Jeanne Mammen: Art between Resistance and Conformity in Modern Germany, 1916–1950 9781350239388, 9781350239418, 9781350239395

Table of contents :
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Contents
Illustrations
Abbreviations
Acknowledgements
Introduction
‘One should not write books about pictures’
Chapter 1: Forging a career
Introduction
Finding her feet
The fashion illustrator (Modeillustratorin)
The mass media – towards a critical position
Mammen and sex reform
The Songs of Bilitis
Conclusion
Chapter 2: Berlin 1947 – going solo
Introduction
Post-war exhibition cultures
Galerie Gerd Rosen and Mammen’s solo exhibition
Inner emigration
Ulenspiegel
Mammen’s response
Conclusion
Chapter 3: National Socialism and private dissent
Introduction
National Socialism and art
Early political resistance
A (re-)turn to Cubism
Camouflage I: Circus as criticism
Artist as translator
Towards a third position
Kontakt/los
Conclusion
Chapter 4: Propaganda, war and the home front
Introduction
Life on the home front
National Socialism, masculinity and warfare
Deconstructing the Führer myth
Camouflage II: The Picasso Effect
Conclusion
Chapter 5: Beginning again: Post-war Berlin
Introduction
Forging the new out of detritus
Ruinenmalerei
Exploring plasticity
‘Madame Picasso’
Conclusion
Chapter 6: Bathtubs and Jellyfish: Mammen and post-war cabaret
Introduction
A literary cabaret
Raumbilder: Dance and modern art
Renazification?
The conflicted case of Ernst Jünger
Exploring collective guilt
Conclusion
Epilogue
Appendices
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Jeanne Mammen

Visual Cultures and German Contexts

Series Editors Deborah Ascher Barnstone (University of Technology Sydney, Australia) Thomas O. Haakenson (California College of the Arts, USA) Visual Cultures and German Contexts publishes innovative research into visual culture in Germany, Switzerland and Austria, as well as in diasporic linguistic and cultural communities outside of these geographic, historical, and political borders. The series invites scholarship by academics, curators, architects, artists, and designers across all media forms and time periods. It engages with traditional methods in visual culture analysis as well as inventive interdisciplinary approaches. It seeks to encourage a dialogue among scholars in traditional disciplines with those pursuing innovative interdisciplinary and intermedial research. Of particular interest are provocative perspectives on archival materials, original scholarship on emerging and established creative visual fields, investigations into time-based forms of aesthetic expression, and new readings of history through the lens of visual culture. The series offers a muchneeded venue for expanding how we engage with the field of Visual Culture in general. Proposals for monographs, edited volumes, and outstanding research studies are welcome, by established as well as emerging writers from a wide range of comparative, theoretical and methodological perspectives.

Advisory Board

Donna West Brett, University of Sydney, Australia Charlotte Klonk, Humboldt Universität Berlin, Germany Nina Lübbren, Anglia Ruskin University, UK Maria Makela, California College of the Arts, USA Patrizia C. McBride, Cornell University, USA Rick McCormick, University of Minnesota, USA Elizabeth Otto, University at Buffalo SUNY, USA Kathryn Starkey, Stanford University, USA Annette F. Timm, University of Calgary, Canada James A. van Dyke, University of Missouri, USA

Titles in the Series

Art and Resistance in Germany, edited by Deborah Ascher Barnstone and Elizabeth Otto Bauhaus Bodies: Gender, Sexuality, and Body Culture in Modernism’s Legendary Art School, edited by Elizabeth Otto and Patrick Rössler Berlin Contemporary: Architecture and Politics after 1990, by Julia Walker Photofascism: Photography, Film, and Exhibition Culture in 1930s Germany and Italy, by Vanessa Rocco Single People and Mass Housing in Germany, 1850–1930: (No) Home Away from Home, by Erin Eckhold Sassin

Jeanne Mammen Art between Resistance and Conformity in Modern Germany, 1916–1950 Camilla Smith

BLOOMSBURY VISUAL ARTS Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA 29 Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, Ireland BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY VISUAL ARTS and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2023 Copyright © Camilla Smith, 2023 Camilla Smith has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. xiv constitute an extension of this copyright page. Series design by Maria Rajka Cover image: Jeanne Mammen, Der Jäger (Sonntagsjäger) (The Hunter (Sunday Hunter)), undated, c. 1939–42, tempera on cardboard, 100 × 70 cm. Jeanne Mammen Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin; Inv. Nr.: SM 201801391. Photo: Mathias Schormann, Berlin All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any thirdparty websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: HB: 978-1-3502-3938-8 ePDF: 978-1-3502-3939-5 eBook: 978-1-3502-3940-1 Series: Visual Cultures and German Contexts Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India To find out more about our authors and books visit www​.bloomsbury​.com and sign up for our newsletters.



In memory of Anja Ritzen

vi

Contents List of illustrations List of abbreviations Acknowledgements

ix xiii xiv

Introduction 1 ‘One should not write books about pictures’ 8 1

Forging a career 11 Introduction 11 Finding her feet 14 The fashion illustrator (Modeillustratorin) 16 The mass media – towards a critical position 19 Mammen and sex reform 28 The Songs of Bilitis 34 Conclusion 38

2

Berlin 1947 – going solo 39 Introduction 39 Post-war exhibition cultures 42 Galerie Gerd Rosen and Mammen’s solo exhibition 44 Inner emigration 52 Ulenspiegel 56 Mammen’s response 60 Conclusion 62

3

National Socialism and private dissent 63 Introduction 63 National Socialism and art 64 Early political resistance 66 A (re-)turn to Cubism 70 Camouflage I: Circus as criticism 72 Artist as translator 77 Towards a third position 80 Kontakt/los 88 Conclusion 91

Contents

viii 4

Propaganda, war and the home front 93 Introduction 93 Life on the home front 94 National Socialism, masculinity and warfare 102 Deconstructing the Führer myth 108 Camouflage II: The Picasso Effect 113 Conclusion 119

5

Beginning again: Post-war Berlin 121 Introduction 121 Forging the new out of detritus 122 Ruinenmalerei 126 Exploring plasticity 133 ‘Madame Picasso’ 143 Conclusion 150

6

Bathtubs and Jellyfish: Mammen and post-war cabaret 151 Introduction 151 A literary cabaret 155 Raumbilder: Dance and modern art 162 Renazification? 165 The conflicted case of Ernst Jünger 170 Exploring collective guilt 172 Conclusion 176

Epilogue 179 Appendices Notes Bibliography Index

183 187 232 256

Illustrations For all artworks by Jeanne Mammen, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn and DACS, London, 2021.

Plates   1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

Jeanne Mammen, Das Martyrium (Pola Negri) (Martyrdom (Pola Negri)) Jeanne Mammen, untitled (Teekleid von Kuhnen (Goldfische)) (Tea-dress from Kuhnen (Goldfish)) Jeanne Mammen, Bullier Jeanne Mammen, untitled (Teegespräch im Affenkäfig) (Tea Party in the Monkey Enclosure) Jeanne Mammen, untitled (Aschinger) Jeanne Mammen, Zwei Frauen tanzend (Two Women Dancing) Jeanne Mammen, Siesta Jeanne Mammen, Damenbar (Ladies’ Bar) Jeanne Mammen, untitled (Frau und Mädchen) (Woman and Girl) Jeanne Mammen, untitled (Bordellszene) (Scene in a Brothel) Jeanne Mammen, Kirche am Winterfeldtplatz (Church on Winterfeldtplatz) Jeanne Mammen, Jongleur (Juggler) Jeanne Mammen, Mutter Clown mit Kind (Columbine) (Mother Clown with Child (Columbine)) Jeanne Mammen, Clown Jeanne Mammen, Atelierbild (Studio Interior) Jeanne Mammen, Admiral Jeanne Mammen, Mackensen Jeanne Mammen, General Jeanne Mammen, Der Jäger (Sonntagsjäger) (The Hunter (Sunday Hunter)) Jeanne Mammen, Der Würgeengel (The Strangling Angel) Jeanne Mammen, Wolf Jeanne Mammen, Profile (Profiles) Jeanne Mammen, Brennendes Haus (Burning House) Jeanne Mammen, Mutter und Kind (Mother and Child) Set design by Jeanne Mammen for the Quallenpeitsche sketch of Federico García Lorca’s poem, Zwei Matrosen am Ufer (Two Sailors on the Shore) Jeanne Mammen, untitled (Ballet) Jeanne Mammen, cover of Ulenspiegel, 21, no. 1, October 1946

x

Illustrations

Figures I.1 I.2 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 4.1 4.2

Jeanne Mammen in her studio apartment Jeanne Mammen, untitled (Selbstkarikatur) (Self Caricature) Jeanne Mammen, untitled (Mädchen im Korsett auf Stuhl sitzend) (Young Woman in Bodice Sitting on a Chair) Jeanne Mammen, Mistinguett Jeanne Mammen, untitled (Die Modefarben von 1926/27) (The Fashionable Colours of 1926/27) Jeanne Mammen, untitled fashion illustrations Marie Louise Mammen (standing) and Jeanne Mammen in their studio apartment Scrapbook double page Scrapbook double page Jeanne Mammen, untitled (starving woman with child in front of a pub) Jeanne Mammen, Transvestitenlokal (Transvestite Club) Jeanne Mammen, untitled (Konsultation) (Consultation) Jeanne Mammen, untitled (Im Damenclub II) (In the Ladies Club II) Rudolf Schlichter, Damenkneipe (Ladies Pub) Albert Schaefer-Ast, Zur lächelnden Berolina (At the Smiling Berolina) Pablo Picasso, Harlequin View of Jeanne Mammen’s solo exhibition at Galerie Gerd Rosen Jeanne Mammen, untitled (Doppelkopf) (Double Head) John Heartfield, S. M. Adolf – Ich führe Euch herrlichen Pleiten entgegen (Kaiser Adolf: The Man Against Europe) Invitation to a discussion by Ulenspiegel at the Volkshaus in BerlinWilmersdorf, 11 November 1946, with Jeanne Mammen’s painting Ballerina Jeanne Mammen, untitled (Krankenschwester IV) (Nurse IV) Hans Thiemann, Empörte Besucher in der Ausstellung ‘Revolutionäre Malerei’ März 2048 (Outraged Visitors at the Exhibition ‘Revolutionary Painting’ March 2048) Cartoon strip ‘Bäbchens Abenteuer – Moderne Kunst-Ausstellung’ (Bäbchen’s Adventures – Modern Art Exhibition) Jeanne Mammen, untitled (Die Maske) (The Mask) Hans Grundig, left panel, Carnival, from the triptych Das Tausendjährige Reich (1000-Year-Reich) Walter Kröhnke, Troubadour Jeanne Mammen’s registration application form for the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts Steffie Nathan, untitled (Ein Schöner Traum) (A Beautiful Dream), illustration for Emil Jacoby-Wichert shoes A house concert at families Gaffron and Wohl, Klopstockstraße 34, Berlin-Schlachtensee Jeanne Mammen, Soldat Erich [Kuby] (Soldier Erich [Kuby]) Jeanne Mammen’s studio apartment

2 9 12 15 18 20 22 23 23 27 28 31 32 33 37 40 46 47 55 57 58

59 61 68 75 76 81 87 88 95 96

 Illustrations xi 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 4.9 4.10 4.11 4.12

4.13 4.14 4.15 4.16 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 5.8 5.9 5.10 5.11 5.12 5.13 5.14 5.15 5.16 5.17 5.18 6.1

