Arnold Waldschmidt

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Arnold Waldschmidt (born June 2, 1873 in Weimar , † August 1, 1958 in Stuttgart ) was a German painter, sculptor, director of the Stuttgart Art Academy and a representative of naturalistic expressionism.

Life

Waldschmidt grew up on a farm in Bahia , Brazil , where his parents had emigrated from Germany. He inherited his talent for art from his father Heinrich Waldschmidt , who after his military career as a captain in the 1st Westphalian Field Artillery Regiment No. 7 in Brazil worked for a while as a farmer and painter.

After the 10th grade he went to sea at the age of 15 and then sailed around the world on sailing ships for seven years. He then successfully completed officer training in the merchant navy and joined the 5th Rhenish Infantry Regiment No. 65 in Cologne in 1898 as an active officer. He was soon assigned to the Imperial Navy on the warship SMS Charlotte , where he did not feel well and therefore resigned from military service.

In 1900 he attended the Berlin Art Academy for a semester , but found no pleasure in it. A year later he was back at sea on a Norwegian ship. It was not until 1903 that he finally turned to art and attended the Karlsruhe Art Academy , where he studied with Ludwig Schmid-Reutte , among others . However, he initially did not work as a sculptor, but as a painter. In 1904 Arthur Kampf made him professor of a painting class at the University of Fine Arts in Berlin, where he became a member of the Berlin Secession in 1908 at the request of Max Liebermann . In the years that followed, he changed from painter to sculptor.

As a result of a violent dispute in the Berlin Secession in 1907 and persecution by Berlin art critics, Waldschmidt retired to the solitude of Upper Bavaria in Wartenberg near Erding , where he mainly devoted himself to animal studies. He stayed in Wartenberg until he was appointed professor and head of a nude and composing class at the Stuttgart Art Academy in 1917 . In 1927 Waldschmidt became director there.

Waldschmidt joined the NSDAP very early in 1920 (membership number 8,856). Waldschmidt later also became a member of the SS ( membership number 143.285). Since that time he was well known and kept in constant contact with all leading figures in the party such as Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler . He received the rank of SS-Standartenführer and later of SS-Obergruppenführer on an honorary basis .

On December 13, 1933, Waldschmidt became regional director of the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts in Württemberg. From 1938 to 1945 he was Hugo Lederer's successor professor and head of a master's studio for sculptors at the Prussian Academy of the Arts in Berlin, of which he became a senator shortly afterwards. This preferred him to Arno Breker , who himself aspired to this position.

In 1941, “after four and a half years of work”, a monumental Berlin order was completed with the “Soldier Relief”, which “Waldschmidt had received for the pillar hall of the Reich Aviation Ministry (at Wilhelmstrasse and Leipzigerstrasse)”.

In the spring of 1945 he was in command of a small satellite camp of the Ravensbrück concentration camp in Sassnitz . At the end of the war, Waldschmidt fled with his wife from Berlin to Sassnitz on Rügen , where he was deported to the Soviet Union under unexplained circumstances and sentenced to 25 years in a labor camp. He was later pardoned and returned to Germany in October 1953. He lived with his wife in Stuttgart until his death and had monumental works in progress right up to the end.

According to the art historian Wilhelm Fraenger , Waldschmidt no longer believed in a victory for Adolf Hitler even in an early phase of the war (late 1941) . In 1944 he fell out of favor with Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler . Fraenger wrote about Waldschmidt: “In contrast to Arno Breker, Arnold Waldschmidt was an excellent artist who chiseled his works with a jackhammer, because granite was his preferred material. In his studio there were gigantic sculptures from prehistoric times that he had brought back from Africa and elsewhere. .... Waldschmidt railed against the Nazis, including Himmler and Goebbels ”. Fraenger's portrayal is in contrast to the fact that Waldschmidt was put on the " God-gifted list " by Hitler and Goebbels .

Arnold Waldschmidt was married to the sculptor, graphic artist, painter and mosaicist Olga ("Olly") Schwarz , daughter of the Stuttgart banker Schwarz, who is said to have financially supported the Nazis at an early age. Their child was Ute Waldschmidt (1922–1984). In 1943 she married Albrecht von Urach (1903–1969) (they divorced in 1960). Albrecht von Urach was a former pupil of Waldschmidt.

