François Haby

Haby with it's -is-achieved mustache on a satirical photo montage in Simplicissimus

François Haby's tombstone in the Heerstrasse cemetery

François Haby (born June 1, 1861 in Danzig ; † April 24, 1938 in Berlin ) was a German entrepreneur and court hairdresser of Kaiser Wilhelm II.

Life

In 1880, Haby, who came from a Huguenot family, came to Berlin from Königsberg and founded a hairdressing salon, which soon became successful, so that he expanded his business to include the manufacture of cosmetic products . This included beauty products with good names like the Donnerwetter beard pomade - impeccable! That shaving Wake up and Women Shampoo I can be so nice .

Haby's most famous product was the beard wax and beard bandage. It is achieved for the mustache in the manner of Kaiser Wilhelm II , the ends of which were twirled upwards ( "Kaiser Wilhelm climber" ). In order to get the desired look, the mustache was protected with the special beard bandage overnight. This beard costume became so successful in imperial Germany that Haby was appointed court hairdresser around 1890, who appeared in the castle every morning at 7 a.m. to shave and do hair and also accompanied the emperor on state visits.

In 1901, Haby had his salon on Mittelstrasse in Dorotheenstadt extensively rebuilt based on a design by Henry van de Velde . Green marble sinks, dark red mahogany veneer and a purple wall frieze were the defining elements of the furnishings. It was unusual for the time that the brass water and gas pipes were left unclad. Max Liebermann , who was a Haby customer, did not accept this: he did not like the bare metal. Nobody wears his bowels as a watch chain either, he is supposed to have noticed. Part of the salon furnishings have been preserved and are in the fund of the Stadtmuseum Berlin Foundation .

Haby was first buried in the Schöneberg St. Matthew Cemetery. When parts of the cemetery were leveled in 1938/1939 in the course of preparations for the conversion of Berlin to the “ World Capital Germania ”, Haby's remains were transferred to the Stahnsdorf south-west cemetery . But that was not the last stop. Stahnsdorf was now almost inaccessible in the GDR . That is why his family had him reburied in West Berlin , on the banks of the small Sausuhlensee, which is in the middle of the Heerstraße cemetery (grave location: 4-A-64). The grave monument, a stele made of shell limestone, originally designed in 1933 for Elly Haby nee. Barthel (1887–1932) has a bronze relief depicting a mourning woman. It is one of the few figurative representations from that time that are still preserved in the Heerstraße cemetery.

Heinrich Mann mentioned Haby and his salon in the novel The Subject .

literature

• Elisabeth Bartel: Perfect thunderstorm! Emperor, court hairdresser and beards. Edition Stadtmuseum Berlin, Verlag M - Stadtmuseum Berlin GmbH, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-939254-14-0 .

Web links

• Article on the salon furnishings received
• Hairdressing station from Haby's Salon ( Memento from June 3, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) (3 MB)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Hans-Jürgen Mende : Lexicon of Berlin burial places . Pharus-Plan, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-86514-206-1 . P. 487.
2. ↑ Birgit Jochens, Herbert May: The cemeteries in Berlin-Charlottenburg. History of the cemetery facilities and their tomb culture . Stapp, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-87776-056-2 . P. 233.