Jeanne Mammen, untitled (Brustbild eines Soldaten mit Hakenkreuzbinde von links) (head and shoulders of a soldier with a swastika armband from the left) 97 Jeanne Mammen, untitled (Mann im Anzug, am Tisch sitzend und zeichnend) (man in a suit sitting, drawing at a table) 98 Jeanne Mammen, untitled (Brustbild einer vollbusigen Frau in gestreiftem Kleid) (head and shoulders of a busty woman in a striped dress) 99 Painted, wooden hand puppet head of a wolf 100 Jeanne Mammen, untitled, drawing of a military figure 102 Franz Eichhorst, Polenkämpfer (Fighter in Poland) 104 Jeanne Mammen, Polnische Bauersfrau im Krieg (Polish Peasant Woman during the War) 105 Original studio photograph of Field Marshall Anton Ludwig Friedrich August von Mackensen 107 Gingerbread figure preserved in a Perspex case 108 Heinrich Hoffmann and Baldur von Schirach, Hitler wie ihn keiner kennt. 100 Bild-Dokumente aus dem Leben des Führers (Hitler As You’ve Never Seen Him Before. 100 Picture Documents from the Life of the Führer) 110 ‘Der Duce spricht in Villa Glori’ (The Duce speaks at Villa Glori) 111 Hans Thiemann, Der 4er-maler (The Four Painter or Painter of ‘Fours’) 112 Jeanne Mammen, Wolf 116 Josef Scharl, Die Bestie (The Beast) 118 Jeanne Mammen, untitled (Heimkehrer) (Returnees) 123 Jeanne Mammen, Schwermütige am Fenster (Melancholy Woman at the Window) 124 Jeanne Mammen in her studio creating the artwork Trumpet 126 Elsa Thiemann, Berlin-Motzstrasse 127 Jeanne Mammen, Berliner Ruinen (Berlin Ruins) 128 Juro Kubicêk, Berlin 1947 129 Mac Zimmermann, Ruinendamen; Zwei Ruinen (Ruin Ladies; Two Ruins) 130 Jeanne Mammen, Die Tür zum Nichts (Door to Nothingness) 131 Hans Thiemann, Die offene Tür (The Open Door) 132 Jeanne Mammen, Doppelprofil (Double Profile) 134 Jeanne Mammen, Kind (Child) 135 Jeanne Mammen working on the sculpture, Männerkopf (Male Head) 136 Hans Uhlmann, Dichter und Muse (Poet and Muse) 136 Jeanne Mammen, Zwiegespräch (Dialogue) 137 Karl Hartung, Unheimlicher Kopf (Uncanny Head) 138 Jeanne Mammen, Afrikanische Maske (African Mask) 140 Jeanne Mammen, untitled (Zone 5) 142 ‘Die Frau in Wort, Werk und Bildnis’ (Women in Word, Work and Image), 1947 149 Paul Rosié, untitled (‘Künstlerkabarett in der Badewanne’) (Artists’ Cabaret – Bathtub) 152

xii

Illustrations

6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5

Entrance of the Artists’ Cabaret – Badewanne in the Femina-Palast Group photograph at the Artists’ Cabaret – Badewanne Jeanne Mammen, untitled (ballet scene from ‘Daphnis and Chloë’) Quallenpeitsche sketch of Federico García Lorca’s poem, Zwei Matrosen am Ufer (Two Sailors on the Shore) Programme from the Badewanne’s second ‘Rimbaud Evening’ on 15 December 1949 Jeanne Mammen working on a paper sculpture in her studio Raumbild after Paul Klee’s painting, Kleiner Narr in Trance (Little Fool in a Trance) (1929), the Badewanne’s second programme Quallenpeitsche sketch, ‘Odysseus und die Sirenen’ (Odysseus and the Sirens) Jeanne Mammen, ‘Odysseus und die Sirenen’ (Odysseus and the Sirens) Badewanne sketch, ‘Ernst Jünger Parody’, 1949 Jeanne Mammen, ‘Ti and No’ Photograph in Mammen’s studio

6.6 6.7 6.8 6.9 6.10 6.11 6.12 6.13

153 153 156 157 159 161 163 168 169 171 174 178

Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologizes for any errors or omissions and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book.

Abbreviations BG

Berlinische Galerie Landesmuseum für Moderne Kunst, Fotografie und Architektur

EX

Haus am Waldsee, Berlin

JMG

Jeanne-Mammen-Gesellschaft e.V.

JMS

Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin

LAB

Landesarchiv Berlin

SMB

Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

SMU

Schwules Museum Berlin

Acknowledgements I am immensely grateful to many people and institutions for the interest and enthusiasm they have shown in my research relating to this project. I would like to thank Francesca Berry, John Buck, John Klapper, William J. Dodd, Elizabeth L’Estrange, Nina Lübbren, Maria Makela, Jennifer Powell, Dorothy Price, David James Prickett, Frederic J. Schwartz, Jill Suzanne Smith, Michael Tymkiew, Adelheid Rasche and Shearer West. Conversations with Annelie Lütgens and the thought-provoking Jeanne Mammen retrospective, held at the Berlinische Galerie in 2017–18, helped shape my thinking about the artist. The invitation to contribute a catalogue essay for this retrospective proved invaluable to the book’s development. I wish also to express my gratitude to Philip Gorki and colleagues at the Berlinische Galerie for supporting archival work and to staff at the Kunstbibliothek, Berlin. Jennifer Augustyniak, Lynette Roth, Frank Schmidt and Dorothea Schöne, whom I have contacted regarding image research and Anka Kröhnke, Franziska Kubicêk, Susanne Scharl and Margot Schmidt, who have permitted me to reproduce works here, also deserve thanks. My deep gratitude to Martina Weinland and Robert Wein at the Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin, for their support of this project and Barbara Roosen at VG Bild-Kunst for arranging permissions. Completion of this book manuscript was generously supported by a Marie Sklodowska-Curie COFUND Fellowship. During this period of leave in 2018–19, the Max-Weber-Kolleg at the University of Erfurt, Germany, welcomed me as a visiting research fellow, and I enjoyed the rigorous, collegiate environment among researchers there. My thanks go to Matteo Bortolini, Kerstin Brückweh, Tiziana Faitini and Martina Roesner, for their careful reading of my work. My colleagues in the Department of Art History, Curating and Visual Studies at the University of Birmingham have always provided a stimulating and encouraging space to develop ideas, for which I am immensely grateful. I would like to thank Jutta Vinzent for the invaluable discussions on art and migration. I wish to express deep gratitude to the anonymous reviewers, whose incisive and detailed comments helped in revisions to the final draft. I am grateful to April Peake and Yvonne Thouroude at Bloomsbury for their handling of the book’s production and to the series’ editors Deborah Ascher Barnstone and Thomas O. Haakenson. My warm thanks to friends Martin Harvey, Myriam Lutz and Familie Zeides, for always making my visits to Berlin beyond the archive so much fun. And I should like to thank my parents, Bryan and Janette, and the most important boys in my life, Dylan and Maxim, for their unending support and patience. My interest in Jeanne Mammen began back in 2009. Cornelia Pastelak-Price introduced me to her studio apartment on Kurfürstendamm and took the time to show me this unique space. I am humbled by her tireless commitment and unwavering

 Acknowledgements xv support of this project and others over the years. Our conversations have been a source of inspiration and my ideas have benefited immeasurably from her thoughtful critique and careful reading of my work. I cannot express my thanks enough. Arguments from Chapter 3 were first published in Camilla Smith, ‘Negotiating the Hitler State as an Inner Émigré’, Jeanne Mammen The Observer: Retrospective, 1910– 1975, eds, Thomas Köhler and Annelie Lütgens, exh. cat. Berlinische Galerie, Berlin (Munich: Hirmer, 2017), 153–60. The last part of Chapter 1 was published in Camilla Smith, ‘Sex Sells! Wolfgang Gurlitt, Erotic Print Culture and Women Artists in the Weimar Republic’, in Art History 42, no. 4 (2019): 780–806. I would like to thank the respective publishers for allowing me to include this work in the present volume in revised form. The project has received funding from the European Union’s Framework Programme for Research and Innovation Horizon 2020, under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Grant Agreement No. 66595.

xvi

Introduction In a black-and-white photograph, a neatly dressed woman is captured sitting in a neckerchief and shirt, wearing an artist’s overalls casually fastened around her waist with a leather belt (Figure I.1). She holds two crayons in her hand, poised, as if to mark the paper that is propped up on a board in front of her. To her left, on a table, there are paint tubes, mixing palettes and a glass, and in front of her there is a vase of flowers. She does not smile. Instead, she greets the viewer with a confident, unwavering gaze. It is a portrait photograph of the artist, Jeanne Mammen (1890–1976), taken in 1947, some two years after the war. At the time, Mammen was fifty-seven years old. She had already enjoyed a successful career working as a graphic artist, illustrating some of the Weimar Republic’s most popular colour magazines. During the 1930s, she began to focus on large-scale paintings in tempera and turned her hand to sculpture. Some of her paintings are partially visible on the wall behind her, and the black-and-white plaster head of an African warrior she modelled, sits on the high casing of an old-fashioned radiator. The photograph shows Mammen working in the main room of her studio apartment in the centre of Berlin, where she also lived from 1920 up until her death in 1976 at the age of eighty-five. Located at the rear of a small courtyard away from the hustle and bustle of thriving Kurfürstendamm, this studio apartment (Wohnatelier) – with only a cold water tap, no kitchen and a small toilet located on a partial landing in the staircase leading to the attic – became a ‘refuge’ during the 1930s when the National Socialists were in power, and where she resolutely kept on working. It miraculously survived the Allied bombing raids of the Second World War and continued to offer a creative and quiet space where she painted, translated French literature and designed cabaret costumes. It was here, too, that she experienced the increasingly obvious ideological divisions of the East and West with growing frustration. After Mammen’s death, a close circle of friends decided to preserve this space and its contents, just as the artist had left it. The two rooms housed not only Mammen’s artworks, but also her substantial library, the furniture she painted and her collection of various objects – trinkets, souvenirs, ornaments, scrapbooks and numerous pictures collected from newspapers and magazines pinned to the walls. The photographic portrait of Mammen was taken by Elsa Thiemann (née Franke) (1910–81), who studied photography at the Bauhaus with Walter Peterhans (1897– 1960). Thiemann took a few portrait photographs of artists in their studios after the war, which functioned as a way of reintroducing German publics to some of its most important contemporary artists, many of whom had been unable to exhibit under the National Socialists. Thiemann’s portrait is one of several different images of the artist taken inside her studio. Another one shows her up a ladder propped against a bookshelf, half turned (towards Thiemann), a book in her hand. Such intimate

2

Jeanne Mammen

Figure I.1  Jeanne Mammen in her studio apartment, photographer Elsa Thiemann, c. 1947. © Margot Schmidt, Hamburg. Photo: © Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin.

moments are significant: Mammen allowed few people into her studio, just her close friends. The artist’s friendship with Elsa and her husband, the Surrealist painter Hans Thiemann (1910–77) – with whom she shared thoughts on art, literature and travel among other things – would last up until her death. A reproduction of Thiemann’s portrait filled an entire wall in the exhibition, ‘Jeanne Mammen: The Observer. Retrospective 1910–1975’ organized by the Berlinische Galerie Museum für Moderne Kunst during the autumn and winter of 2017–18. The exhibition showcased a glittering array of the artist’s work – 170 works created over 60 years, to be precise1 – upon which the impact of two world wars, imperial and democratic decline, dictatorship and political division, all left their indelible marks. Mammen’s work was, and, indeed, still is, an important witness to modern history. The exhibition revealed the extent to which the oeuvre of Mammen, who is described in press reviews as a ‘unique observer’ and ‘headstrong’, complicates any Wölfflinian art history, which seeks to demonstrate the neat teleological development of artistic style over time.2 Having rejected Expressionism for French and Belgian Symbolism at the start of her artistic training during the fin de siècle, she embraced the plasticity of New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit) in the 1920s, but then turned (back) towards forms of Cubist realism in her paintings of the 1930s and early 1940s. During the last three decades of her life, her work moved more and more towards abstraction. The retrospective was one of the most popular exhibitions that the Berlinische Galerie has ever held to date.3 Reviews of the show tell a similar story. In them

