Heinrich Kohlhaussen

Heinrich Kohlhaussen (around 1968)

Heinrich Kohlhaussen , also Heinrich Kohlhausen and Heinrich Kohlhaußen, (born May 29, 1894 in Rauischholzhausen near Marburg an der Lahn, Hesse ; † July 25, 1970 in Lorsch an der Bergstrasse, Hesse) was a German art historian and museum director.

Life

Kohlhaussen attended the secondary school in Marburg / Lahn from Easter 1905 to 1914. After graduating from high school at Easter 1914, he began studying art history, German, history and historical auxiliary sciences. After interrupting his studies by participating in the First World War , he resumed his studies in autumn 1918. He completed his studies in Marburg / Lahn and spent one semester at the University of Berlin. In 1921 he received his doctorate . His dissertation The Shrine of St. Elisabeth zu Marburg was published as a book in 1922.

Kohlhaussen began his professional activity at the end of 1921 as a private assistant to Privy Councilor Marc Rosenberg .

From spring 1922 to autumn 1933 he was a research assistant and then an assistant at the Museum of Art and Industry in Hamburg . The museum-related work was deepened through annual large study trips at home and abroad and through publications. Particularly noteworthy are the works Minneebox in the Middle Ages , Berlin 1928, and Gothic Decorative Arts in Europe in Volume 5 of the History of Decorative Arts of All Nations and Times, Berlin 1932.

In 1933 Kohlhaussen was appointed to succeed Karl Masner at the City Museums in Breslau (Silesian Museum of Applied Arts and Antiquities, Castle Museum, Villa Neisser ). He carried out a reorganization of the collections there. Instead of a technologically obsolete list, a cultural-historical one was carried out according to time periods with complete reconstruction according to the most modern aspects. By the time he left Wroclaw, the restructuring of the collections of the Middle Ages, Renaissance, Baroque and Rococo as well as folk art had been completed. The prehistoric collections were still under construction. This Wroclaw reorganization and modernized performance technique caused a sensation and found recognition. The reorganization of the so-called church hall was exhibited at the Paris World Exhibition in 1937 among the exemplary museum renovations in large photos (old versus new condition). With this milestone in the museum design, he had paved a large part of the way to an honorable appointment at the Germanic National Museum in Nuremberg. Significant acquisitions in the Breslau era were the head of a giant statue, Breslau around 1366, a bronze head of Livy, Padua around 1500, as well as other Gothic and Baroque ecclesiastical works of Silesia.

At the beginning of December 1936 Kohlhaussen was elected 1st director by a unanimous decision of the administrative board of the Germanisches Nationalmuseum. He took over the management in January 1937. Here, too, the task of converting the generic and material-specific order principle into a mixed order, which offered cross-sectional cultural-historical connections. Even if this exhibition system has its theoretical roots in the twenties, it seems understandable that the implementation of such a “revolution” also led to resistance in the museum environment. Overall, Kohlhaussen was right and his ideas are still valid today. The activity of its comprehensive reorganization was interrupted after two and a half years by the beginning of the Second World War. Now Kohlhaussen was in demand as an organizer. Until the summer of 1945, his further activities were largely determined by rescue planning and rescues carried out in the Nuremberg bunkers and foreign refuges. Almost the entire inventory, including the valuable library with around a quarter of a million volumes, was moved to the bunkers, of which, at Kohlhaussen's insistence, new ones were built until 1944 and 18 castles and monasteries were moved between the Main and Danube. It is largely thanks to him that 98% of the museum's holdings have been preserved through his careful and largely complete relocation. Major acquisitions during the Nuremberg period: Behaim-Globus , Nuremberg 1492–1494; Grandfather clock of Philip the Good of Burgundy , around 1430; two Wild Man carpets, early 15th century; Christmas picture by Johann Koerbecke , 1457; Stromer doll house, 1693; Pictures by Joachim von Sandrart and Januarius Zick . Even if his term of office fell in a politically very difficult and challenging time, Kohlhaussen saw it as achieved not to have deviated from the tradition of the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, in which the care of Christian art is of central importance.

In August 1945, by order of the Allied Military Government of Nuremberg, he was dismissed by the Lord Mayor of Nuremberg Martin Treu . In the following post-war period, Kohlhaussen was also politically denounced. With testimonies, documents and affidavits from various personalities, he was able to clearly demonstrate his distance to the “Third Reich”. The occasion and background of the request to join the party in the summer of 1937 (dating back to May 1) could also be clarified in his favor. The result of denazification was the full rehabilitation of Kohlhaussen.

