Lothar Malskat

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Lothar Malskat (born May 3, 1913 in Königsberg ; † February 10, 1988 in Wulfsdorf near Lübeck ) was a painter and art forger .

Life

Malskat began an apprenticeship as a painter, but was then able to attend the Königsberg Art Academy . In addition to his own works, he also created works of art based on other people's works. After Malskat had his first own exhibition in Königsberg, he moved to Berlin. He turned to the church historian and restorer Ernst Fey with letters of recommendation from his previous professors . At first Malskat only dealt with minor work, but at the same time let him study works on early church painting. Malskat then accompanied Ernst Fey and his son Dietrich Fey on restorations in Silesia .

Forgery in Schleswig Cathedral

In spring 1937 Ernst Fey was commissioned to restore the paintings in Schleswig Cathedral . The early Gothic paintings in the cathedral were renewed by overpainting by August Olbers in 1888 - Fey was supposed to restore the original condition. After Olbers' paintings were removed, hardly any traces of paintings were left. In order not to be punished for the destruction of national cultural assets, Malskat began to create paintings based on early Gothic art in the Schleswig Cathedral. It was noticed relatively quickly that, among other things, a turkey from America was depicted , but this was interpreted in accordance with National Socialist doctrine as proof of the Vikings' voyages of discovery.

Forgery of modern masters in the post-war period

Malskat was later called up for military service and spent the Second World War in Norway. After the war he contacted Dietrich Fey again, for whom he forged works of art by prominent artists: Barlach , Chagall , Kokoschka , Picasso , Liebermann , Rembrandt , Rousseau , Utrillo and others. There were around 600 fakes in total.

Forgery in the Marienkirche in Lübeck and conviction

Lothar Malskat gained notoriety in connection with the restoration of the Marienkirche in Lübeck in 1948: the supposedly Gothic frescoes in the upper part of the choir , which Malskat wanted to have discovered together with Dietrich Fey in the course of restoration, were initially recognized by well-known experts as top achievements in medieval painting celebrated. After initial criticism from art scholars, Malskat filed a voluntary disclosure to the Lübeck public prosecutor's office on October 6, 1952 .

After this art forgery was exposed, Malskat confessed to a number of other similar offenses and was sentenced to one year and six months in prison on January 25, 1955 for fraud. The Marienkirche was not financially damaged, as there were only bare walls before the work was carried out. The church even achieved revenue from the surcharge of special stamps 700 years Marienkirche Lubeck , where Malskat paintings were displayed. According to Malskat's lawyer, this is said to have resulted in a sum of 180,000 DM. However, the court constructed a damage in its judgment as follows: "The pictures are tainted with a moral flaw and completely worthless." The church council saw in the pictures a "church nuisance", which weighed heavily on "religious service", and left them in Wash off September 1955.

Later career

Lothar Malskat later worked as a painter who signed his own works. The painter Rolf May received painting lessons and material science from him. He often stayed in Denmark, especially in the 1950s, where he created part of his work. He spent his twilight years in the Malskat-Kate in Wulfsdorf , a southern district of Lübeck.

Malskat's work today

The case was picked up for ZDF in 1966 under the direction of Günter Meincke . Hanns Lothar took on the role of Lothar Malskat .

Today his own paintings, created later, are officially traded on the art market. The forgeries of Malskat found in the course of the fraud process can be viewed in the court history collection of the Regional Court of Flensburg .

Malskat entered the literature through the novel Die Rättin by Günter Grass , in which the biography and evaluation of Malskat plays an important role.

