Henni Lehmann

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Vitte / Hiddensee stumbling block: Henni Lehmann

Henriette "Henni" Lehmann (born Straßmann; * October 10, 1862 in Berlin ; † February 18, 1937 there ) was a politically and socially committed German artist and author. In the era of National Socialism persecuted, they took 1,937 lives.

Life

Peasant woman on the street in Kloster (Hiddensee)

Henni Lehmann came from a Jewish family in Berlin. Her father Wolfgang Straßmann was a liberal city councilor in Berlin from 1862 to 1885 and a member of the Prussian House of Representatives . After attending the Royal Art School, she married Karl Lehmann in 1888 , who also had Jewish roots. Both converted to Protestantism after the wedding. The couple moved to Rostock. Her children are Karl Lehmann (-Hartleben) and Eva Fiesel , both of whom became scholars of antiquity and who lost their jobs in Germany in 1933. Until the family moved to Göttingen in 1911, Henni Lehmann was the chairwoman of the Rostock women's association . After the death of her husband in 1918, she moved to Weimar . In the Weimar Republic she was close to the social democrats and was involved in the workers' welfare . She wrote socially committed novels and gave lectures. She also spoke out against anti-Semitism .

The Blue Barn in Vitte, Lehmann's former holiday home

From 1907 the family spent their holidays on Hiddensee . Henni Lehmann was very committed to creating better living conditions on the island. In 1913 she gave the islanders a loan to build a doctor's house, and in 1914 she was one of the co-founders and first board members of the Hiddensee Nature and Heritage Protection Association. In 1909 she was one of the founding members of the cooperative shipping company. During the First World War , she was head of the Göttingen Department of the National Women's Service (NFD) within the Patriotic War Aid Service.

Landscape at the lake

From 1919 the Hiddensoer Künstlerinnenbund met regularly in their holiday home in Vitte , the Blue Barn . a. Clara Arnheim , Elisabeth Büchsel and Käthe Löwenthal belonged. From 1933 onwards, this was no longer possible due to the Nazi regime .

The country house of the Henni Lehmanns family, built next to the Blue Barn in 1907 , was used as a summer residence until 1937. The building was designed by the Schwerin-based architect Paul Ehmig . After the renovation and reconstruction in 1989, the building served as Vitte's town hall until 1991. Since June 5, 2000 it has been officially called Henni-Lehmann-Haus and is used for events and exhibitions as well as by the local library. A stumbling stone is set in the sidewalk to the house , which reminds of the persecution of the Jewish artist by the National Socialists and the suicide she committed in 1937.

Works

Portrait of a woman in the Hiddensee Local History Museum
  • Die Frauen aus dem Alten Staden No. 17 , short story, Berlin 1921, new edition Dresden 2014
  • The sea sings , sonnets and terzines, Weimar 1922, new edition Dresden 2015
  • Poor house children , story, Jena 1924
  • General without an army , Roman, Berlin 1928

Quotes from and about Henni Lehmann

Henni Lehmann in the epilogue to her story "The women from the Old Staden No. 17":

“They were proletarian women and it was war. The self-righteous and pious call the one a rejected one, the other a sinful suicide, but she and the others were not bad, they were just unhappy and weak. Oh, do not judge them harshly! Who knows where you would be and your wives and daughters if you were proletarians and it would be war! Help everyone, proletarians and you others, that the world becomes better, that it becomes more peaceful and just! "

Review of Karl Fischer's poorhouse children in the SPD party newspaper Vorwärts on October 19, 1924:

Henni Lehmann wrote a novel years ago: "Women from the Old Staden No. 17", a novel that takes place in gray houses of poverty and in low rooms with a cloudy, hopeless air, in which those enslaved by fate live quietly towards an early death. We meet a few people from the old town in this new story, which takes place in the poor house of a small town. So poor people stories with a poor smell, as is probably said by the others who only know the summer side of life, sniffing. And it is precisely these haughty and merciless ones who should read the “poor house children”; Henni Lehmann wrote the novel for them. The book is like a song of love to the disinherited of happiness, and one can imagine that those who read this story and whose hearts have been hardened for so long will be good to the poor and unhappy.

Gerhart Hauptmann wrote about the painter in his diary on August 20, 1910 :

“Hiddensee. It has become a disgustingly broken island. A fat woman has built a villa and is cheekily painting in front of the door with two hundredweight on her body. Terrible! "

literature

Web links

Commons : Henriette Lehmann  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Patriotic military service in Göttingen. Second report, given at the beginning of March 1915. p. 21.
  2. ↑ Gerhart Hauptmann (author), Peter Sprengel (ed.): Diaries 1906 to 1913 . Propylaea publishing house, Frankfurt / M. 1996, ISBN 3-549-05839-X .
personal data
SURNAME Lehmann, Henni
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lehmann, Henriette (real name); Lehmann, Henny (nickname); Straßmann, Henriette (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German artist and author
DATE OF BIRTH October 10, 1862
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH February 18, 1937
Place of death Berlin