Kaiser Friedrich Museum Association

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One of the first acquisitions: the man with the gold helmet

The Kaiser Friedrich Museumsverein (KFMV) is the sponsoring association of the Gemäldegalerie and the sculpture collection of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin .

activity

The purpose of the association is to promote the Gemäldegalerie and the sculpture collection in Berlin. This happens primarily through the acquisition of paintings and sculptures from the early Middle Ages to the end of the 18th century, through support of exhibitions, organization of events, implementation of art-historical excursions, lectures and scientific events.

The works of art acquired by the Kaiser Friedrich Museumsverein are given to the relevant collections as loans or donations. The association owns around 120 paintings (including works by Dürer , Gainsborough , Boucher , Baldung Grien , Masaccio , Memling , Giotto , Rubens , Rembrandt , Tiepolo , Schongauer ) and around 150  sculptures . Most of the works of art are accessible to the public in the Gemäldegalerie Berlin at the Kulturforum and in the Bode Museum on Museum Island .

history

It was founded on April 28, 1896 on the initiative of Wilhelm von Bode , the director of what was then the Kaiser Friedrich Museum, which is now called the Bode Museum , and 20 other wealthy Berliners under the name of "Museum Association". On January 20, 1897, with unchanged objectives, he renamed himself Kaiser Friedrich Museumsverein; in the same year a decree of the emperor Wilhelm II granted him the rights of a legal person . The KFMV is thus one of the oldest civil art support associations in Germany.

Friedrich Schmidt-Ott (Photo: Nicola Perscheid , around 1917)

time of the nationalsocialism

The fact that the association, as the first “circle of friends” of the Berlin museums, had its history during the Nazi dictatorship reviewed, systematically and critically, on its own initiative, received a lot of public attention and was positively rated. During the German Empire and the Weimar Republic , at times a good 60% of its patronage members were Jewish. Immediately after the handover of government responsibility by Hindenburg to the Hitler-Papen-Hugenberg coalition , the chairman Friedrich Schmidt-Ott , who was in office from 1929 to 1954, demonstrated his "ostentatiously displayed alliance of science and government". The chairman's “rapid ideological self-adjustment” is demonstrated by the armaments and race policy proposals to the ministries and the “Führer and Reich Chancellor”. His memorandum to Minister Bernhard Rust (June 14, 1934) clearly reveals the nationalistic, anti-Semitic and opportunistic features of his thinking (Federal Archives).

“In this critical phase, one also misses his clear advocacy for the Jewish members of the scientific community [...]. One has to assume that Schmidt-Otts inclination towards state power, his antipathy against democratic rules of the game, which he has certainly developed over the years, and his conservative attitude did not put any insurmountable obstacles in his way to cooperation with the National Socialists. "

The association continued its activities (adoption of the annual budget until 1944/1945, general and general meetings, acquisition and donation campaigns) and consciously accepted people close to Hitler such as Ernst Heinkel , Emil von Stauß and Wilhelm Kreis . On June 8, 1938, Schmidt-Ott consistently confirmed to the NS Minister Bernhard Rust that the KFMV “no longer belonged to Jews”. In order to be able to make this statement, Schmidt-Ott had in the previous weeks excluded members who were not “Reich citizens” in the sense of the Nazi laws , contrary to the statutes. Given Schmidt-Ott's opportunism and diligence, it is questionable whether the association would have been forced to dissolve without Schmidt-Ott's letter, since the Nazi regime had basically nothing to object to him until 1945, such as his appointment as chairman of a historical group Commission and the Stifterverband for German Science showed.

In the first decades after 1945 the association continued "the Schmidt-Ottsche line of crouching and keeping still". In previous uncritical presentations, the association spread the deliberate and complete suppression of the adaptation to the Nazi regime.

The Kaiser Friedrich Museumsverein today has more than 650 members. Tessen von Heydebreck is the first chairman . Since 2010, the young members have formed the “Young Emperors” group, which has more than 100 members.

literature

  • Kaiser Friedrich-Museums-Verein: tradition, passion, understanding of art. Berlin 2006.
  • Bernd Sösemann : In the twilight of bureaucratic "Aryanization". The Kaiser Friedrich Museum Association in Berlin and its Jewish members during the Nazi dictatorship. Edition Andreae. Lexxion Verlagsgesellschaft, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-86965-303-7 .
  • Federal Archives / Berlin; Holdings R. 49.01, No. 15189, fol. 37-40.
  • Sören Flachowsky: From the emergency community to the Reich Research Council. Science Policy in the Context of Autarky, Armament and War ( Studies on the History of the German Research Foundation, 3). Stuttgart 2008.
  • Lothar Mertens : "Only those who are politically worthy". DFG research funding in the Third Reich. Berlin 2004.
  • Anna von Schoenebeck, Peter Bloch : On the history of the Kaiser Friedrich Museum Association. In: Kaiser Friedrich-Museums-Verein: Acquisitions 1897–1972. Berlin 1972.
  • Winfried Schulze : Self-image and external image. Friedrich Schmidt-Ott, a designer of the German science system. In: Research 1 (2005), pp. 1–8.
  • Andreas Kilb: patrons and traitors. An association in the Third Reich. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , June 22, 2016, p. N3.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lothar Mertens : Only politically worthy people. DFG research funding in the Third Reich. Berlin 2004.
  2. ↑ Soren Flachowsky: From the Emergency Association for Reich Research. Science Policy in the Context of Autarky, Armament and War (Studies on the History of the German Research Foundation 3). Stuttgart 2008. pp. 110-131.
  3. ↑ Winfried Schulze : Self-image and external image. Friedrich Schmidt-Ott, a designer of the German science system. In: Research 1 (2005), p. 7 f.
  4. ↑ Bernd Sösemann : In the twilight of bureaucratic "Aryanization". The Kaiser Friedrich Museum Association in Berlin and its Jewish members during the Nazi dictatorship. Edition Andreae. Lexxion Verlagsgesellschaft, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-86965-303-7 , p. 55.
  5. ↑ Bernd Sösemann: In the twilight of bureaucratic "Aryanization". The Kaiser Friedrich Museum Association in Berlin and its Jewish members during the Nazi dictatorship. Edition Andreae. Lexxion Verlagsgesellschaft, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-86965-303-7 , p. 49.
  6. ^ "Neither betrayal of the association nor its members" . Letter to the editor in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , June 29, 2016, p. 14
  7. ↑ Bernd Sösemann: In the twilight of bureaucratic "Aryanization". The Kaiser Friedrich Museum Association in Berlin and its Jewish members during the Nazi dictatorship. Edition Andreae. Lexxion Verlagsgesellschaft, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-86965-303-7 , p. 39 and Pp. 61-64.
  8. ↑ Andreas Kilb: Patrons and traitors. An association in the Third Reich. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, June 22, 2016, p. N3.
  9. ↑ Anna von Schoenebeck, Peter Bloch : To the history of the Kaiser Friedrich Museum Association. In: Kaiser Friedrich-Museums-Verein: Acquisitions 1897–1972. Berlin 1972, pp. 8-10.