Erich Kastan

Erich Kastan (born January 12, 1898 in Ludwigslust ; † January 12, 1954 in New York ) was a German photographer .

Live and act

Kastan, who was born in Ludwigslust, lived and worked in Hamburg since 1923 for his uncle's export company, Herman Josephy. In 1932 he registered as a commercial photographer and quickly experienced great demand. His pictures of children's games in the old town of Altona , of New Year's Eve at St. Pauli and the Hamburg Philharmonic were printed primarily by the Hamburger Anzeiger and also appeared in the illustrated supplements of Hamburg's daily newspapers.

After the Nazis seized power in 1933 , the daily press initially withheld Kastan's name when the pictures were printed, as Kastan was of Jewish origin. His photographs were eventually banned completely. In August 1933, the German news published him on a “List of Jews and Foreigners” as a press photographer under “Kastan, Hamburg”. From then on, Erich Kastan concentrated on the documentation of the activities of the Kulturbund Deutscher Juden in Hamburg and its members, which is still unique today . He took part in fairs and exhibitions organized by the Kulturbund and took photos for Jewish periodicals and festival publications. Among other things, he captured the farewell party in the Kohlhöfen synagogue in 1934 and the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the High German Israelite Congregation in Altona in December 1934. In 1936 he documented the inauguration of Joseph Carlebach and in 1937 the forced repeal of the Grindelfriedhof.

In 1938 Erich Kastan fled to the USA via England , where he opened a photo studio in New York in 1936. Kastan especially created portraits and worked as an advertising photographer. In June 1945 he joined the American Society of Magazine Photographers . Kastan had a penchant for classical music and portrayed Leonard Bernstein and Robert Casadesus in 1945 and Rudolf Serkin and William Steinberg in 1950 . He made further portraits of Hellen Keller (1945) and Orson Welles (1940).

Erich Kastan died on his birthday in New York in 1954.

literature

• Wilfried Weinke: Kastan, Erich . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 3 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2006, ISBN 3-8353-0081-4 , p. 193 .
• Erich Kastan (January 12, 1898– January 12, 1954) in Wilfried Weinke: Ousted , driven out, but not forgotten . The photographers Emil Bieber , Max Halberstadt , Erich Kastan, Kurt Schallenberg . Weingarten 2003, ISBN 3-8170-2546-7 , pp. 1766ff.