Leonhard Oesterle

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Leonhard Friedrich Oesterle (born March 3, 1915 in Bietigheim-Bissingen ; † November 7, 2009 in Toronto ) was a Canadian sculptor , draftsman and art teacher of German origin.

As a temporary supporter of the Communist Party and because of political resistance activities, he was arrested in Stuttgart in 1935 and spent almost nine years in prison and in various concentration camps during the National Socialist era .

Life

Oesterle's grave in the Berlin-Friedenau municipal cemetery , here still with the sculpture "Sitzende", bronze (49 cm), 1991, which was stolen in autumn 2015.

Born in Bietigheim-Bissingen in 1915 as the son of a working-class family, Oesterle acted for the KPD, which was banned in Nazi Germany in 1933, as a middleman and written courier between the party and an underground resistance group of the banned Communist Youth Association (KJVD) , the Stuttgart group G around Hans Gasparitsch , distributed the leaflets and posted anti-Hitler slogans on walls and monuments. In connection with one of their actions in the spring of 1935, during which most of the members were arrested, Oesterle was denounced by his own people, arrested by the Gestapo in Stuttgart and on October 14, 1936 for "preparation for high treason" to five years imprisonment with subsequent protective custody sentenced.

Oesterle began his prison sentence in Ludwigsburg prison and in August 1938 was transferred as a prisoner to work detachments in Zweibrücken (anti-tank barriers for the Siegfried Line ), then to road construction in the Bohemian Forest ( Bavarian Ostmarkstrasse ) and finally to the prisoner and labor camp in Börgermoor . After serving his five-year imprisonment, he was taken into protective custody in 1940: first to the Welzheim protective custody camp and on May 25, 1940 to the Dachau concentration camp (prisoner number 11547), where he was initially assigned to the command under Baukapo Karl Wagner and later as a prison officer under Revierkapo Josef Heiden had to work as a prison attendant. In May 1941, Oesterle was transferred with about 120 other concentration camp prisoners under the command of Dachau SS-Hauptscharführer Josef Seuss to the Dachau external command in Radolfzell , from where on November 15, 1943, together with a Czech fellow inmate, he escaped across the Untersee in a folding boat Switzerland succeeded.

In Switzerland, Oesterle began training as a sculptor with the exiled Austrian sculptor Fritz Wotruba , who had his studio in Zug . During this time, Oesterle also met the exiled actor Robert Freitag , his wife Maria Becker and their mother Maria Fein at the Schauspielhaus Zurich , with whom he was to become a lifelong friend. In 1945 Oesterle received a scholarship from Evangelical Refugee Aid at the Zurich School of Applied Arts . Studied sculpture with Ernst Gubler . Oesterle then worked for several years with the Zurich sculptor Otto Müller, with whom he shared his studio. Friendship with Max Frisch . 1952 return to Germany, first to Munich , later to Berlin . In 1956 Oesterle emigrated to Canada. From 1963 to 1987 he taught sculpture at the Ontario College of Art & Design in Toronto. In 1990 the award-winning youth novel Glücksvogel appeared. Leo's story by Sigbert E. Kluwe a literary biography of Oesterle. On the occasion of a retrospective in Bietigheim-Bissingen in 1991, Oesterle returned to his hometown after a long time, to which he gave sculptures and works on paper as a gift in 1996. Oesterle was a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts , which held an exhibition of Oesterle's sculptures in Toronto in 1992. Oesterle was in Germany for the last time in 2005: on the occasion of his 90th birthday, the Städtische Galerie Bietigheim-Bissingen showed a retrospective of his sculptural work. Oesterle died on November 7, 2009 in Toronto and was buried in the Stubenrauchstrasse municipal cemetery in Berlin-Friedenau . In 2016 a street in a new development area in the north of the city of Radolfzell was named after Leonhard Oesterle.

plant

Leonhard Oesterle: "Woman's head", bronze sculpture, garden of the Villa Bosch, Radolfzell

