Hanns Erich Koehler

Hanns Erich Köhler (also: HE Köhler , Erik ) (born April 17, 1905 in Tetschen , Böhmen ; † November 7, 1983 in Herrsching am Ammersee ) was a German graphic artist and caricaturist .

life and work

Köhler grew up in a German-Bohemian family, his father worked in the administration of a paper mill. He graduated from the Applied Arts Academy in Dresden and then worked as a draftsman in Munich . This was followed by studying at the School of Applied Arts in Vienna and working as a commercial artist in Prague . In 1938 he moved to Reichenberg , the capital of the Reichsgau Sudetenland , to soon go to Berlin . From 1943 to 1945 Köhler taught as a professor at the German University of Fine Arts in Prague. After the war he first came to Riedenburg and settled in Herrsching in 1953, where he also died.

Köhler came into contact with political drawings early on. Since the late 1930s he worked for the magazine Der Volksdeutsche and as a cartoonist - together with his friend Erich Ohser alias eo plauen - for the weekly newspaper Das Reich . Under the pseudonym Erik he was the draftsman of one of the first German comics under the name Tipp und Tapp, which had the resettlement of the Wolhynia Germans as its theme, the text came from Walter Pogge . After 1945 Köhler rose to become one of the most famous caricaturists of the early Federal Republic, u. a. he worked for decades for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and for the Munich Simplicissimus . He also published a number of books and produced advertising graphics , including the Indian for the Sioux shoe brand in 1954 . In the post-war period he mainly worked for Die Welt .

In 1955 Köhler created the internationally famous caricature of the negotiations on the Austrian State Treaty , in which the Austrian Foreign Minister Leopold Figl whispered to Chancellor Julius Raab, who was surrounded by crying Soviet delegation members, playing and singing the zither : “Now, Raab - now d'Reblaus , then sans awake! "

Köhler's estate, consisting of 4,383 works, has been in the Wilhelm Busch - German Museum for Caricature and Drawing in Hanover since 1970 .

Publications (selection)

• After the seizure ...: Political caricatures from the time of the Sudeten German struggle . Reichenberg: Stiepel (1939)
• Tip and tap, the boy and the dachshund from Volhynia: A resettlement story with colorful drawings by Erik. With cheerful verses by Walter M. Pogge. Berlin: Publishing House Border and Abroad, 1941.
• Pardon is not given , Hanover 1957
• Who would have thought of us in 1959
• Great Germans . Munich: Bassermann, 1973
• The state of the nation: [with 111 illustrations based on caricatures in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung from 1958 to 1974] . Introduction by Nikolas Benckiser. Frankfurt (Main): Societäts-Verlag, 1974
• Our ancestors, the Teutons: 45 drawings for Tacitus' Germania ; (Latin-German). Freiburg im Breisgau, Basel, Vienna: Herder, 1976.
• Teufel, Teufel: 35 graphic interpretations of the incarnate . Oldenburg (inter alia): Stalling, 1980.
• Moritaten, Moritaten! True, terrible incidents one admirable. Publico even skilfully written for doctrine / and recorded to the general understanding in pictures to provided with singable notes of ... . Munich: Droemersche Verlagsanstalt Knaur, 1985
• O holy bureaucratic !: caricatures about the tax . Freiburg im Breisgau (inter alia): Herder, 1982.
• Without fear, with rebuke . Munich: Heyne, 1982

literature

• Walter Kleindel: The great book of the Austrians . Kremayr & Scheriau, Vienna 1987

Web links

• Literature by and about Hanns Erich Köhler in the catalog of the German National Library

Examples of Koehler cartoons

• Estate of Hanns Erich Köhler in the Museum Wilhelm Busch - German Museum for Caricature and the Art of Drawing
• The above cartoon on the Austrian State Treaty
• New Ostpolitik 1970

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The information about the place of birth Tetschen-Bodenbach, which can be found almost everywhere, is incorrect. The city only had this double name from 1942 to 1945.