Burning Braunschweig

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Burning Braunschweig
Walther Hoeck , 1944
Oil on canvas
124.5 cm (max.) × 204.4 cm (max.) Cm
Braunschweigische Landessparkasse , Braunschweig

Link to the picture
(please note copyrights )

The Burning Braunschweig , also known as The Fire of Braunschweig , is the title of an oil painting by the National Socialist German artist Walther Hoeck . The painting, of which seven versions are known, depicts the firestorm triggered in the city by the bombing raid on Braunschweig on October 15, 1944. Many Braunschweig people consider the picture to be the artistic epitome of the downfall of old Braunschweig.

history

Walther Hoeck

Hoeck was born in 1885 in Holzminden , 90 km southwest of Braunschweig , which at that time still belonged to the Duchy of Braunschweig . He came to Braunschweig in 1920, where he gained fame during the Weimar Republic , but only made a quick career in the era of National Socialism and took on a leading role in the local art scene, but remained the only nationally significant person in the Braunschweig NS art scene. In 1932 he joined the NSDAP and was then active in leading National Socialist art organizations. During the Nazi era, he received numerous state and private commissions. So z. B. for a monumental, “intrusive” Nazi propaganda work Das Junge Deutschland , which was unveiled at the end of November 1935 in the central hall of what was then Braunschweig's main train station . After the end of the Second World War he initially stayed in Braunschweig, was denazified in 1948 and finally moved in 1954 with his wife to Eglofs im Allgäu , where he died in 1956.

Image creation and description

At the time of the bombing, Hoeck lived in Lehndorf , a suburb of Braunschweig, about three kilometers from the city center ( Burgplatz ). Hoeck was probably an eyewitness to the attack and its consequences and observed the firestorm either directly from there or from a location between Lehndorf and Lamme , another suburb two kilometers southwest of Lehndorf.

All versions show the city in full fire, immediately after the devastating attack of 233 Lancaster bombers of the 5th Bomb Group of the Royal Air Force . The city, clearly recognizable as Braunschweig by its silhouette , lies a few kilometers east of the viewer on a plain. The viewer's point of view is raised slightly so that the entire city is visible in its entirety far below at the edge of the picture. The sky over the city takes up by far the largest part of the picture, roughly in a ratio of 1: 6. The entire city is a single sea of ​​flames at the time shown, which u. a. The color gradient makes it clear that individual buildings can be identified directly on the ground, such as the towers of the Andreas , Katharinen and Michaeliskirche as well as the Brunswick Cathedral . Like the entire city, they are in flames from bright yellow to bright orange-red to dark red, they virtually “glow”, which creates “the idea of ​​extensive destruction”. A column of fire and smoke, which is enormous compared to the flat city, rises in an arch in the left half of the picture into the night sky, which is brightly illuminated by it, gradually becoming darker towards the top due to smoke and finally swirling at the upper edge of the picture to the right and is pulled apart and torn apart. The fire "lights up" the painting. The fact that the fire and the fire smoke column are so huge and appear to be overpowering creates the impression of a primordial force that has broken through Braunschweig. In the foreground you can see a dark green field running from edge to edge, through which a small dirt road leads to a farmhouse almost from the center to the rear right. Part of this building is also on fire.

Although the type and form of the presentation are Hoeck's own interpretation, essential details of the event are shown, such as B. the huge fire-smoke column over the city, vouched for by eyewitnesses.

No people or animals can be seen in any of the painting versions.

Different versions

The first of seven known versions was probably made immediately after the bombing, which is said to have made a lasting impression on Hoeck. The other five versions were all commissioned works that he made in 1945 and in the years immediately after the end of the war. None of the oil paintings are dated. Composition and motif are identical in each case, only the format is different and some details vary, e.g. B. the shape of the fire smoke column over the burning city or repoussoirs , such as buildings and their arrangement in the picture. The largest painting by far measures 124.5 cm × 204.4 cm and was commissioned for the then President of the Braunschweigische Staatsbank , Josef Lammers. After the war it was hung in the foyer of the branch on Dankwardstrasse until the 1970s , where customers and employees could see it. After the branch was rebuilt, it was on the first floor. Since another renovation in the 1990s, it is no longer in Dankwardstrasse, but in a meeting room of the Braunschweigische Landessparkasse at the old station . Another version of the work is accessible to the public in the branch of the Städtisches Museum Braunschweig , in the old town hall .

reception

FEUER , caricature by Achim Mohrenberg, published in the Braunschweiger Zeitung on February 18, 2012 in a report on the dispute over Hoeck's painting.

