Gerhard Strauss

This article deals with the art historian Gerhard Strauss. For the theologian Gerhard Friedrich Abraham Strauss see Friedrich Strauss (theologian) .

Fritz Karl Gerhard Strauss (born October 27, 1908 in Mohrungen , East Prussia (today: Morąg , Poland ), † November 16, 1984 in Berlin ) was a German art historian and director of the Institute for Art History at the Humboldt University in Berlin .

Origin and education

Strauss was born the son of the messenger Friedrich Strauss, who was employed by the district administration, and the dairy assistant Hulda, née Harguth. His father died in World War I and his mother died in 1923. Nevertheless, it was possible that Strauss attended the secondary school in Allenstein , East Prussia . In 1928 he graduated from high school and began studying art history, archeology and geography at the University of Königsberg in the summer semester of that year . In the winter semester of 1939/1930 he continued his studies at the University of Cologne and in the summer semester of 1930 at the University of Vienna before returning to Königsberg , where he completed his doctorate in 1935 with the doctoral thesis "Plastic until 1450 in East Prussia". Phil graduated.

Professional development and social commitment

After receiving his doctorate , Strauss hired himself in the summer of 1935 as a tour guide at the Königsberg East Fair, as an insurance agent and as an exhibition supervisor at the Königsberg Museum. From November 1935 to May 1936 he worked as an employee of the Schugsten ammunition plant. and May to August 1936 in the construction management of Luftgau I.

In August 1936 he got a job as a research assistant at the Provincial Monuments Office in Königsberg until he moved to the City History Museum in Königsberg in April 1939 . In September 1939 he was drafted into the Wehrmacht . He served as a soldier in the Inf. Bat. 22, Gumbinnen and later as a sergeant in the air intelligence company Jesaub.Königsberg. In August 1941, Strauss resumed his work at the City History Museum, at the same time he was required to do military service and was called in by the Air Force as a teacher at the plant air protection service.

From 1928 to 1931 he belonged to the socialist student group in Königsberg and from 1929/1930 to the SPD . In 1932 he joined the Red Student Group and the KPD . After the dissolution of these institutions, he continued to organize the political work of the communist students in illegality. To camouflage the illegalized political work, Strauss was a member of the SA in 1934/1935 and a member of the NSDAP from 1937 to 1945 . In 1942 he was a co-founder and member of the " Herta " resistance group .

In 1945 Strauss was in Soviet captivity, which he spent on Bornholm, Stargard and in the Rossenthin camp. In the prisoner-of-war camp, he was head of anti- fascist work, the cultural department and political surveillance. In September 1945 Strauss was released and came to Berlin, where he worked as the head of the fine arts department in the German Central Administration for National Education and later as the main advisor in the GDR Ministry for National Education . In 1949/1950 he was involved in the search for the Amber Room on behalf of the SKK in Kaliningrad as a scientific expert . In 1950/1951 Strauss worked as a commissioned monument curator of the Ministry for the Construction of the GDR, where he was involved in the preparation of the scientific report in preparation of the decision of the Politburo of the SED on the demolition of the Berlin Palace.

In 1951 Strauss became an employee of the newly founded Deutsche Bauakademie (DBA), where he first worked as deputy director and from 1953 to 1958 as director of the Institute for Theory and History of Architecture. In 1958 he accepted a professorship with a full teaching position for art history at the Humboldt University in Berlin. He was director of the Institute for Art History at the HU Berlin and a corresponding member of the DBA.

From November 1962 Strauss was chairman of the German-Italian society in the GDR, from January 1963 its vice-president.

Fonts (selection)

Strauss was the founder and long-time editor of the multi-volume "Lexicon of Art. Architecture, Fine Arts, Applied Art, Industrial Form Design, Art Theory", published in several new editions by the Seemann publishing house in Leipzig.

• Free sculpture until 1450 in the area of ​​today's East Prussia west of the Passarge . Study on the history of medieval art in the Order of Prussia, Königsberg 1935/7.
• Käthe Kollwitz . Dresden: Sachsenverlag, 1950.
• Signed present. Graphic by Max Lingner , Berlin: Akademie der Künste, 1950.
• From order to mural. About the collaboration between the client and the artist, illustrated by the creation of a mural by Max Lingner . Berlin: German Academy of the Arts, 1953.
• Building historical cities in Germany. Berlin: Settlement History and Urban Studies Working Group 1956.

Web links

• Biographical information in the manual "Who was who in the GDR?"