Hugo Körtzinger

Hugo Körtzinger (1892–1967)

Anton Hugo Körtzinger (born August 29, 1892 in Lesum / Bremen; † January 20, 1967 in Schnega ) was a German painter , sculptor , writer and organist whose versatile work has remained largely unknown, but who is an important one in Ernst Barlach's biography Role play. The artist Wilfried Körtzinger is his nephew.

Live and act

Childhood, youth and education

Hugo Körtzinger was born as the only son of five children of the director of the Bremen wool laundry in Burgdamm, Hugo Anton Körtzinger from Bischofswerda, and his wife, Bertha Rebecca Körtzinger (née Gärdes) from Burg / Bremen, in the Bremen district of Lesum. Already as a boy he sailed to the delight of his mother - daughter of Captain Gärdes, who last sailed on the three-masted full ship Ocean - with his small boat on the Lesum and from 1903 attended the Vegesack secondary school . A little later he started playing the organ in the Vegesack church and developed a great interest in art. From around 1908/1909 he became friends with the Bremen sculptor Diedrich Kropp , who made him aware of Ernst Barlach. In 1910/1911 he studied painting and sculpture with Hermann Behmer , Hans Olde and Max Thedy at the Grand Ducal Saxon University of Fine Arts in Weimar and also attended lectures on anatomy, medicine and literature in Jena. In 1914 he married Helene Peltret, the daughter of an agricultural machinery manufacturer in Schnega. At the beginning of the First World War he volunteered for military service and was drafted into the cuirassiers in Halberstadt . There there was an accident in 1915 with a horse running through, which led to permanent damage to his health. As not fit for front duty, he was transferred to the hussars in Stendal and was finally released for health reasons before the end of the war. From then on he lived in Schnega on the Peltretschen property, but maintained a studio in Bremen until it was bombed in 1944.

Hugo Körtzinger, Ernst Barlach and Hermann F. Reemtsma (from left) in front of the frieze of those listening

Work as an artist and encounter with Barlach

The workshop in Schnega designed by Hugo Körtzinger and built in 1936/37 (photo: 2006)

Street view and west gable of the workshop in Schnega (Photo: 2016)

In the years 1925 to 1932 Körtzinger participated in art exhibitions in Berlin, Bremen, Celle, Cologne and Munich. There were small orders and occasional sales. The economic return, however, remained low. From 1931 onwards, at the suggestion of the Lloyd tour guide Arnold Rehm, he took part in sixteen sea voyages on ships of the North German Lloyd , which led into the North Sea to Spitzbergen, the Mediterranean and the Canary Islands. On these trips numerous pictures were taken, many of which he was able to sell. This time represented a phase of economic success for Körtzinger. In addition, important friendships developed, for example with Ludwig Justi , Heinrich XXXIX. Prince Reuss and Hermann F. Reemtsma . So in 1931 he accepted an invitation from the Prince to Ernstbrunn Palace , where he also painted. The friendship with Hermann F. Reemtsma, which lasted until the end of his life, proved to be particularly important and intense. Körtzinger became the artistic advisor to the passionate art collector and carried out numerous artistic works for him. In August 1934 he brought Ernst Barlach and Hermann Reemtsma together. Reemtsma commissioned Barlach to complete the frieze of those listening . The factory is now in the Ernst Barlach House in Hamburg. In an attempt to counteract the increasing ostracism of Barlach by the Nazis, the private print "Ernst Barlach - Fries of the Listeners - Private Print", financed by Reemtsma, appeared in 1936 with an introduction by Hugo Körtzinger. Also in 1936, Barlach's clinker plastic Frau im Wind was set up in a niche specially provided for this in the west gable of the Körtzinger studio. Only three of the 18 figures of the Community of Saints originally intended for the west facade of the Lübeck Katharinenkirche had been executed and had to be saved from the Nazis' access.

After Barlach's death on October 28, 1938, Körtzinger drafted and sent the obituary notice together with Friedrich Schult and spoke poems at the memorial service in Güstrow. There he got to know Georg Kolbe and began to correspond with him. Körtzinger became a member of the committee of Ernst Barlach's estate administration. From 1940 he kept other works of art of the so-called Degenerate Art in the remoteness of the Schnegaer estate , to which in the summer of 1943 - partly dismantled and unobtrusively packed in wooden boxes - the two large Barlach sculptures Geistkampf and Güstrower Memorial (also called Güstrower Domengel and Der Schwebende known) and thus could be saved from being melted down for war purposes. These survived the Second World War and the post-war period unscathed and are now in a public place again: the ghost fighter in front of the Nicolaikirche in Kiel and the floating in the Antoniterkirche in Cologne .

