Hanno Hahn

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Hanno and Ilse Hahn in Ostia Antica in April 1960

Hanno Hahn (born April 9, 1922 in Berlin-Dahlem ; † August 29, 1960 in Mars-la-Tour , France ) was a German art historian and architectural researcher. The discovery of the laws of proportion of the Cistercian - architecture made in the 12th century it known worldwide among experts.

biography

Hanno Hahn was born in 1922 in Berlin-Dahlem as the only son of the German chemist Otto Hahn and his wife, the art teacher and painter Edith Junghans (1887–1968) . His godparents were Lise Meitner and Otto von Baeyer . In 1936 he was Pastor Martin Niemoller in the historic St. Anne's Church in Dahlem confirmed . After graduating from high school at the humanistic Arndt-Gymnasium , he studied theater studies , German and philosophy at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin for two semesters from 1940 and made his debut in smaller roles at the Berlin State Theater , alongside Gustaf Gründgens and Bernhard Minetti . In 1942 he became a soldier and received officer training in Tours (France). Then immediately ordered to the Eastern Front, he was quickly promoted to lieutenant and deployed as a tank commander (including in the Battle of the Dnepr ). Highly decorated (including a tank battle badge , assault badge and two iron crosses ), he was seriously wounded near Pietrow in April 1944 (17 shrapnel) and immediately evacuated to the west. In the Sambir field hospital ( Ukraine ), his left arm had to be amputated as a result of severe sepsis . There he met his future wife, the surgical nurse Ilse Pletz (born April 19, 1920, daughter of the teachers Arthur and Margarethe Pletz from Frankfurt), who saved Hanno Hahn from certain death through her medical experience and her courageous intervention. In May 1945 Hanno Hahn and Ilse Pletz married in Tailfingen (Württemberg). Their son Dietrich was born in Frankfurt am Main on April 14, 1946, exactly between his parents' birthdays . After Hanno Hahn initially resumed his studies in cultural studies at the University of Tübingen , he moved to the University of Frankfurt am Main in 1946, where he studied art history , classical archeology , philosophy and Italian philology .

Architectural history

In 1949 he spent two semesters at the Scuola Normale Superiore and the University in Pisa , where his special interest in Italian art and architectural history was awakened. Hanno Hahn used the semester break on extensive study and research trips throughout Europe, but mainly to France and Spain and within Italy.

Eberbach Monastery. Abbey church from the southwest, approx. 1885. Photograph by Albrecht Meydenbauer

1953 Hanno Hahn at Harald Keller at the University of Frankfurt with a dissertation on The Church of the Cistercian - Abbey Eberbach in the Rheingau and the Romanesque religious architecture of the Cistercians in the 12th century doctorate , with the generally rare and of his professor twenty years after Teaching activity for the first time awarded the title 'opus eximium'.

Hahn's working method aptly characterizes an analysis by his teacher and doctoral supervisor Harald Keller:

“He made observations on this Eberbach monument that should have been discovered for 50 years. So he came to the reconstruction of Eberbach I. Then he moved out to look for this reconstructed building in other European countries. He really found it, both in religious churches in the soft landscape of Rome and at the foot of the Pyrenees . What I particularly like about Hahn's research method is that he always starts from the graphic object and develops the wealth of his thoughts from it. He never approaches the material with preconceived ideas. "

After a year as a trainee at the Städelschen Kunstinstitut in Frankfurt am Main, where Hahn worked intensively with Adam Elsheimer and his school, he was appointed to the Bibliotheca Hertziana in Rome in 1955 , initially as a scholarship holder and, after the death of Heinrich M. Schwarz in 1957 , as head of the 'Department for Southern Italian Art Research'. In the summer of 1957, Hahn's main work, The early Cistercian Church Architecture , appeared in Berlin , in which he demonstrated and described in detail the laws of proportions of Cistercian architecture of the 12th century that he had discovered . The book became widely known, received worldwide reviews, and became a classic of medieval architectural history.

