Adolf Bender

Adolf Bender (born February 4, 1903 in Mainz , † April 2, 1997 in Bous (Saar) ) was a German painter of impressionism and expressionism .

Childhood and Adolescence Benders

Adolf Bender was born in Mainz as the fourth of nine children. His father was a waiter in one of the city's international hotels and his mother was an innkeeper in her own pub. After attending the primary school at that time in 1917, he was allowed to attend the Mainz art and trade school. However, he could not fully concentrate on the lessons, because he had to work in an ammunition factory next to the school, "... from morning to evening (I had to drag heavy boxes filled with grenade detonators", Bender later said in a conversation) . He found his passion for art early on, he read a lot of literature about the styles, the artists and everything he found about painting.

Paths to Art

In the early 1920s, Bender joined the politically motivated Mainz Artists' Association. According to their own statements, the members were “nationally oriented”, which prompted Bender to leave Mainz in 1923 after an anti-French demonstration . He fled to Frankfurt, where he found his way through with great difficulty, he found work as a cinema poster painter and at times cinema doorman in the same cinema. This work hardly attracted Bender and so he went on a trip to Fulda, where he met non-commissioned officers who made life as a soldier palatable for him and Bender reported to the field artillery after a brief thought . He liked it so much that he quit after three weeks. After his “time” in the military, a small odyssey through Germany began for Bender, during which he temporarily worked as a restorer of old pictures and had a short stay at the Munich art college. After this time he finally settled in Frankfurt for the time being. It was here that he met Max Beckmann by chance , through whom Bender was able to listen to Beckmann's lectures as a "black listener". Again Bender tried to keep himself afloat with the creation of movie posters and renovation work. Only a few pictures from his time in Mainz during the 1930s have survived. They show the city of Mainz in a precise, sober way - Bender's talent for observation.

time of the nationalsocialism

Escape to and work in France

In Frankfurt am Main , Adolf Bender experienced Hitler's political rise . He made himself unpopular in numerous discussions because he was strictly against Hitler's policies. This went so far that he was even ambushed and robbed twice. After Hitler's rise and takeover of power, he had to flee Germany for fear of persecution. His destination was his sister who lived in France. There he designed their new home. Later he said about his time in France: “I had nothing to fear there, I could paint undisturbed - I could develop freely.” This is also reflected in his pictures, they are mostly cheerful and very colorful. They show a zest for life and a “braver hand”. His works from this period can be classified between German impressionism and expressionism.

Imprisonment and deportation to concentration camps

After hearing that the situation in Mainz had relaxed, he went back to his hometown. He was arrested the first night and taken to the Börgermoor concentration camp without a trial . There he had to dig peat under the toughest conditions, the concentration camp inmates called themselves the “moor soldiers” - which was the title for many of his pictures. During this time he made sketches about work and survival in the concentration camps. He and the other 'prisoners' were constantly mistreated by the SS men who were guarding them. “I will never be able to forget those years,” said Bender. From April 1934 he was imprisoned in the Esterwegen concentration camp . During his detention he met the St. Wendler artists Marga Lauer and Mia Münster .

"Third time in Mainz"

In 1936 - after his release from prison - Bender returned to Mainz, he thought he could deal with his traumatic experiences here, but found extremely unfavorable conditions. Initially, Bender had to report regularly to the Mainz Gestapo ; the reporting requirement was lifted after half a year . He was initially assigned work in the city gardening department and later in the local administration. Later he got a job as a bookseller on the paddle steamer "Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig von Hessen und bei Rhein" of the "Cologne-Düsseldorfer Deutsche Rheinschifffahrt AG", where he worked until 1941. The reason for the termination was Bender's call-up to the German armed forces .

Adolf Bender - unwilling soldier

The first stationing of the former "public enemy" was St. Wendel , which marked the beginning of Bender's second traumatic period. Here he was employed as accounting officer . It's hard to imagine how terrible it must have been for Bender to go from victim to perpetrator. He was sent to Greece , Crete and Luxembourg . He may have processed it by perceiving reality differently. Drawings from this period show beautiful Polish and Cretan landscapes and also the castle of Luxembourg. In his biography he mentions that he helped set up a prisoner of war camp. What impressed him most about this work was the work with the many architects and artists. Everywhere he was deployed, he saw himself on a humanitarian mission, helping a Russian officer who could no longer move on his own. He saved a chapel from German destruction, distributed food to hungry children and, shortly before the end of the war, when he was in command of a bunker near Merzig, he sent child soldiers home. After the end of the war and a few months as a prisoner of war in France, Bender was allowed to return to St. Wendel, where he married Josefa Leist on March 9, 1944. Since his studio and house in Mainz were destroyed, he finally settled in St. Wendel.

