Hugo Helbing

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In the Liebigstr. 21 / corner Wagmüllerstr. 15 in Munich were the premises of the Helbing auction house.
One of the paintings sold by the auction house Hugo Helbing: Carl Schuch's forest with felled trees from 1868.

Hugo Helbing (born April 23, 1863 in Munich ; † November 30, 1938 there ) was a German art dealer and auctioneer .

The Helbing art dealer

Helbing was the son of Sigmund Helbing, who had been running an antique shop in Munich since the mid-19th century . His sons were also active in this field: Otto Helbing had a respected coin shop in Munich, his brother Ludwig opened an antique shop in Nuremberg , and Hugo Helbing founded the Hugo Helbing art dealer in Munich in 1885 .

From 1906 Helbing ran the company together with other co-owners, including his son Fritz from his first marriage. The internationally renowned company had branches in Berlin and Frankfurt , and Helbing was appointed to the council of commerce . The Helbing auctions, which lasted several days in collaboration with Paul Cassirer from 1916 to the 1920s, were considered social events and were “a piece of the cultural history of our century”. Between 1930 and 1935 alone, the Helbing auction house published 123 auction catalogs, making it one of the largest auction houses of the time.

The antiquarian Max Ziegert portrayed Helbing in his memoirs:

“The man is a factor in Munich's art life and knows it too. Whenever I dealt with him on business, I always felt defenseless. I was so overwhelmed that I just had to say yes if he wanted something. He raped one with the greatest kindness and urbanity [...] "

- Max Ziegert : Silhouettes of German antiquarians - Personal memories from the years 1870 to 1915

family

Helbing's first marriage was Sophie, née Liebermann, and had two sons with her, Rudolf and Friedrich David (Fritz). Rudolf died as an infant; Son Fritz, who was born in Munich on December 16, 1888, was married three times but remained childless. In 1926 Hugo Helbing married his second wife Lydia Ludwina, née Vorndran, born on April 10, 1884 in Würzburg .

From 1908 Helbing acted as the guardian of his nephew Fritz Nathan , son of his sister Irene, who had become an orphan at the age of 13.

During the time of National Socialism

In March 1933, shortly after the National Socialists “ seized power ” , the auction “Paintings of old and new masters” in the Düsseldorf Palace Hotel , organized by Helbing together with the art dealer Alfred Flechtheim and the Paffrath gallery , was held by the SA canceled. The gallery owner was forced to demolish this because of Helbing and Flechtheim's Jewish origins, and the works of “ degenerate art ” were confiscated. The Federal Office for Central Services and Unresolved Property Issues writes: “Such disruptions towards art dealers were common after the National Socialists came to power. Actions like the one in the Galerie Paffrath were carried out by the ' Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur ' under the direction of Alfred Rosenberg . ”Flechtheim himself was not present when the auction was canceled; he "downright collapsed" when he found out about it. He left Germany in October 1933 and died four years later in London.

In 1935, Helbing was revoked because he was a Jew, his membership in the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts and thus his auction license expired. Helbing had tried to prove the great economic importance of his company by listing his sales at the Bavarian State Ministry, Department for Trade, Industry and Commerce, but the Reich Chamber refused to grant a further auction permit "with regard to auction regulations". From then on he had to have his business run by an “ Aryan ” employee; the other Jewish co-owners had to leave.

On November 9, 1938 , the Helbing art dealership was closed and Max Heiss, the employee of the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts, was appointed as a "trustee". Helbing himself was beaten up in front of his wife on the same day during the rioting of the “ Reichspogromnacht ” in his apartment. He was taken to the Israelite Hospital in a wheelbarrow , but all medical help came too late. On November 30, 1938, the 75-year-old died at home from serious injuries. His son, Fritz and his third wife Doris, nee Goldstein, were in the 1942 or 1943 Auschwitz deported and murdered.

After Helbing's death

From 1936 onwards, the art market in Munich was dominated by the NSDAP member Adolf Weinmüller , who, as chairman of the Association of German Art and Antique Dealers , was responsible for ensuring that Helbing was no longer able to work in the art trade and as an auctioneer. He had previously worked actively on the “Law on the Auctioning Trade”, which aimed to systematically eliminate Jewish art dealers and antiquarians.

Helbing's widow Lydia stated in the reparation proceedings in 1956 that the “trustee” Heiss had also had art objects that had been in the family's possession transferred from their private homes to the art dealer. When the will was opened, Heiss stated that the company would be closed within a few hours on behalf of the NSDAP if Lydia Helbing and her son Fritz took over the inheritance; both then rejected it. The Helbing company “ Aryanized ” by selling it to Jakob Scheidwimmer , NSDAP member since 1929, for 30,000 Reichsmarks . In 1939/40 he sold the Helbing property in Munich.

Scheidwimmer, however, did not receive an auction permit and continued the business as a pure art gallery. He sold art objects, also from Helbing's private collection, to Martin Bormann , among others , such as the painting Street on the Gulf of Naples by Oswald Achenbach for the residential palace in Posen, which was intended as a “Führer residence ” . In 1957, on the basis of a settlement, the heirs of Helbing were awarded a compensation of 5,000 marks for the paintings taken from private ownership.

