Wilhelm Fraenger

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Wilhelm Fraenger (born June 5, 1890 in Erlangen , † February 19, 1964 in Potsdam ) was a German art historian and folklorist .

Life

Wilhelm Fraenger attended elementary school in Erlangen from 1896 to 1900 and then until 1910 the humanistic grammar school in Erlangen, Ingolstadt and Kaiserslautern . From 1910 to 1918 he studied art history (with Henry Thode and Carl Neumann (art historian) ), German ( Friedrich Gundolf ) and history as well as German folklore (lectures with Eugen Fehrle ) at the University of Heidelberg . On June 4, 1917 he was with his Inauguraldissertation The image analyzes of Roland Fréart de Chambray Dr. phil. PhD with summa cum laude from Carl Neumann. During the First World War , Fraenger was a private in the Karlsruhe Reserve Infantry Battalion in 1915/16 .

From 1915 to 1918 he was an assistant at the Art History Institute of Heidelberg University. Then he turned down a university career and worked as a freelance writer from 1918 to 1927. He traveled to Holland , France and Switzerland to study . In 1919 he founded the Heidelberger Kreis Die Gemeinschaft , which had to be dissolved in the summer of 1921 due to financial problems. Participants are Netty Reiling , Carl Zuckmayer , Carlo Mierendorff , Theodor Haubach , Hans Fehr , Oskar Kokoschka and Hans Prinzhorn as well as the Gothein family, especially the married couple Eberhard and Marie Luise Gothein - the latter was on the board of the community - themselves and their sons Werner and Percy . Carl Zuckmayer reports in detail about the activities of this group and Fraenger's role in his memoirs.

In 1920 Wilhelm Fraenger married his long-time girlfriend Gustel (Auguste) Esslinger, a “childhood friend from his Franconian homeland, whom he called 'my cousin' for so long until he finally married her. Perhaps she really was his cousin, because she looked like him in some features. A lovely woman. "

In 1927 Fraenger was appointed director of the Mannheim Palace Library, which he reorganized in 1932 into a city and university library by merging with the commercial school library. After the National Socialists came to power in 1933, he was dismissed for political reasons. In the same year he gave the volume Eurydike for the Mannheim Bibliophile Society, founded in 1931 and of which he was secretary, on the occasion of the Mannheim conference of the Maximilian Society . Summoned shadows of secluded women. An anthology spanning six centuries . Through a mediation by Wolfgang Frommel , Fraenger was able to work as a freelancer at the Südwestdeutscher Rundfunk in Frankfurt am Main and at the Reichssender Berlin . In 1935 Fraenger moved from Mannheim to Heidelberg and in 1938 to Berlin, where he became artistic advisor at the Schiller Theater under the direction of Heinrich George . During the Second World War , Wilhelm Fraenger lost his apartment in an air raid on Berlin in 1941 and was evacuated to Päwesin near Brandenburg an der Havel in 1943 after the Schiller Theater was destroyed .

After the end of the Second World War, Fraenger was mayor of the village of Päwesin from 1945 to 1946 . In 1946 he moved to Brandenburg an der Havel, where he became a city ​​councilor in the same year and took over the management of the Office for Public Education under Mayor Fritz Lange . As part of his activities, he reactivated the adult education center founded on October 10, 1919 and closed during the Nazi era , of which he was rector until 1947. His official seat was in the Brandenburg Ordonnanzhaus , the current official seat of the Brandenburg Mayor.

During this time he worked together with other humanities scholars and well-known artists for the discharge and release of the actor Heinrich George . This was accused by the Soviet occupation forces of having significantly supported the National Socialist system. The Soviet secret service NKVD interned George, whose role in Germany was seen in a more nuanced manner, in the Sachsenhausen special camp . The joint appeal was unsuccessful.

From 1953 to 1959, Fraenger was a research assistant at the Institute for (German) Folklore of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR in Berlin, since 1954 as Deputy Director. He was appointed professor in 1955. In 1960 he received the Patriotic Order of Merit on the occasion of his 70th birthday . In 1951 Wilhelm Fraenger was a founding sponsor of the literary magazine Castrum Peregrini , which Wolfgang Frommel and Gisèle van Waterschoot van der Gracht founded and which is named after the pilgrim castle of the same name from the time of the Crusaders, near Haifa , Israel .

