Karl-Tobias Schwab

Federal coat of arms of Germany from 1950, formerly the national coat of arms of the German Reich, designed in 1926, introduced in 1928

German Olympic participants with the imperial eagle coat of arms by Karl-Tobias Schwab, 1928 (in the middle: Lina Radke , gold medal in the women's 800 meter run)

Tobias Schwab's tombstone in the Zehlendorf forest cemetery

Karl-Tobias Schwab (born November 24, 1887 in Stuttgart , † September 10, 1967 in Berlin ) was a German glass painter , graphic artist , type designer , medalist and university professor . In 1926 he was the creator of the form of the state coat of arms of the German Reich , which was in use from 1928 and was introduced as the federal coat of arms of Germany in 1950 .

Life

Karl-Tobias Schwab was the son of a master lithographer. After attending elementary school (1894–1902) and the Royal Drawing Academy in Hanau (1902–1906), he worked for three years as a draftsman and painter in a graphic arts institute, also in Hanau. From 1909 to 1912 he then studied at the Staatliche Kunstgewerbeschule in Munich . From 1912 to 1913 he worked as a graphic artist in an art print shop in Mannheim . Before the outbreak of the First World War , in which he served as a soldier at the front and was wounded in 1917, his visit to the educational institution of the State Museum of Applied Arts in Berlin as a student of Emil Rudolf Weiß is noted. From 1918 to 1921 he worked as a teacher at the II. Municipal Crafts School in Berlin. As a teacher for writing and applied graphics, he then taught from 1921 to 1923 at the state training seminar in Berlin-Charlottenburg . Appointed by Bruno Paul, Schwab also worked as a teacher in the glass painting workshop at the teaching institute of the State Museum of Applied Arts in Berlin from 1921, an activity that he continued until 1938. From 1924 he also took on a position as a teacher of script, typography and script application at the United State Schools for Free and Applied Arts , in which the above-mentioned educational institution was absorbed. As an artistic teacher "with full teaching assignment" and since about 1938 the title of professor, he continued his teaching at this institution, which was called the State University of Fine Arts since 1938 . In addition, from 1943 to 1945 he represented a teacher who was drafted for military service as a teacher of writing at the State University for Art Education in Berlin. Schwab experienced the end of World War II as a participant in the Volkssturm . After the war he taught again from 1945 until his retirement in 1955 at the State University of Fine Arts in Berlin, now as a teacher for artistic writing and graphic techniques in the art education department. Karl-Tobias Schwab died on September 10, 1967 in Berlin.

Works (excerpt)

• For the Reich President Friedrich Ebert he designed some of the eagle shields introduced in 1922 for the German Reich , mostly only the writing side of the medals.
• In 1926, based on a design by Sigmund von Weech, he designed an imperial eagle , which appeared on the Reichswehr official badges in 1927 and was used as a distinguishing symbol for the German team at the Summer Olympics in Amsterdam in 1928 . The shape of this imperial eagle coat of arms is influenced by the New Objectivity . It found acceptance at the office of the Reichskunstwarts and was introduced in the same year for the national coat of arms of the German Reich . The coat of arms is known today as the federal coat of arms of Germany . It was adopted in early 1950 by Federal President Theodor Heuss as the national coat of arms of the Federal Republic of Germany and officially established as a colored pattern on July 4, 1952 (Federal Gazette No. 169 of September 2, 1952).
• 1927: Design of the 50 Reichspfennig course coin of the Weimar Republic .
• In the 1920s he designed, among other things, the cover picture for the festschrift in honor of Karl Kautsky's 70th birthday for the JHW Dietz Nachf publishing house .
• After 1929 he designed the Tobias-Schwab-Antiqua font , for which he deposited a sample on October 12, 1933.

Web links

• The glass painter and graphic artist Tobias Schwab (PDF) with photography from Georg Tappert's estate onthe digiporta.net portal

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Federal coat of arms . ( Memento of the original from November 19, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) 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. bmi.bund.de, June 23, 2008, German Federal Ministry of the Interior; Retrieved December 21, 2012 
2. ^ Rüdiger Zimmermann : How Dietz came to the snake - The invention of the publisher's signet , footnote p. 72. There cited from: Wolfgang Steguweit: Medaillenkunst in der Weimarer Republik . In: The medal and commemorative coin of the 20th century in Germany , Berlin 2000, p. 83
3. ↑ Wolfgang Steguweit: The "Eagle Shield of the German Empire" . In: Berlin monthly magazine ( Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein ) . Issue 6, 2000, ISSN  0944-5560 , p. 182-187 ( luise-berlin.de ).
4. ^ Jürgen Hartmann : The federal eagle . In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte , volume 56, 2008, issue 3, p. 501; ifz-muenchen.de (PDF)
5. ↑ Alois Friedel: German state symbols. Origin and meaning of political symbolism in Germany . Athenäum Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1968, p. 54
6. ^ Paul Arnold, Harald Küthmann, Dirk Steinhilber: Grosser Deutscher Münzkatalog . From 1800 until today. Battenberg Verlag, Munich 2000, p. 499 .
7. ↑ Karl-Tobias Schwab . (PDF) Klingspor Museum
8. ↑ Wolfgang Hendlmeier: The Reichsdruckerei. Their history and their special writings . In: Die deutsche Schrift , Issue 3/2005, p. 8; variatio-delectat.com (PDF)