Andreas Herm Baumgartner, director of the Hartmann society, introducing the concert, offered inspiring reflections on the lives of artists during the Nazi dictatorship.
There were dissidents like Hartmann, who decided to remain in „internal exile“ in Germany. The Nazis silenced his music because he supported resistance activists, and because he wove labour movement and Jewish music themes into his avantgarde compositions. He was nevertheless able to continue to compose and survive financially, as his works were smuggled out of Germany and performed elsewhere. From 1945 onwards, he was one of the initiators and promoters of musica viva, a movement which established avant garde contemporary classical music – and design – in Europe and the world.
There were others, mentioned by Baumgartner, who were persecuted and killed, but whose art survived – such as Marie Luise Kohn (1904-1941), artist name Maria Luiko. She was an academically-trained painter, graphic artist and puppeteer. In 1933, the Nazis expelled her from the German artists’ union under their antisemitic policy. Supported by the Hartmann family, she was able to deposit her oeuvre with them before she was deported. She and her relatives were murdered in 1941 in Kaunas, Lithuania. Some of her art is on display at the Hartmann society and in Munich museum archives.
And there were those creative spirits whom the Nazis tortured to death – because of their resistance, their art, their political affiliation, and/or their ascribed identity, and whose work perished with them.
Baumgartner’s reflections resonated with me all the more in connection with my recent research on the development economist Hans Singer (1910-2006). He was persecuted for his left-wing views and as a member of the Jewish community, and fled Germany in 1933. His economics professor, Josef Schumpeter, had emigrated earlier and was appointed to Harvard, and was able to intervene on Singer’s behalf. Singer was able to reestablish himself in academic life in the UK, support the Beveridge plan, and move on to work as a heterodox economist at the United Nations from 1947 onwards. He is revered to this day for his iconoclast writing and advocacy work.
His fellow student, Cläre Tisch (1907-1941), was not so fortunate. She completed her doctorate in economics with Josef Schumpeter at Bonn university in 1931, with an analysis of the socialist calculation debate. She was expelled from her university position when the Nazis dismissed all Jewish intellectuals from public service in 1933, and returned to her home town Wuppertal, where she worked for the Jewish Women’s Union. Schumpeter tried to get her a visa to leave fascist Germany, but they applied too late. Cläre Tisch was deported to Minsk in 1941. She and her entire family were murdered. Her legacy lives on only in her esteemed doctoral dissertation.
There are parallels in these four intrepid, creative lives and their legacies – Karl Amadeus Hartmann, Hans Singer, Luisa Krohn and Cläre Tisch. There are so many others, millions, persecuted, tortured and murdered by the Nazi dictatorship, about whom, now, we know little to nothing.
We must prevent any variant of fascism from ever rearing its lethal head again: bear witness,investigate local and family history , keep track, speak out, mobilise. That is the resounding message 80 years after the end of World War II and liberation from Nazi fascism.
May 2025: Remembering the persecuted
80 years ago, Germany was liberated from Nazi fascism, and in this spirit, there are many commemorative events this month.
One that touched me deeply was a concert on the eve of 8 May, with a haunting piece composed by Karl Amadeus Hartmann (1905-1963). It was one of his compositions dedicated to the concentration camp prisoners forced to march from Dachau to another camp, just weeks before the end of World War II and the collapse of Nazi dictatorship on 8 May 1945.
Karl Amadeus Hartmann (1962)
© Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg. Willy Pragher
Andreas Herm Baumgartner, director of the Hartmann society, introducing the concert, offered inspiring reflections on the lives of artists during the Nazi dictatorship.
There were dissidents like Hartmann, who decided to remain in „internal exile“ in Germany. The Nazis silenced his music because he supported resistance activists, and because he wove labour movement and Jewish music themes into his avantgarde compositions. He was nevertheless able to continue to compose and survive financially, as his works were smuggled out of Germany and performed elsewhere. From 1945 onwards, he was one of the initiators and promoters of musica viva, a movement which established avant garde contemporary classical music – and design – in Europe and the world.
There were others, mentioned by Baumgartner, who were persecuted and killed, but whose art survived – such as Marie Luise Kohn (1904-1941), artist name Maria Luiko. She was an academically-trained painter, graphic artist and puppeteer. In 1933, the Nazis expelled her from the German artists’ union under their antisemitic policy. Supported by the Hartmann family, she was able to deposit her oeuvre with them before she was deported. She and her relatives were murdered in 1941 in Kaunas, Lithuania. Some of her art is on display at the Hartmann society and in Munich museum archives.
Grieving woman (Trauernde). By Marie Luise Kohn. 1938. Linocut. Munich. © Copyright
And there were those creative spirits whom the Nazis tortured to death – because of their resistance, their art, their political affiliation, and/or their ascribed identity, and whose work perished with them.
Baumgartner’s reflections resonated with me all the more in connection with my recent research on the development economist Hans Singer (1910-2006). He was persecuted for his left-wing views and as a member of the Jewish community, and fled Germany in 1933. His economics professor, Josef Schumpeter, had emigrated earlier and was appointed to Harvard, and was able to intervene on Singer’s behalf. Singer was able to reestablish himself in academic life in the UK, support the Beveridge plan, and move on to work as a heterodox economist at the United Nations from 1947 onwards. He is revered to this day for his iconoclast writing and advocacy work.
Hans Singer
© Institute of Development Studies, Brighton
His fellow student, Cläre Tisch (1907-1941), was not so fortunate. She completed her doctorate in economics with Josef Schumpeter at Bonn university in 1931, with an analysis of the socialist calculation debate. She was expelled from her university position when the Nazis dismissed all Jewish intellectuals from public service in 1933, and returned to her home town Wuppertal, where she worked for the Jewish Women’s Union. Schumpeter tried to get her a visa to leave fascist Germany, but they applied too late. Cläre Tisch was deported to Minsk in 1941. She and her entire family were murdered. Her legacy lives on only in her esteemed doctoral dissertation.
Cläre Tisch © Archivmaterial der Begegnungsstätte Alte Synagoge Wuppertal. Wuppertal.
There are parallels in these four intrepid, creative lives and their legacies – Karl Amadeus Hartmann, Hans Singer, Luisa Krohn and Cläre Tisch. There are so many others, millions, persecuted, tortured and murdered by the Nazi dictatorship, about whom, now, we know little to nothing.
We must prevent any variant of fascism from ever rearing its lethal head again: bear witness, investigate local and family history , keep track, speak out, mobilise. That is the resounding message 80 years after the end of World War II and liberation from Nazi fascism.
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