by A. Paul Weber. Berlin W 35 [, Schöneberger Ufer 10]: Vormarsch-Verlag, 1928, 127 p. (Vormarsch-Bücherei)
  • Werner Laß, The advance. Leaves of the nationalist youth. Episode 9, 1928. Anti-Semitic title page
  • Drawings, woodcuts and paintings. With an introduction by Hugo Fischer. Berlin: Resistance Publishing House
  • Wilhelm Stapel , literary laundry. Resistance Publishing House, 1930.
  • Borderland. 9 woodcuts. Edited by the German Border Combat Association. [Text: Heinz Baethge]. Berlin: Resistance Verlag, 1932, 1 sheet, 9 plates.
  • Ernst Niekisch, Hitler - a German fate. Drawings by A. Paul Weber. Resistance Publishing House, Berlin 1932
  • Ludwig Weißauer, soldier's spirit, foreword by Heinrich Himmler . Illustrations by Andreas Paul Weber. Nibelungen-Verlag, Berlin 1941
  • British images. 45 political drawings. Nibelungen-Verlag, Berlin 1941, 45 pp.
  • England, the gravedigger of small nations. British images; An artist exposes England's crimes = L'Angleterre, fossoyeuse des petites nations / A. Paul Weber. [Berlin W 35, Rauchstrasse. 27]: [Deutsche Informationsstelle], [1941], 30 pp.
  • Graphics. Introduction by Georg Ramseger. Stalling-Verlag , Oldenburg 1956, 22 pp.
  • The view from the tower. Fables by Günther Anders . CH Beck'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Munich 1968
  • Art in resistance. The anti-fascist work. Werner Schartel (Ed.). Elefanten Press, Berlin 1977, 127 p. the 7th edition under the title:
    • Art in resistance. Political drawings since 1929. On the problem of humanism and partiality. Werner Schartel (Ed.), (20th - 22nd thousand.). Elefanten Press, Berlin 1979, 141 pp.
  • A. Paul Weber (1893–1980), critical graphics and book illustration. December 13, 1993 to February 5, 1994. An exhibition at the University and State Library of Düsseldorf , 1993 ( digitized version )

literature

  • Ernst Niekisch, A. Paul Weber (Ed.): Resistance. Journal of National Revolutionary Politics . Resistance Verlag, Berlin 1926–1934.
  • A. Paul Weber. Graphics . Stalling, Oldenburg / Hamburg 1956.
  • Helmut Schumacher, Klaus J. Dorsch: A. Paul Weber - Life and Work in Texts and Pictures. Mittler & Sohn, 2003, ISBN 3-8132-0805-2 .
  • Erich Arp (Ed.): A. Paul Weber. Catalog raisonné of the pen art. Woodcuts and lithographs from 1939 to 1981 . Christians, Hamburg 1981.
  • Gerd Wolandt: A. Paul Weber. Artist and work . Book guild Gutenberg, Frankfurt am Main / Olten / Vienna 1983, ISBN 3-7632-2822-5 .
  • A. Paul Weber. Hand drawings. Catalog preparation Dr. Klaus J. Dorsch. Gallery Koch-Westenhoff 1986.
  • Wilhelm-Busch-Gesellschaft e. V. (Ed.): A. Paul Weber. 1893–1980 - hand drawings and lithographs . (Exhibition, Wilhelm-Busch-Museum Hannover , October 31, 1993 to January 2, 1994). Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-7757-0432-9 .
  • Klaus J. Dorsch: Eulenspiegel and fool in the work of A. Paul Weber . Lucifer, Lübeck 1988, ISBN 3-923475-14-4 .
  • Bernd Bornemann: A. Paul Weber. His time-critical and humorous prints (1945–1976) and their relationship to caricature. Basel, Univ., Dissertation 1982. Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1982, ISBN 3-8204-6952-4 .
  • Thomas Dörr: “Hard and so on, what kind of names were those ...” - Zeitgeist and cynicism in the nationalist-anti-Semitic work of the graphic artist A. Paul Weber . (= Writings of the Erich Mühsam Society . Issue 18). Lübeck 2000, ISBN 3-931079-24-4 .

Web links

Commons : A. Paul Weber  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Biography A. Paul Weber . kettererkunst.de
  2. ^ Wilhelm Stapel , literary laundry. Resistance Publishing House, 1930.
  3. ^ Wilhelm Stapel , literary laundry. Resistance Publishing House, 1930.
  4. ^ Carl von Ossietzky: Complete Writings 1931–1933. Retrieved December 4, 2014 .
  5. ↑ Michael Pittwald: “Ernst Niekisch. Völkisch socialism, national revolution, German final empire. ”PapyRossa, Cologne 2002, p. 38.
  6. ↑ Honorary title "Professor". In: schleswig-holstein.de. Archived from the original on March 22, 2015 ; accessed on October 16, 2014 .
  7. ↑ Federal President Joachim Gauck thanks the A. Paul Weber Society for gifts from Ratzeburg , ratzeburg.de of July 4, 2012.
  8. ↑ Munzinger Archive, biography of A. Paul Weber, read in on February 25, 2018.
  9. ^ The publisher was a propaganda department, Foreign Office , under Ribbentrop
  10. ↑ In this publishing house after May 1945 many National Socialists came under as authors and collaborators.
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personal data
SURNAME Weber, A. Paul
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Weber, Andreas Paul (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German satirical printmaker, draftsman and painter
DATE OF BIRTH November 1, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH Arnstadt
DATE OF DEATH November 9, 1980
Place of death Großschretstaken near Mölln