Alfred Ruhmann

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Alfred Anton Ruhmann (born May 11, 1895 in Vienna , † September 19, 1945 in Zagreb ) was an Austrian paper manufacturer, amateur entomologist and photographer .

Life

Alfred Ruhmann was born in 1895 as the third oldest of the four sons of Moritz Ruhmann (1858–1936) and Clementine Ruhmann-Koessler into the industrialist family Ruhmann, his grandfather was the paper industrialist Adolf Ruhmann (1832–1920).

From a young age he was an avid photographer and entomologist. At the age of 17 he became a member of the Austrian Entomological Society in 1912 . He owned a large collection of butterflies . In his second home around Guggenbach , municipality of Übelbach , Styria , he discovered an Apollo butterfly - a subspecies that was named "Forma metathetica ruhmanniana".

Alfred Ruhmann attended the academic high school in Vienna and passed the entrance exam as a one-year volunteer in the Austro-Hungarian army in November 1914 . In 1917 he was already lieutenant in the "Mounted Artillery Regiment No. 6" and fought like his brothers on various Austro-Hungarian fronts. He was recognized for his bravery.

On November 29, 1920 he married Stella Tressler, daughter of the castle actor Otto Tressler . Soon thereafter, Ruhmann and his two brothers Karl and Franz joined the family-owned paper industry company Guggenbacher Maschinenpapier-Fabrik Adolf Ruhmann . From the late 1920s, he and his brothers took over the management of the family business, which at the time supplied about 60% of Austrian newspapers with Ruhmann printing paper.

Alfred Ruhmann was a well-known bon vivant . His circle of friends included personalities such as the composer Wilhelm Kienzl , the writer Karl Schönherr , and the Minister Franz Bachinger . His tasteful apartment was presented in a specialist book as early as 1930 as a special example of the successful integration of old works of art to design modern apartments.

At the same time, Ruhmann worked as a photographer as a "documenting folk researcher ". Especially in the years 1936 to 1938 he took photos with his later second wife Martha geb. Rieber so-called "elusive minorities". Dozens of photo albums include photos of around half of the Roma and Sinti settlements in Burgenland and in remote areas of Hungary . 90% of the Sinti photographed were "wiped out" in the Third Reich after two to three years.

After Austria was annexed to the German Reich in March 1938, Alfred and his brothers were sold under the pressure of Aryanization for the "sale" of their group of companies "Guggenbacher Maschinenpapier-Fabrik Adolf Ruhmann" including private property to Dr. Adolf Santner was forced to pay zero Reichsmarks . Part of this “sale” contract included the removal of the three brothers from the country to Zagreb, where they lived from 1939 to 1941.

During this time, Alfred, divorced from his Aryan wife Stella, married Martha Reiber (1909–2003) in June 1939. In April 1941, the German invasion of Yugoslavia took place and Alfred fled with his wife and brothers to Dalmatia , first to Dubrovnik , then to Split . They were meanwhile largely destitute. Ustasha -People had Alfred confiscated photographic equipment and everything else Recyclable. They stayed afloat by trading in food from Milan for the Split, which was cut off from the German-occupied mainland. After Mussolini's fall in 1943, Alfred stayed with his wife and brother Franz in Split and then in Zagreb. Only Karl Ruhmann went to Como with his later second wife Katharina. They fled illegally to Switzerland during the occupation of Lombardy by German troops.

Shortly after the end of the war, Alfred Ruhmann died in September 1945 at the age of 50 under unknown circumstances. He is buried in the Mirogoj cemetery in Zagreb .

After 1945 his brother Karl Ruhmann and his widow Martha Ruhmann tried to get back at least part of the aryanized original Ruhmann family fortune after years of litigation. In 1951 it was possible to get a small part of the estate and the Trattenmühle cardboard factory in Wildon restituted. His wife Martha died in Kitzbühel in 2003 and was buried in Alfred's grave in the Mirogoj cemetery in Zagreb.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ List of members of the Austrian Entomological Society .
  2. ↑ Josef Ernst Kammel: On the race question of Parnassius apollo L. from the northern and central Eastern Alpine regions . In: Journal of the Vienna Entomological Society 28, 1943, p. 278 ( digital ).
  3. ^ Document of appointment as lieutenant in the reserve for Alfred Ruhmann, kuk ensign of the mounted artillery regiment No. 6, as per resolution of Nov. 16, 1917.
  4. ↑ Antonin Juritzky-Warberg: interiors - use of old works of art of modern design for interior spaces. Amalthea-Verlag, Zurich-Leipzig-Vienna 1930 ( description of contents ).
  5. ^ Gerhard Baumgartner : "Gypsy" photography from the countries of the Habsburg monarchy in the 19th and early 20th centuries . In: Frank Reuter, Silvio Peritore (Ed.): Staging of the Stranger. Photographic representation of Sinti and Roma in the context of historical image research. Heidelberg 2011, pp. 133-162; Werner Michael Schwarz, Susanne Winkler: In the trap of your own prejudices. The amateur photographer Alfred Ruhmann . In: Romane Thana. Places of the Roma and Sinti . Exhibition catalog, Wien Museum. Czernin, Vienna 2015, ISBN 978-3-7076-0537-2 , pp. 80–85.
personal data
SURNAME Ruhmann, Alfred
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ruhmann, Alfred Anton (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian paper manufacturer, amateur entomologist and photographer
DATE OF BIRTH May 11, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH September 19, 1945
Place of death Zagreb