Positions

Wilhelm Fraenger became known for his interpretations of Hieronymus Bosch , Matthias Grünewald , Jerg Ratgeb , Hercules Seghers , but also for literary works such as Clemens Brentano's Alhambra . As early as 1919 and 1929 to 1930 he gave slide shows about Matthias Grünewald. His best-known Grünewald book was published in 1936 and has significantly influenced the Grünewald interpretation. In 1956 Adolf Max Vogt wrote about this book:

“Fraenger's book is permeated with an astonishing talent for sight, and what Fraenger says about the physiognomic and physical behavior of Grünewald's representations is among the best in Grünewald literature. Masterful formulation strengthens the impression. "

This view was shared by Carl Zuckmayer , who wrote in a letter about Fraenger in 1975:

"To quote Fraenger to illustrate his language would be almost as idle as breaking individual stones out of the golden aura in a Ravenna mosaic"

Fraenger's publications have been reprinted several times even after his death. The positive reception of the work is also countered by critical voices: They consider his interpretations to be too far-reaching. His opinion that Hieronymus Bosch had a mentor who was involved in the testimony of many of Bosch's pictures, both as a spiritual teacher and as a direct client, is extraordinary and worth discussing. It concerns the Jew Jacop Almaengin who converted to Christianity and who was Grand Master of the Lodge of Bosch in 's-Hertogenbosch .

Memberships

  • 1945: Member of the KPD . As part of a party examination procedure by the SED , which had arisen on April 22, 1946 through the forced unification of the SPD and KPD , he was expelled from the party in October 1948 .
  • 1961: Full member of the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin

Honors

There is a society, an archive and a foundation, each of which has Fraenger's name.

Publications (selection)

Ingeborg Baier-Fraenger, Der Kunsthistoriker Wilhelm Fraenger (see literature below), pp. 101–124, has compiled a complete bibliography of Fraenger's writings . A detailed annotated bibliography on Fraenger and the works edited by him can be found on the page of the Germersheim Translation Lexicon [1]

As an author

  • Hercules Segher's etchings. A physiognomic attempt. Eugen Rentsch, Erlenbach ZH 1922. Again: Ed., Afterword Hilmar Frank. Reclams Universal Library, 1068 Fine Arts . Reclam, Leipzig 1984 ZDB -ID 134899-1
  • Matthias Grünewald in his works. A physiognomic attempt (= art books of the people. Large series, 15, ZDB -ID 845178-3 ). Rembrandt publishing house, Berlin 1936
  • Hieronymus Bosch. The millennial kingdom. Outlines of an interpretation. 1st edition. Winkler, Coburg 1947 (142 pages).
  • Hieronymus Bosch. The millennial kingdom. Outlines of an interpretation. 2nd edition . In: Castrum Peregrini . No. 086-088 . Amsterdam 1969 (218 pages).
  • The Millenium of Hieronymus Bosch. Outlines of a new interpretation. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago IL 1951 (English, German: Hieronymus Bosch. The millennial kingdom. Principles of an interpretation. Coburg 1947.).
  • Le royaume millénaire de Jérôme Bosch. Essai. Lettres Nouvelles, Paris 1966 (French, German: Hieronymus Bosch. The millennial empire. Principles of an interpretation. Coburg 1947. Translated by Roger Lewinter).
  • Jörg Advice. A painter and martyr from the Peasants' War. Edited by Gustel Fraenger and Ingeborg Baier-Fraenger. Verlag der Kunst, Dresden 1972
  • Hieronymus Bosch . Prima, Dresden 1975, ISBN 978-976-641-040-7 (516 pages, new edition 1978 Prisma; 1975, 1978, 1985 Rixdorfer Verlagsanstalt; 1994, 1999 G&B Arts International).
  • From Bosch to Beckmann. Selected writings (= Fundus series , 47/48, ZDB -ID 254005-8 ) Verlag der Kunst, Dresden 1977. (Articles from the period from 1920 to 1957.)
    • Time signals. Forays from Bosch to Beckmann. Foreword Carl Zuckmayer. Verlag der Kunst, Amsterdam 1996, ISBN 90-5705-004-8 .
  • Matthias Grünewald. CH Beck, Munich 1983, ISBN 3-364-00324-6 .
  • Forms of the comic. Lectures 1920–1921 (= Fundus-Bücher, 136). Verlag der Kunst, Dresden 1995, ISBN 3-364-00357-2 .
  • The essence of laughter. Comic library, 1922. (Translation of De l'Essence du rire et généralement du comique dans les arts plastiques (1855/1857) and two other essays by Charles Baudelaire )

