Fritz Hanel

Fritz Hanel (born June 23, 1908 in Breslau ; † August 14, 1994 in Nieder-Roden ) was a Protestant church official, set designer , book illustrator , graphic artist and painter . From 1946 to 1971 he worked full-time as a civil servant in the Westphalian state church office in Bielefeld .

Life

Fritz Hanel was born in Breslau in 1908 . During his school days at the Zwinger Gymnasium in Breslau, he began to develop his talent in painting and drawing on an autodidactic basis. There was initial recognition for the young man and his artistic decorations at school parties and performances.

After graduating from high school in 1929 during the Great Depression , he was given the opportunity to train as a church official. In 1935 he married Rose-Maria Patzak from Breslau. The couple had three children.

From 1941 to 1945 Hanel took part in the Russian campaign and was deployed in the office of an air base unit in Belarus . Because of his artistic talent, he was given the task of painting soldiers' homes in Orsha and Konotop . He also designed theater sets as part of the Wehrmacht support .

Due to a war-related injury, he was threatened with amputation of his right hand, which he was spared except for the loss of the middle finger. He learned to use a pen and brush again. The illustrated letters for his family back home are still moving documents from this period.

Seriously injured, Hanel ended up taking detours to Flensburg during the retreat of the German soldiers from Russia , where he was fortunate enough to receive help. The family reunited there even after the war ended.

In Flensburg, a group of young people who were enthusiastic and capable of art had come together. They were full of ideas for their art, full of hope for a new beginning and of being able to create new livelihoods. Hanel was also able to temporarily support himself and his family on the income he earned as a painter and graphic artist during this time.

From the late summer of 1946 to 1971 he was a full-time official at the regional church office in Bielefeld, responsible for the interests of theology students in the Evangelical Church of Westphalia; his superior there was Heinrich Reiss for years .

In his retirement he lived with his wife in Nieder-Roden near Offenbach am Main. There he devoted himself vehemently to his artistic inclination. In addition to an abundance of abstract paintings that were now created, Hanel's technical and artistic talent was repeatedly incorporated into the projects of the community, schools and youth groups. With great commitment he supported the design of community letters, posters, brochures, the expansion of youth rooms, the construction of a float on the occasion of the 1200th anniversary of his place of residence.

In project weeks he carefully guided children and young people to experience painting , to look at it and to design it themselves. After all, he continued to receive visits from former students who continued to seek his advice.

All this, his mental agility, his many interests, his art, his willingness to help were the basis for an imaginative person to retain his dignity, his humor and the enthusiasm for painting and drawing even in his arduous old age. Fritz Hanel died in 1994.

plant

Fritz Hanel started out as a stage painter and set designer . After the war he worked temporarily as a book illustrator , painter and graphic artist. He loved fairy tale and circus motifs.

During a vacation trip to Italy in 1962 , he made a series of imaginative drawings about the hustle and bustle of Venice . He brought home filled sketch pads from every vacation.

In his large-format oil paintings he detached himself more and more from representationalism and painted expressive abstract pictures, the color and dynamism of which are reminiscent of his early fairy tale and circus motifs.

During his time in Flensburg, Hanel was friends with the painter Bernard Schultze , who inspired and encouraged him in his artistic development. Fritz Hanel can also be counted as part of the art informel movement .

Book illustrations

• 1947: Andersen's fairy tales. Pictures by Fritz Hanel. Selection and processing by Albrecht Janssen. Cover design: Gisela Hesse. Globus, Hamburg 1947.
• 1948: Karl Foltz , children's songs, in words and ways , op.37.Pictures and graphic design: Fritz Hanel, Flensburg: Christian Wolff 1948.
• 1948: Karl Foltz, New Children's Songs, in Words and Weisen , op. 42. Pictures and graphic design: Fritz Hanel, Cologne: Willy Würges 1948; The water dance . pkgodzik.de. Barbara Boock writes: "Fritz Hanel's tonal color illustrations exactly match the mood that is evoked by the text and melody in the listener."