Helbing's nephew Fritz Nathan succeeded in emigrating to Switzerland with his family in 1936, where he established a new existence as a respected art dealer.

literature

Web links

Commons : Hugo Helbing  - Collection of Images

References and comments

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g provenance research - Oswald Achenbach. (No longer available online.) Federal Office for Central Services and Unresolved Property Issues, archived from the original on December 30, 2013 ; Retrieved December 28, 2013 .
  2. ↑ a b c Götz Adriani: The art of acting. Masterpieces from the 14th to the 20th century by Peter and Fritz Nathan . Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2005, ISBN 3-7757-1658-0 , p. 269 ( online [accessed December 28, 2013]).
  3. ↑ a b c d e auction houses in Munich. arthistoricum.net, accessed December 28, 2013 .
  4. ↑ Georg Brühl: The Cassirers, Streiter for Impressionism . Leipzig 1991, p. 162 . , quoted from: Anja-Walter Ries: The history of the Nierendorf gallery. Passion for art in the service of modernism Berlin / New York 1920–1995. Phil. Diss. FU Berlin, 2003, accessed on December 29, 2013 .
  5. ^ Julia Voss: The pogroms and the art business. November 9th. Frankfurter Allgemeine, November 9, 2013, accessed December 28, 2013 .
  6. ↑ Max Ziegert: Silhouettes of German Antiquaries - Personal Memories from the Years 1870 to 1915 . Association of German Antiquaries V., Elbingen 2009, ISBN 978-3-9812223-3-3 . Quoted from: “Where one goes behind, one meets shapes” - 19th century antiquarian book dealers seen through the eyes of a colleague. International League of Antiquarian Booksellers , accessed December 29, 2013 .
  7. ↑ Paintings by old and new masters and sculptures: from Rhenish, Berlin and foreign museum and private collections - including portraits from the former Palais Radziwill in Berlin. OCLC World Cat, accessed January 2, 2014 .
  8. ↑ Provenance research - Franz Stuck von. (No longer available online.) Federal Office for Central Services and Unresolved Property Issues, archived from the original on January 2, 2014 ; accessed on January 1, 2014 .
  9. ↑ Auctions. Alfred Flechtheim.com, accessed January 2, 2014 .
  10. ↑ Max Heiss (1904–1971) was director of the Munich City Museum from 1954 to 1969 . See: accomplices of the system. In: The world. May 20, 2012, accessed December 29, 2013 . According to Hopp, however, these are two different people, the painter and National Socialist Max Heiss (1904–1971), who later became head of the city museum, and the art dealer, National Socialist and friend of Gauleiter Adolf Wagner , Max Heiss (1891–1962) , who was officially appointed to handle the Helbing art dealership in May 1939. Meike Hopp: Art trade in National Socialism: Adolf Weinmüller in Munich and Vienna , 2012, p. 84, fn. 254, p. 85–95 passim
  11. ↑ Michael Mertes: "It came from within". Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, November 8, 2013, accessed on December 28, 2013 .
  12. ↑ According to the death certificate, Helbing died (after the hospital stay, as there was nothing more could be done for him in the hospital) in his apartment at Wagmüllerstraße 15. Meike Hopp: Art trade in National Socialism: Adolf Weinmüller in Munich and Vienna , 2012, p. 84, fn 253
  13. ↑ Provenance research - Lukas d. Ä. Cranach. (No longer available online.) Federal Office for Central Services and Unresolved Property Issues, archived from the original on December 30, 2013 ; Retrieved December 28, 2013 .
  14. ↑ The current owner of the former art auction house Weinmüller (today Neumeister Münchener Kunstauktionshaus ), Katrin Stoll , commissioned a study on the history of her company during the Nazi era, which was published in 2012 by Meike Hopp .
  15. ^ Cassirer and Cohen - draft family genealogy - Person Sheet. (No longer available online.) Genealogy.metastudies.net, archived from the original on December 31, 2013 ; accessed on December 28, 2013 . 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / genealogy.metastudies.net
  16. ^ Meike Hopp: Art trade in National Socialism: Adolf Weinmüller in Munich and Vienna. 2012, pp. 95-98.
  17. ↑ Scheidwimmer also played an inglorious role in other sales of art from Jewish property. The case of a picture by Camille Pissarro , Rue Saint-Honoré in the afternoon when it rains , which Lilly Cassirer-Neubauer had to give him for 900 Reichsmarks in 1939 in order to obtain an exit visa, became particularly well known . The painting hangs today in the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid , its value is estimated at 20 million dollars . See: Spain stands off grandson, who fled Nazis to Casablanca and Cleveland, over Pissarro painting sold by Thyssen heir. In: The Los Angeles Times. April 12, 2010, accessed December 29, 2013 . Further cases in which Scheidwimmer was involved: Sozietät Scheidwimmer. German Historical Museum, accessed on December 31, 2013 .
personal data
SURNAME Helbing, Hugo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German art dealer and auctioneer
DATE OF BIRTH April 23, 1863
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich
DATE OF DEATH November 30, 1938
Place of death Munich