Democracy Destroyed The First 100 Days of Nazi Rule

Day 17, Wednesday 15 February 1933: Käthe Kollwitz and Heinrich Mann forced out of the Prussian Academy of Arts

Day 17 of 100

Käthe Kollwitz and Heinrich Mann forced out of the Prussian Academy of Arts

Under threat that the Academy would be dissolved, Käthe Kollwitz and Heinrich Mann left the Prussian Academy of Arts, and the Prussian commissioners confirmed a sweeping purge of police chiefs, naming a retired rear admiral as police president of Berlin. Vorwärts and the 8-Uhr-Abendblatt were banned for a week, and in Stuttgart someone cut the cable carrying Hitler’s speech to the radio. Abroad, Thomas Mann lectured on Wagner in Brussels and an assassin fired on Franklin D. Roosevelt in Miami.

Close portrait of an older woman with grey hair drawn back, a white collar and a dark dress.
Käthe Kollwitz (1867–1945), photographed around 1930. On 15 February 1933 she was forced out of the Prussian Academy of Arts. For context Unknown author Unknown author. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Käthe Kollwitz and the novelist Heinrich Mann had signed an appeal for a united front of the left against National Socialism before the 5 March election. That was reason enough for Bernhard Rust, the acting Prussian Minister of Culture, to tell the Academy’s president, Max von Schillings, that he would dissolve the institution unless both left. They went, saying they could not take responsibility for the hardship a dissolution would cause their colleagues. On the same day the Prussian commissioners confirmed Göring’s purge of the police and Berlin’s police president banned two opposition dailies for their reporting: a fortnight after Hitler’s appointment, the arts, the police and the press were all being brought into line.

Politics and power

Government, terror and persecution

  1. Persecution evening, Berlin, Pariser Platz

    Kollwitz and Heinrich Mann leave the Academy under threat

    After Rust had told the Academy’s president, Max von Schillings, that he would dissolve the Prussian Academy of Arts if Heinrich Mann and Käthe Kollwitz did not go, both left after a heated session. Their offence was to have signed an “Urgent Call for Unity” (Dringender Appell) for a united front of the left against National Socialism. Mann gave up the chair of the Academy’s literature section; Kollwitz lost her post as head of a master class in graphic art. The Berlin city architect Martin Wagner left the Academy with them.1,2,3

  2. The states Berlin

    A retired admiral becomes Berlin’s police president

    Acting on Göring’s proposals, the Reich Commissioners for Prussia turned most of the recent forced leave into retirement. The district presidents of Kassel, Wiesbaden and Arnsberg and the police presidents of Stettin, Breslau, Waldenburg, Halle, Weißenfels, Hanover, Harburg-Wilhelmsburg, Dortmund, Frankfurt, Koblenz, Oberhausen and Bochum were pensioned off. Berlin’s police president, Melcher, was moved to head the province of Saxony and replaced by Magnus von Levetzow, a retired rear admiral who had been caught up in the proceedings after the Kapp Putsch of 1920; Viktor Lutze, until now a member of the Reichstag, became police president of Hanover.4

  3. Persecution Berlin

    Vorwärts and the 8-Uhr-Abendblatt banned for a week

    Berlin’s police president banned the Social Democratic Vorwärts and the 8-Uhr-Abendblatt of the Mosse publishing house until 22 February inclusive, under the decree “for the protection of the German people” of 4 February. Both papers were punished for their reporting of the clashes at Eisleben on 12 February: Vorwärts for an article headed “For the truth: Bloody Sunday in Eisleben”. It was the second ban on Vorwärts in a fortnight.5,6

  4. Propaganda Berlin

    Hans Bredow leaves German radio

    The Reich Post Minister released the Reich Post’s radio commissioner, Hans Bredow, “at his own request”, with thanks for his services; the ministry’s state secretary took over his duties for the time being. The same day the Interior Ministry’s own radio commissioner, Conrad, returned to the ministry and handed his duties to his assistant, Krukenberg.7,8

  5. Opposition 20:30–21:45, Stuttgart, Stadthalle

    Hitler’s Stuttgart speech cut off the air

    Hitler spoke in the Stuttgart Stadthalle to about 7,000 people, with loudspeakers carrying the speech to a crowd on the market square. At about 21:15, during a passage against parliamentary government, the radio relay went dead: the Post Office cable from the hall to the telegraph exchange had been cut with an axe, and the broadcast could not be restored before the speech ended at 21:45. The Akten der Reichskanzlei record that the cable was cut by an anti-fascist group that included Communists. At the next day’s ministers’ meeting Frick proposed bringing radio technicians under the Reich government’s direct control, and Hitler said he would take drastic measures if anything similar happened again.9,6

Everyday life

What else was happening in Germany

  1. Books evening, Brussels

    Thomas Mann speaks on Wagner in Brussels

    In the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels Thomas Mann spoke on Richard Wagner at an evening of the PEN Club, weighing Wagner’s worth from the intellectual, political and musical points of view and ending in the hope that German vitality would go on enriching the world, as it had through Wagner. Mann had left Germany for Holland on 11 February; the Thomas Mann Society dates the beginning of his exile from that departure.10,11

