Fritz Loeffler

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Fritz Löffler (born September 12, 1899 in Dresden ; † May 15, 1988 ibid) was a German art historian and literary scholar who made a special contribution to the preservation and documentation of the architectural monuments of his hometown Dresden.

Life

Fritz Löffler's house in the southern suburb of Dresden, where he lived for 30 years until his death
The grave of Fritz Löffler in the Outer Plauen cemetery in Dresden.

Fritz Löffler was born in 1899 as the son of a pharmacist. After attending primary school and, from 1910, the König-Georg-Gymnasium in Dresden, he became a soldier in the 2nd Royal Saxon Foot Artillery Regiment 19 in the First World War . After the end of the war he passed his Abitur and then began studying German , art history , music history , Romance studies , theater history and classical archeology in Jena , Berlin , Greifswald , Florence and Munich . In 1927 he received his doctorate in German in Munich with the dissertation The epic work of Eduard von Keyserling . He then worked as an assistant at the Dresden City Museum .

Löffler was interested in culture in many ways and was friends with Otto Dix , Hans Theo Richter and Theodor Däubler , whose estate he managed, among others . He was a supporter of modern artists, whom he helped to gain exhibition opportunities and public attention. Among other things, Löffler worked as a secretary for the Dresden Secession in 1932 . In 1937 he was dismissed from his position by the National Socialist city ​​councilors for “promoting left and degenerate art ”, although he had been a member of the SA since 1934 and a member of the NSDAP since 1937. Afterwards he was responsible for Saxon literature at the “ Heimatwerk Sachsen ” and from 1939 he served again as a soldier on the Western Front before moving to Krakow in 1942 due to professional persecution in his homeland . Here he organized exhibitions of German artists on behalf of the National Socialist government of the General Government .

In 1945, after Dresden was destroyed by Allied air raids , Löffler was returned to the city's service and was then responsible for looking after and returning the evacuated art treasures in Muskau , where he saw the end of the war. In 1947 he was released without notice without giving any reason. In 1946 and 1949 he organized the all-German 1st and 2nd German Art Exhibition in Dresden.

Löffler worked for the Dresden State Art Collections until 1951 and then worked at the State Office for Monument Preservation in Saxony until his retirement in 1967 . During this time he consistently campaigned for the preservation and reconstruction of architecturally and historically significant ruins of the city. Even after his retirement, Löffler continued to work as a writer and journalist and published, among other things, monographs on Dresden artists of the 20th century, such as Otto Dix, Josef Hegenbarth , Johannes Beutner and Bernhard Kretzschmar . His most important work for Dresden was Das alten Dresden , which first appeared in 1955 and was published in its 16th edition in 2006. In it, Löffler traces the architectural development of Dresden in detail up to 1945. In 1983 Löffler was awarded the Martin Andersen Nexö Art Prize of the City of Dresden, which was awarded annually “for outstanding achievements in the fields of fine arts, literature and music”.

Löffler died in Dresden in 1988 and found his final resting place in the Outer Plauen cemetery . His written estate is kept in the SLUB Dresden . Löffler left the works of art in his possession to the State Art Collections. In front of his apartment at Liebigstrasse 29, where Löffler lived for around 30 years, a plaque commemorates him today. It was created by Wieland Förster and unveiled on the occasion of Löffler's 100th birthday in 1999. It bears the quote from Theodor Däublers “The world reconciles and drowns out the spirit”.

Act

The monument conservator Fritz Löffler

Ruins of the Albert Theater, 1947
Tower of St. John's Church, 1951

Together with the Institute for Monument Preservation, Löffler consistently campaigned for the preservation and reconstruction of the ruins of historical buildings such as the Dresden Zwinger , Dresden Castle and the Frauenkirche . For this, he was branded by the socialist rulers and above all the Lord Mayor of Dresden Walter Weidauer as a “preventer of socialist cultural policy”, but at the same time he was known beyond national borders through his publications in the daily press. While some ruins could be saved from demolition, in other cases Löffler's efforts were futile.