 Introduction 3 Mammen is much praised for her ‘resistance’ (Widerstand) to the National Socialists and her ability to engage with such difficult periods in history through her work. Her many changing artistic styles are considered evocative of her ‘free spirit’; this was an exhibition that ‘we simply should not miss’.4 However, unlike the approach of the retrospective exhibition that sought to show all aspects of her work, the media’s pronounced focus on Mammen’s 1920s Weimar watercolours is typical of the partial approach adopted by curators and academics around the globe towards the artist’s oeuvre since her death.5 While her work regularly features in exhibitions, she is often awkwardly compared with her neusachlich counterparts, George Grosz and Otto Dix, who are both considered characteristic artists of the Weimar era’s ‘glitter and doom’.6 Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, it is this period, perhaps more than any other, that both fascinates and repels worldwide. But as Jean-Paul Stonard reminds us, this repeated focus on German culture prior to 1933 in itself ‘confirm[s the] post-Nazi extinction’ of much art created thereafter.7 Mammen’s career continues to be defined by the teleological limits of Weimar and the significance of her work before or beyond her ‘Weimar period’, and in particular her survival under National Socialism, demands more attention. In examining Mammen’s life and work between 1916 and 1950, this book seeks to explore the fascinating engagement of an individual with artistic modernism and the urban modernization of Germany. Mammen continued to produce work right up until her death – over twenty years after the end date of this study. The thirtyfour years that serve as the basis for the reassessment of Mammen’s oeuvre here, are considered particularly illuminating in tracing the complex interrelationships between modernity, artistic modernism and swift political change. They also trace some of the underlying continuities in her own life – her translation of French literature, the importance of collecting and her drawing praxis – as well as revealing the extraordinary resourcefulness, versatility and resilience she maintained to overcome the extreme situations of dictatorship and war. Of relevance in this context is the artist’s youth in France – where she moved from Berlin with her family at the age of ten – and her subsequent artistic training in Paris and Brussels. Mammen’s family was forced to move back to Germany as enemies of the French state at the outbreak of the First World War. Building on recent scholarship on the artist, this book explores the meaning and relevance of her sustained interest in Francophone culture, which, it argues, among other things, functioned as a powerful expression of nonconformity during the 1930s and early 1940s.8 Focus on the artist’s career beyond Weimar usefully questions the totalizing visions of modernity as a period of dramatic rise and fall, by showing how elements of modernity – be it the mobilization of mass cultural forms or modernist art – however different, were still important parts of life in Germany under the National Socialists. The importance of the Weimar Republic as the context in which Mammen began to negotiate a public position for herself as a commercial graphic artist forms the basis of Chapter 1. Chapters 2 through to Chapter 6 focus on what happens thereafter in her career up until the early 1950s. In these chapters, Mammen’s survival as an inner émigré artist – the complex forms of nonconformity her artwork took – and her involvement in Galerie Gerd Rosen, Berlin’s first modern and contemporary

4

Jeanne Mammen

art gallery after the war, are explored in detail. In the immediate post-war period, Mammen’s work featured in many of the major Allied exhibitions, and she quickly became friends with important Surrealist artists and writers working in Berlin. During this period, the artist resumed work on her German translations of French literature, some of which were also read on stage in an artist cabaret. The publication of her partial translation of Arthur Rimbaud’s Eine Jahreszeit in der Hölle (A Season in Hell) appeared in print in 2017 for the first time.9 The potentially dissident function of this translation, begun under National Socialism, is discussed in Chapter 3. Indeed, Mammen is remarkable in the way she successfully turned her hand to many things in addition to paintings and sculpture: not only translation, but also costume and stage design. Chapter 6 explores her involvement with two artist cabarets that used Dadaist and Surrealist techniques to confront Allied occupation and tensions in the fledgling Republic. In contrast with scholarship emphasizing Germany’s shortlived enthusiasm for Surrealism, I suggest that the impact of these cabarets and the networks they forged were felt for years to come. If the reader is expecting to find a diachronic and chronological analysis of Mammen’s oeuvre set out on these pages, they may be disappointed. Annelie Lütgens’ German-language monograph on Mammen, published in 1991, offers an excellent analysis of the artist’s entire oeuvre from the 1900s until her death in 1976.10 This study, instead, takes a distinct achronological approach to explore the cultural debates of two of the most popular periods in German history – the Weimar Republic and National Socialism. The structure of this book is conceptually driven around the issue of inner emigration and its immediate aftermath during the late 1940s. The book begins with 1920s Weimar and then moves directly to 1945 and the immediate post-war context in Chapter 2. This chapter sets out the ethical and moral dimensions of inner emigration after the Second World War and acts, therefore, to frame the revisionist narratives presented in Chapters 3 and 4, both set during the 1930s and early 1940s. Chapters 5 and 6 return once more to post-war Berlin. It is very much hoped that this ‘flashback’ structure will nuance the continuities of inner emigration and arguments of dissent in productive new ways for the reader. As well as a partial biography, this book is also a history of the wider reception of modern – particularly abstract – art. Recognition of Mammen’s artwork is shaped by critical acclaim, oblivion and reconstruction at certain points in German history. This is not particularly unusual, for as is the case with many German artists who were born between 1890 and 1905, and whose careers spanned the periods of empire, democracy and dictatorship, their work may have been forgotten by changing ideological regimes, or deliberately eschewed by others. Nonetheless, the stylistic changes of Mammen’s artwork – sometimes problematically referred to as ‘breaks’ (Brüche) and mapped onto the changing social and political circumstances in which she lived11 – while also not uncommon, continue to confound critics and commentators, just as they had done during her own lifetime. This book seeks to explore how not only these changes, but also the continuities in her artistic style came about, their critical reception and what this has meant for Mammen’s place in German modernism. The accelerated politicization of culture through the Cold War had direct consequences for the reception of her artwork. The East and West drew much of the Cubist painting she created in inner

 Introduction 5 emigration into debates regarding the form and function of art. Mammen’s collection of exhibition reviews –  ostensibly newspaper clippings – preserved in her archive, permit some insight into why she withdrew from public cultural life in the early 1950s. Chapters 2 and 5 examine this in detail. As noted, an important focus is the artist’s experience under National Socialism presented in Chapters 3 and 4. Recent scholarship has developed nuanced understandings of the interrelationship between epochal and artistic changes by demonstrating some of the underlying continuities in artists’ careers spanning the Weimar Republic, the Nazi period and beyond. In some cases, modern and even modernist artists that were prominent in the 1920s continued to forge careers under the Nazis.12 Artists Max Pechstein and Franz Radziwill, for example, underwent a complex set of negotiations to maintain their careers, operating outside of, but also sometimes within, National Socialist structures, albeit without subscribing wholeheartedly to the party line.13 These studies offer powerful examples of relational models of politics and political ontology, challenging the notion of a totalitarian monolith. In other words, a study of artists working under National Socialism confirms Michel Foucault’s contention that power and resistance to it are never absolute, and should, instead, be understood and analysed as an unstable network of practices.14 Besides exposing the Nazi Party’s conflicting attitudes towards modern art, this scholarship foregrounds the complex issues of ‘resistance’, ‘victimization’, ‘pragmatism’ and ‘complicity’ that are raised when studying the lives of artists who remained in Germany during the 1930s and early 1940s. What constitutes ‘resistance’ continues to trouble Germans over three quarters of a century after Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg tried to kill Hitler in July 1944 with two explosives in a briefcase. For some, Stauffenberg was an assassin, his plan little different from the attacks of some of today’s terrorists. His narrative is complicated by the fact that he had initially, like many of his co-plotters, been an ardent enthusiast of the Reich. In many ways his attack came too late, and he had served and, indeed, strengthened the regime. For others, however, he was both a patriot and resister who deserves to be remembered for his bravery.15 It is perhaps not surprising, then, that both art historical and literary studies have focused disproportionately on the exile experience as representative of unequivocal resistance and modern German culture.16 However, as Sabine Eckmann has pointed out, only one-quarter of the more than one hundred artists in the 1937 Degenerate Art exhibition actually emigrated from Nazi Germany.17 What about the fraught experiences of all of the other artists who stayed? Only some were officially prohibited from working (Berufsverbot), whereas many others were not actually included in any of the degenerate art displays and continued to create artworks in secret. How far can we speak of their experiences as ‘resistant’? This study on Mammen is indebted to a growing body of scholarship exploring the complex, everyday lives of individuals living under dictatorships, and hopes to add to the debate by turning its focus particularly towards the complexities of producing modern art under the conditions of inner emigration. Different from artists like Pechstein or Radziwill, who at different stages sought accommodation under the National Socialists, achieving varying degrees of success, this book understands inner emigration as a deliberate distancing and rejection of the regime. In other words, inner

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émigré artists took up a position of emigration from Nazi rule, which was affirmed through their various levels of nonconformist dissent.18 This dissent could have been motivated by political objections, although it was often not necessarily defined solely by politics. This could mean, for example, conscious withdrawal from public life as a deliberate form of disengagement, undertaking acts of public or private dissent such as the sustained production of prohibited artwork, and using artwork as open or tacit forms of criticism. It adopts the ‘everyday history’ (Alltagsgeschichte) approach spearheaded in the 1970s by the research project on ‘Resistance and Persecution in Bavaria, 1933– 1945’, led by Martin Broszat at the Institute for Contemporary History in Munich, which culminated in the six-volume work, Bayern in der NS-Zeit, published between 1977 and 1983.19 This project deliberately moved away from narrow understandings of ‘resistance’ as overt political acts intended to fundamentally challenge/overthrow a regime by elite groups. Instead, it brought into focus various forms of nonconformist, dissenting behaviour, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant – a refusal to salute or whistling a prohibited song – by the wider Bavarian population (as Broszat put it, ‘von unten’ [from below]).20 The project remains controversial, not least for the idea that it considered civil acts of ‘passivity’ and ‘ambivalence’ as potential forms of dissent. This was not helped by using the German Resistenz (immunity), a medical term – not to be confused with ‘resistance’– which the project used to describe everyday acts short of overt political resistance. Resistenz implied that this behaviour could effectively lead to long-term ‘immunization’ from National Socialism. Despite its shortfalls, the project’s approach in demonstrating how public and/or private acts of nonconformity are valid forms of dissent, remains fundamental to more nuanced understandings of resistance.21 For if you could be arrested for the openly oppositional acts of distributing anti-Nazi leaflets, as well as for the (merely) disobedient act of listening to the ‘wrong’ radio station, ‘resistance’ likewise encompassed a broad spectrum of behaviour for the National Socialists themselves. Closer examination of Mammen’s artworks, her working methods and friendship circles demonstrates that inner emigration, too, produced strategic and positional identities of dissent within the private sphere. In studying these everyday forms of dissent, this book asserts that forms of social and psychological introspection should not define inner emigration.22 As we will see, Mammen continued to produce powerful nonconformist artwork under the radar, which in some instances was acquired by a group of like-minded friends who opposed Nazi ideology. Her engagement with modernism – Pablo Picasso in particular – brings to the fore debates that developed after the Second World War regarding whether abstract art comprised a valid form of National Socialist resistance. Indeed, it is perhaps worth noting here that Picasso plays an important role throughout this book, which feels somewhat counterintuitive for a scholar wishing to foreground complex negotiations lesser-known women artists have made. As her contemporary in Paris and, indeed, as the anti-fascist painter of Guernica, Picasso, nonetheless, remains essential to understanding Mammen’s own nonconformity to National Socialism, as well as for other artists including Walter Kröhnke and Hans Uhlmann, whose work is also briefly discussed. Picasso’s undiminished artist status – despite his remaining in Paris – exposes the dynamic political and gendered situation after the war.

