Heinz Ohff

Heinz Ohff (born May 12, 1922 in Eutin ; † February 24, 2006 in Berlin ) was a German art critic and author. He was the feature editor of Der Tagesspiegel and published under the pseudonym N. Wendevogel.

Life

Grave site, Stubenrauchstrasse 43–45, in Berlin-Friedenau

Ohff was born into an Anglophile family of teachers in Holstein Switzerland . Ohff was drafted into the Wehrmacht at a very young age and interned as a prisoner of war in a desert camp near Casablanca in 1943 . He was interrogated there and a. by Erika Mann , which resulted in his being sent to farm work in the USA . Although he never met Thomas Mann's daughter again, Ohff himself assumed that without this “key encounter” he would probably never have become a feature section editor. His journalistic career began with the Neue Zeitung , published in the American zone of occupation in Germany from October 1945 , which brought him to Berlin via the Heidelberger Tageblatt (where he also wrote ballet reviews), the Weser-Kurier and the Bremer Nachrichten in 1961, the year the Wall was built Tagesspiegel led. There he was responsible for the management of the feature pages together with Wolf Jobst Siedler and later Hans Scholz . After Siedler became a publisher and Scholz resigned in 1976, he became the sole head of department alongside the theater critic Günther Grack. In 1987 Ohff retired.

In connection with the group of painters known as the “ Junge Wilde ”, whose Berlin branch was founded in May 1977 and ran the gallery on Moritzplatz in Berlin-Kreuzberg (important representatives were Rainer Fetting , Helmut Middendorf , Salomé and Bernd Zimmer , the “four-leafed Ur -Kleeblatt vom Moritzplatz ”), Ohff made a name for himself through many articles. Under The Wild Are Back in his work Von Krokodilen and other artists from 1982 he took a critical look at them. In the same plant are u. a. also read reviews of Robert Rauschenberg , Joseph Beuys , Barbara Heinisch , Wolf Vostell , Bernard Schultze , Gerhard Richter and Walter Stöhrer . He achieved great fame with his numerous biographies, for example about Karl Friedrich Schinkel , Theodor Fontane , Prince Pückler-Muskau or Queen Luise of Prussia and most recently Heinrich von Kleist . Ohff was also a profound literary critic and known and friends with many writers. a. Emil Belzner , Friedrich Burschell , Heinrich Eduard Jacob , William Somerset Maugham (he interviewed him in 1957 for Tagesschau ) and Kurt Wildhagen .

Ohff was a member of the PEN Center Germany and for many years President of the German section of the Association Internationale des Critiques d'Art (AICA). Since 1957 he was with the photographer Christiane Ohff, geb. Hartmann (* 1935), married and lived alternately in Berlin and in the artists' colony of St Ives in Cornwall in the south of England . Ohff was buried in the Stubenrauchstrasse cemetery in Berlin-Schöneberg . On May 30, 2007, a remembrance evening for Heinz Ohff with Ekkhard Haack, Lothar C. Poll, Hermann Rudolph and Heidemarie Theobald took place in the Academy of the Arts (Berlin) .

Works

• Pop and the consequences or the art of finding art on the street . Visualized by Wolf Vostell . Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1968, 2nd edition 1969.
• Hannah Höch . (With bibliography and list of works by Hannah Höch .) Gebr. Mann Verlag, Berlin 1968.
• Gallery of New Arts. Revolution without a program . Bertelsmann Kunstverlag, Gütersloh 1971, ISBN 3-570-05436-5 .
• Art is utopia . Visualized by Hans Peter Willberg . C. Bertelsmann Verlag, Gütersloh 1972.
• Anti-art . Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1973, ISBN 3-7700-0363-2 .
• Fritz Köthe . (Monograph and catalog raisonné by Fritz Köthe ). Nicolai Verlag, Berlin 1976, ISBN 3-87584-048-8 .
• They too were Prussians: 15 images of life . Safari-Verlag, Berlin 1979, ISBN 3-7934-1458-2 .
• From crocodiles and other artists: 30 reviews from 20 years . Gallery Ars-Viva-Edition, Berlin 1982, ISBN 3-923466-27-7 .
• 2 times Berlin (with 38 photos by Christiane Hartmann-Ohff). Piper Verlag, Munich / Zurich 1985, ISBN 3-492-02854-3 .
• William Turner. The discovery of the weather . Piper Verlag, Munich 1987, ISBN 3-492-15205-8 .
• A star in weather clouds: Queen Luise of Prussia . Piper Verlag, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-492-03198-6 .
• Elegy on Potsdam: the end of the garrison church (together with Martin Seidel / photos). Stapp Verlag, Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-87776-132-1 .
• Karl Friedrich Schinkel or the beauty in Prussia . Piper Verlag, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-492-22965-4 .
• Instructions for use for England . Piper Verlag, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-492-27504-4 .
  • Reiseleesboek Engeland . Spectrum Verlag, Utrecht 2005, ISBN 90-274-9986-1 .
• Prussia's kings . Piper Verlag, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-492-23359-7 .
• Theodor Fontane. Life and work . Piper Verlag, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-492-22483-0 .
• The green prince. The adventurous life of Hermann Pückler-Muskau . Piper Verlag, Munich 1991. ISBN 3-492-03432-2 . New edition 1993: Piper Verlag, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-492-23715-0 .
• Instructions for use for Scotland . Piper Verlag, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-492-27510-9 .
• King Arthur. A legend and its story . Piper Verlag, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-492-26554-5 .
• Peter Joseph Lenné . Jaron, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-89773-123-1
• Queen Luise of Prussia. A star in weather clouds . Piper Verlag, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-492-21548-3 (expanded new edition).
• Heinrich von Kleist - A Prussian Fate . Piper Verlag, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-492-24561-7 .