On June 3, 1943, Arnold Waldschmidt was awarded the Goethe Medal for Art and Science .

Works (selection)

Waldschmidt created many monumental paintings, statues and reliefs in line with the Nazi understanding of art. Here is a selection:

  • Two 5-meter-long wooden reliefs “Seeräuber” and “Sailors on the anchor cap” on the express steamer Bremen
  • Wooden relief “General v. Steuben taking the fortress of Yorktown ”on the express steamer General von Steuben
  • Mahogany relief "Motriani-Potosi" on the training ship Gorch Fock
  • Painting "Sailing ship in a hurricane near Cap Horn"
  • Various bronze figures, u. a. "Urpflüger", "Heldentod", "Infant", "Fir landscape" and "Dancer". The "dancer" is today in the spa garden of Bad Mergentheim .
  • 25 meter long “soldier relief ” in the pillar hall of the former Reich Ministry of Aviation in Berlin (1936 / 37–1941).
  • Tomb of the German writer Wilhelm Jordan in Frankfurt am Main.

Others

  • In his youth, Arnold Waldschmidt was a boxer and internationally successful motorcycle racer.
  • At the age of 66, Waldschmidt graduated with the golden sports badge in 1939.
  • Waldschmidt lived a lot in Norway, where he owned land near Kragerö , and was close friends with Felix Graf von Luckner .
  • In the reason for the award of the Goethe Medal to Waldschmidt, the large relief on the Reich Aviation Ministry is particularly emphasized. Waldschmidt “was also the first to bring the ideas of the 'Führer' into the arts”.

literature

  • Trude Brost-Fischer: The Hugo Borst Collection in Stuttgart. Stuttgart 1970.
  • Ernst Klee : The cultural lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5 , p. 579.
  • Gert K. Nagel: Swabian artist lexicon. From the baroque to the present. Munich 1986. p. 124.
  • Waldschmidt, Arnold . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General lexicon of fine artists from antiquity to the present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 35 : Libra-Wilhelmson . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1942, p. 80 .
  • Waldschmidt, Arnold . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General Lexicon of Fine Artists of the XX. Century. tape 5 : V-Z. Supplements: A-G . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1961, p. 71 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Arnold Waldschmidt . In: Magdalena Bushart: Sculpture and Power. Figurative sculpture in Germany in the 30s and 40s. An exhibition as part of the overall project of the Akademie der Künste. 'That was just a foreplay ...' . Exhibition catalog, Fröhlich & Kaufmann, Berlin 1983, p. 194
  2. ↑ Guido Ettlich: Consul Albert Schwarz. Banker, citizen and Bahá'í in Stuttgart and Bad Mergentheim. Der Erzählverlag, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-947831-08-1 , p. 39, footnote 91 (reading sample, books.google.de )
  3. ↑ The German Leader Lexicon. 1934/1935, p. 516.
  4. ↑ Arnold Waldschmidt on dws-xip.pl
  5. ^ A b Ernst Klee: The cultural lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 579.
  6. ↑ The soldier relief by Arnold Waldschmidt. In: Art in the German Empire . Volume 5 / Episode 1, Issue B, January 1941, pp. 28–29 m. Fig.
  7. ↑ The way of the stumbling blocks. A historical tour through the city of Sassnitz. (PDF) City of Sassnitz, Prora Documentation Center (ed.), P. 12
  8. ^ Ingeborg Baier-Fraenger (ed.): The art historian Wilhelm Fraenger. Castrum Peregrini Presse, Amsterdam 1994, ISBN 90-6034-089-2 , pp. 45-46.
  9. ↑ Ernst Klee : Kulturlexikon zum Third Reich: Who was what before and after 1945 . Completely revised edition, Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2009, ISBN 978-3-596-17153-8 , p. 579
  10. ↑ Barbara Volkmann: Sculpture and Power. Figurative sculpture in Germany in the 30s and 40s. Berlin 1983, ISBN 3-88331-926-0 , p. 89.
personal data
SURNAME Waldschmidt, Arnold
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German sculptor and painter
DATE OF BIRTH June 2, 1873
PLACE OF BIRTH Weimar
DATE OF DEATH August 1, 1958
Place of death Stuttgart