 Introduction 7 The title of this book derives from approaches by scholars and curators in West Germany to grapple with the complex positioning of artists to National Socialism. In this respect, the exhibition, Zwischen Widerstand und Anpassung: Kunst in Deutschland, 1933–1945, organized by the Akademie der Künste in 1978 that attempted to explore the work of individual artists, art dealers and art societies which continued to operate in Nazi Germany, was formative.23 Here, the ‘and’ denotes an ‘in-between’ position, asking the reader to move towards a middle ground away from incontrovertible acts of open resistance at one end of the scale and acquiescent conformity at the other. However, the phrase is also used as an underlying tenet throughout this book to highlight the artist’s complex relationship to the social dynamics of modernity. Few would question whether Mammen was a modern artist. However, it would be misleading to interpret her engagement with Symbolism, New Objectivity or Cubism as unequivocal markers of her enthusiasm for modern society. In Germany and Berlin in particular, the process of urban modernization – through its enthusiastic embrace of Americanization during the 1920s – was paradigmatic.24 The National Socialists continued to draw upon some of these developments, including mass media to galvanize and maintain support. Examinations into what it meant to ‘conform’ began in earnest at the end of the nineteenth century through Gustave Le Bon’s work on the social and psychological dynamics of ‘the masses’.25 This in turn led to much debate in Germany among sociologists, philosophers and psychologists such as Ferdinand Tönnis, Werner Sombart, Georg Simmel and Siegfried Kracauer. Mammen’s work reveals a fascinating dialectical interdependence with mass culture and mass politics during this period. As is argued in Chapter 1, the artist clearly recognized the democratic possibilities mass culture afforded. She used her work to engage with the complex position of women in Weimar society, as well as the discrimination of queer minorities. However, she never fully subscribed, as Anthony McElligott has so eloquently put it, to the ‘architectural edifice of collective cultural experience’ and she remained critical of media constructions like the new woman (Neue Frau) in her work.26 In addition, as we will see, her non-commitment to any mass political parties throughout her lifetime, her deliberate withdrawal of work from the National Socialist press, as well as the dissenting methods she employed in her artworks during this period, reveal her fierce independence. Gender politics is at the centre of much of this book. Studying Mammen’s career foregrounds the complex and at times conflicting positions women occupied as both markers and agents of modernity in relation to commercial culture and democracy, political resistance and dictatorship, and abstract art and politics in recent German history. This is not a comparative study. Nonetheless, Mammen worked alongside and/ or forged friendships with the photographer Elsa Thiemann (née Franke) (1910–81); the commercial graphic artist Steffie Schaefer-Nathan (née Nathan; sometimes also Schaefer-Ast) (1895–1972); the artist Katja Mierowsky (1920–2012); the dancer and Berlin State Opera dance director Tatjana Gsovsky (1901–93) and the art dealer and Head of Modern Art at Galerie Gerd Rosen, Ilse-Margret Vogel (1914–2001), whose cultural contributions are briefly considered. In his 1997 essay, ‘Die Emigration deutscher Intellektueller: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte ihrer kontroversen Rezeption’ (The emigration of German intellectuals: a

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contribution to the history of their controversial reception), Martin Jay acknowledged that questions of race and class have dominated the experience of émigrés, as opposed to considerations of gender.27 While the diverse experiences of women artists in exile have gained traction in more recent years through focus on Bauhaus artists, along with focused studies on artists and writers, such as Charlotte Salomon (1917–43) and the artist Lotte Laserstein (1898–1993),28 scholarship on a verschollene Generation (lost generation) of women inner émigrés artists and writers is only now starting to emerge.29 On 28 June 2019, the German Bundestag formally agreed on a motion put forward by the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and Christian Democratic Union Party and the Christian Social Union Party: Union parties (CDU/CSU) to invest more in researching and honouring the role of ‘silent heroines’ (stille Heldinnen), whose oppositional acts have yet to be recognized. This motion – ‘Frauen im Widerstand gegen den Nationalsozialismus würdigen’ (Honouring Women in Resistance Against National Socialism) – draws more attention not only to the women involved in, or connected with, elite acts of opposition including the von Stauffenberg case, but also to the initiatives of women behind the scenes who sought to resist.30 As the Bundestag implements a potentially more grassroots approach to the historical realities and determinants of resistant action possible under National Socialism, it seems that women’s history is finally coming into view.31 However, this study is not intended to make Mammen an ‘unsung hero’. Indeed, Broszat’s project never suggested that the regime’s fundamental aims were ‘blunted by Resistenz’.32 As is the case in the study of artists in particular, Jonathan Petropoulos has rightly cautioned against an exaggeration of resistance as ‘part of the myth of the avant-garde’.33 Instead, therefore, it is hoped that the experience of Mammen and some of the female contemporaries discussed here will offer insights into the complex hurdles women needed to negotiate – not only regarding resistance to dictatorships, but also in relation to the changing gender landscape in Germany during the first half of the twentieth century.

‘One should not write books about pictures’ Elsa Thiemann’s portrait photograph of Mammen is significant in that there are few official photographs of the artist, and only three self-portraits are known to exist. This is perhaps unusual for an artist who has been so readily associated with the scrutinizing vision of New Objectivity. Otto Dix and George Grosz, for example, used self-portraits as an important way of asserting their own artistic ambition. Mammen left no memoires or diaries. Only correspondence with a few friends exists, much of which dates from the 1960s onwards. After 1945, when Mammen’s work was extensively explored in the press, she did not give lectures about art, like Max Pechstein or Hannah Höch, nor become part of any of the provocative gatherings held at the Galerie Gerd Rosen promoting modern and contemporary art. She also did not teach and as a result, her legacy does not ‘live on’ directly through a younger generation of artists. Indeed, she never wanted her work to be pigeonholed, classified, analysed or judged, specifically stating: ‘one should not write books about pictures, who has eyes to see, should see.’34 Thiemann’s photograph – which featured in the Gerd Rosen Almanac of

 Introduction 9 1947, along with photographs of other contemporary artists in their studios – testifies to Mammen’s importance in Berlin’s post-war art scene. The artist remained an intensely private person throughout her life. She disliked intrusive interviews and writings about her work, which she claimed would be used for some sort of ‘nonsense later’ (späteren Unsinn).35 In anticipation of posthumous analysis, she expressly asked for all her photographs and letters to be destroyed after she died. Unsurprisingly, she disliked the pomp and ceremony the exhibitions of her work attracted. She commented in a letter to a friend: Everything went smoothly, speeches were held, bouquets given, à l’étonnement géneéral [to general amazement] your telegram was read, cameras flashed, hands were squeezed. [. . .] After that a Munich patron paid for a splendid souper with saddle of venison and champagne with all the accoutrements. See, when you turn 80 you too will get such fine things – one only must be patient.36

Alongside photographic portraits, the artists featured in the Rosen Almanac wrote a short biography. Mammen drew hers (Figure I.2). A slim figure with her back to the viewer shows a pair of eyes looking into a mirror held up high. Beside her there is a squiggly line and some handwriting – Mammen’s curriculum vitae, which looks like a piece of unravelling string. Above it the artist wrote, ‘This is my vita’; below it, ‘it once began and has not stopped since –’ (es fing mal an und hörte noch nicht auf –). Given all that she had experienced by 1947, Mammen’s ‘vita’ was more like a lifeline, with all its ups and downs.37 The image is both witty and playful. It serves to

Figure I.2  Jeanne Mammen, untitled (Selbstkarikatur) (Self Caricature), undated, c. 1947. Medium, original size and whereabouts unknown, in Almanach 1947, Galerie Gerd Rosen, 21. Photo: © Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin.

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deflect away from, but paradoxically draw attention to, the artist; just like the tonguein-cheek drawing of herself that accompanies it. Unwilling to disclose personal details to a post-war audience, Mammen wanted to remain, as she herself put it, an unobtrusive figure, just a ‘pair of eyes’, who wished to capture her subject matter entirely unseen.38 This utterance has become a point of re-emphasis among scholars, the recent retrospective using ‘Jeanne Mammen – The Observer [Die Beobachterin]’ as its title.39 But those eyes reciprocate the viewer’s gaze through the mirror. Might we be permitted to see her, too? The task for an art historian writing a book about an artist who categorically did not want to be written about is therefore a difficult one. Nonetheless, this book tries to use her surviving personal documents, her studio apartment space, her own quotes and statements made by friends and critics about her work sensitively. It adopts a social art historical approach, moving back and forth between the artist’s works and the material conditions in which she was operating in Berlin. It brings together biographical information, newspaper articles, exhibition brochures and relevant discussions on social, cultural and political history, into what it hopes is a rich and new fabric of interpretation. Some of the citations from Mammen’s correspondence appear in their original German to reveal the artist’s ‘voice’. Mammen’s style of writing was idiosyncratic; she sometimes misspelled words and used French and English expressions. These letters, some of which were published by Mammen’s friends after her death, reveal her passions, dislikes and, at times, her self-effacing and wry sense of humour. Mammen’s oeuvre was substantial. After her death, close friends Marga Döpping and Lothar Klünner compiled a catalogue raisonné (Werkverzeichnis) of all Mammen’s known artworks, which was published with the exhibition catalogue of the second extensive retrospective in 1997–8. The raisonné demonstrates her astonishing productivity as well as the diversity of her work, and remains an essential source for scholars.40 The selection of artworks chosen here are considered as powerfully engaging with and/or shaping some of the key issues raised throughout this book.

1

Forging a career

Introduction In autumn 1930, Jeanne Mammen had her first solo exhibition in Berlin at Galerie Gurlitt, Potsdamer Straße 113, featuring paintings, drawings, watercolours and prints (Figure 1.1). She exhibited a watercolour drawing, depicting revue girls preparing for a performance, a large oil painting of the cabaret dancer Valeska Gert and another of a group of downbeat café visitors playing chess. Other exhibits comprised lithographic prints of two prostitutes loitering on a street, along with a pen drawing of an estranged couple in a working-class pub. In the exhibition brochure, Hermann Sinsheimer described the artist as a ‘portraitist of people’ (Menschendarstellerin).1 Over the past decade, the artist had been productive and versatile, turning her hand to drawing, painting and printmaking. Her watercolour drawings had featured as illustrations and advertisements in countless popular lifestyle and fashion magazines, in books on erotica and in pulp fiction, as well as on cinema posters. Her ability to capture modern life and its different scenarios was respected and admired by some of the Weimar Republic’s most esteemed artists and cultural figures. The previous year, Kurt Tucholsky had singled out her work in an article featured in Die Weltbühne, describing her figures as ‘clear-cut with a clean feel, they are gracious yet austere, they literally jump out at you from the paper’.2 The artist’s archive holds a guest-book of Mammen’s exhibition at Gurlitt documenting many signatures of visitors, among them artists and critics such as Christian Schad, Steffie Schaefer-Nathan, Lou Albert-Lasard, Max Osborne and Gertrude Sandmann. It had not always been this way, however. Since her arrival back in Berlin in 1915, Mammen had worked extremely hard to get to this point. Having lived and worked in Paris and Brussels, she had enjoyed no foothold in the German art market and was virtually unknown. Mammen’s whole family had been displaced at the onset of the First World War and were forced to flee Paris, where they had moved in 1900 as a wealthy Berlin family. In Paris, Mammen and her two elder sisters, Ernestine Louise, ‘Loulou’ and Adeline Marie Luise, ‘Mimi’, had begun their art training in 1907. They continued their studies in Brussels and Rome and returned to Paris in 1912, where they set up a studio and participated in collective exhibitions of the Society of Independent Artists (Société des Artistes Indépendants), and in Brussels the following year. Arriving back in a Germany where the art market – particularly prints – was booming during the war, neither sister had professional connections to established art

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Jeanne Mammen

Figure 1.1 Jeanne Mammen, untitled (Mädchen im Korsett auf Stuhl sitzend) (Young Woman in Bodice Sitting on a Chair), undated, c. 1930, ink and charcoal on paper, original size and whereabouts unknown. Cover of the exh. cat. Galerie Gurlitt 1930. Photo: © Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin.

