Eva Dittrich

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Eva Dittrich (born December 2, 1901 in Diepholz ; † April 10, 1998 in Dubuque , Iowa as Eva Leo ) was a German master metal sculptor . Eva Leo was the youngest daughter of the superintendent Johannes Dittrich (1852–1936) and his wife Elisabeth b. Borchers (1860-1939). She had three brothers and six sisters.

education and profession

After graduating from high school in Bremen, she supported her eldest sister in the household for a year. Since her parents lived in Lesum , where her father was superintendent , she was able to attend the Bremen University of the Arts with the aim of becoming a porcelain painter . After completing her studies, she did an apprenticeship with the metalworker Friedrich Harjes in Burgdamm , where she completed her apprenticeship. In the meantime she was a student of Wilhelm Groß , who was a wood sculptor in Eden near Oranienburg, for a few months .

In 1932 she passed the master craftsman examination from the Chamber of Crafts in Hildesheim , making her the first female master metalworker in Germany. She started her own business with no capital in Hildesheim, where she had found a workshop. She received commissions from church architects such as Bernhard Hopp and Rudolf Jäger or parishes, for whom she made sacred equipment such as baptismal bowls, jugs, goblets, crucifixes, altar candlesticks, lamps and reliefs with biblical motifs and made a name for herself.

  • Pulpit reliefs by Eva Dittrich in the St. Nicolaus Church of the Alsterdorfer Anstalten

  • Palmarum

  • Christmas

  • Easter

  • Ascension

  • Pentecost

Paul and Eva Leo

In the summer of 1937 she met Paul Leo in an exhibition on modern ecclesiastical art in the Neustädter Church in Hanover and they stayed in personal and letter contact. In November 1938 Leo was sent to Buchenwald concentration camp because of his Jewish origin and was released on condition that he leave Germany within two months.

Voluntary emigration

Eva Dittrich decided to emigrate to the USA with Paul Leo. One day before the outbreak of war, she drove to Holland on August 30, 1939 with two suitcases and a return ticket, officially “only for the weekend”. The couple's attempt to marry in Holland failed because Holland was neutral and their marriage would be forbidden in Germany. As a person at risk, Leo received a visa for the USA for himself and his daughter. Since Eva Dittrich was not at risk as a German citizen, she did not get a visa. So she traveled to Venezuela with Helene Leo, the wife of Paul's brother Ulrich .

In the summer of 1940 Paul Leo also traveled there and the couple got married in Caracas . On August 5, 1940, the family was able to enter the USA.

Eva and Paul Leo first lived in Pittsburgh . In 1943 they moved to Texas, where Paul looked after a community that consisted almost entirely of German emigrants. In 1950 the family moved to Dubuque because Paul received a professorship for the New Testament at the Wartburg Theological Seminary there.

Tomb of Paul Leo (metal carving by Eva Leo)

When Paul Leo died unexpectedly in 1958, Eva Leo immediately took over the German lessons for some students who wanted to read Karl Barth and other theologians in the Urtext. She was awarded an honorary theological doctorate from Wartburg Theological Seminary in recognition of her services to theological offspring.

It wasn't until 1960 that Eva Leo began to devote herself to metal sculpting again. Her first work was the metal relief on her husband's tombstone. From then on, the focus of her work consisted of reliefs on doors, processional crosses, altars, tombstones, etc. She hardly ever made sacred devices such as those she had made in Hildesheim.

Eva Leo has two children: Christopher Leo (* 1941, political scientist) and Monica Leo (* 1944, puppeteer).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ History of Harjes, page 5, 2nd photo in the middle
  2. ↑ St. Petri Church (Bad Bodenteich) #Crucifix and altar candlesticks
  3. ↑ Uwe Gleßmer and Alfred lamp: Church building in the Alsterdorf Institutions . Books on Demand , Norderstedt 2016, ISBN 978-3-7392-1298-2 , pp. 90 f .
  4. ^ Evidence of the marriage: Yearbook of the Society for Church History of Lower Saxony, Volume 93, 1995

Web links

Commons : Eva Dittrich  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Dittrich, Eva
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Leo, Eva (married name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German and American master metal sculptor
DATE OF BIRTH December 2, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Diepholz
DATE OF DEATH April 10, 1998
Place of death Dubuque , Iowa