Luise Straus-Ernst

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Hanns Bolz : Portrait of Louise Straus-Ernst, before 1918

Luise Straus-Ernst also Louise Ernst , Louise Straus , Louise Ernst-Straus or Luise Ernst-Straus , called Lou (* December 2, 1893 in Cologne , † beginning of July 1944 in Auschwitz ) was a German art historian , journalist and artist as well as the first wife of the surrealist artist Max Ernst and mother of Jimmy Ernst .

Live and act

Youth, Studies and Marriage

Straus was born in Cologne in 1893 as the daughter of a hat manufacturer and grew up in a liberal Jewish milieu. After graduating from high school, she studied art history, history and archeology at the University of Bonn . There she met Max Ernst in 1913 . During the First World War , in 1918, she married Max Ernst, who had meanwhile been promoted to lieutenant and whose parents were devout Catholics, in a war ceremony - against the major concerns of both families. Even before his voluntary military service, Ernst had broken off his studies in philosophy , psychology and art history to work as a freelance painter in the circle of the Rhenish Expressionists around August Macke . Louise, however, had in 1917 when the art historian Paul Clemen as one of the first women at the University of Bonn with a study to develop the graphic style of the 12th century in the Cölner goldsmith doctorate. After completing her doctorate, she took up a position as a "research assistant" at the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne. There she curated the exhibition Old War Depictions - Graphics from the 15th to 18th Century in the summer of 1917 . In January 1919, after the death of Joseph Poppelreuter , the director of the sculpture and antiquities collection of the Wallraf-Richartz Museum , she took over the management of the museum until the end of the year. In 1920 the couple had a son, Hans-Ulrich, who later became known in the USA as a painter of abstract expressionism under the name Jimmy Ernst . The young family suffered from great financial worries. Luise took on the paperwork and sold stockings in the Tietz department store to ensure the family's survival.

Dada in Cologne

The Ernsts' apartment at Kaiser-Wilhelm-Ring 24 became the “power center” of unadjusted new art movements, the “Society of the Arts” and Dada Cologne . Strongly inspired by Giorgio de Chirico , whose works the young couple had seen in Munich, anti-art exhibitions inspired by Marxism and Freud's psychoanalysis were planned together with Johannes Theodor Baargeld , Hans Arp and others , for which Luise made some collages under the Dada name Armada von Duldgedalzen contributed. The first exhibition in 1920 at the Kölnischer Kunstverein was a scandal. The authorities confiscated posters and catalogs. At the group's second exhibition in a room behind the men's room at the Winter Brewery on Schildergasse, Straus was represented with several works. In the summer of 1922, while on vacation in Austria, the Ernst couple met the French surrealist Paul Éluard and his Russian wife Gala , whom they had already met in Cologne in 1921. Max Ernst separated from Luise, moved to Paris to join Surrealism as an artist and to live with the couple Éluard in a ménage à Trois . In 1926, the Ernsts' marriage was divorced in the absence of the husband.

Activity as a journalist

Lou Straus-Ernst, as she mostly called herself, initially managed to get by with her son and long-time nanny Maja Aretz as an accountant, secretary and employee of a lace manufacturer. She cataloged the Ostasia collection of the Cologne industrialist Ottmar Edwin Strauss and worked for various Cologne gallery owners, including Hermann and Andreas Becker. She turned back to art history, took on assignments as exhibition curator , wrote many articles on architecture and art from Roman times to the present, on theater and film, but also on women's issues, travel and socially critical issues, including for the Kölnische Zeitung and others national papers of high standing. Her reports on the Düsseldorf woman murderer Peter Kürten and the homosexual scene in Cologne, both of which were published in the cult magazine Der Cross-section , became famous . She also worked for the newly established Westdeutsche Rundfunk AG ( WERAG ). For the Vossische Zeitung and the Dresdner Neuesten Nachrichten she took on the art coverage for the Rhineland . In addition, she wrote at least one novel ( men in the background ) about the avant-garde project of a women's settlement in Frankfurt and a longer story ( A Quite Ordinary Life ), which were not published. However, a report from her has come down to us about the housing project itself. A new apartment on Emmastraße in Cologne-Sülz became a popular place to go, especially for theater people, actors and authors. Bert Brecht , Hanns Eisler and Kurt Weill were welcome guests; the photographer August Sander , also a friend of the house, portrayed Lou and Jimmy in 1928 for his large-scale portrait series People of the 20th Century . Arno Breker , Hitler's later favorite sculptor, courted her for a while. She was on good terms with the mayor of Cologne , Konrad Adenauer . She had a long love affair with his press officer Joseph Taepper. According to her son, she is said to have written some speeches for Adenauer as a ghostwriter . When Adenauer was deposed by the National Socialists in 1933 , the SS searched her apartment and there were no orders from newspapers and radio, she left Cologne in May 1933 and fled to Paris. Her son Jimmy initially stayed with her father and his second wife Karoline, nee. Fischel.