In the catalog for the exhibition German Art 1933–1945 in Braunschweig. Art under National Socialism , which took place in the Braunschweig City Museum in 2000, wrote Heino R. Möller, then professor at the Braunschweig University of Fine Arts :

"Apparently, Hoeck's portrayal corresponded impressively to the experiences and feelings of the Braunschweig residents who witnessed the event or identified with what was destroyed and irredeemably lost in the night of the bombing [...] One can assume that contemporaries in Hoeck's portrayal are the valid expression of individually and collectively experienced suffering saw and a memorial for what was lost in this catastrophe. "

- German art 1933–1945 in Braunschweig. Art in National Socialism , pp. 170–171.

Some see The Burning Braunschweig as a “constant warning”, while others see it as a “dangerous picture”, because it stylizes the destruction of Braunschweig “as an aesthetic idea of ​​an overpowering fate that leaves no room for questions about the causes or the consequences needs ". The human suffering of the night of the bombing is depicted as a fateful pillar of fire, removed from the mythical distance, with which Hoeck satisfied a central Nazi art maxim, “ sublimity ”. Hoeck himself seems to have been deeply impressed by what he experienced, so on the back of one of his painting versions is his handwritten note: "The dying city / love one another."

The burning Braunschweig has been exhibited several times since then and in 1994, on the 50th anniversary of the bombing, it was also used as the cover picture for Günter KP Starke's book The Inferno of Braunschweig and the time thereafter .

At the exhibition German Art 1933–1945 in Braunschweig. Art under National Socialism in 2000, there had already been heated discussions about painting and painting, as well as the exhibition itself. At the time, the organizers of the exhibition were accused of being too careless and superficial in dealing with the exhibited Nazi artists, their works and the possibly underlying National Socialist ideology . In 2012, the Braunschweigische Landessparkasse hung up the Burning Braunschweig again in its main office without comment, which immediately prompted considerable protests. In 2019, on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the bombing of Braunschweig on October 15, 1944, the exhibition was opened in September on October 15. The destruction of the city of Braunschweig opened. It shows etchings, watercolors, graphics, oil paintings and drawings by numerous well-known, but also anonymous artists, some of whose works were created during the war or the majority in the early post-war period . Although several, if not all, versions of Hoeck's picture are in the city, it was intentionally not included in the exhibition because, according to the argumentation of the foundation and museum's curators , Hoeck was an "avowed Nazi" and the picture as such " Fascist shaped" is. Years earlier, Heino O. Möller had already judged that the picture had a " National Socialist aesthetic " and was "not an image of decline, but in the National Socialist spirit an image of the resurrection in a new heyday - the foundation of a new 1000-year empire."

