Walter Klein (local history researcher)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Walter Otto Klein (born June 29, 1877 in Stuttgart ; † September 12, 1952 in Ochsenwang ) was a long-time professor and rector of the Higher Technical College for the Precious Metals Industry Schwäbisch Gmünd and a local researcher .

Live and act

Born in Stuttgart as the son of a jeweler , he first trained as a modeller and chaser at the Royal School of Applied Arts in Stuttgart before he went to Schwäbisch Gmünd as a draftsman for the Kühn brothers in 1899 . Shortly afterwards he went to Paris to study .

After his return he was initially artistic director of the precious metal trade department of the advanced training school in Schwäbisch Gmünd. He quickly came up with the idea of ​​a higher technical school for the precious metal trade in Schwäbisch Gmünd, which was taken over by the city and the Kingdom of Württemberg and quickly implemented. In 1909, operations began in the building built by Martin Elsaesser . Klein became professor and rector of the new technical college, from which the Schwäbisch Gmünd University of Design later emerged, and headed the department from 1903 to 1946.

His services to the higher technical school include not only the founding initiative and its development, but also efforts to align it. After visits, Klein invited the Bauhaus employees Josef Albers , Lászlo Moholy-Nagy and Wilhelm Wagenfeld to Schwäbisch Gmünd and created the industrial design department . He also tried to trace the historical roots of the gold and silver city Schwäbisch Gmünd and the associated history of the design of objects. To this end, he organized, among other things, the exhibition 800 Years of Gmünder Art , which in 1945, immediately after the end of the war, attracted thousands of visitors to Gmünd, so the head of the American government in the country and Reinhold Maier attended the opening .

Tomb at the Gmünder Leonhardsfriedhof (2020)

Through his last-mentioned work, Klein came to local research, with the main focus on the town's handicrafts . He published several articles and books on this topic. In 1952 he died while painting in Ochsenwang on the Swabian Alb . He was buried on St. Leonhard in Schwäbisch Gmünd. Part of the estate is preserved in the Schwäbisch Gmünd city archive .

Honors

In 1947, the was as artistic conscience of Schwabisch Gmund designated Walter Klein through the city "in recognition of his outstanding Writers and research activities for the local and art history of Schwabisch Gmund" the honorary citizenship bestowed, 1952, he was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany awarded. After his death in 1952, a street was named after him in the immediate vicinity of his place of work, the Elsaesser Building.

Fonts (selection)

  • Johann Michael & Christoph Maucher, two baroque ivory carvers from Gmünd , C. Jaeger, Schwäbisch Gmünd 1920.
  • History of the Gmünd goldsmith's trade , Greiner & Pfeiffer publishing house, Stuttgart 1920.
  • The tin foundry trade in Gmünd and subsequent items from d. Goldsmith history , Gmünder Kunst Volume 2, Greiner & Pfeiffer publishing house, Stuttgart 1922.
  • Johann Michael Keller, his work and his collaborators: [a Gmünd master builder of the baroque] , Gmünder Kunst Volume 3. Verlag Greiner & Pfeiffer, Stuttgart 1923 ( Internet Archive ).
  • Gmünder Art of the Present , Gmünder Art Volume 4, Verlag Greiner & Pfeiffer, Stuttgart; Publishing house B. Kraus, Schwäbisch Gmünd 1924.
  • The State Higher Technical School for Precious Metals Industry, Schwäb. Gmünd , ed. On the occasion of d. 150 years Anniversary d. Technical School Gmünd in July 1926, Gmünder Art Volume 5, Schwäbisch Gmünd 1926.
  • The St. Johannes Church in Gmünd , Gmünder Kunst Volume 6, Verlag HL Brönner, Frankfurt am Main 1928.
  • Tribe series of the Klein family , print: Gmünder Zeitung, 1930.
  • Six hundred years of goldsmithing in Gmünd , Bürger-Verlag, Lorch / Württ., Stuttgart 1947.
  • Does Gmünd have a chance? , Bürger-Verlag, Lorch / Württ., Stuttgart 1948.
  • Gmünds Chance: Proposal for a ten-year cultural plan , Bürger-Verlag, Stuttgart 1948.
  • Pictures from Alt-Gmünd: Reproductions after 120 selected sheets from the city's Julius-Erhardschen picture chronicle , Bürger-Verlag, Lorch / Württ., Stuttgart 1948.

literature

  • Reinhard Wagenblast: Walter Klein , in Literary Diversity in East Württemberg. Local researchers from the Schwäbisch Gmünd area , Lauterner Schriften Volume 14, Einhorn-Verlag, Schwäbisch Gmünd 2009, ISBN 978-3-936373-50-9 , pp. 133–140.
  • Walter Lochmüller : Professor Walter Klein, on the 100th anniversary of his birthday on June 29, 1977 in Einhorn-Jahrbuch 1977, Einhornverlag, Schwäbisch Gmünd 1977, ISBN 3-921703-21-2 , pp. 108–117.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Stadtarchiv Schwäbisch Gmünd, inventory D06.
  2. ^ Stadtarchiv Schwäbisch Gmünd, local council minutes of November 26, 1946.
personal data
SURNAME Small, Walter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Klein, Walter Otto (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German university professor, rector of the higher technical school for the precious metal industry in Schwäbisch Gmünd and local researcher
DATE OF BIRTH June 29, 1877
PLACE OF BIRTH Stuttgart
DATE OF DEATH September 12, 1952
Place of death Ochsenwang