Among other things, Löffler campaigned for the preservation of the Dresden Albert Theater , which he saw as one of the few remaining buildings from the late 19th century and thus “as evidence” of the architecture of that time. The theater, whose outer walls were preserved in 1945, was demolished by 1950.

When representatives of the building department of the city of Dresden wanted to decide at short notice about the demolition of the almost intact tower of the Johanneskirche in 1952 , Löffler took part in the consultation without being asked and immediately protested against the demolition. It was officially formulated the following day by the State Monuments Office and the State Church Office as well as the architect Wolfgang Rauda and the planned demolition was then suspended. Because - among other things - the regional church office could not cover the costs of maintaining the church tower, the tower of the Johanneskirche was blown up at the beginning of April 1954.

Löffler saw the task of the preservation of monuments in "bringing the traditional artistic values ​​as expressively as possible to a vivid effect". This meant the preservation or restoration of buildings in their original state free of modern additions. Löffler therefore opposed, for example, the restoration of the interior of the Dresden Kreuzkirche in the neo-baroque-art nouveau style that the church had received from 1900.

Working as a chronicler and "The old Dresden"

Löffler is considered a "chronicler of Dresden art history" with works such as Das alten Dresden and Der Zwinger .

Löffler's main work Das alten Dresden first appeared in 1955 and was published for the 16th time in 2006. The creation of the book was inspired by the Institute for Theory and History of Architecture , a department of the German Building Academy (East). The painter and photographer Edmund Kesting was to take care of the illustrations . Originally, however, several authors were planned to draw up an outline of the building history of Dresden, taking into account the connection with folk culture. The Sachsenverlag in Dresden called in for this project , however, quickly had concerns when it became clear that Löffler would be the sole author of the book and reported to Berlin that Löffler would certainly do an excellent job, but that they would then do their "writing work" Have to "check very carefully". The collaboration with Kesting came to an end, state monument conservator Joachim Uhlitzsch withdrew his support and Fritz Löffler took the task into his own hands. The Institute for Theory and History of Architecture strongly supported the project and also emphasized to the President of the Bauakadamie the possible sale in West Germany. On March 8, 1955, Sachsenverlag signed a contract with Löffler as sole author.

With collegial help from the preservationists and the support of the Deutsche Fotothek , Löffler, who had also taken over the selection of the image material, was able to finish the book in the same year. 17,000 copies were printed, 20,000 had originally been planned. The book met with great interest in Dresden in particular and a second edition with 13,000 copies was published as early as 1956. The technical quality of the work was officially recognized, but at the same time Löffler was accused of having only delivered a “formal-scientific investigation” which “is not able to [...] go into more detail about the problem of the connection between these facts and the social development ”. The Dresden party leadership lacked an indictment in Löffler's book against "the arsonists who are doing nuclear armament in West Germany today."

Despite this criticism, Das alten Dresden was able to appear in a new edition in 1958, expanded from 411 to 426 pages. It was not until the fourth edition was published in 1962 that there were serious disputes between the publisher and the SED -given Zentrales Druckerei-, Purchasing and Auditing Society , which no longer wanted to make paper available for printing. Both the publisher and Löffler complained to the Ministry of Culture , which had not been informed about the process , so that the fourth edition could still appear. Sachsenverlag then passed the publication on to VEB E. A. Seemann, Buch- und Kunstverlag Leipzig , which printed the fifth edition in 1966. This edition appeared even though Dresden politics under Mayor Weidauer had described Löffler's work as "harmful to the city's cultural policy."

After a long break, which also had to do with Löffler's difficult collaboration with the publisher - the editor later wrote parts of manuscripts that were handwritten and sent in many individual deliveries - an edition of 25,000 copies was published in 1982. 40 percent of this was intended for export. Löffler had made no concessions regarding the inclusion of socialist formulas. A publisher's report on the sixth edition stated: "Of course, the wish that the author would have incorporated certain statements about economic and social-historical facts and developments into the general social framework [...] had to remain unfulfilled."

