Gertrud Kantorowicz

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Gertrud Kantorowicz (born October 9, 1876 in Posen ; † April 19/20, 1945 in Theresienstadt concentration camp ) was a German art historian and poet .

Life

Gertrud Kantorowicz was born in Poznan on October 9, 1876, the third child of a wealthy Jewish family. Her father Maks (Max) Kantorowicz (1843–1904) was the owner of the Poznan spirits factory "Hartwig Kontorowicz" and her mother was Rosalinde nee. Pauly (1854-1916). The family had numerous connections in the academic and educated middle class. A cousin Gertrude was the George circle belongs historian Ernst Kantorowicz verschwägert, she was with the also to the perimeter scoring to George economists Arthur Salz , the husband of her cousin Sophie Kantorowicz, the sister of the historian, also with the philosopher Ludwig Stein , the German studies Werner milk , the art historian Curt Glaser and the writer Emil Ludwig . In 1898 Gertrud passed the Abitur at the high school in Poznan. After completing school, she wanted to take up a scientific profession because she had a good grasp of things and was eager to learn. In 1898, against her father's wishes, she began studying at the Friedrich Wilhelms University in Berlin. Further study locations were Munich and Zurich. She completed her studies in art history, archeology and philosophy in 1903 with a dissertation supervised by Johann Rudolf Rahn “On the Master of the Emmaus Image in San Salvatore in Venice” at the University of Zurich .

During her studies in Berlin she met the poet Stefan George (1868–1933), with whom she maintained a friendly relationship for many years. From 1910 to 1911 they even shared an apartment in Berlin Westend. At his instigation, she published - as the only woman - in the magazine Blätter for the arts, run by George, poems "Eine Toten". However, it appeared under the pseudonym Gert. Pauly [di Gertrud Kantorowicz] - using the maiden name of her mother. Of the circle members, Sabine Lepsius , Margarete Susman and Edith Landmann and Karl Wolfskehl were particularly close. In Berlin, Gertrud Kantorowicz also came into closer contact with Georg Simmel , who at the time was working as an associate professor at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität and with his wife Gertrud the house in Berlin-Charlottenburg became a place of encounter and intellectual exchange well-known intellectuals. As a result, Gertrud Kantorowicz came into closer contact with the painter couple Reinhold and Sabine Lepsius , with Margarete Susman and Rudolf Pannwitz . The result was a love affair with Simmel, which resulted in their daughter Angelika (Angi), who was born in Bologna in 1907. Both hid the daughter's origins, the father refused to see his daughter. Gertrud transferred the care of Angelika to foster parents, and when visiting the foster parents' house she was considered the "godmother". She was deeply moved by the death of Georg Simmel in September 1918, and since then she has no longer felt bound by the agreement made. In 1923 she fulfilled a promise she had made by publishing previously unpublished works by Georg Simmel.

After completing her studies, Gertrud Kantorowicz mainly worked as a freelancer. She went on study trips to Italy, where she worked on research topics of the early modern period, the Quattro and Cinquecentos, made translations and wrote poetry. During the First World War she worked as a nurse in several Turkish hospitals. In 1920 she bought a house in Herrlingen near Ulm , on Wippinger Steige, and moved there with her daughter the following year. Another important reason was to be near her long-time friend Margarete Susmann (1872–1966) in the future. Here she resumed her freelance work and translated Michelangelo's sonnets, Henri Bergson's “Creative Development” and worked on her treatise “On the essence of Greek art”. When her daughter Angelika began studying in Heidelberg in 1926, she changed her place of residence. She rented the house in Herringen to the reform pedagogue Anna Esslinger (1879–1960), who was in the process of building a home with a school for Jewish children.

Gertrud Kantorowicz undertook extensive trips in the 1930s, both of which were aimed at studying, but increasingly with the aim of helping individuals persecuted by the Nazi regime to leave the country. Although the situation for the normal life of Jews in Germany worsened from 1933 onwards, she refused to face reality herself. She studied Judaism more profoundly, and as her close friend Michael Landmann reported, she refused to wear the Star of David in public. During this time she also worked in an organization disguised as a “working group for Greek studies”, to which Renata von Scheliha , Margret Schuster, Margarete Roesner, Ursula von Rose and Marianne von Herremann belonged, to help Jews and others in need of protection give. In 1937 she tried to get the writer Ernst Gundolf (1881–1945), who was imprisoned in Buchenwald concentration camp , free. To do this, she drove to Weimar and negotiated with the camp commandant there. Above all, she was concerned with finding new ways for others to take urgent steps into exile. Although Gertrud Kantorowicz had a passport with an English visa at the time, she did not use this opportunity to get herself to safety.