dealers such as Heinrich Tannhauser, Alfred Flechtheim or cousins Paul and Bruno Cassirer, who represented renowned French and German modernists. Nor did they have membership to, or connections with, artist members of the Berlin Academy of Arts (Akademie der Künste zu Berlin), Berlin Women Artists Association (Verein der Berliner Künstlerinnen: VdBK) or the Berlin Secession. Their lack of affiliations meant, therefore, that they had no public platform to show their work. The Gurlitt show was Mammen’s first-ever solo exhibition in Germany. Until that point, she had worked almost solely as a graphic artist for the press and fashion magazines. Mammen’s exhibition took place after the ostentatious redesign of Wolfgang Gurlitt’s gallery rooms and private villa by architects Walter Würzbach and Erich Rentsch, as well as the designer-painter César Klein.3 The design reinforced Gurlitt’s modern spirit and the contemporaneity of the work of Lovis Corinth, Oskar Kokoschka and Renée Sintenis that the gallery represented. In the context of such an innovative set-up, Mammen’s solo exhibition symbolized quite an achievement for the artist. The reviews of the exhibition were positive; fifteen appeared in eight different newspapers, most of which were local to Berlin. Mammen began actively collecting these; many clippings were sent by the newspaper agencies Max Goldschmidt and Adolf Schustermann. At a time when the impact of the mass media on the formation of public opinion was profound, this was hardly an unusual

 Forging a Career 13 practice. Kurt Schwitters, Walter Gropius and Lotte Laserstein were among the many artists who employed such services. Yet, these reviews offer crucial insights into emphases and absences that would characterize Mammen’s career for decades to come. The Berliner Volkszeitung, for example, called Mammen one of Berlin’s best female artists. Critics likened her works to those of George Grosz, Otto Dix and other New Objectivity colleagues, while at the same time acknowledging that they were also different in their sentiment. Reports proceeded thus: ‘From a distance, her work reminds you of George Grosz; but it is softer, more feminine and she has entirely her own confidence capturing individuals and the world in which they live.’4 Another stated: ‘The unrelenting observation could be almost construed male, if it wasn’t for a certain “fashionable complacency”, which betrays that it is a woman.’5 Besides femininity, some critics noted that there was also something ‘French’ about her works: ‘It smells like vice, surrounded by a melancholy humour. It [her artwork] has a touch of Lautrec, bathed in the sharper social mood of our times.’6 Writing in the communist newspaper, Die Rote Fahne, Alfred Durus was more ambiguous in his praise, however. Despite its potential, Mammen’s work was simply not political enough: At Galerie Gurlitt one can see radical petty bourgeois artworks [. . .] but there is very little from bourgeois ‘prosperity’ left here. J. M. penetrates the surface [. . .] As a fellow fighter of the class-conscious labour force she could break through the confines of her petty bourgeois art.7

These reviews tell us three things: First, unlike most of her male colleagues, Mammen’s gender played an express role in the reception of her artwork. Second, her work was influenced by pre-war experience in France and Belgium, making it distinct. Lastly, while her work engaged with Germany’s white- and blue-collar classes, for Die Rote Fahne, it remained too wedded to its petty bourgeois, mass cultural context of production to be politically motivated or, indeed, motivating. This chapter explores these tensions further. In doing so it establishes the basis of Mammen’s artworks produced after the Weimar period that form the focus of the following chapters. In line with insightful studies on women artists of this period, it examines women’s experience of modernity through representation, but at the same time it reconstructs modernity as a lived experience by foregrounding the challenging social conditions in which Mammen herself worked.8 As much as Berlin offered her unprecedented opportunities to earn her living, working as a commercial artist for the mass media also had its setbacks. As an academically trained artist, Mammen distinguished between ‘high’ and ‘low’ cultures during a period in which the value of mass culture was the subject of caustic debate. This shapes not only her representations of the new woman, but also how she addresses broader issues of (sexual) equality and freedom in her work. Mammen is notably one of the few women artists whose work gained traction within the sex reform movement. She openly portrayed same-sex relationships in contemporary contexts, which, as we will see, offered a unique perspective that challenged the boundaries of bourgeois acceptability.

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Jeanne Mammen

Finding her feet In 1915, Oskar Mammen and his family arrived back in Berlin. An announcement in the Paris daily newspaper, Le Journal, printed on 7 January 1915, declares that (as German enemies of the state) all the Mammen family assets had been seized. The artist kept some of what she managed to salvage, in her studio apartment in Berlin: books, a few paintings and her sketchbooks – ten in total survived from the period between 1908 and 1914 – filled with more than 800 drawings and watercolours. With no fixed income, Mammen and Mimi undertook a range of odd jobs including ‘photo retouching, fashion designs, movie posters, cobbling, etc.’ The artist recalls how tough it was: initial earnings were ‘sparse’, and they needed food coupons (even when there was no food) to survive.9 Eventually, however, things began to improve. Their work first appeared in the Berlin journal the Kunstgewerbeblatt (Arts and Crafts Magazine) in 1915/16  in an article entitled ‘M. L. Folcardy [a pseudonym used by Mimi] und J. Mammen’ by the journal’s editor, Fritz Hellwag.10 The article included nine pages of illustrations by both sisters, with several full-page black-andwhite reproductions of watercolours by Jeanne Mammen of E. T. A. Hoffmann’s demonic Gothic novel, Die Elixiere des Teufels (The Devil’s Elixirs) (1815), along with some of her other fantastical drawings of Buddha. The article acted by way of introduction to leading German publishers. Hellwag promoted both sisters’ talent and ability to transform literary works through ‘express[ing] an individual inner experience’.11 Commercial high-end graphic art and design had a strong tradition in a Germany that embraced both modernist practices and more traditional, ‘academic’ styles.12 The Kunstgewerbeblatt along with professional societies such as the League of German Commercial Artists (Bund deutscher Gebrauchsgraphiker) bound together commercial artists with a collective ethos of artistic excellence and a feeling of cultural importance. Certainly, the Kunstgewerbeblatt endorsed the more traditional Symbolist style of both Mammen sisters, advertising them as ‘professional illustrators’ (BerufsIllustratorinnen). The sisters began to receive commercial commissions. Some of the first paid work Mammen undertook was designing film posters. Film was a mass industry in Germany. Between 1919 and 1929, some 300–400 films were produced each year.13 She designed posters, for example, for Bruno Lange’s 1922 Liebe kann man nicht kaufen (You can’t buy Love) and Franz Rauch’s 1920 Martyrium (Martyrdom) (see Colour Plate 1). For the latter, Mammen depicted the ravishing Polish actress Pola Negri as the tragic main character who, through a series of thwarted love triangles, was condemned to a life of misery and solitude by her revengeful husband. The poster is fittingly theatrical: a pale Negri is set against a flaming, orange and red background with the bold word ‘Martyrium’ written across her chest. The film also proved popular. Like her other film posters, Mammen’s image exploited the growing appeal of film melodrama for women, while at the same time depicting an enticing Negri for the male gaze. During this period Mammen also turned her hand to advertisements. Despite being a relatively new industry, advertising sought to ally itself with the mass production and circulation of consumer goods in Weimar Germany. Businesses were keen to embrace modern strategies of marketing and a new visual vocabulary of slogans, typefaces,

 Forging a Career 15 captioned photographs, illustrations and logos emerged. The advertisements featured in newspapers and magazines alone were worth an estimated 3 billion Reichsmark by 1930.14 This was probably a good source of revenue for the artist and she completed a handful of illustrations for luxury products including liquor, grand pianos, shoes and perfume, all aimed at women.15 As Helen Boak notes, women formed a vital part of Weimar’s new reading demographic.16 The effective use of visual narratives in commercial images was therefore vital. Although conservative in its modernist sensibility at this stage, Mammen’s full-page images depicting attractive, modern women in eye-catching colours would undoubtedly have been aspirational for the numerous women who probably saw them. Mammen’s upbringing in Paris reveals how attuned she was to the ever-increasing media representation of glamorous women. Between 1912 and 1914, when she was just twenty-two, she and her sister had shared studios in Paris and Brussels (moving back and forth between the two cities). Like artists Ida Gerhardi, Käthe Kollwitz and Paula Modersohn-Becker before them, they were determined to break with convention and roam around the city on their own to capture their experiences firsthand in their work.17 The pocket-sized format of Mammen’s sketchbooks, which are only 17 × 11 centimetres, attest to this. The female performer in particular captured her imagination. There are images of the lavish costumes at the Folies Bergère, the flamboyant moves of Ballet Russes dancer Tamara Karsavina and Vaclav Nijinsky, as well as performances of the dance hall singers ‘Mistinguett’ (Jeanne Florentine Bourgeois) and Andrée Spinelly. Mammen’s drawing of Mistinguett depicts the singer tilting her whole body as she playfully lifts her skirt (Figure 1.2). Both legs and hair

Figure 1.2  Jeanne Mammen, Mistinguett, undated, c. 1910–14, watercolour and pencil on paper, original size and whereabouts unknown. Photo: © Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin.

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were erotic assets, features that Mammen likewise emphasizes. Other sketches reveal close affinities with the proliferation of advertising billboards, printed programmes and songbooks that showcased these performers.18 Paris was able to transform ‘real life into spectacular realities’, as Vanessa Schwartz puts it, and sell celebrity culture like no other city.19 It was, indeed, Paris that would also give Mammen the ‘edge’ to become a successful fashion illustrator once she was back in Berlin.

The fashion illustrator (Modeillustratorin) By the mid-1920s, Berlin’s fashion industry had become one of most important in the world. It employed over a third of the city’s workforce in some 500 readyto-wear firms selling fashion (Konfektionsware) that the masses could afford.20 Consequently, 25 per cent of the average income in Weimar Germany was spent on clothing, and, overall, textiles were Germany’s leading export.21 As the capital of both clothing manufacturing and newspaper publishing, Berlin became fertile ground for fashion illustration. Mammen began working for one of Germany’s most important fashion magazines Styl: Blätter für Mode und die angenehmen Dinge des Lebens (Style: Magazine for Fashion and the Pleasant Things in Life), completing a series of nine full-page colour plates depicting seasonal clothes under evocative editorial titles: The Magnolia Tree, Fresh Breeze, The Last Fine Day and Winter Garden. The magazine was issued by the Association of German Fashion Industries (Verband der deutschen Mode-Industrie) and sponsored by leading German designer houses such as E. Mossner, M. Gerstel, Regina Friedländer and Hermann Gerson. It was a luxury magazine containing articles on current literature, fashion histories and seasonal collections. High regard was placed on fashion reproductions, which were often hand-coloured. One of its main aims was to elevate the status of German designers and promote the superiority of national fashion. Accordingly, Mammen’s works were used to showcase the latest designs by fashion salons such as ‘Kuhnen’ on Berlin-Tiergartenstrasse (see Colour Plate 2). Like her advertisements for luxury items, Goldfish addressed the aspirational new woman who, by 1923, had become a ubiquitous figure in German culture, especially in Berlin. Since the turn of the century, middle- and upper-class women had flocked to the city in their thousands to pursue professions in the textile and service industries or work as teachers, social workers and journalists.22 The new woman’s pageboy haircut, heavy make-up, dropped waistline and looser-shaped dresses became constituent parts of her modern appearance, which were likewise reflected in Mammen’s image. While it is the model’s crêpe de Chine tea-dress from ‘Salon Kuhnen’ that forms the focus here, the use of red and orange accents throughout the work echoed in the room décor and even the fish, lend an air of exoticism to the work, serving to reinforce the exclusivity of the model. Indeed, it is the lively settings and narratives found in many of the artist’s fashion illustrations that set her work apart from that of her contemporaries. This stylized bold room design also points towards the artist’s gradual embrace of a more modernist aesthetic.

