Hugo-Damian Schönborn

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Hugo-Damian Schönborn (born  September 22, 1916 in Dolní Lukavice ( Plzeň South district), Austria-Hungary ; †  March 6, 1979 ), born as Count von Schönborn , was a painter of aristocratic Bohemian origin. In 1944 he deserted the German army in Belgium and then worked as an interpreter for the British.

Life

The choice of his first name refers to a prominent member of the family, Cardinal Damian Hugo Philipp von Schönborn-Buchheim (1676–1743), Prince-Bishop of the Speyer diocese .

When Schönborn was drafted into the Wehrmacht, he refused to become an officer, as was customary with nobles at the time, but served as a simple private . In the middle of the war, in 1942, he met Eleonore Freiin von Doblhoff (born April 14, 1920 in Brno ) at a cocktail party in Prague and asked for her hand at the third meeting. After the marriage on May 10, 1942, Schönborn had to go back to the front, this time to Russia. The desertion was already intended back then, according to his wife many years later in an interview with Christa Zöchling :

“From the day we got married, my husband told me he would do this if there was a chance to find an English troupe. I shared the reasons for this attitude with him: even then we were convinced that Hitler was a criminal and that it was the right thing to do and that conscience dictated that we should do as little as possible for this war. That's why Hugo never wanted to become a German officer. He fought as a private in Stalingrad, was wounded and flown out on the last plane. Like so many who have been in Stalingrad, he was left with the dominant feeling that this war was not only senseless and lost, but also criminal. In the Sudeten German, German-national society with such views, he was an outsider. In October 1944 my husband defected to the English in Belgium together with a Flemish man. "

- Eleonore Schönborn : About her husband Hugo-Damian Schönborn

The marriage had four children: Phillip (1943), Christoph (1945), later Archbishop of Vienna and Cardinal , Barbara (1947) and the later actor Michael (1954). During the last years of the war, his wife lived in her husband's castle, Skalka Castle near Leitmeritz , where their second son was born in January 1945. Hugo-Damian Schönborn joined the British army after the desertion on the condition that he did not have to fight his former comrades with weapons. He was used as an interpreter. After the end of the war, the family was expelled from Czechoslovakia . The wife and children were first housed with relatives in Breiteneich near Horn and finally, after the winter of 1945/1946, with Eleonore's oldest sister in Graz . Schönborn was able to get back to his family there. In 1950 the family moved to Schruns in the Montafon in Vorarlberg . Schönborn was in Davos for a while to cure his tuberculosis . Conscientious objectors and deserters , as well as their families, were not respected in the whole of Austria at that time: "Certain people in the village did not greet us," said Eleonore Schönborn, when the rumor got around that her husband was a Wehrmacht deserter.

The marriage ended in divorce in the 1960s. In 1963 he was married to the painter and poet Johanna Moser-Kohlmayr in his second marriage . Schönborn is said to have returned to his first wife in the last years of his life and was cared for by her until his death.

Schönborn is buried in Schruns.

plant

As a painter, Schönborn is in the tradition of Pablo Picasso , with whom he shares a passion for still lifes , female nudes and abstract painting . A number of his works are regularly sold at auctions in Germany and Austria.

The Schruns doctor Johann Trippolt has set up an exhibition of Schönborn's paintings in his MAP cellar gallery .

literature

  • Fine arts in Vorarlberg. 1945-2005. Biographical lexicon. Published by the Vorarlberger Landesmuseum and the Kunsthaus Bregenz. Forewords by State Governor Hans-Peter Bischof, by Tobias G. Natter as Director of the State Museum and by Eckhard Schneider as Director of the Kunsthaus. Editorial by Susanne Fink and Cornelia Rothmund. Concept and scientific management: Susanne Fink. Editing: Susanne Fink, Cornelia Rothmund. Project management: Artur Vonblon. Design: Dalpra & Partner, René Dalpra, Joachim Zettl. Bucher-Verlag, Hohenems 2006, ISBN 978-3-902525-36-9 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Christa Zöchling : The true war heroes. How prominent Austrians opposed the Nazi terror , in profile from August 31, 2009.
  2. ^ Marcus G. Patka: Austrian Freemasons in National Socialism. Vienna 2010, ISBN 978-3-205-78546-0 , p. 118.
  3. ↑ Quoting from Christa Zöchling: The true war heroes. How prominent Austrians opposed the Nazi terror , in profile from August 31, 2009.
  4. ^ Pedigree of Hugo-Damian, Graf von Schönborn , accessed on October 25, 2014.
  5. ↑ Johanna Schönborn , Regio-Wiki.at, accessed October 25, 2014.
  6. ^ Blog Andreas Unterberger , accessed on October 25, 2014.
  7. ↑ Artprice , auction directory, accessed October 25, 2014.
  8. ↑ ArtNet , accessed on October 25, 2014.
  9. ↑ Father and daughter as prominent photo artists , June 7, 2013.
personal data
SURNAME Schönborn, Hugo-Damian
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Count of Schönborn-Buchheim, Hugo-Damian
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian deserter of the Wehrmacht and political activist
DATE OF BIRTH September 22, 1916
PLACE OF BIRTH Dolní Lukavice ( Plzeň South District ), Austria-Hungary
DATE OF DEATH March 6, 1979