Paul Baumgarten (architect, 1873)

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Paul Baumgarten (full name: Paul Otto August Baumgarten ; also: Paul OA Baumgarten , Paul Baumgarten the Elder ; incorrectly, as not related to the younger Paul Baumgarten , also Paul Baumgarten senior ) (born June 25, 1873 in Schwedt / Oder ; † February 26, 1946 in Berlin-Charlottenburg ; according to other information "after 1953 " or 1964 ), was a German architect. Along with Albert Speer , Paul Ludwig Troost , German Bestelmeyer , Hermann Giesler and Leonhard Gall, he was one of Adolf Hitler's favorite architects .

life and work

After attending the Hamburg School of Applied Arts (today HbK), Paul Baumgarten studied architecture at the Technical University (Berlin-) Charlottenburg from 1898 to 1901 .

He then worked in the office of the Berlin city planning officer Ludwig Hoffmann and from 1902 (according to other information from 1901) at Alfred Messel .

The colored postcard from 1911 by Nyegaard-Stift in the first years after its establishment

From 1899 he also ran the Kühn & Baumgarten architectural office together with Eugen Kühn until 1902 . During this time, the Nyegaard-Stift was built in Hamburg (1899–1901; neo-renaissance).

Baumgarten's field of activity was initially primarily residential construction. He planned various town and country houses in Berlin and Potsdam, among others. For the entrepreneur Eduard Arnhold he rebuilt the manor house of the Hirschfelde manor northeast of Berlin in 1905 and designed the orphanage Johannaheim for him in 1907 .

Between 1910 and 1914 Baumgarten also worked for the Zanders industrialist family in Bergisch Gladbach in many cases . He succeeded Otto March as the family's house architect. His work includes the renovation of Villa Zanders , a garden pavilion in the park of Haus Lerbach, and the art print factory in Zandersschen Gohrsmühle .

During the First World War (around 1917), Baumgarten was assigned to serve as head of Group C of the building inspection department of the War Office in the War Ministry.

Villa Hamspohn and Villa Liebermann

Villa Hamspohn, 1917

In 1909 he was awarded the contract to build the villa of Max Liebermann at Seestraße 24 (now Colomierstraße 3) in the Colonie Alsen at Wannsee after 1906/1907 already the villa from its neighbor, the AEG -Direktors and Reichstag Johann Hamspohn designed ( Am Großen Wannsee 40; renovated and now the seat of the “Art Salon Berlin Secession - House of Encounters”). The Liebermann Villa was built according to the painter's precise specifications and, at his request, in a cautiously neoclassical style based on the example of the patrician villas in the Hamburg Elbe suburbs , which Liebermann knew from frequent visits. The model for the front was the Hamburg country house JC Godeffroy built by Christian Frederik Hansen and painted by Liebermann . Liebermann is said to have attached great importance to being able to see through the building from the lake to the street. From the street side, two Ionic columns dominate the central axis and give the house a correspondingly representative character.

Liebermann Villa

At Liebermann's request, however, Baumgarten did not place the main entrance on this central axis, as usual, but on the northern narrow side, directly below the painter's studio. The lake side with the triangular gable was based on the Hamburg country house Wesselhoeft on the Elbchaussee . Underneath, a loggia and two terraces were created that link the building with the garden that Liebermann designed together with Alfred Lichtwark and which, after completion, is often used for painting. The villa and especially the garden can often be seen in Liebermann's pictures. It was restored on the basis of the plans and photos that were still available and reopened in 2006 as the "Liebermann Museum". The interior of the house has not been preserved; it was lost when Liebermann's widow had to sell the villa to the Deutsche Reichspost in 1940.

Villa Kunheim

In 1910/1911 Baumgarten built a house in Fürst-Bismarck-Straße in Alsenquartier - originally built between 1870–1871 according to plans by Friedrich Hitzig - for the chemical manufacturer Erich Kunheim in the then current neoclassical style. He expanded the originally two-story, seven-axis building to a three-story with nine axes. Ionic columns in wall niches above the high basement structure the facade. Putti reliefs decorate the frieze . It has served as the Swiss embassy since 1920 . It is the only building from the time this quarter was built that has been preserved to this day.

The bathing establishment in Potsdam, known as Werner-Alfred-Bad , a hotel, as well as the Kurhaus, Kursaal and Kurmittelhaus in Bad Eilsen , were also created according to Baumgarten's designs.

In 1911 he married Eva Tuaillon, daughter of the sculptor Louis Tuaillon . For this he had designed a villa in Grunewald the year before (Herbertstrasse 1).

Mausoleum in the park of Buckeburg Castle

From 1911 to 1915 he built a mausoleum in the park of Schloss Bückeburg as a burial place for the ducal house of Schaumburg-Lippe.

Villa Marlier

Villa Marlier and garden, 1916

For the manufacturer of pharmaceutical preparations Ernst Marlier he built a villa on the Wannsee in 1914/1915, which is considered to be his most luxurious and best-known building (Am Großen Wannsee 56-58). The lavish interior design points to the high need for representation of the rapidly ascending building owner. At his request, Baumgarten also integrated several spoilers and copies of other art objects into the furnishings.