In 1990 the tenth edition of the "old Dresden" appeared, until 2006 the book was published six more times. The editions published after Löffler's death were only expanded to include a list of renamed streets, and the chronicle only added the most recent history of the buildings described. Otherwise his work remained unchanged even in the bibliography. The Saxon state curator Gerhard Glaser justified this as follows:

“His book about old Dresden is part of his life and has become a monument in itself. […] Because with this book it was not only possible to preserve the ashes, but also to pass the flame on, as Ricarda Huch once put it with regard to dealing with history, it should now remain unchanged - just as its author left us . "

Political disputes

Löffler's commitment to the preservation of the Sophienkirche brought him into conflict with the socialist rulers. Löffler had created an enemy, especially in Lord Mayor Walter Weidauer, who publicly discredited him. At the 4th meeting of the Dresden SED city council in 1958, Weidauer attacked Löffler personally:

“On the one hand, there is talk of the restoration of all churches and nobody should dare to prevent it from going ahead. At the moment there are quite a number of comrades who unfortunately repeatedly support the cause. Mr. Löffler is also one of those who wants to radically deny everything to the working class. "

- Walter Weidauer 1958

In 1959, Löffler informed the regional church office of the imminent demolition of the Sophienkirche, which was initially prevented by a protest note to the municipal building office. Despite international protests, the Sophienkirche was demolished in 1962/1963.

Weidauer, from whom the sentence “Socialist Dresden needs neither churches nor baroque facades” has been handed down, and Löffler were involved in disputes from the late 1940s, for example Weidauer attacked Löffler in 1958 during a city council meeting. In 1957 Löffler published his essay 250 Years of Dresden Picture Gallery , in which he thanked Hubert Ermisch for his commitment to the preservation of the Semper building, since "the burned-out building, a term for art lovers around the world, [...] sacrificed the pickaxe while ignoring its meaning should be]". Weidauer described Löffler's testimony as "defamation [directed] only against the new state and its leadership and against the Soviet military administration at the time. There is no real word in the matter. ”Today's findings prove Löffler right, who turned to Otto Grotewohl for insults . Weidauer was asked to comment. He reported that Löffler had made derogatory comments about the reconstruction of Dresden and said, among other things, that the Americans had destroyed Dresden and the "new masters" destroyed Dresden. Löffler had to face a discussion lasting several hours in the Dresden City Hall , where he regretted having been misunderstood and had to repeat this in writing anyway later before the district day and before a staff meeting. He saw it as a "degradation of my person" planned from the beginning and summed up in June 1958:

“[I] am interrogated, oppressed, depressed for hours, and my work is publicly degraded. I'm just an out of tune instrument. The months of excitement have weakened my health so much that I don't know how long I'll be able to work. Under such circumstances it is difficult to lead an existence as a responsible person. "

- Fritz Löffler, June 1958

The last public controversy between Weidauer and Löffler took place in 1966 in connection with Löffler's book Das alten Dresden . Löffler was also attacked publicly under Lord Mayor Gerhard Schill . The arguments with Weidauer did not end until his death in 1986, which Löffler noted with the comment “My arch enemy is gone”.

Appreciation

Memorial plaque from Wieland Förster in front of Fritz Löffler's house in Dresden

In 1993, Dresden's Juri-Gagarin-Strasse was renamed Fritz-Löffler-Strasse . Löffler also gave its name to Fritz-Löffler-Platz and the Fritz-Löffler-Gymnasium, which was dissolved in 2007 . The street, square and school are located in the southern suburb of Dresden , where Löffler's former home is still located today. In 2000 he was voted one of the “100 Dresdeners of the 20th Century” in the daily newspaper “ Dresdner Latest News ”.

Publications (selection)

