Oswald Meichsner

Oswald Meichsner (born August 9, 1921 in Berlin ; † April 24, 1985 there ) was a well-known draftsman and caricaturist under the name Oswin . He lived at 19 Hektorstrasse from birth until his death.

Live and act

Gravestone of the Meichsner family

After completing school, he could not, as is usual at this age, devote himself to starting his professional life, but became a soldier. As a long-range reconnaissance officer in the Air Force, he learned photography. But he and his family couldn't live on that in bombed post-war Berlin. Like most hungry people back then, he drove hoarding, hired himself out as a carpenter or as a market worker, worked as a “rubble woman”, truck driver and Christmas tree seller. From 1953 he was finally his own master as an independent freight forwarder. For the self-taught Oswald Meichsner, influenced by Saul Steinberg , communicating his views and feelings to the world in drawings was always an elementary need in life. His trademark was the safety pin . One of his most successful works was a 27-meter-long leporello , drawn from the late 1970s to the early 1980s , showing the entire Kurfürstendamm , from the Memorial Church to the Rathenauplatz , with every house, every tree and an infinite number of details. It is a declaration of love for Berlin's fancy, prestigious boulevard, whose fate has always been closely linked to his own, because he lived only a few steps away. Not as well known as his Kurfürstendamm Leporellos is an eleven-meter-long depiction of Munich's pedestrian zone from Marienplatz to Karlstor , drawn in the same style by Oswin in the early 1980s . His grave, that of his son Florian (1948–2005) and that of his wife Jutta (1919–2007) are in the Grunewald cemetery in location III 1-15 / 16. A lively, metallic lettering is attached to a natural stone lump with layers of mica.

literature

• Wolf-Rüdiger Bonk: 125 years of the Grunewald villa colony ., Berlin 2016.