Travel - u. a. Israel 1959

As early as 1955 he accepted an invitation from the American Ford Foundation and accompanied his father Otto Hahn on a five-week trip to the USA (including New York , Washington, DC , Chicago , Berkeley and San Francisco ). In 1959, Hanno Hahn, along with the biochemist Feodor Lynen and the nuclear physicist Wolfgang Gentner , was the only humanities scholar to belong to the official delegation of the Max Planck Society to Israel ( Weizmann Institute of Science , Rehovot ) led by Otto Hahn , in order to make the first scientific contacts to socialize with Israeli colleagues (including Vera Weizmann , the widow of the state founder Chaim Weizmann , and professors Abba Eban , Yigael Yadin , Giulio Racah and Yehuda Hirshberg from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem ). The appearance of Otto Hahn and his delegation in Israel, six years before the establishment of diplomatic relations, marked a turning point in the relationship between Israel and Germany and made a significant contribution to overcoming the deep rifts between the two states caused by the Holocaust and the Nazi crimes. Since 1989, this trip has been recognized as a “ historic event ” in several commemorative events in Israel and Germany - each in the presence of Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker and Haim Harari , President of the Weizmann Institute.

On March 4, 1960, Hanno Hahn from Rome wrote his father Otto Hahn one of the last letters to Göttingen:

“My dear birthday father!

You can't write particularly successful letters on an appointment, and so I see black for this one, because I'm not 'in'. You will believe my especially good wishes for the renewed occasion even without many words: All the best! My 'sensible' but meager book present is a small sign with which you can perhaps deal with pleasure in a quiet hour and safely in a blue haze.

I have had an unproductive period for a while now and have been disaffected as a result. I can actually be quite satisfied when I compare myself with everyone else. After all, z. At the moment four of my publications are in print, albeit all smaller. My edition of the completely fragmentary essay by Schwarz, which was supplemented and annotated for the Festschrift, my own Festschrift essay, the Boehringer Book (where at least I pushed through my text of almost 50 pages with 36 text images against the original intention of the editors ) and a long in-depth book review in ' Kunstchronik ', which is a lot of work.

And when you then, in this nice group of colleagues, in this wonderful apartment at the end of the Spanish Steps , with your own car as a recent improvement in life and in the awareness that you are obviously popular and recognized (also outside of the Hertziana, you can tell) the development of the last Traced back years, one can confidently be in good spirits, even at Scirocco .

And this feeling, which prevails in me, dear papa, you also like about your '81. ' be a joy. - Always, your Hanno "

death

After attending a congress in Bath , southern England, and a subsequent study trip through northern France, Hanno and Ilse Hahn suffered a car accident on August 29, 1960 near Mars-la-Tour (Lorraine), in which Hanno Hahn was fatally injured. Ilse Hahn was transferred to the Clinique des Mînes in Briey with two cervical spine fractures , but died shortly afterwards on September 7, 1960.

“No sooner had I gained some distance from my term in office than the worst blow that fate can hold in store for a father. My son Hanno lost his life while driving through France. In the vicinity of Mars-la-Tour the tire on a front wheel had burst, so that the car overturned and Hanno was thrown out. He was dead on the spot. My daughter-in-law Ilse only survived the accident of August 29th by a few days, then she, too, was relieved of her severe suffering forever. "

- Otto Hahn

On September 16, 1960, Federal President Theodor Heuss wrote to Hahn:

"Dear dear friend,

I was out for a few days - among the mass of letters that awaited me, the only thing that moved me was the tragedy that had broken into your family. I cannot look for words of 'consolation', as is so usual, but only say that I am with your wife and you in the most heartfelt compassion in my thinking.

A friendly conversation I had with your son on your 80th birthday gave me a sense of his human and scientific standing - but to speak of it is almost absurd in the pain you, your family, your friends have after this terrible one Customer moves and has to move. I just want to be able to say how much, dear dear friend, I share in your and your wife's grief.

