Hans Schmitz-Wiedenbrück

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Hans Schmitz-Wiedenbrück: family picture from 1938, exhibited in the Great German Art Exhibition (GDK) in 1939 and the 22nd Venice Biennale in 1940

Hans Schmitz-Wiedenbrück , actually Hans Schmitz (born January 3, 1907 in Lippstadt ; † December 7, 1944 in Angermund ) was a German church, peasant and National Socialist propaganda painter who is associated with the Wiedenbrück school .

Life

Hans Schmitz was born in Lippstadt as the son of a hotel caretaker. From 1923 he was trained in Heinrich Repke's studio in Wiedenbrück and worked there for a total of 17 years in addition to his studies in Kassel, Munich and Brussels and his study trips to Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Italy. With his oil painting Familienbild he won the 2nd prize in the art competition Die neue deutsche Familie (the 1st prize was not awarded) in 1938 and was awarded the Grand State Prize of the Prussian Academy of the Arts in 1939 . He also received the Jung-Westphalia Art Prize (1939) and the Westphalia-South Gau Culture Prize (1941). In 1940 Schmitz-Wiedenbrück was represented at the 22nd Venice Biennale . The artist was best known for his 1941 triptych Workers, Peasants and Soldiers ( bought from Chancellor Adolf Hitler for 30,000 Reichsmarks ) and the oil painting Kämpfendes Volk (bought for 56,000 RM from Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels ), which was also shown at the Great German Art Exhibition in 1942 was exhibited in the Munich House of German Art . Hitler also bought Schmitz-Wiedenbrück's oil paintings Bauern im Gewitter (GDK 1939, 4,500 RM) and Das Johannisfeuer (GDK 1940, 14,000 RM), while Reich Minister Martin Bormann bought 25,000 RM for a table party painted by the artist and 20,000 RM for the woman with a bull (both GDK 1944) paid. Many of Schmitz's works from this period can be attributed to the art of National Socialist propaganda .

The fact that Joseph Goebbels proposed Hans Schmitz, who was then only 36 in 1943, for a professorship at the Düsseldorf Art Academy, illustrates the benevolent attitude of the Nazi regime towards the artist. In the same year Hans Schmitz was called up and served as a war painter. He died of a heart attack on December 7th of the following year.

In the 1950s, Hans Schmitz was honored with an exhibition by the city of Wiedenbrück. As part of the preparations, three pastel sketches - allegedly studies for an oil painting with the title Canvas Market in Greffen - and the charcoal drawing Bauernfuhrwerk im Regen, owned by his sisters Elisabeth and Aenne, were loaned to the public for the first time. The four works were donated to the city by the sisters in the late 1970s, after they were rediscovered during an inventory in the warehouse and scheduled for restoration.

controversy

Controversial honor: Hans-Schmitz-Straße in Rheda-Wiedenbrück with information board

Towards the end of 2016, a public discussion about the role of Hans Schmitz in National Socialism began in Rheda-Wiedenbrück . To this day, three market scenes by the painter from 1937 and 1939 hang in the historic town hall in Wiedenbrück, today's registry office. In addition, a street is named after him. Since October 2018, a presentation stele in the historic town hall has been providing information about the artist and his work during the National Socialist era. In December 2019, an information board with the following wording was added to the street signs on Hans-Schmitz-Straße in Rheda-Wiedenbrück: “Hans Schmitz (1907-1944). Artist name "Schmitz-Wiedenbrück". Church and landscape painter. Schmitz is controversial because he also created pictures in the sense of Nazi propaganda. ”A renaming of the street, however, was rejected by the responsible building, urban development, environmental and transport committee and the city council of the city of Rheda-Wiedenbrück.

literature

  • Frankfurter Kunstverein (ed.): Art in the 3rd Reich. Documents of submission. Frankfurt am Main 1975.
  • Helena Ketter: On the image of women in painting under National Socialism. An analysis of art magazines from the time of National Socialism. Berlin, Hamburg, Münster 2002, ISBN 3-8258-6107-4
  • Ernst Klee : The cultural lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5 .

Web links

Commons : Hans Schmitz-Wiedenbrück  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Fifty years of the van der Grinten collection, 1946-1996: Museum Schloss Moyland, 20.3-5.9.1999. Exhibition catalog. Bedburg-Hau 1999. p. 534.
  2. ^ Foundation German Historical Museum, Foundation House of the History of the Federal Republic of Germany: Just seen on LeMO: LeMO inventory. Retrieved April 5, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Erhart Hohenstein: found paintings in the depot. Potsdam Latest News, December 9, 2006.
  4. ^ Nazi art does not belong in a public house . The bell, Rheda-Wiedenbrücker Zeitung, November 19, 2016.
  5. ^ GDK Research: Great German Art Exhibition. Hit list Hans Schmitz-Wiedenbrück.
  6. ^ Andrew Beaujon: How a Trove of Nazi Art Wound Up Under Lock and Key on an Army Base in Virginia . Washingtonian, November 12, 2017.
  7. ↑ Ulrike Knöfel: The fear of Hitler's favorite pictures. In: Spiegel-Online Plus, August 9, 2018.
  8. ↑ David Welch: The Culture of War. Ideas, Arts and Propaganda. In: Richard Overy (ed.): The Oxford Illustrated History of World War II. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2015. p. 387.
  9. ↑ On the concept of propaganda, see Wolfgang Ruppert : Vier Reiche, Vier Führer? In: Friday, February 16, 2007. Quote: "They [a large part of the German artists] did not need any state control to idealize the willingness of the German soldiers to fight against the Slavic peoples in the war of aggression and annihilation, like the artists of the propaganda squadrons or Hans Schmitz-Wiedenbrück. [.. .] Schmitz-Wiedenbrück did not need an 'order' or any control for this image concept. For artists like him, it meant success to be able to participate in the GDK and to be bought by Hitler, Goebbels or Göring as well as for the collections of the ministries this brought the prestige hierarchy the coveted recognition as a representative of 'German art' ".
  10. ^ Ernst Klee: The culture lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007.
  11. ^ Nazi art does not belong in a public house . The bell, Rheda-Wiedenbrücker Zeitung, November 19, 2016.
  12. ↑ The aim is to avert damage to the city's image . The bell, Rheda-Wiedenbrücker Zeitung, November 19, 2016.
  13. ^ Criticism of Nazi art in the town hall. The bell, November 18, 2016.
  14. ^ Nazi art: Expertise is still pending . The bell, February 25, 2017.
  15. ↑ Heavy artistic heritage of the Nazi poison cabinet. The bell, November 22, 2017.
  16. ^ Lecture and discussion on art under National Socialism. Press release from the city of Rheda-Wiedenbrück, November 2017.
  17. ↑ Information column provides information about Hans Schmitz-Wiedenbrück. Press release from Rheda-Wiedenbrück, October 2018.
  18. ↑ Hans-Schmitz-Straße heats up people. The bell, December 5, 2019.
  19. ↑ Street keeps its name. The bell, December 7, 2019.
  20. ↑ Marion Pokorra-Brock Schmidt: "Nazi artist"? Rheda-Wiedenbrück is discussing a street name. Neue Westfälische, December 19, 2019.
  21. ^ The painter Hans Schmitz keeps "his" street. The bell, December 20, 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Schmitz-Wiedenbrück, Hans
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schmitz, Hans (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter
DATE OF BIRTH January 3, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Lippstadt
DATE OF DEATH December 7, 1944
Place of death Angermund