Emigration and deportation

After moving to various quarters, Straus lived in an emigrant hotel in the Latin Quarter . She kept loose contact with Max Ernst, who is now married to the French Marie-Berthe Aurenche , and got by with German lessons, museum tours for German tourists and paperwork. She wrote occasionally for the Neue Zürcher Zeitung , for the Deutsche Freiheit , published in Saarbrücken, and regularly for the famous emigrant newspaper Pariser Tageblatt and its successor, the Pariser Tageszeitung . She mainly wrote short stories from the life of emigrants, but also the serial novel Zauberkreis Paris , which has strong autobiographical traits. Her son came to visit twice a year from Cologne and later from Glückstadt, where he completed an apprenticeship as a printer at the Augustin printing house until he was able to emigrate to New York via Le Havre by ship in 1938 with the help of friends . He tried in vain to convince his mother of the necessity of her own emigration. His father was able to follow him in 1941 with the help of the Emergency Rescue Committee from Marseille together with his future third wife, Peggy Guggenheim . Luise had also been promised an exit visa. But Eleanor Roosevelt , the wife of the US President, withdrew it at the last moment for unspecified reasons, perhaps because it had been made out in the names of Max and Luise Ernst, which gave the impression that they were still married. Whether Max Ernst then offered her a remarriage, as he himself later said, is possible, but cannot be proven with absolute certainty.

Straus, who was intellectually close to the French Resistance but was not actively involved in it, was imprisoned for a short time in the notorious internment camp Camp de Gurs near the Spanish border . On the initiative of her long-time partner in exile, the journalist and art historian Fritz Neugass , she was released on June 21, 1940. The couple initially stayed in Cannes - in the still unoccupied south of France - where they lived in an apartment in the villa "Brise d'Orient" in the Impasse d'Alexandra. After it was expelled from there in October 1941, it found refuge with a group of other Jewish emigrants in Manosque in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence department . Straus lived with Neugass in the Hotel Du Nord on Boulevard de la Pleine. There she wrote her autobiography Nomadengut , which she sent to her agent Ella Picard, who lives in Switzerland, so that the manuscript was preserved and could later (2000) be printed on the initiative of the Hanoverian museum director Ulrich Krempel . The literary form is remarkable because it does not adhere to a strict chronology, but follows the principle of free association and memory. The famous local resident writer Jean Giono occasionally gave her writing and translation assignments, but was otherwise of little help because of his anti-Semitic resentments. Neugass was able to emigrate to the USA via Casablanca and Cuba in December 1941. Luise Straus-Ernst was left alone. All efforts to emigrate after all were unsuccessful. In Manosque, Luise Straus-Ernst kept in close contact with other emigrants such as the composer and pianist Jan Meyerowitz and the portrait and fashion photographer Willy Maywald . In September 1943 the Gestapo moved into Manosque and took up quarters near Luise's hotel. She was thus exposed to constant raids without protection, all the more since she became seriously ill at the same time and had to undergo an operation. On April 28, 1944, she was arrested along with nine other Jewish refugees, some of whom were French and some of foreign origin. She was deported via Marseille and Drancy to Auschwitz on June 30, 1944, where she was killed - the exact date is unknown.

After the Second World War , the life and cultural work of the journalist, writer and art historian Luise Straus-Ernst was largely forgotten, except for incidental mentions in biographies about Max Ernst. Not until her son Jimmy's memory book in 1985 with the title Not exactly a still life. Memories of my father Max Ernst also appeared in German, bringing them back into the consciousness of a broader public. In the 1990s, it was primarily women's history research that drew attention to them. Since the publication of her autobiography Nomadengut by the Sprengel Museum in Hanover , attention has been drawn to her work as an artist, author and figure in the Dada movement. The Cologne author Ute Remus has published an audio book on life and work.

In 2016 a comprehensive biography of Eva Weissweiler was published , which explains in detail, among other things, Straus-Ernst's work as an art historian and journalist and her diverse professional activities and relationships - under the difficult conditions of the persecution of Jews and the war - in Germany, France and Switzerland.

Grave of the Straus family at the Bocklemünd Jewish cemetery (November 2017)
Stumbling block for Louise Straus-Ernst in Cologne

The Cologne painter and sculptor Gunter Demnig dedicated one of his stumbling blocks to her in memory. It was placed in front of her last domicile at Emmastraße 27 in Cologne-Sülz (1928–1933).

As part of an exhibition at the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum , a gravestone inscription in memory of Luise Straus-Ernst was unveiled in June 2017 at the Jewish cemetery in Cologne-Bocklemünd (hallway 8 no. 1-3).

In 2018 the Luise-Straus-Ernst-Strasse in Cologne-Deutz was named after her.