As always - Your Theodor Heuss "

At the central commemoration of the Bibliotheca Hertziana on October 28, 1960, the director of the institute, Professor Franz Graf Wolff-Metternich , stated , among other things:

“The architecture of the Cistercians is an almost inexhaustible topic for the architectural researcher. Hanno Hahn has not only added a valuable building block to the extensive literature, but has also largely broken new ground by refining the analysis and using new ways of looking at and presenting Cistercian research. He was made for his job as an art historian, especially as a building researcher: keen observation and fine empathy, artistic intuition and clear mathematical thinking, in other words ratio and feeling were balanced; in addition there was diligence and that 'perseverantia', which the builder of this house, Federico Zuccari , symbolically depicted twice on the frescoes of the sala terrena as one of the leading virtues of the artist and the scholar , that perseverance that Hanno Hahn already in the war, but specifically in the unspeakable times of suffering after the wounding, he was able to endure the hardest.

His joyful, adventurous temperament allowed him to experience beautiful things directly, he knew how to be happy and to share his joy with others, to vividly describe what he saw and experience, to describe and explain works of art in word and writing, he had a pronounced pedagogical gift, his eye enthusiastic, his word convinced. Hahn was free of intellectual arrogance, always ready to provide any help, even the most modest, even manual. The art-historical discipline loses with him a professional who had just hopefully crossed the threshold of his final scientific living space, the Hertziana working group a loyal comrade. "

And Stephan Waetzoldt , who later became General Director of the Berlin State Museums of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation , added:

“What else was to be expected from him! How intensively he had familiarized himself with the research area entrusted to him! But how much it meant to everyone who worked in the Hertziana; he was always ready to postpone his own pressing projects in order to discuss the problems of others - scientific and personal - and reluctantly to give his wise advice. None of this would have been possible without his wife. Perhaps it is fortunate for herself that she was not left alone; For all of us, who we knew and loved Hanno and Ilse Hahn, this makes the misfortune even more incomprehensible. "

In the summer of 1961, Hanno Hahn's second book about the Hohenstaufen castles in southern Italy was published posthumously , with panels by the important photographer Albert Renger-Patzsch , a main exponent of the New Objectivity .

Hahn's successor as head of the Southern Italy Section (until 1970) was Günter Urban , a friend of Hahn's study in Frankfurt am Main and Pisa.

To commemorate Hanno and Ilse Hahn and to promote young talented art historians, the Hanno and Ilse Hahn Prize was created in 1990 for “outstanding services to Italian art history”, which is awarded every two years by the directors and the Trustees of the Bibliotheca Hertziana in Rome.

Publications (selection)

  • Strange nursery for our 'Muzie' - a true story . In: Our cat - Germany's first cat magazine . 13th year, issue 3, March 1939. pp. 42–43. (Verlag Mensch und Tier, Berlin W 35).
  • The fear of the shock - thoughts on the modern in art . In: Studentische Blätter , Tübingen. No. 6, 1947. pp. 1-6.
  • Patron saint of Paris . In: Deutsche Universitätszeitung (DUZ), Göttingen. Volume 7, 1952. pp. 12-14.
  • Report on excavations in front of the west facade of the monastery church Eberbach in the Rheingau. In: Nassauische Heimatblätter , 42, 1952. pp. 44–49.
  • The church of the Cistercian Abbey of Eberbach and the Romanesque architecture of the Cistercians in the 12th century. Author's lecture. In: Nassauische Annalen , 64, 1953. pp. 113-115.
  • The "high grave" and the crypt of Archbishop Gerlach of Nassau (died 1371) in the monastery church of Eberbach i. Rhg. In: Nassauische Annalen, 65, 1954. pp. 237-242. (2 figs., 2 plates).
  • The early church architecture of the Cistercians - Investigations into the architectural history of Eberbach Monastery in the Rheingau and its European analogies in the 12th century. Verlag Gebr. Mann , Berlin 1957.
  • (Review by): Lelia Fraccaro de Longhi: L'Architettura delle chiese cistercensi italiane; with particolare riferimento ad un gruppo omegeneo dell'Italia settentrionale. In: Kunstchronik , 13, 1960. pp. 77–84.
  • Paul Bril in Caprarola - (On the painting workshop of the Vatican and its broadcasts from 1570–1590) . In: Miscellanea Bibliothecae Hertzianae , Roma 1961. pp. 308–323. Verlag A. Schroll, Munich 1961. ISBN 3-7031-0163-6 .
  • (Text and images), Albert Renger-Patzsch (picture panels): Hohenstaufenburgen in southern Italy . CH Boehringer Sohn, Ingelheim am Rhein 1961. (published posthumously by Gerda S. Panofsky).

