New World (Würzburg)

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"New World" or "To the New World" is the name of a former manor at Leutfresserweg 32 in Würzburg , which in the first half of the 20th century was the residence of the painter Gertraud Rostosky and her mother, a meeting point, transit station and summer residence for artists, It served writers and intellectuals and gained national fame, and its building is now privately owned.

"New World" Würzburg, east view with terrace

history

The building contractor and building materials dealer Johann Adam Wadenklee from Kitzingen owned an 82 hectare forest and field area on Nikolausberg in Würzburg, on which quarries and lime kilns were operated. In the years 1864 to 1866 he had a manor built on the area accessible through the Leutfresserweg, which due to the events of the German War of 1866 could only be half as large as planned and was occupied in 1867. The ensemble of residential and farm buildings erected in the sloping area was given its character to this day thanks to a wide, spacious terrace. Johann Wadenklee lived in the property with his wife Margaretha and children as well as the employees of the estate. However, the name "Marienhof", which he intended for his eldest daughter, could not prevail. Rather, the vernacular found the name "New World" or "To the New World", which is still valid today, for the estate , which was then half an hour's walk from the urban development and located approximately at the level of the Marienberg Fortress opposite, with a wonderful view of the to cathedral city lying at his feet.

The operation of a pig and mushroom farm was not very profitable. The estate never made a profit and could only be financed through the Wadenklees construction business. An inn was to serve as an additional source of income, but it only existed for a short time.

On September 29, 1873, Marie, the daughter of the founding couple Wadenklee, married the bookseller journeyman Heinrich Rostosky from Riga. After completing his training as a publishing bookseller, Rostosky moved back to Riga with his wife , where their daughter Margaretha was born in 1874 and their daughter Gertraud on January 7, 1876. Four days after Gertraud's birth, Heinrich Rostosky died suddenly, so that his 22-year-old widow and two children had to return to Würzburg in the “New World”. In addition to the grandparents, the siblings of Gertraud's mother Therese and Bernhard as well as various service personnel lived on the "New World".

This had developed into a popular destination for walks and a summer getaway for the Würzburgers. Together with her parents and two daughters, Marie Rostosky tried to improve the difficult financial situation in the "New World" by renting rooms to students and professors at the University of Würzburg. In 1879/80, Hans Virchow, Rudolf Virchow's son and private lecturer at the Zoological Institute of the University of Würzburg, lived on the estate. The focus was on Margaretha Wadenklee, who ran a “salon” with jour fixe on Saturday afternoons, which provided the opportunity for poetry readings, piano performances, etc. similar bot. There were also boarding days for poor students and impoverished school friends took part in life in the house as if they were part of it. Caroline Dauthendey, the mother of the poet Max Dauthendey , was given to the “New World” by her husband in 1873 and died there on June 11, 1873. The contact between Dauthendey's father Carl and Maria Wadenklee and the “New World” also made his Son became familiar with the local residents at an early stage. That was how he met Gertraud Rostosky, who was nine years his junior. When she and her mother met Dauthendey again in the summer of 1890, they invited him and his student friends to visit them. From this a preferred meeting point for Dauthendey and other musically inclined developed. After Dauthendey's psychological and physical breakdown, which his father then had admitted to a mental hospital, he recovered in the spring of 1891 on the "New World". His frequent stays there and his acquaintance with their residents and guests, but above all his childhood sweetheart Gertraud Rostosky, dealt with Dauthendey in his first novel "Josa Gerth", which appeared in 1892 and in which, as well as in other later works, the "New World" appeared under the name "Pfauenhof" or "Geisterhaus".

Gertraud Rostosky refused marriage proposals from Dauthendey and his friend Arnold Villinger in September 1894 and devoted herself to her school and professional training as a painter. Only after many stops in Dresden, Munich and Paris did she return to the “New World” for a longer period of time after her grandmother's death on April 5, 1903. In the period that followed, she moved constantly between Würzburg and Munich . Stays in Berlin and Paris were added later. The hospitable house of the grandparents increasingly developed into a "haven of the arts". A series of legendary artist festivals began in the summer of 1907. Franz Langguth, a winemaker's son from Traben-Trarbach , whom Rostosky had met by chance in Munich and who sometimes accompanied the two on trips, worked as Dauthendey's private secretary during this time .

In 1913, Gertraud Rostosky stayed mainly on the "New World". Her sister Margaretha died on January 20, 1913. At the beginning of the First World War she gave painting lessons on the "New World".

During her training and the subsequent activity as a painter, Rostosky had met a wide variety of artists and intellectuals; so in Munich Waldemar Bonsels , Korfiz Holm, Karl Arnold , Olaf Gulbransson , Eduard Thöny , Frank Wedekind , Willi Geiger and Albert Weisgerber . In Paris she took painting lessons from Olga Boznańska and met Isolde Daig and her future husband Béla Czobel . Her acquaintances in Berlin included Maria Slavona , Dora Hitz , Elsa Weise, Marie Galimberti, Anton Kerschbaumer and Erich Heckel .

