Martin Kuznitzky

Martin Kuznitzky (born May 17, 1868 in Gnesen ; died after 1938) was a German dermatologist and urologist . In addition, he was an important art collector and documentarist of East Asian art, especially Japanese tsuba .

Life

Martin Kuznitzky was born in Gnesen as the son of the Jewish doctor Simon Kuznitzky from Myslowitz and his wife Auguste. After graduating from school, he began studying medicine , including at the Friedrich Wilhelms University in Berlin . He received his doctorate in 1892 at the Kaiser-Wilhelm University in Strasbourg on the theme "How and when to treat syphilis?" . After completing his doctorate, he worked at the Imperial University Clinic for Skin Diseases in Strasbourg until 1896 and published numerous works on psioriases , the urethra and the use of microscopy in medicine.

After moving to Cologne in 1897, he opened his own practice in Stephanstrasse. On August 8, 1901, he married Elisabeth Augusta von Liliencron, who came from there, in Strasbourg . Their daughter Elisabeth was born in 1903 . Since 1910 he was a member of the German Alpine Association , generously supported the establishment of the Rhineland section and gave slide shows about the Zermatt Alps and Graubünden .

In the First World War he was drafted into military service. As staff and regimental doctor of the 16th Lorraine Foot Artillery Regiment, he was in charge of an auxiliary hospital. Until the end of the war he worked as chief physician in Brest-Litovsk . For his services he received the Iron Cross II Class and the Bavarian Prince Regent Luitpold Medal .

After the end of the war he went back to Cologne and continued his professional activity. After the National Socialists came to power , the work opportunities for Jewish doctors were increasingly restricted. Martin Kuznitzky did not give up his practice, but lost a large number of his patients. His license to practice medicine was revoked on October 3, 1938 . At the end of 1938 his trail is lost in Cologne.

Art collector

In the 1920s he built up a collection of over 1000 exhibits of Japanese sword jewelry ( Tsuba , Kozuka , Fuchi-Kashira) and Japanese belt buttons ( Netsuke ), which in addition to the pre-war collections of the East Asian Museums in Cologne and Berlin and the collection of the Hamburg Museum for Arts and crafts were among the most important collections in Germany. Some of the exhibits came from the collection of the English collector George Herbert Naunton, which were auctioned in London in the early 1920s .

In the early 1930s, Kuznitzky began the multi-part publication on artist signatures on Japanese sword blades, which was edited with the help of Otto Kümmel . Until 1936 he photographed and cataloged the tsuba of the Hamburg Museum for Art and Industry. After his Cologne mentor Alfred Salmony emigrated to America in 1933 and the Hamburg museum director Max Sauerlandt was dismissed, the new director of the museum Konrad Hüseler refused to lend the tsuba to the Jewish doctor. The last publication, Part XXI of the Japanese Artist Seals Publication, appeared in 1937.

The archive with the Tsuba photographs evidently survived the Second World War . The family of his son-in-law offered them to Otto Kümmel for takeover in 1951, who passed the offer on to Peter Wilhelm Meister from the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg. From the correspondence with art collectors it is known that Kuznitzky had completed at least 17 more Tsuba photo panels, which were no longer published. Both the photo archive and Martin Kuznitzky's extensive collection are considered lost.

Commemoration

Stumbling block for Martin Kuznitzky, Mohrenstrasse 26, Cologne-Altstadt-Nord .

In the Mohrenstrasse in Cologne, where the former house with the doctor's practice stood, in September 2018 on the initiative of the German Alpine Club, Rhineland Section, in memory of Martin Kuznitzky and his wife Elisabeth and daughter Elisabeth Charlotte Gloeden , both of whom were born in 1944 after the failed Assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler in Plötzensee were executed, three stumbling blocks were laid as part of the art and monument project by Cologne artist Gunter Demnig .

Works by Martin Kuznitzky (selection)

How and when should syphilis be treated? Inaugural dissertation, Strasbourg, 1892.
Contribution to the contoverse about the nature of cell changes in molluscum contagiosum. 1896.
Unilateral psoriasis and the theories on the etiology of psoriasis. 1896.
Facultative ocular demonstration. 1896.
A case of acanthosis nigricans: papillaire et pigmentaire dystrophy. 1896.
Etiology and pathogenesis of psioriasis. 1897.
Investigations into the direction and course of the mucosal folds of the resting male urethra according to plate models. 1898.
Plate model of the urethral mucosa of a six month old male fetus. 1899.
Tube for treatment with carbonated snow. 1911.
Remarkable case of Malum performans after a blow to the spine. 1915.
Replacement of shaving when bandaging the wounded. 1915.
Collection of artist's seals (Han and Kakihan) in photomicrography: preparatory work for a systematic compilation of artist's seals of the masters of Japanese sword guards and Japanese sword jewelry. 1935.
Collection of artist seals (Kakihan) in photomicrographic reproduction. Part 1-11, 1931-1937.