In addition to a large number of oil paintings, Körtzinger's own work also includes drawings, bronze sculptures and reliefs. He was a member of the German Association of Artists .

Atelier and Walcker organ

Lieutenant Colonel Fries of the British occupation forces placed the Körtzinger workshop under his protection after the invasion.

Made possible by Reemtsma's patronage, Körtzinger designed and built a large workshop building in Schnega in 1936/37, with a wall niche in the west gable of the Barlach clinker brick Frau im Wind (see above). From 1937, an organ of the organ building company EF Walcker & Cie, founded in 1780, was also built in this workshop . , which was expanded in three major renovations by 1948 into what is probably the largest private estate in Germany. The organ with electric game and stop action began comparatively modestly as the small Walcker organ ( Opus 2576 ) with 6 basic voices, 41 stops and 663 pipes. This organ was based on the multiplex system , a technique which, through so-called transmissions, simulates a greater variety of registers than is structurally available. Multiplex organs were widely used in the 1920s and 30s (e.g. as cinema organs), but ultimately could not convince musically. Hugo Körtzinger had the organ expanded to two new wind chests (1 slider drawer, 1 pocket drawer) with 8 additional registers with 448 pipes as early as 1939. The second major expansion took place in 1942 when 3 new pocket stores with 15 registers and 789 pipes were added. The third and last major expansion of 6 more registers followed in 1947. The idiosyncratic organ, the creation of which was accompanied by an extensive and highly interesting correspondence between Hugo Körtzinger and the organ builder Oscar Walcker, thus comprises 30 registers and 31 transmissions with a total of well over 2000 pipes in its unchanged form. From summer 2015 the organ was completely restored by the organ workshop Christian Scheffler from Brandenburg. The work was successfully completed in summer 2016.

I main work C – g ′ ′ ′ Covered pommer 16 ′ Principal 8th' Principal II 8th' Dumped 8th' Night horn 8th' Grossnasard 5 1 ⁄ 3  ′ Principal 4 ′ Praestant 4 ′ Transverse flute 4 ′ Quintatön 4 ′ Fifth 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′ octave 2 ′ Miscella 4-fold Basson 16 ′ Trumpet 8th' oboe 8th' Tremulant

II positive C – g ′ ′ ′ Coarse 8th' Quintadena 8th' cello 8th' Salicet 8th' Reed flute 8th' Principal 4 ′ Principal 1–3 times 4 ′ flute 4 ′ Fugara 4 ′ Nasat 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′ Salicet 2 ′ third 1 3 ⁄ 5  ′ Fifth 1 1 ⁄ 3  ′ Sif flute 1' Oberhorn 8th' Tremulant

III Kronwerk C – g ′ ′ ′ Bourdon 16 ′ Wide principal 8th' Double Dacked 8th' Foresta 8th' Dumped 8th' Dulziana 8th' V. Cord (Voix celeste) 8th' Principal 4 ′ octave 4 ′ Night flute 4 ′ Dulziana 4 ′ Fifth 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′ Principal 2–3 times 2 ′ Piccolo 2 ′ Maritima 2 ′ Krummhorn 8th' Singing shelf 4 ′ Tremulant

Pedals C – f ′ Sub bass 16 ′ Dacked bass 16 ′ Quintbass 10 2 ⁄ 3  ′ Principal 8th' Bass flute 8th' cello 8th' Third bass 6 2 ⁄ 5  ′ Choral bass 4 ′ String bass 4 ′ Quintatön 4 ′ Peasant flute 2 ′ trombone 16 ′ horn 8th'

• Pair : II / I, III / I, II / P, III / P

After the Second World War

After the Second World War, Körtzinger participated in the initial planning for the design of a memorial on the site of the former Bergen-Belsen concentration camp , became a founding member of the Ernst-Barlach Society and was appointed to the board of trustees of the Georg Kolbe Foundation. He gave occasional lectures, but in the 1950s the health problems limited his artistic work more and more. He concentrated on playing the organ, writing, and correspondence with friends. He found a new friend in the painter Siegward Sprotte , whom he repeatedly visited on Sylt. A visit by Albert Schweitzer planned for 1958 ultimately failed due to the death of the Lüneburg contact. Körtzinger continued to go hunting as a passionate hunter and in the last years of his life lived in seclusion with his wife Helene on the property in Schnega. He died on January 20, 1967 after a stroke in Schnega, where he is also buried.