Pictures and drawings

Family owned

• 1941 ff: drawings from the time of the soldier
• 1945 ff: fairy tale motifs and: Jesus blesses the children
• 1962: Venetian impressions; Doge's Palace pkgodzik.de
• 1970 ff: Abstract oil paintings in the style of art informel ; Untitled . pkgodzik.de, 1990

Private ownership Peter Godzik

• 1946: The circus is coming (online at pkgodzik.de)
• 1947: The arrival of the princess

literature

• Barbara Boock, children's song books 1770–2000. An annotated, illustrated bibliography, Münster: Waxmann 2007, p. 208.

Trivia

Fritz Hanel is named because of the abbreviation “F. Hanel ”is often confused with the draftsman Franz Hanel and the Franconian journalist and cookbook author Franziska Hanel when doing internet research.

In the magazine Die Zeit of September 17, 1965, the journalist Peter Stähle claims that a Fritz Hanel took part in the SPD's internal election campaign in the Kaiserslautern constituency "With humor and spirit" during the election campaign for the 1965 Bundestag elections , during which around 750,000 postcards took part were sent with political caricatures of the SPD celebrities. With the cards, SPD members were supposed to encourage relatives, colleagues and neighbors to vote. He writes: “Last week, the 'Spiegel' named the 'graphic artists' Lars Aberg and Fritz Hanel as the creators of the caricatures.” However, Der Spiegel had only written about the graphic artists 'Aberg and Hanel' and meant Walter Hanel and Karl Garbe aka Lars Aberg.

swell

• Letters from Fritz Hanel to Helmut Godzik 1946–1951 (private collection)
• Letters from Fritz Hanel's daughter to Peter Godzik (private collection)

Web links

• Eckehard Schwanke: Thoughts on the painting of Fritz Hanel . In: Current community. Evangelical Church Community Nieder-Roden , July / August / September 2010, pp. 26–28 pkgodzik.de (PDF; 514 kB)
• Portrait of Fritz Hanel

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Either completely out of print or not published, as indicated in the second book of children's songs.
2. ↑ Printed in: Barbara Boock: Kinderliederbücher 1770–2000. An annotated, illustrated bibliography . Waxmann, Münster 2007, p. 208.
3. ↑ Color hand drawing by Fritz Hanel on the birth of his friend's daughter Karin Godzik in a personal letter to his eight years younger Breslau schoolmate Helmut Godzik, who lived with his family in Flensburg- Mürwik after the war . Fritz Hanel and Helmut Godzik wrote each other regularly from 1946 to 1951.
4. ↑ See: Werner Beumelburg , Barrage around Germany. With 94 images based on photographs, 121 drawings by Franz Hanel and 29 maps. Stalling Verlag, Oldenburg 1929. The interior pictures in numerous books for children and young people from Boje Verlag Stuttgart in the 1950s, which are always marked with “F. Hanel ”, as well as the text drawings in: Ernst Kabisch , Mackensen rettet Berlin, Stuttgart: Loewes Verlag Ferdinand Carl 1939. See also: book illustrations by Franz Hanel pkgodzik.de (PDF; 810 kB). Suppliers of these books on the Internet use the abbreviation “F. Hanel ”for Franz Hanel often with Fritz Hanel again, which leads to misunderstandings. Fritz Hanel actually only illustrated the two children's song books by Karl Foltz , of which the first, allegedly published by Christian Wolff Verlag Flensburg (as stated in the second), is either completely out of print or has actually never been published.
5. ↑ teachsam.de
6. ↑ buecher24.de
7. ↑ For the Pilli, that's why Willy . In: Die Zeit , No. 38/1965
8. ↑ With safety pins . In: Der Spiegel . No. 37 , 1965 ( online ).
9. ↑ Karl Garbe was head of the SPD public relations and long-time office manager at Willy Brandt and Herbert Wehner . So his books are native to every age and everyone keeps their fingers crossed for them , expressions from the vicinity of power and peppered with insider information.