Primary literature

  • Lothar Malskat: Lothar Malskat: watercolors, temperas, drawings . Starczewski, Munich 1968.
  • Lothar Malskat: I, Malskat, painter and forger (autobiography)

Secondary literature

  • Freerk Haye Hamkens: The turkey in Schleswig Cathedral , in: Germanenerbe 5, 1940, 155–156.
  • Alfred Stange: The Schleswig Cathedral and its wall paintings . Berlin 1940, 60, pl. 15, pl. 31 and note 91.
  • HA Gräbke : The wall paintings of the Marienkirche in Lübeck . Hamburg 1951.
  • Günther Grundmann : Lübeck In: German Art and Monument Preservation Born 1955, page 81 ff. Deutscher Kunstverlag Munich / Berlin 1955.
  • Ernst Roßmann: Scientific investigation of the wall paintings in the Chorobergaden of the Marienkirche in Lübeck, on the occasion of the Lübeck picture forgery process. In: German Art and Monument Preservation Born 1955, page 99 ff. Deutscher Kunstverlag Munich / Berlin 1955.
  • Peter Hirschmann: What should become of the forged murals in St. Marien zu Lübeck? In: German Art and Monument Preservation Born 1955, page 106 ff. Deutscher Kunstverlag Munich / Berlin 1955.
  • Hinnerk Scheper: Restoration and professional ethos In: German Art and Monument Preservation Born 1955, page 109 ff. Deutscher Kunstverlag Munich / Berlin 1955.
  • St. Marien yearbook 1955/56 of the St. Marien-Bauverein. Edited by Horst Weimann. Oldenburg in Holst. 1955. Contains the statements of Günther Grundmann on the forgeries and the trial against Dietrich Fey and Lothar Malskat (pp. 67–76 and 101–124) as well as the documents on the image forger trial and a statement by Hinnerk Scheper (p . 77-96).
  • Kurt Wehlte : What was going on in Lübeck? In: Technique 61/1955. P. 11.
  • Sepp Schüller: forgers, dealers and experts . Munich 1959.
  • Joachim Goll: Art forger. EASeemann Verlag Leipzig, 1st edition 1962 (with bibliography)
  • George Savage: Forgeries, Fakes and Reproductions . London, Barrie & Rockliff, 1963
  • Frank Arnau: Art of Forgers - Forgers of Art . Düsseldorf 1964 pp. 268-282
  • Adolf Rieth: Forged ahead of time . Tübingen 1967, 144-148.
  • Exhibition catalog Essen and Berlin: Forgery and research . Ed .: Museum Folkwang, Essen, and Staatliche Museen Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin. 1976. ISBN 3-7759-0201-5 .
  • Christine Lehmann: Malskat and the Gothic turkeys . In: crooks stories . Hamburg, Rasch and Röhring Verlag, 1988 ISBN 978-3-89136-172-6
  • Michel-Rundschau 7/1988 (page 538: Lothar Malskat died )
  • Der Spiegel 7/1988 of February 15, 1988 (page 220: Lothar Malskat )
  • Der Spiegel 34/1952 from August 20, 1952 (page 26: Everything painted Malskat )
  • Andreas Beck: Original - fake? Imaging methods in the diagnosis of works of art Schnetztor-Verlag GmbH Konstanz 1990, ISBN 3-87018-080-3
  • Karl Corino (ed.): Universal history of forgery. 33 cases that moved the world. From antiquity to the present , Eichborn Verlag, Frankfurt / Main, 1996.
  • Günter Grass : Work Edition Volume 11 The She-rat . Steidl Verlag, Göttingen 1997, 493 pages, ISBN 3-88243-492-9 .
  • Meike Kruse: The “Miracle of Lübeck” and Lothar Malskat: Restoration and forgery of wall paintings in St. Marien 1948–1952 . In: Journal of the Association for Lübeckische Geschichte und Altertumskunde Volume 88 (2008), pp. 219–244 ( online ).

Web links

About Lothar Malskat

Postage stamps

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Zeit Online from May 16, 2002.
  2. ↑ Malskat, now you have to go! Die Zeit , issue 21/2002 from May 16, 2002.
  3. ↑ Image and document archive of the painter Vera Hedrich, Bleckede
  4. ↑ The case Lothar Malskat in the Internet Movie Database (English)
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personal data
SURNAME Malskat, Lothar
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter and art forger
DATE OF BIRTH May 3, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Koenigsberg
DATE OF DEATH February 10, 1988
Place of death Wulfsdorf , Lübeck