Friends of Hugo Körtzinger eV

Club logo

The non-profit association Hugo Körtzinger eV was founded on March 7, 2010 and aims to preserve the listed studio and the artistic legacy of Hugo Körtzinger, to inform the public about the life, work and work of Hugo Körtzinger and the Schnegaer Presenting the studio with the Walcker organ to the public as part of guided tours, lectures, exhibitions and concerts. So the association tries u. a. to update and add to the Hugo Körtzinger catalog raisonné , which Curd Ochwadt began in the 1970s. From 2012 to 2015, the association carried out a renovation of the Körtzinger workshop financed by the Hermann Reemtsma Foundation . After the careful renovation of the building, the restoration of the Walcker organ, also funded by the Hermann Reemtsma Foundation, took place from 2015 to 2016. Since 2019 the instrument has been presented to the public with unusual concerts as part of the "Werkstattkonzerte Schnega" concert series. The association has its seat in Kiel, the place of residence of the 1st chairman Arne Körtzinger .

literature

• Curd Ochwadt: Hugo Körtzinger - pictures, sculptures, writings . Publishing house Th.Schäfer, Hanover, 1991.
• Curd Ochwadt: Ernst Barlach, Hugo Körtzinger and Hermann Reemtsma . Hejo-Verlag, Hanover, 1988.
• Wolfgang Jürries , Berndt Wachter (Ed.): Wendland-Lexikon . Volume 1, Köhring Verlag, Lüchow, 2000.
• Peter-Michael Pawlik: From the Weser into the world - the history of the sailing ships from the Weser and Lesum and their shipyards from 1770 to 1893 . Ernst Kabel Verlag, Hamburg, 1993.
• Erik Lindner: The Reemtsmas - History of a German family of entrepreneurs . Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg, 2007.
• Eva Caspers (ed.): "Works of art that concern me" - The collector Hermann F. Reemtsma 1892-1961 . Ernst Barlach House, Hamburg, 1992.
• Ernst Barlach - Frieze of those listening . With an introduction by Hugo Körtzinger, Othmarschen, 1936.
• Klaus Hupp: The Kiel ghost fighter by Ernst Barlach - representation, interpretation and history . Husum Verlag, Husum, 1992.
• Helmut Heberle: Hugo Körtzinger's studio organ - history of an extraordinary one-of-a-kind instrument , in: The house organ, messages from the house organ working group in the Society of Organ Friends (GdO), issue 20/2009, Rheinstetten, pp. 32–36.
• Nicolaus Neumann: The resurrection of Hugo Körtzinger in: Landluft - Das Wendland Magazin, issue 2, 2011.
• Helga Thieme: Hugo Körtzinger in Schnega . In the series "People and Places", Verlag Edition AB Fischer, Berlin, 2018.

Web links

• Website on the life and work of Körtzinger
• Website of the Ernst Barlach House in Hamburg with references to Körtzinger in Barlach's biography
• Online catalog of the Kunsthalle Bremen with the biography of Hugo Körtzinger by Dr. Katharina Erling

Individual evidence

1. ^ Passages and captains of the emigrant ship Ocean , Verein für Computergenealogie eV, December 4, 2012
2. ↑ Palmer List of Merchant Vessels , Michael P. Palmer, March 7, 2001
3. ^ Chronology of the "floating" by Ernst Barlach , Dieter Kölpien, Gernot Moeller and Gerhard Schmidt, October 1, 2010
4. ↑ Kiel Memorial Day: June 19, 1954 - Ernst Barlach's ghost fighters unveiled in front of the Nikolaikirche , state capital Kiel
5. ↑ Der Schwebende - The adventurous story of a Barlach sculpture , Deutschlandradio Kultur, March 15, 2009.
6. ^ Full members of the German Association of Artists since it was founded in 1903 / Körtzinger, Hugo (accessed on September 21, 2015)
7. ↑ Oscar Walcker (1869–1948) with excerpts from his letters to Hugo Körtzinger , Gerhard Walcker-Mayer
8. ↑ Disposition
9. ^ Gravestones at the Schnega cemetery , Verein für Computergenealogie eV, December 4, 2012