Bender's life and work after the war

Escape to art

In 1946, Adolf Bender's son Hans was born in St. Wendel. However, Adolf Bender found it difficult to support himself and his family with his painting. Every now and then there were public contracts for him, but not enough. Sometimes people paid with pictures instead of money. He then became the managing director of the "Protection Association for Trade and Commerce St. Wendel", designed advertising campaigns, information leaflets and organized various activities. Many landscape paintings were created during the 50s to 70s, but Bender also tried to incorporate abstract forms into his pictures. Here he worked in three directions: in some pictures the representational origin is still comprehensible, other pictures he constructed with the help of many different colors and finally he used soft, upwardly tending shapes - similar to rainbows. Until his death he kept painting abstract pictures.

The Moorsoldaten Cycle - Bender's processing of the horrors of the concentration camps

In order to process the experiences during his imprisonment in the Börgermoor concentration camp , Adolf Bender made sketches of the events back then. During the 1960s and 1970s he set about editing the sketches and making complete pictures from them. These images were later combined to form the “Moorsoldaten” cycle. Obviously, in the decades before, Bender hadn't been ready to put his memories on canvas. As soon as his works were finished, he began to give lectures in schools. Individual school classes were so enthusiastic that he invited them to his studio. This gave Bender a kind of "satisfaction", because he was able to lead a meaningful life again in his opinion. He got involved in society, but was mainly committed to the youth. At each of his lectures, Bender spoke of the atrocities during the Nazi dictatorship and urged his audience never to forget what happened then. The cycle of pictures of the moor soldiers, known far beyond the Saarland, is currently owned by the Saarland Democracy Foundation. It can be borrowed from the Adolf Bender Center as a traveling exhibition.

Honors

Adolf Bender Center

The founding of the “ Adolf Bender Center , Association for the Promotion of Democratic Traditions eV” in 1985 was also important for Bender . Now he had found “fellow campaigners” for his cause.

Mia Münster Prize

Adolf Bender was also increasingly valued as an artist, especially in St. Wendel. On October 1, 1986, he was awarded the Mia Münster Prize by the city of St. Wendel. With this award he was not only honored as "Adolf Bender - the artist", but also for his commitment to democracy and his humanity .

Saarland Order of Merit

In 1988 Bender was awarded the Saarland Order of Merit for his humanity and commitment to society (official announcement on June 27, 1989).

Literature - AV materials

• Schwarz, Peter: pacifist and patriot - the St. Wendel painter Adolf Bender. In: Sunday greetings. Vol. 1991, p. 19, Ill.
• Adolf Bender - a painter's life. [Autobiography on the occasion of his 90th birthday]. St. Wendel: St. Wendeler Dr., 1993. 108 p., Numerous. partly color fig.
• "I like St. Wendel!" - a conversation with Adolf Bender on his 90th birthday. In: Heimatbuch des Landkreis St. Wendel. Vol. 25 (1993/94), pp. 96-98, Ill.
• Wack, Wolfgang: A politically upright man - the moor soldier painter Adolf Bender is dead. In: Saarbrücker Zeitung. (April 4, 1997), p. 8, Ill.
• Heinz, Joachim: "Remember, so that something like this is never repeated". In memory of Adolf Bender. In: Der Arbeiter - magazine of the Saarland Chamber of Labor. Vol. 45 (1997), p. 194, Ill.
• Weber, Gerhard: In memory of the painter Adolf Bender. In: Heimatbuch des Landkreis St. Wendel. 27 (1998), pp. 64-65, Ill.
• Bender, Adolf: Die Moorsoldaten [exhibition cat.]. Arranged: Franz Rudolf Kronenberger. Saarbrücken: Stiftung Demokratie Saarland, 2001. 47 p., Overw. Ill. ISBN 3-933887-05-4
• Adolf Bender - a painter's life. [Video cassette (25 min.) With booklet]. Arr .: Hans Bender u. a. Saarbrücken: Landesinst. f. Pedagogy u. Media, 2002.
• Adolf Bender - retrospective on the 100th birthday [exhibition cat.] St. Wendel: Museum St. Wendel, 2003. 48 p., Ill.

Web links

• Literature by and about Adolf Bender in the catalog of the German National Library
• Literature on Adolf Bender in the Saarland Bibliography
• Article (with photo) in the Saarland Lexicon
• Adolf Bender Center eV
• Exile archive
• Saarland Democracy Foundation
• Homepage Tolerance Network Saar

Individual evidence

1. ^ Announcement of awards of the Saarland Order of Merit . In: Head of the State Chancellery (Ed.): Official Gazette of the Saarland . No. 35 . Saarbrücker Zeitung Verlag und Druckerei GmbH, Saarbrücken July 13, 1989, p. 995 ( uni-saarland.de [PDF; 206 kB ; accessed on June 2, 2017]).