Auf dem Treck of Otto Engelhardt-Kyffhäuser
©
Andrzej Philips
In the “Remembrance of the resettlement of the
Galician Germans 1939/40” Erich Müller
writes “Heim ins Reich” - “Home to the Reich” was the slogan at the time, which
for the people of Galicia Palatinate meant the end of their 160-year history in
the East. At that time they followed this call almost completely, but did not
know that the majority of them had been chosen to push the Poles out of the
occupied western Polish areas. Short time Afterwards, many of their men paid for
Hitler's campaigns with their lives. When the war led to Germany's defeat, they
found themselves as refugees or expelled people in the Germany that had once
called them home to the Reich.
Further Erich Müller writes that the German Post in
the Generalgouvernement issued on October 26, 1940 a series of stamps depicting
the resettlement to mark the first anniversary of the Generalgouvernement.
The article contains pictures of three stamps from the
General Government with resettlement motifs presenting three resettler heads -
those of a girl, a farmer's wife, and a
farmer, which are supplemented by symbols. The drawing representing Marie
Eppler was used as a stamp template.
Mrs. Marie Eppler’s (married Kraus) photo in the age of 75 is presented in the Erich Müller’s article.
The stamp with Maria Eppler presents also a plowing farmer who is predicted to have a sunny future under the swastika. The fate of the resettlers ended in catastrophe instead. The symbol of the third stamp with the farmer's head, which is also shown in color on the cover, shows a sleigh belonging to the Haulanders, who were also resettled. The picture is reminiscent to the wagons of the Galician German farmers who had resettled in the winter.
The stamps with farmer were also issued in four
different colours and face value with
the inscription “Winterhilfswerk” (Winter Welfare).
The stamps were based on drawings of Otto
Engelhardt-Kyffhäuser.
Otto Engelhardt- Kyffhäuser (born on 5th January 1884 in Artern; died on 7th June
1965 in Göttingen) was a German painter and art teacher.Engelhardt, who came from the Prussian
province of Saxony (he received the nickname because of his birthplace near
Kyffhäuser),
trained at the art academies in Kassel from 1901-07, including Berlin and
Weimar, where he was a member of the Weimar etching association. In 1914 his
works were exhibited at the Kunstverein Darmstadt. During the First World War
he was a senior field hunter in the 4th reserve hunter battalion and a war
painter in the fighting troops. From 1919 to 1939 he worked in Görlitz, became
a teacher of art education at the Luisenschule there (today the
Joliot-Curie-Gymnasium) and appeared in public with numerous pen drawings,
etchings and paintings. In 1928, several murals he designed were ceremoniously
unveiled in the auditorium of the Görlitz Luisenschule. In 1930 he was a
co-founder of the Rotary Club of Görlitz. He joined the NSDAP and SS, came to
terms with contemporary propaganda needs, drew numerous war pictures and
portrayed several National Socialist greats.
In January 1940, Engelhardt-Kyffhäuser accompanied a
trek of ethnic Germans at Himmler's request. These were resettled in the
Warthegau from Galicia and Volhynia, which were part of Soviet-annexed eastern
Poland. In order to create space for settlement here, 120,000 Poles had
previously been deported. Engelhardt-Kyffhäuser documented the trip with
numerous sketches and drawings, which were exhibited in Berlin on March 30,
1940 and published as a book in the same year. Engelhardt-Kyffhäuser published "The
Book of the Great Trek" (Vom Grossem Treck) together with Alfred Karasek,
the area representative in the resettlement staff, and Heinrich Kurtz from the
Krakow Office of the Governor General; SS Obergruppenführer Werner Lorenz
contributed a foreword. The images served as a template for the Nazi propaganda
film “Homecoming” by Gustav Ucicky, the creation of which he also documented.
The film in turn inspired him to create pictures.
His drawing were also used for the propaganda cards
“Vom Grossem Treck” (Ther great treck). All these drawings are valuable sources
for the genealogy of Galician Germen because they contain also the description
of the drawn persons,
including their personal date like place and birth date.
Farmer Anton Steckbauer
The card describing Farmer Anton Steckbauer
For example, the card presenting Anton Steckbauer
contains his exact birthdate 6th May, 1896, and place – Ludwikówka, what
corresponds with data in OFB (Ortsfamilienbuch/Family Book):
STECKBAUER (= Stekbauer), Anton, born on 6.5.1866 in
Ludwikówka
{Myslivka} (Dolina)/Gal. [UA], House Nr. 21., son of Anton Steckbauer and
FICHTEL (∞ Schaller, Steckbauer), Katharina born 1837 in Tarnów/Gal.