  • 1928: The epic work of Eduard v. Keyserlings (= dissertation)
  • 1936: The Körnerhaus in Dresden
  • 1938: Saxon heads in a contemporary image (with Gert Adriani and Franz Schubert)
  • 1951: Pillnitz Palace and Park
  • 1955: The old Dresden. History of his buildings (16th edition 2006)
  • 1957: The Zwinger: a monument to the Dresden Baroque
  • 1959: Josef Hegenbarth
  • 1960: Otto Dix. life and work
  • 1964: Hans Jüchser: Portrait of an artist
  • 1968: Dresden picture book (illustrations by Ernst Hassebrauk )
  • 1971: Ida Bienert and her collection
  • 1972: Dresden as it was
  • 1973: The city churches in Saxony
  • 1976: The Kreuzkirche in Dresden
  • 1976: The Zwinger in Dresden (5th edition 2004)
  • 1978: Dresden (city district) . In: Fate of German Monuments in the Second World War. A documentation of the damage and total losses in the area of ​​the GDR . Edited by Götz Eckardt. Henschelverlag, Berlin 1978. Volume 2. pp. 372-443
  • 1979: Ernst Hassebrauk (1905–1974)
  • 1979: Hans Theo Richter, drawings
  • 1979: Paul Wilhelm, a painter from Greiz
  • 1981: Otto Dix 1891-1969. Oeuvre of paintings
  • 1984: The Frauenkirche in Dresden (revised)
  • 1985: Bernhard Kretzschmar
  • 1986: Otto Dix. Images of the Bible and legends, transience and death
  • 1986: Otto Dix and the war
  • 1987: Johannes Beutner

literature

  • Fritz Loeffler . In: Folke Stimmel, Reinhardt Eigenwill and others: Stadtlexikon Dresden . Verlag der Kunst, Dresden 1994, p. 260.
  • Elisabeth Hütter: Fritz Löffler (1899–1988). In: Denkmalpflege in Sachsen 1, 1997, pp. 39–46.
  • Sigrid Walther (Ed.): Fritz Löffler 1899–1988. A life for art and monument preservation in Dresden . Sandstein, Dresden 1999, ISBN 3-930382-31-8 .
  • Liane Burkhardt: Fritz Löffler (1899–1988) . In: Kunstchronik 53, 2000, pp. 150–152.
  • Short biography for:  Löffler, Fritz . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Quoted from: Gerhard Glaser : Foreword to the 14th edition of Das alten Dresden. Leipzig 1999.
  2. ↑ Quoted from: Meyers Taschenlexikon Writers of the GDR . Leipzig 1974, p. 651.
  3. ↑ Ingrid Wenzkat: Dialogue between world and spirit? For the preservationist and art historian Fritz Löffler on his 100th birthday . In: Dresdner Latest News , 11./12. September 1999.
  4. ^ Matthias Lerm : Farewell to old Dresden . Hinstorff, Rostock 2000. p. 82.
  5. ^ Matthias Lerm: Farewell to old Dresden . Hinstorff, Rostock 2000, p. 161.
  6. ↑ Cf. Matthias Lerm: Farewell to old Dresden . Hinstorff, Rostock 2000, p. 276, FN. 28.
  7. ↑ Fritz Löffler . In: Folke Stimmel, Reinhardt Eigenwill et al .: Stadtlexikon Dresden . Verlag der Kunst, Dresden 1994, p. 260.
  8. ↑ a b c d Ingrid Wenzkat: Fritz Löffler: 'Das alten Dresden'. On the history of the impact of a book . In: Holger Starke (Hrsg.): History of the city of Dresden. Volume 3: From the founding of the empire to the present . Konrad Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 978-3-8062-1928-9 , pp. 629-634 .
  9. ↑ Peter Carstens: The second destruction of Dresden. After the bombs came the ideologues. Party dictatorship against the bourgeoisie . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . February 19, 2000, p. Images and Times, I .
  10. ^ Matthias Lerm: Farewell to old Dresden . Hinstorff, Rostock 2000, p. 183.
  11. ↑ Astrid Pawassar: Dresdens Weg: As then, only more beautiful . In: The Parliament . Issue 17/18, April 16, 2007.
  12. ↑ a b c d e Quoted from: The resistance of the individual. Fritz Löffler versus Walter Weidauer . In: Dresdner Latest News . 8/9 February 1992, p. 21.
  13. ↑ 100 Dresden residents of the 20th century . In: Dresdner Latest News . Dresdner Nachrichten GmbH & Co. KG, Dresden December 31, 1999, p. 22 .
personal data
SURNAME Löffler, Fritz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German art historian and literary scholar
DATE OF BIRTH September 12, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH Dresden
DATE OF DEATH May 15, 1988
Place of death Dresden