The maintenance of the estate became increasingly difficult after the death of the grandparents Gertraud Rostosky and her mother. As early as 1915, 30 acres, including a small wood planted in 1872, had been sold to the city of Würzburg. The income from renting and selling pictures as well as painting lessons was not sufficient, so that a sale was inevitable. The artist couple Hans Purrmann and Mathilde Vollmoeller-Purrmann initially seemed to be considered as buyers . In the end, however, Franz Langguth acquired the property on April 1, 1920, while the two women were granted lifelong right to live on the lower floor of the manor house. The usual tradition of an open house could be continued, even if the millions from the sales proceeds as inflation money evaporated in a short time. The early days of the “New World” artists' meeting point were shaped by painters who Gertraud Rostosky knew from the German group of artists at the “ Café du Dôme ” in Paris and who were accepted for temporary work and exhibition.

It was a common phenomenon that many artists used the summer months to gather new inspiration while traveling and perhaps also to find cheap places to stay. Painting in the great outdoors and the simple life outside the hustle and bustle of the big cities and the strict order of academic schools led to numerous artist colonies from the end of the 19th century , some of which developed their own stylistic characteristics. The “New World” did not represent such an artist colony, but it offered a popular meeting point or transit point for the numerous artists with whom Gertraud Rostosky was known.

The summer months from 1922 to 1927 were the heyday of the "New World" with numerous stays, collaborative work and mutual exchange between the most varied of artists. Rostosky's artistic activity, her travels and correspondence repeatedly gave rise to invitations. The meetings on the “New World” were supplemented by exhibitions and lectures. In 1925 there was a big party on the terrace of the "New World" in honor of Otto Modersohn , who had turned 60 that year. Things got quieter at the end of the 1920s. The owner Franz Langguth first wanted to sell the property in 1928, but then had the former utility rooms converted for residential purposes. The former friendship between Rostosky and Langguth finally broke up in the dispute over the usage rights to the various rooms. Above all, material concerns limited the artistic exchange largely to letters.

The manor with its residents and guests has always been a world of its own that - apart from participating in some exhibitions - kept a distance from the Würzburg art scene and was largely ignored. For the people of Würzburg, Rostosky was just the “crazy woman from the mountain”. This isolation intensified during the Third Reich when August Diehl, head of the Reichsschrifttumskammer von Mainfranken ( Reichsschrifttumskammer) , made negative comments about Rostosky at an exhibition in 1934. Her early work was "a strange phenomenon" and her coloristic talent was "in an incomprehensible way artistic derailments" . As early as 1933 Rostosky wrote in her diary: "Today we get to know the brutality of the transitions (Hitler) - the dissonance from one state to a new" . The owner of the "New World", Franz Langguth, made it clear in a letter dated November 27, 1935 that "People of Jewish descent would not be tolerated in the New World." Most of her Jewish acquaintances had already emigrated abroad by this time such as B. Béla Czobel.

On January 27, 1938, Maria Rostosky died of a stroke, so that her daughter lived alone in the "New World" with only one right of residence.

During the Second World War , the manor was used as an emergency shelter for bomb victims from major western cities. On March 6, 1945, Rostosky had told an acquaintance: “The New World is very envied for the good shelter. We are around 50 people there, around 20 are children. ” In the years after the destruction of Würzburg , from which the“ New World ”was spared due to its remote location from the center, until over the mid-1950s, bombed-out Würzburg residents found here an at least makeshift place to live.

In the 1950s, a small group of primarily local artists and writers around Gertraud Rostosky came together again on the “New World”. Former students from the immediate post-war period, such as Rita Kuhn and the painter Joachim Schlotterbeck, who set up his own studio there, as well as poets and writers such as Adalbert Jakob, Friedrich Schnack , Alfred Richard Meyer and Herbert Günther visited the "Mistress of the New World" who lived alone ". At the beginning of the fifties, the writer Werner Beumelburg , who was already visiting the “New World” in the late twenties, moved there permanently upon invitation. This is also where his last books were written. However, due to his career in the Third Reich, he could no longer build on his earlier successes. On March 9, 1963, he committed suicide on the "New World".

When Gertraud Rostosky died on May 30, 1959 after a long and serious illness, the history of the "New World" as a hospitable house for artists and musically ambitious people was finally over. She bequeathed her estate to the city of Würzburg. The wish for a “Dauthendey Rostosky memorial room” as permanent museum documentation for both artists was not fulfilled. The inventory of the "New World" was carelessly auctioned and has meanwhile been scattered to the wind. The artistic estate came into the possession of the Städtische Galerie Würzburg (now “ Museum im Kulturspeicher ”). Some of your correspondence with Max Dauthendey reached the "Max Dauthendey Society", a considerable part has disappeared. Rostosky's manuscript for the “Chronicle of the New” is also no longer available.

The manor is still used for residential purposes. Although a lot has been changed, parking spaces have been created and trees removed, the large open terrace is still the defining element and the wide view of the city and fortress Marienberg remained unobstructed thanks to the topographical conditions.