estate

The photographic estate of Hanno Hahn, taken with one of the first Leica M3 cameras (a gift with an engraved dedication from Ernst Leitz to Otto Hahn), approx. 1,630 b / w 35mm negatives on the medieval architecture of Italy, England and France, as well as older photos of the Cistercians -Building art, is in the photo library of the Bibliotheca Hertziana in Rome, the written and personal estate in the archive of his son Dietrich in Samut Sakhon, Thailand .

literature

  • Franz Graf Wolff-Metternich : Hanno and Ilse Hahn in memory. Bibliotheca Hertziana, Rome 1960 (special edition).
  • Franz Graf Wolff-Metternich: Hanno Hahn died. In: Kunstchronik , No. 14, 1961. pp. 254–256.
  • Franz Graf Wolff-Metternich: Hanno Hahn (1922–1960). In: Mitteilungen aus der MPG , No. 3, Göttingen 1961. pp. 36–37.
  • Eugenio Battisti : Hanno Hahn in memoriam. In: Palladio , No. 12, Rome 1962, pp. 63-64.
  • Eugenio Battisti: I castelli di Federico . In: Il Mondo , January 30, 1962. pp. 13-14.
  • Hans Voss: Guardian of the country . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , June 15, 1962. p. 11.
  • Dietrich Hahn : Hanno and Ilse Hahn in memoriam. A commemorative sheet for the 20th anniversary of death. Reprint 1980.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Franz Graf Wolff-Metternich: Hanno and Ilse Hahn in memory . Reprint of the Bibliotheca Hertziana, Rome 1960. p. 6.
  2. ↑ Dietrich Hahn (Ed.): Otto Hahn - Life and Work in Texts and Pictures . Foreword by Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker . Publishing house Suhrkamp-Insel, Frankfurt / Main, 1988. ISBN 3-458-32789-4 .
  3. ↑ Dietrich Hahn (Ed.): Otto Hahn - founder of the atomic age. A biography in pictures and documents. List Verlag, Munich, 1979. p. 312. ISBN 3-471-77841-1 .
  4. ↑ Otto Hahn: My life . Verlag Bruckmann, Munich 1968. p. 289.
  5. ^ Theodor Heuss to Otto Hahn, September 16, 1960 (facsimile). In: Dietrich Hahn (ed.): Otto Hahn - founder of the atomic age. A biography in pictures and documents. List Verlag, Munich 1979. p. 314. ISBN 3-471-77841-1 .
  6. ↑ Dietrich Hahn (Ed.): Otto Hahn - Life and Work in Texts and Pictures. Insel-Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1988. p. 311. ISBN 3-458-32789-4 .
  7. ^ Stephan Waetzoldt, October 28, 1960. In: Dietrich Hahn: Hanno and Ilse Hahn in memoriam . Reprint 1980.
  8. ^ Gerda Panofsky: Addenda et Corrigenda to: Erwin Panofsky : Korrespondenz 1910 to 1968. An annotated selection in five volumes. Edited by Dieter Wuttke, Volume V: Correspondence 1962 to 1968. Wiesbaden, Harrasowitz Verlag, 2001. In: Erwin Panofsky - the late years. Edited by Susanne Gramatzki and Angela Dreßen, in: Kunsttexte.de. No. 4, 2011 (60 pages) www.kunsttexte.de
  9. ↑ About Hanno and Ilse Hahn: See pages 33 ff.
personal data
SURNAME Hahn, Hanno
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German art historian and architecture researcher
DATE OF BIRTH April 9, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin-Dahlem
DATE OF DEATH August 29, 1960
Place of death Mars-la-Tour, France