 Forging a Career 17 During the first decade of the twentieth century, fashion illustration had become an increasingly popular profession for women.23 In Berlin, this was made possible by the professional training offered by the renowned Reimann School for Art and Design (Reimann-Schule für Kunst und Kunstgewerbe), which by the 1920s, taught all aspects of commercial design, including interior and poster design, fashion illustration and window dressing, and even metal work and carving.24 There is no evidence that Mammen or her sister ever enrolled, or underwent any formal commercial training, at the Reimann School. But fashion was certainly in the family blood. Mammen’s greatuncle had been an embroidery manufacturer, setting up ‘F.A. Mammen & Co’, which made embroidered lace in cotton and silk that was shipped to France, America and England. Mammen’s father, Gustav Oskar, became a merchant of the same company and moved to Berlin, and then to Paris, to pursue this line of work during the early 1880s. Returning once more to Paris with his family and a ten-year-old Mammen in 1900, he became a partner in a Parisian glass-blowing company, where he also probably sold the family’s lace products.25 It was the pre-war Parisian fashion salons, the city’s boulevards and popular nighttime haunts that most probably ‘taught’ Mammen how to become a fashion illustrator. Her sketchbooks contain detailed drawings of clothing of all social classes, from the street seller wrapped in his ill-fitting heavy outdoor apparel, to the chic Parisienne in well-tailored clothes, with ornate feathered hats and fans (see Colour Plate 3).26 These drawings already demonstrate Mammen’s talent for observation – her supreme ability to record the contingency of modern, urban life through dress. She was also presumably aware of the bohemian circles of Montparnasse where artists and writers such as Pablo Picasso, Guillaume Apollinaire and Sonia Delaunay were experimenting with Cubism and Orphism. Of the four studios run by the Académie Julian, Mammen attended the studio 55, rue du Cherche-Midi, the only one situated in the Montparnasse area.27 Moreover, drawings from her sketchbooks, including ‘Bullier’, suggest she visited the popular dance halls in this area, such as the Bal Bullier, like many artists and writers, to sketch some of its beguiling customers. Mammen’s profound admiration of Picasso’s work becomes pronounced during the 1930s, as the following chapters reveal. A decade earlier, however, it was the Simultanist aesthetic with its focus on bright, contrasting colours and bold geometric shapes, which the designer Sonia Delaunay began to translate into textile design, that potentially influenced the thirty-year-old Mammen. In 1924, the year Mammen travelled back to visit Paris, Delaunay opened her own textile-printing workshop, ‘L’atelier Simultané’. By 1926, her designs were published all over the press in Germany, including in magazines in which Mammen’s own fashion illustrations also appeared.28 Mammen’s double-page spread in Die Schöne Frau the same year depicts a series of stylized mannequins from back and front (Figure 1.3). Here, the artist’s rich advertising vocabulary sees her attenuate mimetic figurative representation and unite avant-garde design with commercial illustration. The simplified figures are cloaked in diagonal blocks of colour that form elegant, geometric patterned textiles falling just below the knee or in long swathes to the floor. Their clothing reveals a close correlation with the patchworks of simultaneously contrasting colours found in Delaunay’s contemporary designs. Delaunay’s desire to unite movement, rhythm and colour was partly inspired

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Figure 1.3  Jeanne Mammen, untitled (Die Modefarben von 1926/27) (The Fashionable Colours of 1926/27), undated, c. 1926, watercolour and pencil on paper, original size and whereabouts unknown. Die Schöne Frau no. 4, 1926, 16–17. Photo: © Jeanne-MammenStiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin.

by the dancing at Bal Bullier, where she had, in fact, first worn some of her own creations.29 Mammen would certainly have concurred with the idea that Paris’ popular dance halls motivated modern fashion designs. Her double-page spread attests to the sustained influence of Paris as one of the defining characteristics of her work. As a result, her fashion illustrations rivalled those of her two most successful counterparts, Dodo (Dörte Clara Wolff) and Lieselotte Friedlaender, neither of whom could lay claims to having lived in Paris.30 There is little doubt that Mammen’s work was recognized as capturing a muchloved Parisian flair by the German public. Despite the First World War, French culture remained appealing as it gave Germans a sense of ‘European interconnectedness’.31 In 1929, a second edition of Octave Uzanne’s richly illustrated survey of Parisian women appeared in German in the Paul Aretz Verlag.32 Die Pariserin: Studie zur Geschichte der Frau der Gesellschaft, der französichen Galanterie und der zeitgenössischen Sitten (The Parisienne: Studies on the History of Societal Women of French Gallantry and Contemporary Manners) contained seven reproductions of Mammen’s work.33 In a review of Uzanne’s publication that featured in the magazine Das Leben, R. Fell claimed that Paris was still the ‘paradise city of women [. . .] who give the city this unique, inimitable vibrating air’.34 Alongside reproductions by renowned French artists Henri

 Forging a Career 19 de Toulouse-Lautrec, Théophile Alexandre Steinlen, Édouard Manet and Edgar Degas, a watercolour drawing depicting two fashionable, young women, smoking on a park bench, by Mammen – notably the only German artist – appeared in Fell’s article.35 The article at once foregrounds the unequivocal link between Mammen and Paris, and helps explain why she had been commissioned to illustrate important journalistic writing regarding the influence of French fashion on Germany a few years previously. With its countless dealers, as well as wholesale and retail shops, Paris remained a constant source of inspiration for fashionable Berliners; companies sent designers and journalists to gather inspiration from the fashion houses and haute couture displays of Rouff (1884), Paquin (1891) and Lavin (1909) and observe what the average Parisienne was wearing on the street, at the races and in the theatres. Journalists such as Helen Hessel (née Grund) (1886–1982), who wrote for the Frankfurter Zeitung and Julie Elias (1866–1945), who wrote for magazines Die Dame and Styl, spent extensive periods in France and became authorities on its fashion.36 As Mila Ganeva points out, the historic genre of (male) travel accounts was propelled into present-day Berlin by Grund’s und Elias’ writing, for it was now women journalists who ‘read’ the city streets.37 Crucially, it was artists like Mammen who helped visualize their ideas. Besides illustrating Julie Elias’ article celebrating the overlaps between recent Berlin fashions and those of the French capital in a 1924 edition of Styl, Mammen also created images for an article by the prominent Franco-German writer, Claire Goll (1890– 1977) later that year.38 ‘Parisian Accessories’ characterizes Paris through culture and kitsch, noting its landmarks, department stores, exotic fashions, perfumes and famous painters.39 Goll playfully mocks the eccentricities of French fashions, particularly animal prints and skins. By way of a joke, she suggests the latest perfume ‘Le Fauve’ (Big Cat) is a mixture of Rudyard Kipling and menagerie! Mammen’s illustrations underscore the tone of Goll’s article. On one page, a tiger appears to pounce on a leaf with the words ‘Le Fauve’. On another, a fashionable new woman sits in a theatre box, behind which a silhouette of the Sacré-Cœur and floodlit Moulin Rouge are clearly visible (Figure 1.4). This is a new woman with a twist, who appears, in fact, to be entirely naked behind an enormous feather fan, which she cheekily uses to shield herself from prying eyes. Close correspondence between text and image suggests that Mammen was commissioned directly.

The mass media – towards a critical position By the second half of the 1920s, Mammen had designed advertisements for exclusive fashion salons across Germany, including ‘Völker-Klussmann’ in Hanover and ‘Eduard Alex’ in Hamburg. Her film posters, advertising and fashion illustrations had helped her secure commissions from influential publishing powerhouses, Ullstein, Mosse and Scherl, who produced some of the most liberal, cosmopolitan magazines across Germany. As they combined stories, gossip articles and practical advice, the influence of many of the entertainment magazines (Unterhaltungsblätter), such as Simplicissimus, Der Querschnitt, Junggeselle, Uhu, Ulk, Die Dame, Die Schöne Frau and in which Mammen’s work appeared, was unprecedented.40 They were often technologically sophisticated and used offset

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Figure 1.4  Jeanne Mammen, untitled fashion illustrations, undated, c. 1924, watercolour and pencil on paper, original size and whereabouts unknown. Claire Goll, ‘Article de Paris’, Styl, no. 5/6, 1924, 138. Photo: © Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin.

colour printing for lavishly illustrated short essays – like those in Styl – and photographs that often covered double-page spreads. Mammen’s colourful watercolours were therefore a crucial way of attracting and sustaining wide readerships in an increasingly competitive market. Her images served as markers of the modern social consciousness of new women during this period, appearing regularly on front covers. They depict her in cosmetic salons, sitting in cafés and bars, reading or sipping cocktails. Other topographical works portray queues of people outside the Komödie-Theater on Kurfüstendamm, or customers in the well-known Café Kranzler or the Romanisches Café reading newspapers, conversing and flirting. Some foreground estranged relationships between men and women, whose encounters appear to become one of commodity culture (Sachkultur) – transitory and expendable. Others were simply representations of mass, urban phenomena – viewers at the cinema, holiday ‘weekenders’ or visitors at the zoo (see Colour Plate 4). They represent a body of work by an artist who clearly moved independently around the city – as she had done in Paris – with a critical, unapologetic eye. Ullstein, in particular, actively made itself a ‘springboard for female talents’, promoting women writers such as Vicki Baum and editors such as Elsa Herzog and Johanna Thal.41 Between 1927 and 1929, Mammen was commissioned to illustrate four short essays for Ullstein’s popular monthly Uhu, which had a circulation of 200,000. It is unclear how much income she made on a regular basis. The artist told the interviewer Hans Kinkel that she was paid 300 marks for one watercolour, ‘a lot

 Forging a Career 21 in those days’, and sent large packages of her artwork to the editors of Simplicissimus in Munich.42 Certainly, she was able to earn enough to live independently (with Mimi), travel, keep a pet cat and maintain a studio apartment in Charlottenburg. In 1921, Mammen is first listed in Berlin’s public address book as a professional Malerin (painter) based at Kurfürstendamm 29, an ideal location on one of the city’s key commercial streets.43 This studio apartment functioned as both a professional and private living space and consisted of two rooms, the studio itself with a large window and skylight. It was situated at the top of a four-storey neo-Baroque building designed and built by Ferdinand Döbler in 1896–7, with the exclusive ‘Marie Latz’ fashion salon – one of the few prominent women-led salons in Berlin – occupying the ground floor of neighbouring number 28. Given the location, it is perhaps unsurprising that the previous owner had been celebrity photographer Karl Schenker (1886–1954), who produced numerous studio portraits that likewise featured in Ullstein magazines. The studios of photographer Frieda Riess (1890–1955) and Lotte Laserstein were also nearby. Nonetheless, the ability to rent one’s own studio space should not go unnoted as a marker of professional success. A handful of photographs that survive from this period suggest as much. One captures both sisters sporting quintessentially modern mid-length skirts and bobbed hairstyles (Figure 1.5). The photograph asserts the professional confidence of two independent women. The bookcases behind them allow the viewer to glimpse a small part of their extensive library. Besides numerous volumes of literature, philosophy and culture, the studio apartment housed editions of Atlantis, Uhu and Der Querschnitt magazines, as well as scrapbooks full of diverse images cut out from many different newspapers and magazines (Figures 1.6 and 1.7). These images spilled out onto the studio apartment walls as an assemblage of diverse impressions – a type of image archive, which, as we will see, often informed Mammen’s own practice. Despite the opportunities afforded her, Mammen nonetheless remained ambivalent about the rapidly expanding media landscape – in particular the press. She drew a clear distinction between her commercial work and the other artworks in her oeuvre throughout the rest of her life: ‘After all, drawing satirical art for the Simpl [Simplicissimus] is something completely different than painting for oneself. All that was mainly to earn a living [für den Broterwerb].’44 These commercial works had functioned as a vital way of making money in an unstable economic period after the war. But they were not artworks that Mammen ever treasured. Along with some of her paintings, it was the artist’s sketchbooks from Paris and Brussels that remained her most important possessions.45 The way the artist recounted it, she had little control over how her work was used; she simply sent large packages with artwork ‘under which jokes had to fit’.46 From Mammen’s comment it becomes clear that while some of her illustrations were commissions, others were freelance pieces. How the images were positioned alongside text, captioned and reproduced and what textual exegesis they should ‘illustrate’, was often down to the editorial team. Just how little control Mammen had over her own works is offered by a rare glimpse at the marginalia of several pen drawings that were eventually published alongside a story by the American author, Katharine Brush, in a 1929 issue of Uhu. On the originals, a series of numbers/calculations appear along the bottom margin of each work, including the width of Mammen’s image in centimetres, and perhaps other figures alluding to the chronological sequencing of her works. These notes presumably

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Figure 1.5 Marie Louise Mammen (standing) and Jeanne Mammen in their studio apartment, photographer unknown, undated, c. 1924–6. Photo: © Jeanne-MammenStiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin.

helped typesetters and designers to place the work alongside the text. The title, ‘Nachtclub’ (nightclub), is also written beneath one of the original drawings, revealing that it was most likely the editorial team that titled artworks.47 This apparent editorial autonomy would also explain why Mammen’s images at times seemed to almost disrupt narrative logic, whereas in other cases they exceeded it.48 It would also indicate why her watercolour drawings were recycled by different publishing houses, re-captioned and re-produced in entirely different contexts. Mammen presumably accepted this as an inevitable part of the commercial industry and ultimately even (financially) exploited it. In fact, she still owned many of her original watercolours and had not sold the rights of her work to the publishers. This is not the case with all her works, however. In 1970 she was incredulous that ‘an Idiot’ was willing to pay 1,800 West German marks for an original watercolour drawing that had been ‘pinched’ (geklaut) from her by an editorial office some forty years ago and was now on show (without her consent) at Galerie Nierendorf.49 It is difficult to gauge what annoyed her more – the inordinate amount someone was willing to pay for a commercial image, or the fact that she still had no control over how some of her 1920s works were being used.