Oesterle's sculptures in metal and stone developed based on the classically oriented figurative plastic tradition of Switzerland. With the exception of a brief abstract phase, Oesterle was primarily interested in the human figure. On the one hand, his works show slender, female figurines whose surface texture makes their construction work with wax clear; on the other hand, there are figures with bulging, voluminous limbs that reveal the influences of Pablo Picasso , Jacques Lipchitz and Henry Moore , but also the art of indigenous peoples. The biographical experience of his years of imprisonment was artistically quite deliberately left out by Oesterle. His work is in public and private collections in the USA, Canada and Europe. In Bietigheim it is represented by several sculptures in the city's public space . A significant part of the artistic and handwritten estate of Oesterle came in 2016 as a gift from the heirs to the Städtische Galerie Bietigheim-Bissingen.

literature

  • Fritz Kaspar (i.e. Hans Gasparitsch, Franz Franz, Albert Kapr): The fates of the group G. According to notes and letters . Berlin 1960.
  • Sigbert E. Kluwe: Lucky bird. Leo's story . Baden-Baden 1990.
  • Municipal gallery Bietigheim-Bissingen (ed.): Leonhard Oesterle. Sculptures. From April 21 to June 16, 1991 . Exhibition catalog. Bietigheim-Bissingen 1991.
  • Royal Canadian Academy of Arts (ed.): Leonhard Oesterle - Sculpture . Oakville (Ontario) 1992.

Web links

Commons : Leonhard Friedrich Oesterle  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See: Documentation Center Oberer Kuhberg, Ulm ( Memento of the original from December 23, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . In 1960, Hans Gasparitsch published under the pseudonym Fritz Kaspar the narrative reports of the young resistance fighters. The names of those involved were changed; Leonhard Oesterle can be recognized in the figure of Klemens , alias Hardy Weiland . However, “some incidents” were “literarily embellished” (cf. epilogue of the second edition from 1985) that they cannot be historically proven or do not match the verifiable facts; see. Fritz Kaspar: The fates of group G. According to notes and letters. Berlin 1960, ² 1985. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.dzokulm.telebus.de
  2. ↑ The National Socialist local press reported on November 24, 1936 under the heading “High prison sentences for enemies of the state” among other things as follows: “Against Leonhard Oesterle von Bietigheim / Enz, the criminal division of the Stuttgart Higher Regional Court pronounced a prison sentence of 5 years, three years of loss of honor and admissibility of Police supervision because from April 1934 to February 1935 he was in a leading position in the rebuilding of the KJ. worked in Stuttgart and in the production of magazines for the KJ. participated. (...) These judgments, too, clearly show that (...) the National Socialist German state is not disturbed and endangered by journeymen without a fatherland in its difficult but successful work on the German people. "Cf. Ulmer Sturm. National Review No. 274 (November 24, 1936)
  3. ^ On Leonhard Oesterle in the Dachau external command in Radolfzell: Markus Wolter: Radolfzell in National Socialism. The Heinrich Koeppen barracks as the location of the Waffen SS , in: Writings of the Association for the History of Lake Constance and its Surroundings , 129th year 2011, pp. 247–286, here: The Dachau KZ-Außenkommando Radolfzell , p. 270 -277 ( digitized version ). See also: Markus Wolter: Daring to flee as a last resort - Exactly 70 years ago, the concentration camp inmates Oldrich Sedláček and Leonhard Oesterle managed to escape from the Dachau external camp in Radolfzell. Article in Südkurier , November 15, 2013. In: radolfzell-ns-geschichte.von-unten.org .
  4. ^ Sigbert E. Kluwe: Bird of luck. Leo's story , Baden-Baden 1990
  5. ↑ Municipal Gallery Bietigheim-Bissingen (ed.): Leonhard Oesterle. Sculptures. From April 21 to June 16, 1991. Exhibition catalog. Bietigheim-Bissingen 1991
  6. ↑ Death report in the Toronto Star
  7. ^ Obituary in the Stuttgarter Zeitung ( Memento from December 23, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  8. ^ Obituary in the Bietigheim-online newspaper
  9. ↑ The Städtische Galerie Bietigheim-Bissingen on Oesterle's work, on the occasion of the exhibition 2005/6
personal data
SURNAME Oesterle, Leonhard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Oesterle, Leonhard Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian sculptor
DATE OF BIRTH March 3, 1915
PLACE OF BIRTH Bietigheim-Bissingen
DATE OF DEATH November 7, 2009
Place of death Toronto