Hellmuth Bethe

Hellmuth Bethe (born December 15, 1901 in Hamburg ; † April 13, 1959 near Leipzig ) was a German art historian .

Hellmuth Bethe was the son of a Hamburg merchant. He graduated from Matthias-Claudius-Gymnasium Hamburg and then studied art history, archeology, history and German studies in Leipzig and Munich. In 1925 he received his doctorate under Wilhelm Pinder . He went on study trips to Italy, France, Belgium and Holland.

As an assistant at the municipal arts and crafts museum in Leipzig in 1930/31 he met his future wife Alice Kränzchen.

In 1931 Bethe was appointed to the Provincial Museum of Pomeranian Antiquities, which later became the Pomeranian State Museum, in Stettin and was custodian of the departments for regional history, urban culture and medieval art. At the same time he was a permanent employee of the Pomeranian monument preservation.

After his release from prisoner-of-war, Bethe was given the management of the arts and crafts and Grassi museum in Leipzig in November 1945 . Since 1951 he has been a lecturer in art history at the University of Leipzig.

Fonts (selection)

• Lübische carved altars from the 1st half of the 15th century in Mecklenburg . 1925. (dissertation)
• Goldsmith's work in the Stettin church property . Szczecin 1933.
• Art at the court of the Pomeranian dukes . Berlin 1937.
• The portraits of the Pomeranian ducal house . In: Baltic Studies . Volume 39 NF (1937), pp. 71-99.
• Art in craft . Leipzig 1954.
• Leipzig baroque buildings . Leipzig 1955.
• Arts and crafts in the Feudal Museum Wernigerode . Wernigerode 1957.

literature

• Otto Kunkel : Hellmuth Bethe († 1959) . In: Baltic Studies , NF., Vol. 46, Hamburg 1959, pp. 7–9 digitized