 Forging a Career 23

Figure 1.6  Scrapbook double page, undated, c. 1920–30. Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin. Photo: © author, Birmingham.

Figure 1.7  Scrapbook double page, undated, c. 1920–30. Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin. Photo: © author, Birmingham.

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The roots of Mammen’s distinction between art and commerce, or ‘high’ and ‘low’ cultural forms, might be explained through her artistic background. As noted earlier, Fritz Hellwag’s emphasis in the Kunstgewerbeblatt that the sisters could illustrate ‘good books’ (gute Bücher), in other words, highbrow literature, was certainly fitting with the arts and crafts thrust of the magazine. Indeed, before the advent of commercially orientated schools such as Reimann, book illustrators were usually trained at art academies.50 Mammen and her sister had attended some of the most distinguished private institutions in Europe: the Académie Julian in Paris (1907–8), the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels (1908–10) and the Scuola Libera del Nudo – Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma (1911–12). The artwork Mammen created during this training comprised mostly of traditional life drawings, still life and portraits. Before this, both sisters had been pupils at the Lycée Molière, which offered women a sophisticated programme in French language and literature, mathematics, two modern languages, natural sciences, Latin, Greek and ethics. The programme was rigorous, intellectual and decades ahead of what women were offered in Germany.51 Mammen’s voracious love of literature was already evident in her graphic illustrations based upon works by Gustave Flaubert, Oscar Wilde and E. T. A. Hoffmann. Put differently, Mammen and her sister were from the educated, liberal middle classes, which was clearly reflected in their early illustrations. The advent of the mass print market, along with the growing popularity of the professional training offered at the Reimann School, meant that book illustration became increasingly commercialized and was taught along with other forms of commercial design for press advertisements, posters and magazine illustrations. This was underpinned by the term Gebrauchsgraphik (‘Gebrauch’ meaning to ‘use’, literally ‘graphics for use’), which was widely used to describe all of these forms by the end of the 1920s.52 The fact that no record exists as to either sister having attended the Reimann School suggests that they had perhaps initially hoped to forge careers as luxury book illustrators and/or fine artists, rather than in the more commercial areas of advertising or the press. However, their few connections to the fine-art world, noted previously, made this exceptionally difficult. The professionalization of design arts in Germany – like so many areas of employment – was, in fact, also a mixed blessing for women. As countless scholars have shown, women’s experience of the workplace between the wars was far from equal.53 They were paid less than men, offered fewer training opportunities and received lower positions than their male counterparts. Working as a commercial artist for the fashion and media industries was not always perceived as an intellectual or truly creative occupation. Many of the magazines to which Mammen contributed, such as Die Dame, Die Schöne Frau and Uhu, expressly addressed white-collar women, including articles on fashion models, stenographers and radio operators. The mass media was considered part of ‘feminine’ consumerism, in stark contrast to the professional art market, which was dominated by men.54 This distinction was upheld, in part, by schools like Reimann, which emphasized study in areas that were considered traditionally more ‘feminine’.55 As Mila Ganeva notes, it is possible to discern distinctions between professional roles and the contributions made by male or female authors to popular magazines. Consequently, it was men who wrote articles about history and art and had the ‘global’ and ‘more serious’ tasks of running the magazine, setting up the overall marketing policy and artistic production.56

 Forging a Career 25 Women, on the other hand, often wrote about fashion and were ‘merely’ illustrators. In other words, despite the democratic logic of the media, even the industry itself implicitly strengthened the gender divide. The fact that Mammen, Friedlaender and Dodo secured work through Theodor Wolff, Hermann Sinsheimer and Franz Schoenberner, the commissioning editors at Ullstein, Mosse and Scherl publishing houses, is a case in point.57 Moreover, Sinsheimer – former editor in chief of Simplicissimus – appeared to use the opportunity to introduce Mammen’s solo exhibition at Galerie Gurlitt in 1930, to reinforce this. While her ‘colourfulness’ was deemed ‘feminine’, the ‘tenacity [of her] economical, unequivocal strokes’, by contrast, was unusual and associated with male colleagues identified with the serious art of New Objectivity.58 Mammen’s prolific illustrations for fashion and lifestyle magazines meant that her work was potentially considered less serious and ‘ghettoized’ – to borrow Ganeva’s term59 – along with the work of women journalists, photographers and fashion illustrators. Mammen may well have been aware of such distinctions. She notably never used the term Gebrauchsgraphik to describe any of her work throughout her career, suggesting that the term carried personally negative connotations. Indeed, her ambivalent attitude towards the press might be understood further by her complex characterization of one of its most important standardized creations – the new woman.60 As has been established, Mammen’s work played an important part in mediating the image of the new woman. However, scholars remain divided as to the underlying meaning of her works on the subject. For some, her work offers important forms of woman-to-woman empathy by virtue of her gender, thereby challenging New Objectivity’s sobriety.61 For others, her images seem to promote her criticality and moral resistance to the figure, through a type of ‘good-natured malice’.62 The ambiguities of Tea Party in the Monkey Enclosure that appeared on the cover of a March edition of the satirical weekly Ulk in 1929 aptly demonstrate this (see Colour Plate 4). Both the angle and prominent bars in the foreground separate these two women from the viewer, positioning them as objects. The similarity between these (unattractive) women and their primates is made abundantly clear through their fur collars, cuffs and leathery glove-wearing hands that grip the bars, leaving the viewer to question just who, exactly, is being caged here. The editorial byline, ‘I find applying rouge directly to the face indecent!’ (Im Gesicht Rot aufzulegen finde ich direkt indezent!), signals the mundane nature of the protagonists’ discussion, while further underscoring the connection between these women and the red-bottomed primates. Should we understand this connection as Mammen’s satirical comment on the fashionability of the new woman as a mass phenomenon – the tendency to imitate or literally ‘ape’ (nachäffen) one another? The magazine editors clearly seemed to think so. In early discussions on mass psychology, Gustave Le Bon had already asserted that the masses were of a feminine nature.63 And several decades later, contemporary cultural commentators including Siegfried Kracauer and Vicki Baum – whose views were widespread in the press – criticized the uniformity of the new woman.64 For Kracauer, the uniformity of appearance of the Girl-type no longer represented individuals but, rather, only ‘partial selves’ (Teil-Ich) – just a mass of interests and desires. Whether intentional or not, a causal link was forged between ‘mass’ and the social transformation of women. Mammen’s commercial works played their part in shaping mass opinion and she undoubtedly understood the advertising psychology (Werbepsychologie) developing at

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this time. But this did not mean that she unequivocally bought into it. She too, perhaps, shared concerns regarding mass culture and the potential destruction of the individual. Although Mammen did not adopt sisterly affiliations with all-women artist groups or in exhibitions during this period (and rarely throughout her career), being a woman, nonetheless, ultimately gave her the ‘unique epistemic position’ from which to create artwork that exposed the many conflicting modern-day realities of ‘new’ womanhood.65 Like many of her other commercial watercolours from this period, then, Tea Party in the Monkey Enclosure demonstrates how the artist’s representation of this figure was not onedimensional. The work cleverly combines elements of both affirmation and critique as a way, perhaps, of best symbolizing the many real conflicts this ‘new’ woman actually faced.66 But Mammen was also interested in far broader questions of equality. In a city suffering from mass unemployment and housing shortages, the artist depicted loitering prostitutes in their fetishist boots and forlorn-looking customers of working-class pubs (Kaschemme). Sinsheimer aptly described such figures as ‘burdened’ (belastet) and ‘trapped’ (gefangen), paradoxically held upright by their ‘inner heaviness’ (innerer Schwere).67 The repeated presence of alcohol in many of these works becomes the telltale sign of hardship. Mammen’s vivid descriptions of Berlin later in life demonstrate that she was never taken in by the seeming glamour of the city: ‘I never made my peace with Berlin: to this day [the early to mid-1970s] I think it is ugly [scheußlich]. Walking on the Kudamm [Kurfürstendamm] makes me want to puke [muss ich kotzen].’68 This city contrasted markedly with the Paris of her youth, where she had grown up in a villa with beautiful gardens in Passy, the sixteenth arrondissement of an exclusive neighbourhood on the Rive Droite of the Seine. Having lost such security almost overnight, she was nonetheless acutely aware of how far money dictated everything: ‘You had to beg for money and those who had none were treated like dirt.’69 Certainly, it is Mammen’s displacement, coupled with her own experiences of poverty, which underpins the representation of urban deprivation found in her watercolours during this period. In Aschinger (1926), a young man and woman stand at a counter in one of the many branches of these inexpensive food and beer halls (see Colour Plate 5). Their faces are haggard and they appear entirely absorbed by the man carefully adding mustard to the plate with one small sausage, which they will presumably share. Although the young woman sports a bobbed haircut and modern short skirt, her clothes appear thrifty as opposed to fashionable. This may have been a scene – one perhaps of many – that Mammen witnessed first-hand. As her contemporary George Grosz recounted, ‘Aschinger’s was a true oasis of hospitality for hungry artists.’70 Mammen’s illustrations for Kurt Münzer’s short story, ‘Light and Darkness’, published in Scherl’s popular journal Die Woche, stand out as a group of images that bring to the fore debates regarding both gender and poverty.71 Münzer’s narrative describes encounters with the urban poor and their different fates: the rag-and-bone man in Paris, who has no home and no money to bury his dead child, and the female matchstick seller in Berlin, from whom no one will buy, and who has five children to feed. Inequalities of capitalism are dramatized through light. Those who stand within the light ‘see it as brighter and happier than it perhaps really is. [. . . they] often do not understand the darkness, to which they themselves often contribute’. This metaphor likewise runs through Mammen’s illustrations. Fashionable men and women in bright interiors are juxtaposed with faceless beggars on dark city streets.

 Forging a Career 27

Figure 1.8 Jeanne Mammen, untitled (starving woman with child in front of a pub), undated, c. 1927, watercolour and pencil on paper, original size and whereabouts unknown. Kurt Münzer, ‘Licht und Schatten’ (Light and Darkness), Die Woche 29, no. 22, 1927, 629– 31. Photo: © Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin.