  2. Transport Berlin

    Railways against lorries at the motor congress

    Opening the International Congress of the Motor Transport Industry in Berlin, the Reich Transport Minister, Freiherr von Eltz-Rübenach, said the competition between the railways and motor vehicles was one of his greatest concerns: the number of motor vehicles in Germany had grown eighteenfold since 1914, and faster still elsewhere in Europe. The Deutschlandsender scheduled extracts from the opening session for its evening programme.12,13

  3. Radio evening, Berlin

    A Mozart and Bruckner evening

    Berlin’s Funkstunde relayed a concert from the Philharmonie, Mozart from 20:20 and, after the news, Bruckner from 21:03. Earlier, at 18:30, the writer Günter Eich read his own prose.13

Elsewhere in the world

  • United States

    Shots fired at Roosevelt in Miami

    As the President-elect, Franklin D. Roosevelt, spoke from his car in Bayfront Park, Miami, an Italian fired several shots at him. Roosevelt was unhurt, but the Mayor of Chicago, Cermak, standing close by, was badly wounded, as were five other people. German papers carried the news on their front pages the next morning.1,14

In Berlin today

A glass-fronted building with the words Akademie der Künste across its facade, between two stone-clad buildings on a paved square
The Akademie der Künste on the Pariser Platz in 2008: Günter Behnisch’s glass-fronted building of 2005 on the site of the old Academy. Jensens. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Prussian Academy of Arts (Akademie der Künste)

Pariser Platz 4, 10117 Berlin-Mitte

Then
Seat of the Prussian Academy of Arts, where on the evening of 15 February 1933 Käthe Kollwitz and Heinrich Mann left the Academy under the threat of its dissolution.1,2,15
Today
The Akademie der Künste’s building by Günter Behnisch, opened in 2005 within the proportions of the 1907 building, keeps the old top-lit exhibition rooms and houses the Academy’s library, reading room and architecture archive.

Open in OpenStreetMap

More pictures

A long glass plaque with white lettering listing several dozen names under a heading
Plaque at the Academy of Arts on the Pariser Platz headed “1933 bis 1938: ausgeschlossen, ausgetreten” (excluded, resigned), listing the members who were forced out, beginning with Käthe Kollwitz and Heinrich Mann. Photographed in 2013. For context OTFW , Berlin / CC BY-SA 3.0. CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Two elephants ridden by men in Roman helmets and armour cross a snowy square in front of the Brandenburg Gate, with two costumed men on foot
Two elephants advertising a circus on the snowy Pariser Platz in front of the Brandenburg Gate, February 1933; the riders and the two men walking beside them, all in Roman costume, are not named. Press photograph by Robert Sennecke, distributed in Paris on 16 February 1933. From these weeks Robert Sennecke Internationaler Illustrations Verlag. Agence photographique (commanditaire). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Sources

  1. Chronik 1933 (entries for 15 February) Deutsches Historisches Museum, LeMO
  2. Krise in der preußischen Akademie Hamburger Fremdenblatt (Reichsausgabe), via Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek Zeitungsportal, 16 February 1933, p. 2
  3. About Käthe Kollwitz Akademie der Künste
  4. Die neuen Polizeipräsidenten; Der neue Berliner Polizeipräsident Hildener Rundschau, via Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek Zeitungsportal, 16 February 1933, p. 1 (Amtlicher Preußischer Pressedienst)
  5. „8 Uhr-Abendblatt“ und „Vorwärts“ bis 22. Februar verboten Der Führer (Karlsruhe, NSDAP Gau Baden), via Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek Zeitungsportal, 17 February 1933, p. 2
  6. Nr. 22 Ministerbesprechung vom 16. Februar 1933, 16.15 Uhr Bundesarchiv / Historische Kommission bei der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Akten der Reichskanzlei. Regierung Hitler, Band I, P. 15 note 49 (second Vorwärts ban, 15 February); P. 16 and note 51 (Stuttgart)
  7. Rundfunkkommissar Dr. Bredow abberufen; „Acht-Uhr-Abendblatt“ und „Vorwärts“ verboten Dresdner Nachrichten, via Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek Zeitungsportal, 16 February 1933, p. 2 (reports dated Berlin, 15 February)
  8. Wechsel im Rundfunk. Ein neuer Rundfunkkommissar Kölnische Zeitung, via Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek Zeitungsportal, 15 February 1933, p. 7
  9. Sabotage bei der Stuttgarter Kanzlerrede Neue Mannheimer Zeitung, via Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek Zeitungsportal, 16 February 1933, p. 1
  10. Wagner-Vortrag Thomas Manns im Brüsseler Pen-Klub Westfälische Neueste Nachrichten (Bielefeld), via Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek Zeitungsportal, 17 February 1933, p. 3
  11. Thomas Mann 1933–1945 (chronology) Deutsche Thomas Mann-Gesellschaft, 1933: "11. Februar: Abreise nach Holland. Beginn des Exils."
  12. Zwischen Eisenbahn und Kraftwagen Hamburgischer Correspondent, via Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek Zeitungsportal, 16 February 1933, p. 2 (report dated Berlin, 15 February)
  13. Rundfunk am Abend: Mittwoch, 15. Februar Vorwärts, via Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek Zeitungsportal, 15 February 1933, p. 4
  14. Italienisches Attentat auf Roosevelt Hamburger Fremdenblatt (Reichsausgabe), via Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek Zeitungsportal, 16 February 1933, p. 1
  15. Akademie der Künste am Pariser Platz visitBerlin (Berlin Tourismus & Kongress GmbH)

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