Fritz Hirsch (building historian)

Fritz Hirsch with his wife and child (1910)

Fritz Hirsch (actually Friedrich Hirsch ; born April 21, 1871 in Konstanz ; † July 18, 1938 in Baden-Baden ) was a German building historian , architect and pioneer of state preservation of monuments .

life and work

Fritz Hirsch's father Nathan was a manufacturer in Constance, his mother Ida, née Moos, came from a merchant family in Buchau . Originally Israelite, his parental home was non-denominational. In 1889 Fritz graduated from high school in Konstanz and began studying architecture and art history in Karlsruhe and Munich. In Karlsruhe in 1889 he joined the Germania fraternity (now Teutonia ). From 1895 he worked as a construction trainee at the district building inspections of Konstanz and Heidelberg and received his doctorate in Heidelberg in 1897 on the baroque sculptor Hans Morinck . In the same year he accepted a teaching position at the building trade school in Lübeck .

In 1900 he became a government master builder ( assessor ) in Heidelberg, in 1905 a district building inspector in Bruchsal. The extensive renovation of Bruchsal Castle and St. Peter's Church under his direction in the years up to 1909 was groundbreaking for modern state building and art monument maintenance. He radically broke with the romanticizing and eclectic working style of the imperial era and replaced it with an exact study of sources as well as analysis and documentation of what was found. So he reconstructed the colored baroque facades with the help of paint residues and archive materials . From 1913 Fritz Hirsch lived with his family in Karlsruhe and was responsible for restoration and restoration as a structural engineering consultant at the Baden Ministry of Finance . a. of Schwetzingen Palace and Gardens , Rastatt Palace and Court Church , City Church and Mint in Karlsruhe and the Constance Minster. In 1918 he was promoted to Ministerialrat at the Baden Ministry of Finance. From 1920 he held an honorary professorship at the Technical University of Karlsruhe and taught history of architecture and Christian art. In Baden he was also a building consultant for the Evangelical High Church Council. From 1921 the family lived in the house of the court garden director designed by Heinrich Hübsch around 1850 between the State Art Gallery and the Botanical Garden in Karlsruhe.

Fritz Hirsch was married to Anna, née Bornschein (1878–1929). The couple had a son, Peter, born in Bruchsal in 1910. In 1939 he emigrated to the USA and changed his family name to Hurst. Anna brought a daughter into the marriage, the future actress Anneliese Born (-Schoenhals).

Hirsch's work as an architect is unspectacular and not very extensive. Received is z. B. the 1928–1930 built student house of today's University of Karlsruhe (KIT) . According to his design, the pilgrimage church of Our Lady in Todtmoos in the Black Forest was expanded and a new tower was added.

Hirsch became known for his authoritative treatises on the history of architecture. Perhaps his three best-known works are:

• The Konstanzer Häuserbuch vol. 1 (1906). At the festive handover to the Grand Duke of Baden , however, only the colleague Konrad Beyerle received medals and honors
• Richly illustrated The Bruchsal Castle: on the occasion of its renovation (1900–1909) with the panel part, called the deer folder , an important source work on the subject , especially after the war destruction
• The two-volume work on Karlsruhe's architectural and cultural history, 100 Years of Building and Looking , of which a large part of the deliveries that appeared after 1933 must have fallen victim to the vandalism of Nazi authorities.

Hirsch was also editor of the magazine for the history of architecture (published with supplements 1907–1925).

To his plans for a color redesign z. B. from Schwetzingen Castle or the red and white facade of the Karlsruhe Mint there were angry controversies in 1930/1931 and savage attacks on the construction officer Hirsch, who was described as ambitious and irritable, z. Sometimes with anti-Semitic undertones. In January 1933 the university withdrew his teaching post "for reasons of savings", in April 1933 he was forced out of all offices by the Nazis because of his Jewish descent and withdrew to Baden-Baden (around the beginning of 1934).

In the obituary notice of July 20, 1938, a benevolent voice had its say: “An upright man had to leave his life's work too early, which was dedicated to his homeland. Prof. Dr. Fritz Hirsch, Grand Ducal Ministerial Councilor a. D., honorary citizen of the cities of Bruchsal and Schwetzingen, honorary senator of the University of Freiburg i. Br., Knight of high order ”.

The city of Bruchsal named a Fritz-Hirsch-Straße after its honorary citizen.

Fonts

• Hans Morinck. (= Special copy from the Repertory for Art History, Volume XX, Issue 4). Spemann, Berlin / Stuttgart 1897.
• From the university buildings in Heidelberg: a contribution to the building history of the city. Winter, Heidelberg 1903.
• The architectural and art monuments of the Free and Hanseatic City of Lübeck. Edited by the building authorities. Part 2.1: The Petrikirche. Nöhring, Lübeck [1905].
• Constance house book. Volume 1: Building and House Construction. Winter, Heidelberg 1906.
• The Bruchsal Castle: on the occasion of its renovation (1900–1909). Winter, Heidelberg 1910.
• Balthasar Neumann's so-called sketchbook. A contribution to the characteristics of the master and the philosophy of architecture. Winter, Heidelberg 1912.
• The way to art with special consideration of the study of architecture. Winter, Heidelberg 1922.
• Rastatt: castle and city. Volume 1: The topography. Winter, Heidelberg 1923.
• 100 years of building and viewing. A book for everyone who deals with architecture out of love or because their job wants it to be. At the same time a contribution to the art topography of the Grand Duchy of Baden with special consideration of the royal seat of Karlsruhe. Badenia, Karlsruhe 1928–1938. Digitized at the Baden State Library

Well-known buildings

Villa Kussmaulstrasse 10 in Heidelberg

• KIT Karlsruhe student house
• Clinics in Bruchsal, Heidelberg and Freiburg
• Former land surveying office with official residential building in Bühl / Baden, Alban-Stolz-Straße 2–4, built in 1926
• Villa for Rudolf Sillib , Kussmaulstrasse 10 in Heidelberg, built in 1901.

literature

• Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume II: Artists. Winter, Heidelberg 2018, ISBN 978-3-8253-6813-5 , pp. 332–334.
• Wolfgang Leiser: Friedrich Hirsch. In: Baden biographies . New series, Volume 1. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1982, pp. 172-175. visible in the entry Hirsch, Friedrich on discover regional studies online - leobw; accessed on April 4, 2019
• Hermann Rückleben: Evangelical Jewish Christians in Karlsruhe 1715–1945. In: Heinz Schmitt (Ed.): Jews in Karlsruhe. Contributions to their history up to the Nazi seizure of power. Badenia, Karlsruhe 1988, p. 368 f.
• Josef Werner: swastika and Jewish star. The fate of the Karlsruhe Jews in the Third Reich. 2nd Edition. Badenia, Karlsruhe 1990, p. 49 ff.
• Hirsch, Fritz , in: Ulrike Wendland: Biographical manual 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 , p. 307f.

Web links

• Literature by and about Fritz Hirsch in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Baden biographies. New series, Volume 1. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1982, p. 174.