Hans Posse

The title of this article is ambiguous. For the German State Secretary of the same name, see Hans Posse (State Secretary) .

Hans Posse (1938)

Hans Posse (born February 6, 1879 in Dresden , † December 7, 1942 in Berlin ) was a German art historian and Hitler's special commissioner for building up the collection of the special order Linz ("Führermuseum").

Life

Hans Posse, the son of the historian, director of the Saxon State Archives and Receding Otto Adalbert Posse was after studying art history , archeology and history in Marburg and Vienna in 1903 when Franz Wickhoff in Vienna with a thesis on the Italian painter Andrea Sacchi doctorate .

He began his museum career in 1903 as a volunteer at the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum in Berlin, where he soon rose to become assistant to director Wilhelm von Bode . He made a name for himself in the art-historical world through the exemplary processing of the German, Dutch and English painting holdings of the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum, whose two-volume catalog appeared in 1911.

After several years in Florence as an assistant at the German Art History Institute there and a research stay at the Bibliotheca Hertziana in Rome , the result of which was a work on Pietro da Cortona and ceiling painting in Rome, in 1910, not least thanks to Bode's protection, he was first 31 years as director of the Gemäldegalerie in Dresden. Posse rearranged the Dresden gallery based on ideas from Bodes and subsequently expanded the holdings of German painting, especially from the 19th century. He was particularly committed to the Dresden Romantics . In 1914, drafted for military service, he wrote to Bode from the front: "I would very much like to be part of the division of the Louvre".

From the summer of 1919 he also accepted expressionist works in the Dresden picture gallery. He was friends with Oskar Kokoschka , who at that time held a professorship at the Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden and moved into Posse's apartment in the Great Garden as a subtenant. Posse became one of the artist's main supporters. When he made the German contribution to the XIII. He put the painter in the center of this important international show with great effect. As exhibition organizer of the 1926 International Art Exhibition in Dresden and two-time curator of the German contribution to the Venice Biennale (1922 and 1930), Posse presented the avant-garde as valid German art. This provoked bitter resistance from folk artists, from whose attacks he had to suffer since 1926. The attacks against him ranged from the accusation that he had included " degenerate art " in the picture gallery to the accusation of stealing works of art to the false claim that he was a Jew.

In his speech on June 12 at the opening of the International Art Exhibition in 1926, Posse emphasized the fundamentally international orientation of Dresden's art life at the time:

“The relationships that the artists of Dresden cultivated, which they naturally had to cultivate, have always been international, because every artistic life, if it wants to deserve this name, needs constant stimulation from outside in order to protect itself from proven stagnation and extinction."

and further referred to the prominent importance of this art exhibition:

“The thought, after the war, after long years of isolation, to offer an overview of work in Germany and beyond, in an area that is suitable for building bridges beyond all politics and still sore spots in international traffic, is in the air. The fact that we are more interested in Europe today than in the past is a sign of the times, despite some demonstrations to the contrary in almost all countries, but it seems also a sign of historical development. "

In 1931 he opened the Neue Staatliche Gemäldegalerie on the Brühlsche Terrasse with holdings up to the German Impressionists and the following year the Moderne Galerie with works of modern art since 1900. When the National Socialists seized power in 1933, local party members started a smear campaign against Posse. However, the allegations were so exaggerated that Posse was able to stay in office. In April 1933, at the same time as the massive attacks, he applied for admission to the NSDAP, in December 1933 he received the interim card, but his opponents prevented his final admission to the party, and so it remained with provisional membership. In 1931 his housekeeper and later wife had already joined the NSDAP.

In December 1937, more than 50 paintings in the Modern Gallery were confiscated as " degenerate art "; on March 7, 1938 Posse was summoned to the ministry in the matter of "degenerate art". He was advised to apply for his retirement, which he did after a short period of reflection. On June 18, 1938, Hitler visited the Dresden picture gallery in search of a suitable specialist for the construction of his “Führer Museum” in Linz and after Karl Haberstock had sided with Posse and allowed Posse to guide him through the collection. As a result, he rehabilitated the Dresden gallery director and reinstated him in his office.

From July 1, 1939, Posse, as Hitler's special representative, was entrusted with building up the collection of the “Special Order Linz”. The assignment should have been made on a recommendation by Karl Haberstock . For a good three years Posse put together a collection for Hitler's planned museum in Linz, which consisted of Hitler's own collection of paintings, works of art confiscated in Austria and purchases on the European art market. His tasks also included the distribution of extensive looted art holdings , which the National Socialists had confiscated in Austria, Germany and occupied countries, to museums of the Greater German Reich . In early 1942 Posse was diagnosed with oral cancer; on December 7, 1942 he died of it in a clinic in Berlin. He was cremated and buried in the Tolkewitz urn grove.

Posses successor as special representative of the Führer was until 1945 the art historian and museum man Hermann Voss (1884-1969).

literature

• Alexis Joachimides: The museum reform movement in Germany and the emergence of the modern museum 1880-1940. Verlag der Kunst, Dresden 2001, ISBN 90-5705-171-0 .
• Birgit Schwarz: Hitler's Museum. The photo albums Gemäldegalerie Linz. Documents on the “Führer Museum”. Böhlau, Vienna a. a. 2004, ISBN 3-205-77054-4 .
• Birgit Schwarz: Hitler's special envoy Hans Posse. In: Hans-Peter Lühr (Red.): The exhibition “Degenerate Art” and the beginning of the Nazi cultural barbarism in Dresden (= Dresdner Hefte . Volume 22, Issue 1 = No. 77). Dresdner Geschichtsverein, Dresden 2004, ISBN 3-910055-70-2 , pp. 77-85.
• Kathrin Iselt: “The Führer’s Special Representative”. The art historian and museum man Hermann Voss (1884–1969) (= studies of art. Volume 20). Böhlau, Cologne a. a. 2010, ISBN 978-3-412-20572-0 (also: Dresden, Technical University, dissertation, 2009).
• Birgit Schwarz: Rittmeister and Excellenz. Oskar Kokoschka and Hans Posse 1919 to 1923. In: Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte. Volume 62, 2014, ISSN  0083-9981 , pp. 231-254.
• Birgit Schwarz: On orders from the Führer. Hitler and the Nazi art theft. Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart u. a. 2014, ISBN 978-3-8062-2958-5 .
• Hanns Christian Löhr: The Brown House of Art, Hitler and the special order Linz , 2nd edition, Gebr. Mann-Verlag Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-7861-2736-9 .

Web links

Commons : Hans Posse  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Hans Posse in the catalog of the German National Library