Josef Knau

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Josef Knau (born April 24, 1897 in Mainz ; died May 3, 1945 in Neustädter Bucht ) was a German silversmith and resistance fighter against National Socialism.

Life

Josef Knau began his training in Weimar in 1922 in the metal workshop of the Bauhaus under Johannes Itten and László Moholy-Nagy . From 1924 he was employed as a journeyman and moved to Dessau with. Around 1928 he worked in Wolfgang Tümpel's workshop in Halle an der Saale .

Tea ball (1924)

Teapots designed by Knau, Tümpel and Otto Rittweger have survived from the Bauhaus period . This design was adopted for a time by the Italian company Alessi in 1995 .

Knau became an active member of the Communist Party in 1924 . After the handover of power to the National Socialists in 1933, he fled to the Netherlands in 1935 and later to France . In the Spanish Civil War from 1936 to 1939 he fought on the side of the International Brigades . After fleeing to France, he was interned in various camps there.

After the German conquest of France Knau was in the on 3 June 1942 prison Hameln admitted, from which he was released on 28 January 1944 by the police in Hameln court prison Hameln in protective custody to be taken. Knau was deported to Neuengamme concentration camp on February 9, 1944 . When the concentration camp was evacuated, Knau was one of the prisoners who were brought onto the Thielbek ship . The ship was sunk by the Royal Air Force while lying in Neustädter Bucht on May 3, 1945 , killing most of the 2,800 concentration camp inmates.

literature

  • Volkhard Knigge , Harry Stein (ed.): Franz Ehrlich . A Bauhaus member in the resistance and concentration camp. (Catalog for the exhibition of the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation in cooperation with the Klassik Stiftung Weimar and the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation in the Neues Museum Weimar from August 2, 2009 to October 11, 2009.) Weimar 2009, ISBN 978-3-935598- 15-6 , p. 151
  • Klaus Weber (Ed.): The Metal Workshop at the Bauhaus: Exhibition in the Bauhaus Archive, Museum of Design, Berlin, February 9 - April 20, 1992 . Bauhaus Archive, 2005, p. 317

Web links

Commons : Josef Knau  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Josef Straßer: 50 Bauhaus icons that you should know . Munich: Prestel, 2009, p. 85
  2. ↑ The Alessi product Alessi 90043 Servizio di 2 cuocitè con sostegno was marketed under the name of the designers Knau and Rittweger, at Straßer the execution of tea balls and stands is attributed to the designers Tümpel and Rittweger.
personal data
SURNAME Knau, Josef
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German silversmith and resistance fighter against National Socialism
DATE OF BIRTH April 24, 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH Mainz
DATE OF DEATH May 3, 1945
Place of death Neustadt Bay