It is unclear whether Baumgarten also designed the associated park or called in a garden architect. In the “Third Reich” the villa was the guest house of the Security Police and the Security Service (SD) and later became known as the venue for the Wannsee Conference .

In 1918 Baumgarten was awarded the title of professor. His office was at Genthiner Strasse 43 (today Berlin-Tiergarten ) around 1920 .

Activity in the Third Reich

In 1934 he was commissioned to rebuild the Deutsche Oper in Berlin-Charlottenburg . This order marked the beginning of his career in the Third Reich. From 1935 Paul Baumgarten was appointed a member of the Reichskultursenat and from 1936 a member of the Berlin Bauakademie . Baumgarten became a member of the NSDAP in March 1940 .

Former Gautheater Saarpfalz, today (after renovation): Saarland State Theater
City Theater Augsburg

He shifted his focus to building theaters. The works of this time include: the building of the Grenzlandtheater Saarbrücken (1936–1938), ( also called Westmarktheater or Gautheater Saarpfalz after the then planned Gau Westmark , today Saarland State Theater ) a commission from Joseph Goebbels , as "Thanks Hitler" for the result of the referendum in Saarland for the reintegration of the Saarland into the German Reich; Stage equipment: Kurt Hemmerling , destroyed by bombing in 1942, rebuilt after the end of the war, the reconstruction of the Schiller-Theater (1938), Admiralspalast (1955–1997: Metropol-Theater , since 2006 again Admiralspalast, the “Führerloge” was not used again during the renovation manufactured, Friedrichstrasse 101-102) and the Metropol-Theater (today: Komische Oper ) in Berlin, the Stadttheater Augsburg (1938/1939), the German Theater Munich (redesign of the theater hall, 1939), as well as the National Theater in Weimar . Baumgarten was also supposed to completely rebuild the Vogtland Theater in Plauen (today “ Theater Plauen-Zwickau ”), but the project got stuck in the design stage due to the start of the war. Only a few months of renovation was carried out in 1939, but the entire existing stucco in the auditorium fell victim to this. Baumgarten was considered the theater architect of Adolf Hitler . A “Führer Lodge ” was set up in all theaters .

In 1937 he planned the administration building of the Reich Association of the German Aviation Industry in Berlin. Two years later, he converted Bellevue Palace into the "Guest House of the German Empire" (today the seat of the Federal President). In 1938/1939 he also worked on the new building of the Reich Chancellery and Joseph Goebbels' official residence.

The National Socialist rulers also intended to have Baumgarten participate as the architect of an opera house in the monumental buildings of the “Führerstadt” Linz and to have a theater built for Hitler's native Braunau . The opera house in Linz designed for 2000 visitors, the central and most representative building of the planned Opera Square, was, according to Albert Speer, a personal favorite project of Hitler. However, due to the war, these projects were no longer implemented.

In 1944 Baumgarten received a grant of 100,000 Reichsmarks from Hitler .

Sources and literature

  • Paul Baumgarten et al .: The Gautheater Saarpfalz in Saarbrücken. In: Siemens magazine ( ISSN  0302-251X ), year 1939, issue 1, pp. 1–4.
  • Paul Baumgarten: Theaters and celebrations. (= Volume II of the book series of the Zentralblatt der Bauverwaltung published by the Prussian Ministry of Finance ) Ernst & Sohn, Berlin 1939.
  • Wolfgang Ribbe , Wolfgang Schächen (ed.): Builders, architects, urban planners. Biographies on the structural development of Berlin. Stapp, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-87776-210-7 . ( Berlin pictures of life )
  • Johannes Tuchel : Am Großer Wannsee 56–58. From the Villa Minoux to the house of the Wannsee Conference. (= Publications of the House of the Wannsee Conference Memorial , Volume 1.) Edition Hentrich, Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-89468-026-1 .
  • Nicole Bröhan: Max Liebermann's country house, Berlin-Wannsee, and its architect Paul Otto August Baumgarten. unpublished master's thesis at the Art History Institute of the Free University of Berlin, 1996.
  • Norbert Kampe (Ed.): Villa colonies in Wannsee 1870–1945. Upper bourgeois world and place of the Wannsee Conference. (= Publications of the Memorial and Educational Center House of the Wannsee Conference , Volume 8.) Edition Hentrich, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89468-260-4 .

A collection with documents on Paul Otto August Baumgarten is in the Berlin State Archives .

Web links

Commons : Paul Baumgarten  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Death register of the Charlottenburg registry office in Berlin No. 1429/1946.
  2. a b Andreas Conrad: The history of the Liebermann villa. 100 years of the Liebermann Villa: On your own clod . Daily mirror . April 22, 2010. Retrieved December 10, 2015.
  3. The Kunheim Group was the largest ammonia producer in Germany at the time, and also made cyan , the raw material for the industrial production of Berlin blue .
  4. History of the Wannsee Villa ( Memento from October 8, 2019 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ^ Gautheater Saarpfalz, today Saarländisches Staatstheater Saarbrücken ( Memento from March 2, 2006 in the Internet Archive ).
  6. ^ Draft model for the (not executed) new building of the Vogtland Theater Plauen ( Memento from September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive ).
  7. Gerd R. Ueberschär , Winfried Vogel : Serving and earning. Hitler's gifts to his elites. 2nd edition, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1999, ISBN 3-10-086002-0 .