Individual evidence

↑ Thorsten Hallig; Friedrich Moll (Hrsg.): Urology in the Rhineland in the time of National Socialism - persecution, expulsion, murder . Springer, Berlin / Heidelberg 2015, ISBN 978-3-662-44698-0 , pp. 119 .
^ Nathalie Neumann: Martin Kuznitzky. Searching for traces of a tsuba collector from Cologne . In: East Asian Journal, New Series . tape 35 . Berlin 2018, p. 37-45 .
↑ Détail document - Archives départementales du Bas-Rhin . In: archives.bas-rhin.fr . ( bas-rhin.fr [accessed November 3, 2018]).
^ André Postert, Reinhold Kruse: "Whoever wants to become a member must be of Aryan descent." Anti-Semitism in the Rhineland-Cologne section of the Alpine Association . Ed .: Department for Public Relations, DAV Section Rhineland-Cologne eV Cologne 2016, p. 29 f .
^ Nathalie Neumann: Martin Kuznitzky. Searching for traces of a tsuba collector from Cologne . In: East Asian Journal, New Series . tape 35 . Berlin 2018, p. 39 .
^ Nathalie Neumann: Martin Kuznitzky. Searching for traces of a tsuba collector from Cologne . In: East Asian Journal, New Series . tape 35 . Berlin 2018, p. 42 .
^ Nathalie Neumann: Martin Kuznitzky. Searching for traces of a tsuba collector from Cologne . In: East Asian Journal, New Series . tape 35 . Berlin 2018, p. 43 ff .

Remarks

^ According to the address book of the City of Cologne, the house at Mohrenstrasse 26 was uninhabited in 1939; In the address book of the city of Berlin for 1939, Elisabeth Kuznitzky is in Neue Kantst. 3 registered as a widow. The house Mohrenstrasse 26 no longer exists today, so the stumbling blocks in front of house number 20 were moved. In the Genealogical Handbook of the Adels, 1954, p. 226, it is stated that Martin Kuznitzky died in the spring of 1940 in the “Black Forest Sanatorium”.

personal data
SURNAME	Kuznitzky, Martin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German urologist and dermatologist as well as art collector
DATE OF BIRTH	May 17, 1868
PLACE OF BIRTH	Gniezno
DATE OF DEATH	after 1938

[1] Thorsten Hallig; Friedrich Moll (Hrsg.): Urology in the Rhineland in the time of National Socialism - persecution, expulsion, murder . Springer, Berlin / Heidelberg 2015, ISBN 978-3-662-44698-0 , pp. 119 .

[2] Nathalie Neumann: Martin Kuznitzky. Searching for traces of a tsuba collector from Cologne . In: East Asian Journal, New Series . tape 35 . Berlin 2018, p. 37-45 .

[3] Détail document - Archives départementales du Bas-Rhin . In: archives.bas-rhin.fr . ( bas-rhin.fr [accessed November 3, 2018]).

[4] André Postert, Reinhold Kruse: "Whoever wants to become a member must be of Aryan descent." Anti-Semitism in the Rhineland-Cologne section of the Alpine Association . Ed .: Department for Public Relations, DAV Section Rhineland-Cologne eV Cologne 2016, p. 29 f .

[6] Nathalie Neumann: Martin Kuznitzky. Searching for traces of a tsuba collector from Cologne . In: East Asian Journal, New Series . tape 35 . Berlin 2018, p. 39 .

[7] Nathalie Neumann: Martin Kuznitzky. Searching for traces of a tsuba collector from Cologne . In: East Asian Journal, New Series . tape 35 . Berlin 2018, p. 42 .

[8] Nathalie Neumann: Martin Kuznitzky. Searching for traces of a tsuba collector from Cologne . In: East Asian Journal, New Series . tape 35 . Berlin 2018, p. 43 ff .

[5] According to the address book of the City of Cologne, the house at Mohrenstrasse 26 was uninhabited in 1939; In the address book of the city of Berlin for 1939, Elisabeth Kuznitzky is in Neue Kantst. 3 registered as a widow. The house Mohrenstrasse 26 no longer exists today, so the stumbling blocks in front of house number 20 were moved. In the Genealogical Handbook of the Adels, 1954, p. 226, it is stated that Martin Kuznitzky died in the spring of 1940 in the “Black Forest Sanatorium”.