Under the pseudonym N. Wendevogel

• Beloved Heidelberg: N. Wendevogel's Heidelberg romances (with illustrations by Hans Fischer & Horst Lemke). Karl Bergmann Verlag, Heidelberg 1953.
• I am human when traveling . Stapp Verlag, Berlin 1983, ISBN 3-87776-951-9 .
• At home and elsewhere . Stapp Verlag, Berlin 1984, ISBN 3-87776-952-7 .
• A person is on the way . Stapp Verlag, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-87776-953-5 .

Editing

• Birds sing something beautiful to me. Documents from childhood. ( Edited together with Hans Scholz ). Sigbert Mohn Verlag, Gütersloh 1965.
• One language, many tongues: contemporary authors write in German dialects. (Edited together with Hans Scholz). Sigbert Mohn Verlag, Gütersloh 1966. The 77 authors won for the anthology included u. a .: Stefan Andres , Sebastian Blau , Oskar Maria Graf , Heinrich Eduard Jacob , Erich Kästner , Siegfried Lenz , Heinz Piontek , Wolfdietrich Schnurre and Wolfgang Weyrauch .
• Letters from a deceased: Hermann Fürst Pückler-Muskau. (Complete edition, re-edited by Heinz Ohff). Kupfergraben Verlag, Berlin 1986, ISBN 3-89181-001-6 . Most recently published: Propylaen Verlag, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-549-07296-1 .

Translations

• Julietta Low: The Life of America's First Girl Scout: Helen Boyd Higgins . Translated from the American by Heinz Ohff under his pseudonym N. Wendevogel. Kerle Verlag, Heidelberg 1953.
• Frank G. Slaughter: The healing hands . Novel. Translated from the American with Heinrich Ringleb by Heinz Ohff. Kindler Verlag, Munich 1955.
• Walter Blair: The big thread of lies: Of trappers, rascals and other Americans . Translated from the American by Heinz Ohff. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 1962.

Exhibitions

• Heinz Ohff and the artists (photographs from 1978 to 1987 by Christiane Hartmann) . Vernissage: May 11, 2007; Duration: May 12th to June 29th, 2007 in the gallery of the Poll Art Foundation in Berlin (Mitte).

Awards

• Federal Cross of Merit on Ribbon (October 29, 1986)
• Gold Medal of the City of Rome

estate

In 1989 Heinz Ohff donated his archive to the Berlinische Galerie , the state museum for modern art, photography and architecture. It contains manuscripts and materials relating to his books, his correspondence, and articles published in newspapers and magazines. The archive also contains numerous portraits of artists that Ohff's widow, Christiane Hartmann-Ohff, took. The Berlinische Galerie also keeps Ohffs Fluxus library, which contains rare printed matter.

literature

• Eberhard Roters (Ed.): From crocodiles, Max & Moritz and other turning birds. For Heinz Ohff (published on Heinz Ohff's 65th birthday on May 12, 1987). Argon Verlag, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-87024-117-9 .
• Günter Wirth : Assembly at the beginning, magic at the end . Foreword to the exhibition catalog of Galerie Michael Schultz, Berlin 1992.
• Michael Buselmeier : Literary tours through Heidelberg. A city story on the move. Verlag Das Wunderhorn, Heidelberg 1996, ISBN 3-88423-100-6 (about Ohff: pp. 54 and 123).
• Hermann Rudolph : This is how modernity came to West Berlin. The lovable embodiment of cultural journalism: the biographer, critic and puzzle master Heinz Ohff for his eightieth birthday. In: Der Tagesspiegel , May 12, 2002, p. 30.
• Bernhard Schulz: love of art. On the death of our critic Heinz Ohff. In: Der Tagesspiegel , March 3, 2006, p. 29.
• Rdh. [d. i. Hermann Rudolph]: The flaneur. Life artist, art lover [Heinz Ohff]. In: Der Tagesspiegel , May 11, 2006, p. 27.
• Lothar C. Poll : A Tribute of Heinz Ohff (1922-2006) . Polleditions, Berlin 2006.
• Ekhard Haack, Lothar C. Poll (Hrsg.): Writing for art. Reading book by Heinz Ohff . Polleditions, Berlin 2007, new edition 2011, ISBN 978-3-931759-00-1 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Heinz Ohff in the catalog of the German National Library
• Walter Vitt: Re-encounter with Heinz Ohff AICA
• Heinz Ohff Archive in the Berlinische Galerie

Individual evidence

1. ^ A literary interrogation in Africa . In: Der Tagesspiegel , December 26, 1999
2. ↑ Quotes from ballet reviews by Heinz Ohff in the Heidelberger Tageblatt ( memento of the original from December 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ↑ Office of the Federal President