Karl Nothnagel

Karl Nothnagel (* 1898 in Frankfurt am Main ; † November 24, 1958 ) was a German art historian and monument conservator. He was instrumental in building up the preservation of monuments in Hessen after the Second World War . At times, he took in personal union three management functions simultaneously true: He was Speaker for historic preservation in the Hesse Ministry of Culture , State Conservator and Head of the Administration of State Palaces and Gardens Hesse .

Live and act

Karl Nothnagel studied art history , history and German at the universities of Frankfurt , Freiburg and Munich . He received his doctorate in 1927 under Rudolf Kautzsch with a thesis on Romanesque architecture in Gelnhausen . Until 1932 he worked as a university assistant, then as a substitute librarian in the Frankfurt City Library . The contract was not renewed in 1933 because he was not a member of the NSDAP .

In the period that followed, Nothnagel received various positions in monument preservation , where he was involved in the creation of an inventory of art monuments for the church buildings in the city of Mainz. From 1938 he worked for the Provincial Administration for Pomerania in Stettin and from 1943 in the Reich Ministry for Science, Education and National Education in the Department of Monument Preservation. From 1947 he worked in the Hessian Ministry of Culture as a consultant for museums, monument preservation and the fine arts .

His areas of responsibility included the administration of the holdings of the Central Collecting Point that were still in the Wiesbaden Museum and housed here, as well as the outsourced holdings of the cultural assets of the former State of Prussia , especially from Berlin , which were transferred to the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation in 1957 . He also set up the Administration of State Palaces and Gardens of Hesse , which took over the corresponding facilities from the former Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau and the former People's State of Hesse and its predecessor, the Grand Duchy of Hesse . Karl Nothnagel led this authority in personal union with his position as a consultant in the Ministry of Culture. In addition, after the resignation of the previous incumbent, Friedrich Bleibaum , from 1951 - also in personal union - he was State Curator of Hesse. In 1955, however, the office of state curator was made independent again and Hans Feldtkeller was given the task. Karl Nothnagel died at the age of 51 as a result of a heart attack.

Publications (selection)

• The Peterskirche in Gelnhausen. (= Upper Rhine Art. Volume 4). Freiburg 1930.
• with Ernst Neeb: The art monuments of the city and the district of Mainz. Volume 2: The ecclesiastical art monuments of the city of Mainz. Part 2: Existing and missing Mainz churches. 1. Delivery: AG . (= The art monuments in Hessen. Stadtkreis Mainz ). Bergstrasse, Darmstadt 1940.
• with Fritz Arens and Ernst Neeb: The art monuments of the city of Mainz. Part 1: Churches of St. Agnes to Holy Cross . (= The art monuments of Rhineland-Palatinate. Fourth volume. Part 1). German art publisher, Berlin 1961.
• Staufer architecture in Gelnhausen and Worms . Kümmerle, Göppingen 1971, ISBN 3-87452-083-8 .

literature

• Gottfried Kiesow : On the development of monument preservation in Hessen. In: Preservation of monuments in Hessen. 1, 1988
• Jochen Zulauf: Administration of Art or Art of Administration. Cultural administration, cultural promotion and cultural policy of the State of Hesse 1945–1960. (= Contributions to the history of Nassau and the state of Hesse. 2). Wiesbaden 1995, [p. 34ff.]
• Karl Nothnagel in memory. In: German art and monument preservation. Association of State Monument Preservators in the Federal Republic of Germany, Deutscher Kunstverlag, 1959, p. 89.

Web links

• Literature by and about Karl Nothnagel in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ published posthumously as Staufische Architektur in Gelnhausen and Worms . Kümmerle, Göppingen 1971.