Works (selection)

  • On the development of the drawing style in the Cologne goldsmith's art of the XII. Century. Heitz, Strasbourg 1917.
  • Nomadic property. Autobiography 1914–1942. Edited by Ulrich Krempel . Sprengel-Museum, Hannover 1999, ISBN 3-89169149-1 .
  • The first Wife's Tale (A Memoir by Louise Straus-Ernst. Historian, Critic, Journalist of Europe's Avante-Garde Artists in the 1920s and 30s). Midmarch Arts Press, 2004, ISBN 1-87767543-1 .
  • A woman looks at herself, reports and stories 1933–1941. Edited by the Max Ernst Museum, Brühl. With contributions by Jürgen Pech et al. Greven, Cologne 2012, ISBN 978-3-7743-0494-9 .
  • Men in the background , novel, undated, probably 1928/29, unpublished typescript, private collection.
  • A very ordinary life , story, undated, unpublished typescript, private property.
  • Magic Circle Paris (under the pseudonym Lou Ernst), serial novel, Pariser Tageblatt December 31, 1934 - February 6, 1935.
  • Excursion to the Bohème (under the pseudonym Ulla Bertram), story, Paris daily newspaper March 27, 1938 - May 1, 1938.
  • Friends behind barbed wire (together with Fritz Neugass), unpublished typescript, probably 1940/41, Fritz Neugass estate, University at Albany, NY
  • Furthermore, from 1917 to 1941 numerous articles and reports on the fields of art criticism, art history, theater, music, politics, Judaism, social affairs, and trips in various German, Swiss and French newspapers and magazines. See the preliminary bibliography by Eva Weissweiler, in: Notre Dame de Dada. Luise Straus-Ernst - the dramatic life of Max Ernst's first wife. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2016, ISBN 978-3-462-04894-0 , pp. 381–393.

Exhibitions

literature

  • Jimmy Ernst : Not exactly a still life. Memories of my father Max Ernst. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne, 1985/1988/1991 (orig. 1984), (also as paperback), ISBN 3-462-02154-0 .
  • Susanne Flecken: Luise Straus-Ernst. A life full of color. In: Annette Kuhn and Valentine Rothe (eds.): 100 years of women's studies at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn. (Seminar for history and its didactics and political education, subject of women's history), in cooperation with the advanced seminar 100 Years of Women's History at the University of Bonn. Edition Ebersbach, Dortmund 1996, ISBN 3-931782-11-5 .
  • Mechthild Gilzmer: Luise Straus-Ernst. A nomad between departure and persecution. In: U. Fendler and M: Gilzmer (Hrsg.): Grenzenlos. Festschrift for Helmut Schwartz on his 65th birthday. Shaker, Aachen 2005.
  • Carl-Albrecht Haenlein (ed.): Dada photography and photo collage. With works by Hans Arp, J. Th. Baargeld, André Breton, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Luise Ernst-Straus and others, Hanover 1979.
  • Kathrin Hoffmann-Curtius : Gender Game in Dadaism. In: Kunstforum 128 , 1994, pp. 166-169.
  • Hildegard Reinhardt : Straus-Ernst, Luise. Art historian, art critic, publicist. In: Jutta Dick and Marina Sassenberg (eds.): Jewish women in the 19th and 20th centuries. Lexicon on life and work. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1993, ISBN 3-499-16344-6 , p. 368 ff.
  • Ute Remus: "Should you ever should you swan open" - homage to Louise Straus-Ernst. Schmidt von Schwind, Cologne 2004, ISBN 3-932050-23-1 .
  • Eva Weissweiler : Notre Dame de Dada. Luise Straus-Ernst - the dramatic life of Max Ernst's first wife. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2016, ISBN 978-3-462-04894-0 .
Radio feature

Web links

Commons : Louise Straus-Ernst  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Dr. Louise Straus-Ernst (1893–1944 (?)). In: Kirsten-Serup Bilfeldt: Stolpersteine ​​- Forgotten names, blown traces. Guide to the fate of Cologne during the Nazi era. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2004, 2nd edition, ISBN 3-462-03535-5 , pp. 131–141.
  2. ↑ a b The girls of Düsseldorf . In: The Cross Section . Born in 1930, p. 134 .
  3. ^ A b Ernst Luart: Train through dark Cologne . In: The Cross Section . Born in 1930, p. 104 .
  4. ↑ a b LSTE: The Frankfurt women's settlement. From the settlement cooperative of working women in Frankfurt am Main . In: Dresdner Latest News . July 17, 1928.
  5. ^ Eva Weissweiler: Notre Dame de Dada . Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2016, p. 340 .
  6. ^ Eva Weissweiler: Notre Dame de Dada . Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2016, ISBN 978-3-462-04894-0 , pp. 342 .
  7. ↑ Luise Straus-Ernst wrote to Fritz Neugass on July 2, 1942 that he had commissioned her to translate his novel "Triomphe de la vie" into German (University at Albany, Fritz Neugass estate). However, the translation ("Triumph of Life") appeared in 1949 under the names Hetty Benninghoff and Ernst Sander. To what extent they made use of Luise's preparatory work is not known.
  8. ↑ Central name archive. (pdf, 361 kB) In: Official Gazette of the City of Cologne. July 25, 2018, pp. 304/308 , accessed July 28, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Straus-Ernst, Luise
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Straus-Ernst, Louise; Strauss, Luise Amelie; Straus-Ernst, Lou
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German art historian, journalist and artist
DATE OF BIRTH December 2, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH Cologne
DATE OF DEATH July 1944
Place of death Auschwitz concentration camp