Although Rostosky had already suggested it during his lifetime, the city of Würzburg only left a plaque with an (incomplete) list of the artists who were guests on the “New World” nine years after her death on the 50th anniversary of Max Dauthendey's death in 1968 , attach. In the meantime, this reminder is also covered by the lush shrubbery.

Guests on the "New World"

Memorial plaque for residents and guests on the "New World", installed in 1968

The one-time or returning guests and visitors to the "New World" included:

  • Friedrich Ahlers-Hestermann , painter (summer / autumn 1924)
  • Fritz Baltzer , zoologist (* 1884, † 1974)
  • Monica and John Berenberg, painters, (summer 1940)
  • Werner Beumelburg , writer
  • Béla Czobel , painter (March 1920, summer / autumn 1924, July 1925) and his wife Isolde
  • Carl Grossberg , painter
  • Max Dauthendey , poet and writer, was a sporadic permanent guest until his second trip around the world in 1914
  • Elisabeth Dauthendey , writer
  • Willi Geiger , painter, (1907), oil painting: "Würzburg - View of the fortress", 1907
  • Herbert Günther , journalist and writer, (October 1955)
  • Erich Heckel , painter, (May / June 1927), oil painting: "Landscape with three bridges", "Marienveste bei Würzburg", "Weinberge am Main", all 1927, watercolors: "Main bei Würzburg", "Badende am Main", “View from the Steinberg to the Main and the city”, all 1927, “Der Steinberg”, 1928
  • Theodor Heuss , politician and Federal President (summer 1955)
  • Dora Hitz , painter (summer 1922)
  • Korfiz Holm , publisher and writer (* August 21, 1872 Riga † August 5, 1942 Munich)
  • Adalbert Jakob, poet (born January 30, 1892 Würzburg, † March 26, 1970 ibid.)
  • Maria Jolly, painter (born October 29, 1895 Würzburg, † March 10, 1968 Lohr a. M.)
  • Anton Kerschbaumer , painter, (August - November 1925), watercolor "View of the fortress with telegraph pole", 1925
  • Fritz Knapp , art historian
  • Max Krause, painter
  • Alfred Kubin , graphic artist and writer
  • Ludwig Lewin, educator, psychiatrist, publicist and director of the Lessing University in Berlin (* 1887, † 1967)
  • Alfred Richard Meyer , writer (summer 1925)
  • Otto Modersohn , painter (summer / autumn 1924, summer 1925), oil painting: "Weg im Leistengrund with Veste Marienberg", 1924, "Würzburg - In the garden of the Hofgut 'Neue Welt'", 1925, "Würzburg - Gut Neue Welt II" , 1925
  • Alexandra Povòrina , painter (summer / autumn 1924)
  • Hans and Mathilde Purrmann and Vollmoeller-Purrmann, painter (summer 1919)
  • Fritz Rhein , painter
  • Leopold von Ubisch , biologist
  • Elsa Weise, painter (summer / autumn 1924)

(List and length of stay incomplete)

literature

  • Walter Roßdeutscher: Würzburg and the 'New World' a refuge for the arts . Dauthendey-Gesellschaft, No. 6, Würzburg 2002, ISBN 3-935998-01-5 .
  • Brigitte Kleinlauth: Gertraud Rostosky. “Courage for yourself, art as a life's work.” An artist's life . Schöningh, Würzburg 1998, ISBN 3-87717-804-9 .
  • Bettina Keß: The picturesque atmosphere of Würzburg - Gertraud Rostosky and her artist friends . In: Tradition and Awakening - Würzburg and the Art of the 1920s . Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2003, ISBN 3-8260-2763-9 .
  • Ralph Bauer: New World and Java. Max Dauthendey. In: Kurt Illing (Ed.): In the footsteps of the poets in Würzburg. Self-published (print: Max Schimmel Verlag), Würzburg 1992, pp. 65–80; here: pp. 70–76.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The existing state lines in every Gau of the German Reich formed the regional substructure of the Reichsschrifttumskammer - s. http://www.polunbi.de/pers/johst-01.html
  2. ^ Brigitte Kleinlauth, "Gertraud Rostosky", p. 96/97
  3. ^ Brigitte Kleinlauth, "Gertraud Rostosky", p. 99.
  4. ^ Brigitte Kleinlauth, "Gertraud Rostosky", p. 99.
  5. ^ Brigitte Kleinlauth, "Gertraud Rostosky", p. 109.
  6. ↑ Text: Here on their estate "TO THE NEW WORLD", built in 1867, the Wadenklee, Marie Rostosky, nee families created at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. Wadenklee and her daughter, the painter Gertraud Rostosky, created a fertile place to live and work for an important group of friends of artists and scholars, which was generously expanded by the subsequent owner, Franz Wilhelm Langguth. There lived and worked here: Max Dauthendey, Rudolf Virchow, Korfiz Holm, Otto Modersohn, Erich Heckel, Fritz Rhein, Willi Geiger, Anton Kerschbaumer, Belá Czobel, Alfred Kubin, Fritz Baltzer, Leopold von Ubisch

Coordinates: 49 ° 47 ′ 7.5 ″  N , 9 ° 54 ′ 39.8 ″  E