Ernst Polaczek

Ernst Polaczek (born July 6, 1870 in Reichenberg , Austria-Hungary ; died January 26, 1939 in Freiburg im Breisgau ) was an Austrian art historian .

Life

Ernst Polaczek, a family of manufacturers, studied at the Kaiser-Wilhelms-Universität in Strasbourg from 1893 . Before that, he had already attended several semesters at the universities in Prague , Munich and Vienna .

Polaczek got in touch with the topic The Transitional Style in Alsace. A contribution to the building history of the Middle Ages for a doctorate at the Philosophical Faculty of the Kaiser-Wilhelms-Universität Strasbourg. Before that, he had already self-published a. a. deals with architectural issues in his hometown Reichenberg.

After successfully defending his doctoral thesis with the art historian Georg Dehio , who taught at the University of Strasbourg from 1892 to 1918, Polaczek completed his one-year military service as an Austrian citizen in Vienna. The art historian received an assistant position with his doctoral supervisor Dehio and completed his habilitation in 1899.

As an author, Polaczek was active in the series Das Kunstgewerbe in Alsace-Lorraine, edited by Anton Seder and Friedrich Leitschuh . Polaczek et al. a. the history of the glass industry. In 1901 Polaczek became a private lecturer and twelve years later an honorary professor at the University of Strasbourg. In 1922, the former rector of the Strasbourg University Johannes Ficker , now professor in Halle (Saale), compiled a directory of Alsace-Lorraine writings and the Strasbourg University from 1872 to 1916, including Ernst Polaczek as editor:

• Architectural monuments in Alsace (together with Hausmann), 1906;
• Regesta of the Bishops of Strasbourg (together with Bloch and Wentzke) 1st volume, 1908;
• Directory of the Art Museum of the City of Strasbourg , Dehio , together with Polczek u. a., 1899 ff.

The art historian worked full-time as director of the municipal arts and crafts museum from 1907 and as director of the museum of fine arts in the metropolis of the realm of Alsace-Lorraine from 1913 . When Polaczek worked as a book author on the art history of his second home, Strasbourg, he lived in Munich as a result of the results of the First World War . In the preface to Strasbourg , Polaczek wrote that this city "... has been the author's residence for twenty years and whose past life he will feel connected to until the end". Regarding the influence of politics on culture in Alsace, while Alsace-Lorraine was part of the German Empire, Polaczek stated: “There is hardly an area of ​​public life in Alsace whose shape and development between 1870 and 1918 was not influenced by politics . Preservation of art and monuments have also been Politica. "

From 1928 to 1933, Polaczek worked as director of the Oberlausitz Memorial Hall and the associated Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Görlitz through the mediation of a Munich state welfare office . Because of his Jewish origins, Polaczek was discriminated against right from the start of Nazi rule. First he lost his membership in the Rotary Club in Görlitz. Although Ernst Polaczek had rendered great services to the Neisse city, he was apparently sent into early retirement by the rulers under National Socialism because of his Jewish parents . Then he moved from Görlitz to Freiburg im Breisgau.

Polaczek was buried in a cemetery in Strasbourg, now France.

His first marriage since 1906 was the historian Else Gütschow , the first woman to receive a doctorate from the University of Strasbourg. However, she died in childbed in 1908 . After Ernst Polaczek's death, his second wife, Friederike, was arrested in a raid and murdered in the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1942.

A portrait of Polaczek is depicted with the personalities of the town history of Görlitz.

literature

• Polaczek, Ernst , in: Ulrike Wendland: Biographical Handbook of German-Speaking Art Historians in Exile. Life and work of the scientists persecuted and expelled under National Socialism . Munich: Saur, 1999, ISBN 3-598-11339-0 , pp. 525-527

Web links

Wikisource: Ernst Polaczek  - Sources and full texts

• Literature and other media by and about Ernst Polaczek in the catalog of the National Library of the Czech Republic
• City portrait of Görlitz / city history . goerlitz.de
• Personen-wiki.slub-dresden.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Printed copy, 77 pages, Hertz & Minde Verlag, Strasbourg 1894
2. ↑ Ernst Polaczek: Reichenberg and the Muses . 1891.
3. ↑ Ernst Polaczek: On the history of the glass industry . In: The arts and crafts in Alsace-Lorraine , Volume 2. 1901–1902, pp. 231–236
4. ^ The Kaiser Wilhelms University of Strasbourg and its activities . Speech at the commemoration of the founding of the Reich on January 18, 1922 by Johannes Ficker. Hallische Universitätsreden 17. Verlag von Max Niemeyer, Halle (Saale) 1922
5. ^ Ernst Polaczek: Strasbourg . Verlag von EA Seemann, Leipzig 1926, with 146 illustrations.
6. ^ Ernst Polaczek: Strasbourg . Publisher by EA Seemann, Leipzig 1926, p. 1
7. ^ Ernst Polaczek: Art care 1870-1918 . In: Süddeutsche Monatshefte , 29, 3, 1931, p. 207
8. ↑ From the history of the Rotary Club Görlitz ( Memento of the original from January 16, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. under the subheading: The way to self-dissolution  
9. ↑ ^{a b} Heiner Mitschke: Professor Ernst Polaczek . In: City portrait of Görlitz / city history . ( Memento of the original from December 28, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. European city of Görlitz / Zgorzeletc 
10. ↑ "May the moon go out, we are as we are" . In: Die Zeit , No. 37/2005. The Alsatian German scholar Robert Minder intended to find a place to hide Friederike Polaczek before she was arrested.
11. ↑ Further information about the fate of Friederike Polaczek can be found in connection with the robbery and restitution of the Faycence collection. (Source: Katharina Siefert: According to current law. Robbery and restitution of the Polaczek faience collection, in: Yearbook of the State Art Collections in Baden-Württemberg, Vol. 50, Munich 2015, pp. 35–46)