As editor

  • Yearbook of Historical Folklore. Berlin 1925 ff. ZDB -ID 218022-4
  • Eurydice. Summoned shadows of secluded women. An anthology from six centuries . Mannheim Bibliophile Society, Mannheim 1933.

literature

  • Johannes Werner: Doctor Wilhelm Fraenger, immortal memory. The Baden years. In: Badische Heimat . 4/1987, pp. 561-568.
  • Johannes Werner: Wilhelm Fraenger and his "comical library". In: From the second-hand bookshop. 8/1993, pp. 294-298
  • Ingeborg Baier-Fraenger (ed.): The art historian Wilhelm Fraenger. 1890-1964. A collection of memories with the complete bibliography of his publications (= Castrum peregrini, 43, 214/215). Castrum Peregrini Presse, Amsterdam 1994, ISBN 90-6034-089-2 .
  • Johannes Werner: “Put out of paradise.” An unknown letter to Wilhelm Hausenstein from Wilhelm Fraenger. In: Badische Heimat. 2/2004, pp. 285-291.
  • Christof Baier (ed.): The legacy of Wilhelm Fraengers. Memories of Ingeborg Baier-Fraenger (1926–1994) (= series of publications by the Wilhelm Fraenger Institute Potsdam, 13). Verlag für Berlin-Brandenburg, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86650-036-5 .
  • Petra Weckel: Wilhelm Fraenger (1890–1964). A subversive cultural scientist between the systems (= publication series of the Wilhelm Fraenger Institute Potsdam, 1). Verlag für Berlin-Brandenburg, Potsdam 2001, ISBN 3-932981-59-6 (At the same time: University of Potsdam , Diss. Phil. 2000).
  • Carl Zuckmayer: As if it were a piece of me. S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1966.
  • Reinhard Peesch (Red.): Between art history and folklore. Festschrift for Wilhelm Fraenger. Publications of the Institute for German Folklore; German Academy of Sciences in Berlin; Vol. 27. Berlin 1960.
  • Tino Brömme, Marco Höhmann: The millennial kingdom. Outlines of an interpretation by Wilhelm Fraenger. Reading in three parts, 2019 YouTube
  • Klaus Neitmann: The library of the art historian and folklorist Wilhelm Fraenger. An inventory. Quintus, Berlin 2020 (= series of publications by the Wilhelm Fraenger Foundation Potsdam; 3rd) (individual publication by the Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv / Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv; 24), ISBN 978-3-945256-79-4 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ingeborg Baier-Fraenger (ed.): The art historian Wilhelm Fraenger. 1994, p. 94 f.
  2. ↑ Cf. Christoph Zusatz, ".. a level of spiritual community life ...". Wilhelm Fraenger and the Gotheins . The date of the liquidation mentioned there (summer 1920 instead of 1921) is likely to be a misprint, since the financial problems would not have been announced until the turn of the year 1920/1921.
  3. ^ A b Carl Zuckmayer: As if it were a piece of me ; especially in the 1918-1920 hearing of friendship section
  4. ↑ Klaus Bleeck, From 'fragmentation' to unity. Development tendencies of the libraries of the city of Mannheim during the Weimar Republic. In: City and Library. Literature supply as a communal task in the Empire and in the Weimar Republic, edited by Jörg Fligge and Alois Klotzbücher. Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden 1997, pp. 231-296.
  5. ↑ Neues Deutschland , June 30, 1960, p. 2.
  6. ^ Castrum Peregrini
  7. ^ Foreword to Weckel, Fraenger, p. 7.
  8. ^ Foreword to Weckel, Fraenger, p. 7
personal data
SURNAME Fraenger, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German art historian
DATE OF BIRTH June 5, 1890
PLACE OF BIRTH gain
DATE OF DEATH 19th February 1964
Place of death Potsdam