Werner Meinhof

Werner Kurt Armin Meinhof (born October 20, 1901 in Halle ; † February 7, 1940 in Jena ) was a German art historian . From 1936 to 1939 he headed the Jena City Museum .

Life

Werner Meinhof was the youngest of ten children of Pastor Johannes Meinhof (1859–1947) and his wife Mathilde (1860–1908), a daughter of Julius Köstlin . He dropped out of school and became an art and building fitter . He later made up his Abitur and studied art history in Halle with Paul Frankl . Like his brothers, he became a member of the German National People's Party .

In 1920 Meinhof took part in the suppression of workers' uprisings in the Halle / Saale region, for which he was awarded the silver symbol of emergency help. In 1926 he got engaged to Ingeborg Guthardt († 1949), who was eight years his junior . He found a position as a drawing teacher in Halle, received his doctorate in art history in 1926 with a dissertation on Ostfälische carved altars of the early 15th century and was a drawing teacher at a secondary school in Danzig . In March 1928 he became a research assistant at the State Museum for Art and Cultural History in Oldenburg . He married his fiancée on December 28, 1928, their daughter Wienke was born in 1931, and Ulrike Meinhof , who later became a left-wing terrorist, in 1934 .

By 1930 Meinhof became a member of the Kampfbund for German Culture . On May 1, 1933, he also joined the NSDAP ( membership number 2,856,334). In the same month he gave the opening speech at an exhibition in the Folkwang Museum in Essen , which was praised in the Völkischer Beobachter . In 1936 Meinhof became head of the Jena City Museum and the NSDAP district culture center, and in 1937 he held lectures at the state universities for architecture, fine arts and handicrafts in Weimar .

As Jenenser Museum Director, Meinhof brought over 270 works of art for the Nazi exhibition Degenerate Art in 1937 , including almost all of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's graphic works from the museum's collection.

In September 1939 Werner Meinhof fell seriously ill and died on February 7, 1940 of pancreatic cancer . Ingeborg Meinhof later lived with Renate Riemeck , who, when Ingeborg died in 1949, received guardianship over the two daughters.

Fonts

• East Westphalian carved altars from the early 15th century . In: Thuringian-Saxon magazine for history and art . tape 16 . Gebauer-Schwetschke, Halle (Saale) 1927, DNB  361386826 ( Dissertation University of Halle , August 22, 1927).
• Adolf Senff , a painter of the Biedermeier period . Gebauer-Schwetschke, Halle / Saale 1929.
• The child's image composition. Assessment and Promotion . Teubner, Leipzig 1930.
• Walter Timmling in the Lappan . In: Nachrichten für Stadt und Land , Oldenburg, No. 132 of May 17, 1931, supplement.
• Between Reformation and Revolution . Jena City Museum, Jena 1936/1937.
• The Prinzessinnenschlößchen and the municipal art collection in Jena . Neuenhahn, Jena 1939.
• Shaping the prestigious era in Jena. Christian Günther , Winckelmann , Klopstock , M. Claudius . Neuenhahn, Jena 1939.
• Living vision. Articles and lectures . Diederichs, Jena 1941.
• Christian faith. In the testimony of old and new pictures (= small handbook for the evangelical house , booklet 7). Lichtweg Verlag, Essen 1941.

literature

• Jutta Ditfurth : Ulrike Meinhof. The biography. Ullstein, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-550-08728-8 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Werner Meinhof in the catalog of the German National Library