In May 1950 he was appointed director of the Veste Coburg art collections . And again Kohlhaussen began to completely reorganize the collections, to secure the famous graphic collection of 300,000 sheets, to preserve its most important holdings and to preserve the large arms collection by newly appointed specialists. The reconstruction and refurbishment of the burned-out duchess building on the fortress also took place in these years. For Coburg he discovered and acquired the “Goldene Bamberger Madonna”, the most important old wooden sculpture of this art region around 1330. Further important acquisitions in the Coburg time are the prehistory collection of Schrödel; 17th century Turkish tent, a Gothic shield with Aufseß coat of arms and two large tapestries from the New India series, Paris around 1756.

In 1955 he returned to Nuremberg, as the library of the Germanisches Museum and its collections guaranteed him scientific specialist work. The main work of his oeuvre, the Nuremberg goldsmith's art of the Middle Ages and the Dürer period from 1240 to 1540 , was created in 1968 in retirement.

In 1960 he received the Federal Cross of Merit, 1st Class, for his services to the rescue of over a thousand art objects from the Nuremberg, Bamberg and Coburg region .

He died in July 1970 in Lorsch / Hessen after a short illness.

family

Heinrich Kohlhaussen's father was Karl (1865–1945), forester, son of Christoph Heinrich, forester, and Anna Katharina Schmidt. His mother was Mathilde (1872–1959), daughter of Johs. Eschstruth, innkeeper and economist, and Marie Luise Ruhlberg. In 1921 he married Paula (1891–1984) in Baden-Baden, daughter of the master shoemaker Erhard Weber and Agathe Glaser. They had two children; Johann-Heinrich and Genovefa.

Awards

• 1960: Cross of Merit 1st Class of the Federal Republic of Germany

Publications

• The shrine of St. Elisabeth in Marburg. Phil. Diss. Marburg 1921. Printed: Richard Hamann, Heinrich Kohlhaussen: The shrine of St. Elisabeth in Marburg. Marburg 1922.
• Love box in the Middle Ages. German publishing house for art history, Berlin 1928.
• Gothic arts and crafts in Europe. In: History of the arts and crafts of all times and peoples. Volume 5. Berlin 1932.
• History of German handicrafts. Munich 1955.
• Nuremberg goldsmith's art of the Middle Ages and the Dürer period. 1240 to 1540. German publishing house for art history, Berlin 1968.
• European handicrafts. Romanik Umschau Verlag, Frankfurt am Main.
  • Volume 1: Pre-Romanesque. 1969.
  • Volume 2: Gothic, Late Gothic. 1970.
  • Volume 3: Renaissance, Baroque. 1972. Continued by PW Meister after preliminary work by H. Kohlhaussen.
• Annual reports Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nürnberg. 1938-1944, pp. 84-90.

literature

• Ernst Königer: Bibliography Heinrich Kohlhaussen (until 1963) on his seventieth birthday. In: No. d. German. Nat.mus. 1964, pp. 156-160.
• Matthias Mende: On the Heinrich Kohlhaussen bibliography, supplements and additions to d. Delay v. E. Kings. 1971.
• Bernward Deneke, Rainer Kahsnitz (Ed.): The Germanic National Museum. Nuremberg 1852–1977. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 1978, ISBN 3-422-00684-2 , pp. 1126f. and register p. 1224.
• Luitgard Sofie Löw, Matthias Nuding, Germanisches Nationalmuseum (eds.): Between cultural history and politics. The Germanic National Museum in the Weimar Republic and the time of National Socialism. Germanisches Nationalmuseum, 2014, ISBN 978-3-936688-89-4 .

estate

• Archive f. Fine arts (renamed German Art Archive in 2008) of the Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nürnberg, searchable at: Central database of bequests

Web links

• Literature by and about Heinrich Kohlhaussen in the catalog of the German National Library
• Heinrich Kohlhaussen in the German biography
• Heinrich Kohlhaussen in the Dictionary of Art Historians

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Bernward Deneke, Rainer Kahsnitz (ed.): The Germanisches Nationalmuseum. Nuremberg 1852–1977 . Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 1978, p. 78 (paragraph 1937) .
2. ↑ Bernward Deneke, Rainer Kahsnitz (ed.): The Germanisches Nationalmuseum. Nuremberg 1852–1977 . Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 1978, p. 1127 .
3. ^ Association for the history of the city of Nuremberg: Messages of the association for the history of the city of Nuremberg . Volumes 58-59. Schrag, Nürnberg 1971, p. 337 ( Google books )