The fact that Hoeck's The Burning Braunschweig was not shown, referring to the artist's well-known Nazi sentiments and the actual or supposed “Nazi message” of the work, led to a. a. Controversial discussion with letters to the editor and journalistic comments in the Braunschweiger Zeitung. So was u. a. criticizes that after 75 years it is viewed as paternalism or incapacitation if the population is withheld the painting for such arguments, but at the same time works by other "confessing" Nazi artists such as B. Herman Flesche , Wilhelm Frantzen , Hedwig Hornburg , Bruno Müller-Linow or Ernst Straßner would be exhibited.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Braunschweig Municipal Museum and University of Fine Arts (ed.): German Art 1933–1945 in Braunschweig. Art under National Socialism. P. 170.
  2. ↑ Ramona Myrrhe (ed.): History as a profession. Festschrift for the 65th birthday of Klaus Erich Pollmann . Democracy and dictatorship, Protestantism and political culture. Stekovics, Dößel 2005, ISBN 3-89923-101-5 , p. 73.
  3. ^ A b c Dieter Lent : Review of German Art 1933–1945 in Braunschweig. Art under National Socialism. Catalog of the exhibition from April 16 to July 2, 2000 . In: Braunschweigisches Jahrbuch für Landesgeschichte , Volume 82, self-published by the Braunschweigisches Geschichtsverein , Braunschweig 2001, p. 248.
  4. ^ Nicole C. Karafyllis : Willy Moog (1888-1935). A philosopher's life. Alber Freiburg 2015, ISBN 978-3-495-48697-9 , FN 385, p. 285.
  5. ↑ Hinrich Bergmeier, Günter Katzenberger (Ed.): Kulturaustreib. The influence of National Socialism on art and culture in Lower Saxony. A documentation for the exhibition of the same name. Dölling and Galitz, Hamburg 1993, ISBN 3-926174-70-6 , p. 83
  6. ^ The young Germany on vernetztes-gedaechtnis.de.
  7. ↑ Regina Blume: Walther Hoeck. In: Reinhard Bein : Hitler's Brunswick staff. döringDRUCK, Braunschweig 2017, ISBN 978-3-925268-56-4 , pp. 60–67.
  8. ↑ Rudolf Prescher : The red rooster over Braunschweig. Air raid protection measures and aerial warfare events in the city of Braunschweig 1927 to 1945. (= Braunschweiger Werkstücke , Volume 18), Orphanage Book Printing Company, Braunschweig 1955.
  9. ^ Eckart Grote: Target Brunswick 1943–1945. Air raid target Braunschweig - documents of destruction. Braunschweig 1994, ISBN 3-9803243-2-X .
  10. ↑ a b c Braunschweig Municipal Museum and University of Fine Arts (ed.): German Art 1933–1945 in Braunschweig. Art under National Socialism. P. 171.
  11. ^ Eckart Grote: Target Brunswick 1943–1945. Air raid target Braunschweig - documents of destruction. Verlag Dieter Heitefuss, Braunschweig 1994, ISBN 3-9803243-2-X , p. 136.
  12. ↑ Illustration with title Der Brand von Braunschweig in: Erich Achterberg: Braunschweigische Staatsbank. Braunschweig, 1965, p. 185.
  13. ^ Chronicle of the city of Braunschweig for 1976 on braunschweig.de.
  14. ↑ Braunschweig Municipal Museum and University of Fine Arts (ed.): German Art 1933–1945 in Braunschweig. Art under National Socialism. FN 2, p. 178.
  15. ^ Günter KP Starke: The Inferno of Braunschweig and the time after. 4th expanded edition, Appelhans Verlag, Braunschweig 2002, ISBN 3-930292-58-0 , p. 121.
  16. ↑ a b Braunschweig City Museum and University of Fine Arts (ed.): German Art 1933–1945 in Braunschweig. Art under National Socialism. P. 172.
  17. ↑ Reinhard Bein : Zeitzeichen. City and State of Braunschweig 1930–1945. Braunschweig 2000, ISBN 3-925268-21-9 , FN +, p. 89.
  18. ^ Günter KP Starke: The Inferno of Braunschweig and the time after. Appelhans Verlag, Braunschweig 1994.
  19. ↑ Ulrike Knöfel: Mief from the poison cabinet In: DER SPIEGEL 17/2000, pp. 273-274.
  20. ↑ Martin Jasper: “A completely inhumane picture!”. In: Braunschweiger Zeitung of February 10, 2012.
  21. ↑ Ann Claire Richter: Bank discussed with critics about painter Hoeck. In: Braunschweiger Zeitung of February 18, 2012.
  22. ↑ Städtisches Museum Braunschweig , Prüsse Foundation (Ed.): October 15. The destruction of the city of Braunschweig in 1944. Hinz und Kunst, Braunschweig 2019, ISBN 978-3-922618-34-8 .
  23. ↑ Florian Arnold: Impressive pictures of the destruction of Braunschweig. In: Braunschweiger Zeitung from August 31, 2019.
  24. ↑ a b c Eckhard Schimpf : "Burning Braunschweig": The picture that may not be shown. In: Braunschweiger Zeitung of September 7, 2019.
  25. ↑ Martin: Jasper: "The burning Braunschweig" - cynicism in oil. In: Braunschweiger Zeitung of September 14, 2019.
  26. ↑ Florian Arnold: And facing the future. In: Braunschweiger Zeitung of September 21, 2019.
This article can not be adequately illustrated due to copyright reasons . At the moment there are no or only individual suitable images available, which are sufficiently licensed for further use .
See also the FAQ on images and image rights .