It was only in 1940 that she realized that there could be no future for her in the Nazi state of Germany. But from this point on, attempts to leave the country also failed. On May 7, 1942, she and four other women were arrested near Diepoldsau while trying to leave Germany across the border to Switzerland . She was interrogated for several weeks in detention and to the July 6, 1942 Theresienstadt deported . There she was one of the "steadfast" people who helped the weak to encourage courage and refused to be broken by the inhumane conditions, and she wrote her poems on small scraps of paper, which were later published as verses from Theresienstadt . A week before the arrival of the Red Army, Gertrud Kantorowicz died on April 19 or 20, 1945 of the consequences of meningitis .

Works

  • One Dead (1899)
  • About the master of the Emmaus image in San Salvatore in Venice. E. Buchbinder, Neu Ruppin 1904.
  • Michelangelo transmissions (1925/1926)
  • Verse from Theresienstadt (1942–1945), [1948], DNB 810483173 , urn : nbn: de: 101: 1-201307153119 .
  • On the essence of Greek art. Edited and with an afterword by Michael Landmann, Lambert Schneider Verlag, Heidelberg and Darmstadt 1961 (publications by the German Academy for Language and Poetry 24).

output

  • Gertrud Kantorowicz: Poetry. Critical edition. Edited by Philipp Redl. Manutius, Heidelberg 2010.

literature

  • Annette Bußmann: biography of Gertrud Kantorowicz. In: FemBio-Women Biography Research. On-line
  • Jürgen Egyptien , sister, grace, knight. Ida Coblenz, Gertrud Kantorowicz and Edith Landmann. Jewish women in the service of Stefan George. In: Castrum Peregrini 264-265, 2004, pp. 73-119
  • Michael Landmann , Gertrud Kantorowicz October 9, 1876 - April 19, 1945, in: Gertrud Kantorowicz, From the essence of Greek art (publications of the German Academy for Language and Poetry Darmstadt 24), ed. by Michael Landmann. Lambert Schneider, Heidelberg Darmstadt 1961, pp. 93-106.
  • Robert E. Lerner , Kantorowicz, Gertrud, in: Achim Aurnhammer et al. (Ed.), Stefan George and his circle. Ein Handbuch , Vol. 3. De Gruyter, Berlin Boston 2012, pp. 1478-1480.
  • Barbara Paul: Gertrud Kantorowicz (1876–1945). Art history as a life plan . In: Barbara Hahn (Hrsg.): Women in the cultural studies. From Lou Andreas-Salomé to Hannah Arendt. Munich 1994, pp. 96-109.
  • Michael Philipp, "What else if he doesn't steer". Gertrud Kantorowicz and Stefan George, in: Ute Oelmann, Ulrich Raulff (Eds.), Women around Stefan George (Castrum Peregrini New Episode 3). Wallstein, Göttingen, 2010, pp. 119–141.
  • Angela Rammsted: "We are the god who dies buried ..." Gertrud Kantorowicz and the National Socialist Terror. In: “Simmel Newsletter”, VI (1996), N. 2, pp. 135–177.
  • Angela Rammsted: Gertrud Kantorowicz and Herrlingen. In: Edition "House under the Rainbow", 2016.
  • Philipp Redl: Foreword. In: Gertrud Kantorowicz: Lyrik. Critical edition. Edited by Philipp Redl. Manutius, Heidelberg 2010, pp. 9–33.
  • Ulrike Wendland: Biographical handbook of German-speaking art historians in exile. Life and work of the scientists persecuted and expelled under National Socialism. Part 1: A – K. Saur, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-598-11339-0 , pp. 355-357.
  • Petra Zudrell (Ed.): The demolished dialogue. The intellectual relationship between Gertrud Kantorowicz and Margarete Susman or the Swiss border near Hohenems as the end point of an attempt to escape. Studien-Verlag, Innsbruck and Vienna 1999.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ On the relationship between George and Kantorowicz, cf. Michael Philipp: "What else happens if he doesn't steer". Gertrud Kantorowicz and Stefan George. In: Ute Oelmann, Ulrich Raulff (eds.): Women around Stefan George , Wallstein, Göttingen 2010, pp. 118–141.
  2. ↑ Courage to Humanity , SRF MySchool, April 28, 2015
personal data
SURNAME Kantorowicz, Gertrud
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German art historian and poet
DATE OF BIRTH October 9, 1876
PLACE OF BIRTH Poses
DATE OF DEATH April 19, 1945 or April 20, 1945
Place of death Theresienstadt ghetto