Otto Engelhardt-Kyffhäuser successfully took part in
several exhibitions in Germany with his works, e.g.:
·
at the Great German Art Exhibition of 1940 in the
House of German Art in Munich,
·
Exhibition “Repatriation of Germans from Galicia” from
February 2nd to 12th, 1940 in the Krakow Art Hall (it was the first exhibition
by a German artist in occupied Poland and the first exhibition about the
resettlement campaign).
·
A separate exhibition of his pictures was opened under
the title The Great Trek 1940 in the Ständehaus Görlitz.
·
The exhibition With Man and Horse and Carriage...
followed in 1941 in the Luisenschule in Görlitz.
·
1941 exhibition Flanders and the Netherlands: People
and Landscape, Saarbrücken, organized by the VDA Gauverband Westmark and the
Saar-Palatinate Association for Arts and Crafts.
·
At the exhibition German Artists and the SS in 1944 he
showed the picture “Before the Departure” in Breslau and the pictures “Trek
Rolls Over the Bridge at Przemysl” and “A Tank Hunter of the SS Pol. Div.” in
Salzburg.
Works by Engelhardt-Kyffhäuser can be seen today in
museums in Görlitz and Bautzen. There is a mural by him in the Artern town
hall. Engelhardt-Kyffhäuser was married to Dorothea (née Weise).
Soon after the last war,
Engelhardt was the first German painter to be invited to Paris to organize an
Engelhardt-Kyffhäuser exhibition. What he showed became a sensation for all art
connoisseurs in France. It was a new process in painting, the monotype, as he
called it. They outdid each other in Paris in enthusiastic appreciations. For
example, the "Pariser Currier" headlined his essay: "With
melting oil paint" and wrote: "After long attempts, he finally found
a way that opened up completely new possibilities of artistic expression for
him. Above all, he was helped by a binder he discovered, which gives the
colours the greatest elasticity and suppleness. The work, applied to a
light-coloured metal plate, is heated to such an extent that the colours begin
to melt and often converge like enamel. The scraped out highlights and
contours, however, even if they are wafer-thin, do not merge, but remain
razor-sharp and correct. Extraordinarily powerful effects are achieved that
cannot be achieved by any other technique."
"La Revue moderne des arts et de la
vie", however, calls Engelhardt "a real artist who is focused on
greatness". He is "swept away by his inspiration" and he is not
afraid to "tackle even the most sublime subjects". And further:
"It would be wrong to classify Otto Engelhardt-Kyffhäuser in any school.
His powerful personality is self-sufficient." This is followed by a
detailed appraisal of the individual "masterpieces" exhibited in this
prestigious journal and the conclusion: "It is not possible to give in a
few dry sentences even a reasonably clear idea of such an abundance of
inspiration and imagination as these works reveal. How far we are from the
trimmed art of so many artists of our time, who are content with the limited
horizon of a café or a dance hall! Therefore, one must take one's hat off to
the work of Otto Engelhardt-Kyffhäuser without hesitation."
While the Parisian press spoke of "the most
sublime themes", such were also shown in particular in the exhibitions
that Engelhardt presented on the basis of his repeated travels to and through
Egypt. In 1960, as part of the new cultural agreement between the Federal
Republic of Germany and the United Arab Republic, he was invited to show his
large monotype exhibition with Egyptian and some German motifs in February at
the Kunsthalle Alexandriens. It was opened in Cairo by the Egyptian Minister of
Culture and the German Ambassador. The Minister of Culture acquired for the new
modern museum in. Cairo also has the image of the Erfurt Cathedral and the
Severi Church.
While the "most sublime subjects" in
Egypt included many of the country's sanctuaries and buildings, which are
several thousand years old, Engelhardt-Kyffhäuser was invited to Rome to paint
the sites of Christian culture. Although a Protestant, he won friends through
his art in the "Institutum Germanicuni". From this place he was given
a special place in St. Peter's Basilica, from which he could capture the Pope
in various positions in the middle of the service. All of his Roman paintings
are also of radiant colour and do not fail to have an effect on people of other
faiths.
Through such achievements and successes, Otto
Engelhardt-Kyffhäuser became one of Germany's best-known painters.
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