Erika von Hornstein

Erika von Hornstein (* 1913 in Potsdam ; † April 20, 2005 in Berlin ; married Erika Bausch, née Freiin von Hornstein-Biethingen ) was a German writer, painter and documentary filmmaker.

origin

Her parents were the Prussian guard officer Erich Freiherr von Hornstein (1882-1914) and his wife Auguste, née von Brauchitsch (* 1891), a daughter of Major General Konrad von Brauchitsch . Her father died at the beginning of the First World War, so her mother married the then captain Ulrich von Sell in 1919 .

Life

She grew up in Potsdam and Berlin. Von Hornstein graduated from school in the Stift zum Heiligengrabe monastery in Prignitz. Her stepfather was from 1922 a wing adjutant and case manager for the abdicated German Kaiser Wilhelm II in exile in Doorn . At the age of 19 she decided to become a painter after seeing pictures by Erich Heckel , Franz Marc and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff as a student in Berlin museums such as the Kronprinzenpalais . In a painting school she got to know the painter Karl Schmidt-Rottluff personally, whom she was fascinated by.

Later she studied for a semester in Munich and in 1936 went to Italy to Lake Garda. Shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War, she married the industrialist and chemist Viktor Bausch , the owner of the Felix Schoeller & Bausch paper mill in Neu Kaliss in Mecklenburg . After the war, the paper mill was dismantled, Erika von Hornstein moved to West Berlin, where she worked as a documentary filmmaker and author. Under her maiden name she became known among other things with the volume "Refugee stories", which contains stories of refugees from the GDR .

She was buried in Gargnano on Lake Garda.

Publications (selection)

• The stolen phoenix , 1956, 3rd edition Ullstein, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-548-23021-0 .
• The German emergency refugees report , 1960
• Public enemies: seven trials in the "GDR" , 1963
• Goodbye Potsdam , 1969
• Refugee stories: 43 reports from the early years of the GDR , Nördlingen: Greno 1985, (series: Die Other Bibliothek ), ISBN 3-921568-35-8 .
• The sky is so blue: my memories of Karl Schmidt-Rottluff and Carl Hofer , Berlin: Nicolai 1999, ISBN 3-87584-763-6 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Erika von Hornstein in the catalog of the German National Library
• Page about a book by von Hornstein at "Luise-Berlin" with a curriculum vitae by von Hornstein
• Report about the death in the Berliner Zeitung
• Entry of the obituary notice at Boards.ancestry.de
• Article about the Bausch factory in Pfaffenhofen, Bavaria, whose history von Hornstein had described