By the mid-1920s, Münzer (1879–1944) was a writer well known for his sympathetic descriptions of the poor.72 His short essay must have struck a chord with Mammen, who had already captured some of the drudgery from Paris’ slums in her sketchbooks. Her images are evocative of Théophile Alexandre Steinlen (1859–1923) and Jules Pascin (1885–1930), with the recurring female figure often embodying the struggle for better wages and living conditions.73 In Germany, over a decade later, Mammen depicts a hungry mother with her child standing in front of a pub. The mother searches for her husband who is drinking his unemployment money away instead of bringing any of it home (Figure 1.8). She is just one of many Berlin women/mothers, Münzer tells the reader, who wait helplessly in Wedding and Gesundbrunnen, at Schlesischer Bahnhof and at the Warschauer Brücke.74 Besides drawing attention to poverty, ‘Light and Darkness’ implicitly addressed the changing role of motherhood in the republic. Large proletarian families of the Kaiserreich were rapidly becoming a symbol of the past. While women’s reform movements fostered diverse attitudes towards the role of motherhood, the ‘right to one’s own body’ was certainly shared by many who campaigned for the abolition of Paragraph 218 of the Criminal Code (Strafgesetzbuch: StGB), which continued to criminalize abortion.75 Mammen and Münzer’s article might be understood along similar lines. The combination of poverty and pregnancy leads to the protagonist taking her own life as she plunges into the River Spree. Her tragic end should ultimately elicit sympathy from the reader at a time when public controversies regarding the inadequacy of birth control were growing. After 1929, these were set to get only worse with the collapse of the welfare system.76 Some of Mammen’s critics thought her condemnation of social inequalities did not go far enough. As noted at the outset of this chapter, Alfred Durus claimed her works remained too ‘bourgeois’.77 Put differently, her articulations of hardship worked within the acceptable parameters of the white-collar press. Münzer’s story certainly demonstrated this. Die Woche included advertisements for fountain pens, cars and other luxury items, marking out the intended readership as middle class. Considered from this perspective, Mammen’s tragically expressive proletarian mother becomes less about agitating for sexual reform and risks, instead, becoming the hackneyed victim of capitalism often found in the press.78 The artist’s images exploring diverse sexual subjectivities, including

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homosexuality and transvestism, were perhaps more successful in testing the boundaries of bourgeois acceptability. These works, I suggest, were less about self-identification, but, rather, addressed the broader issues of equality and freedom as part of a liberal democracy.

Mammen and sex reform With the modern freedoms of the new woman, came the wider possibilities of erotic expression for women in both text and image. It effectively meant that women could contribute to new understandings of heterosexual relations beyond marriage and explore gender expressions beyond the masculine/feminine binary. Beyond her magazine contributions, some of Mammen’s artworks appeared in popular erotic publications, such as travel guides and sexological lexica. In a period in which scholars note that women were actively writing, reading and watching films exploring sexual reform, discussions on their making and collecting of erotic material warrant further attention.79 Although other European cities had developed a ‘scene’, a spatial expression of a new identity by the 1920s, Berlin boasted a far greater number of gay venues than London or Paris. Indeed, various watercolour drawings of cafés, nightclubs and bars suggest that Mammen experienced much of this first-hand. Transvestite Club (1931) shows

Figure 1.9 Jeanne Mammen, Transvestitenlokal (Transvestite Club), undated, c. 1931, watercolour and pencil, 29.5 × 58  centimetres. Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin. Photo: © Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin.

 Forging a Career 29 a group of transvestites sitting convivially in a bar (Figure 1.9). Two Women Dancing (1928) depicts two young figures in tight embrace (see Colour Plate 6). Both works featured in Curt Moreck’s three-volume erotic publication, Kultur-und Sittengeschichte der Neuesten Zeit (Cultural and Moral History of Modern Times) (1928–9).80 Marrying illustration with an investigative blend of anthropology, ethnography and sociology, Sittengeschichten were histories of morals and traditions, whose popularity coincided with the meteoric rise of sexual science (sexology) and the promised lack of censorship in the Weimar Republic.81 Combining high numbers of artworks with photographs, scientific graphs and empirical data, histories of erotica and sexual subjects represented an uneasy mixture of fact and (erotic) fantasy, but this, no doubt, was their attraction. Moreck’s three volumes used two different indices to encourage readers to understand the illustrations from diagnostic and artistic perspectives. However, due to their high number of illustrations, Sittengschichten rarely commissioned artworks. Moreck, for example, recycled poor quality reproductions of Mammen’s works, all of which had previously appeared in print.82 This should not undermine the critical significance of such publications, however. A crucial function of Sittengeschichten was to reinforce the ideas of the newly developed discipline of sexology, which involved the systematic study of sex by drawing on theories from the natural and social sciences. One of its key figures – the physician Magnus Hirschfeld (1868–1935) – continued to campaign tirelessly for the abolition of Paragraph 175 of the Criminal Code, which made male sodomy illegal, with imprisonment of up to five years. Moreck’s use of Mammen’s Transvestite Bar presents a positive view of cross-dressing in line with the tone of his text.83 A lithe figure dancers on a chair wearing a figure-hugging top and pair of trousers and is watched by a group of men wearing heavy red lipstick. A heavyset man in the foreground with his back to us assumes the viewer’s position. A notable feature of this image, shared by others Mammen creates on the subject, is the emphasis on the various social ‘types’ – here, slim adolescent youths and older men – encountering one another.84 In this respect, Mammen’s work functioned as productive representations of polymorphous (sexual) types entirely apposite to modes of ordering and categorizing favoured by Sittengeschichten and other sexological texts. Two Women Dancing features alongside Moreck’s description of lesbian bars and clubs. Adopting the views of Hirschfeld, Moreck’s text significantly emphasizes their importance as habitual meeting points (Stammlokal).85 Among other nightclubs, Moreck foregrounds the regular club nights of the Damenklub Violetta, which were organized by Lotte Hahm, a leading figure in the homosexual equal rights movement. And he also cites club and bar advertisements from the lesbian journal Die Freundin (The Girlfriend).86 There was no equivalent Paragraph 175 that criminalized female homosexuality. Yet, Hirschfeld argued that this was, in fact, a perverse ‘double injustice’, as the law failed to acknowledge lesbians even existed.87 The need for Stammlokale was, therefore, arguably even more necessary for women. Indeed, Ruth Margarete Roellig, who wrote extensively for the gay press and published the first guidebook to Berlin’s lesbian bars in 1928, argued that Berlin had become more tolerant [of lesbianism] only up to a point. She admitted in her guidebook that ‘despite such tolerances, a woman who temporarily openly acknowledges her different orientation is just as ostracized by society as previously. Perhaps it is because of this that Berlin lesbians restrict themselves to certain bars.’88 Moreck’s Sittengeschichten reinforced Roellig’s point and he, in fact,

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went on to write his own alternative guidebook describing Berlin’s gay nightlife in detail. Mammen’s artwork was also used as illustrations in his guide.89 Her images of women’s nightclubs are invariably supportive, showing the women dancing, drinking and talking together. Moreck, in fact, retitled Two Women Dancing as ‘The Girlfriends’, to promote the intimacy of the two figures and make the image expressly ‘illustrate’ homosexuality. In addition to Moreck’s volumes, reproductions of the artist’s work also featured in Hirschfeld’s Sittengeschichte der Nachkriegszeit (The Sexual History of the World War) from 1931, as well as the erotic collector Leo Schidrowitz’s four-volume Bilderlexikon der Erotik (Universallexikon der Sittengeschichte und Sexualwissenschaft) (Erotic Image Lexicon. Universal Lexicon of Cultural and Moral Histories and Sexual Science), published between 1928 and 1931, which contained a staggering 6,000 illustrations.90 In 1919, Hirschfeld had established the world’s first Institute for Sexual Science, which explored a range of aspects relating to sex reform, including birth control, legislation for prostitution and the control of sexual diseases. Schidrowitz tried to imitate this and consequently produced the erotic lexicon. Mammen’s works featured alongside entries on ‘homosexuality’, ‘prostitution’ and ‘exhibitionism’ and served an epistemological function as diagnostic ‘proof ’. Sexological and psychological fields did little to emancipate women, who were often considered subjects to be ‘managed’.91 Treatises by Wilhelm Stekel, Sigmund Freud, Hermann Heinrich Ploß and Otto Weininger, to name but a few, equated female desire with the dangerous non-fulfilment of conjugal coital obligations and a general wilful resistance to male dominance. At the turn of the century, women were, in fact, also forbidden from reading early sexological texts and Sittengeschichten for fear such literature could ‘contaminate’ more impressionable minds.92 However, the notable inclusion of illustrative material by Mammen and other women artists, such as Lou Albert-Lasard, Charlotte Berend-Corinth, Helene Funke, Renée Sintenis and Käthe Kollwitz in such publications, suggests that after the war things were starting to change. In questions of equality and emancipation, sexology was far from perfect, but it nonetheless allowed women reformers, including Anna Rüling, Ruth Bré and Helene Stöcker, the ‘conceptual resources and a lexicon with which to imagine and articulate new models of sexual subjectivity’.93 It opened up articulative forms of empowerment that were likewise evident among the work of (women) artists. Not only were artists motivated to explore sexual subjectivities directly as subject matter, but as can be seen with Mammen, writers, cultural commentators and sexologists, too, likewise used artists’ works productively to support their own ideas and shape the field.94 Mammen was certainly familiar with traditional texts undermining the societal and reproductive role of women. Her library contained a 1926 edition of Weininger’s Geschlecht und Charakter (Sex and Character) (1903), whose misogynistic ideas regarding women’s lack of intellectual capacity and sexual deviance, according to the artist George Grosz, were still very much ‘revered’.95 Indeed, in the advent of the new woman, Weininger’s beliefs about women’s wayward sexuality usefully served to justify broader social and political oppression, to which artists, like Mammen, responded. Consultation depicts a stylish modern woman who sits near a white-coated doctor and defensively clasps the fox fur in her lap, which appears animate (Figure 1.10). With her head partly turned, she sneers at the colossal, male doctor, who sits awkwardly behind her. She seems unimpressed by the notes spread out on his desk. The image acts like a visual riposte to male medico-authority and appeared in a 1930 edition of Jugend, alongside an article that mocked the figure of

 Forging a Career 31

Figure 1.10  Jeanne Mammen, untitled (Konsultation) (Consultation), undated, c. 1930, watercolour and pencil on paper, original size and whereabouts unknown. Harald Tooby, ‘Wir sind Freunde’ (We are Friends), Jugend, 38, no. 35, September 1930, 597–8. Photo: © Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg.

the male intellectual more broadly.96 Harold Tooby recounts his special friendship with ‘Erich v. F.’, a know-it-all, who is a journalist, but fancies himself as a novel writer and has a doctorate in law and German economics. In a conversation in which Harold and Erich discuss the unusual intellect of a mutual female friend, Harold claims few men would know how to hold their own opposite ‘her’ (ihr). Erich, however, misunderstands and hears ‘you’ (dir). In various embarrassing attempts at self-flattery, he protests to the contrary. The mischievous caption for Mammen’s image draws on a similar wordplay, only this time around the terms ‘sinnig’ (witty-ingenious) and ‘sinnlich’ (sensual). It reads, ‘Are you always so frivolous Fräulein?’ [asks the doctor]. ‘No, but ever so slightly sensual’ [answers the female patient], (‘Sind Sie den immer so leichtsinnig, mein Fräulein?’ ‘Nee, aber immer so leicht sinnlich, Herr Doktor’). The caption, like Mammen’s watercolour, clearly mocks the doctor’s erroneous assumption that his (female) patient is simple-minded.97 The same year Consultation appeared in Jugend, Mammen’s work also featured in Ágnes Gräfin Eszterházy’s Das Lasterhafte Weib. Schriften zur weiblichen Sexualität (The Depraved Woman. Writings on Female Sexuality) (1930). Lasterhafte Weib is significant in that it demonstrates just how far women were actively involved in theorizing sexual subjectivity during this period. It represents one of the few scientific books of its kind to be written by, and primarily for, women.98 A multiply authored book, it combines views and opinions of doctors such as Hermine Stahl and Marianne Alvin, as well as

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‘celebrity’ authors such as the Hungarian actress Eszterházy, also the volume’s editor. The overall aim of Lasterhafte Weib was to challenge male diagnostics by representing women’s sexual subjectivities with precision and authenticity. Articles explored diverse sexual inclinations including flagellation, nymphomania and exhibitionism. It singled out and criticized sexologists such as Weininger, with the publication title functioning as an ironic play on the psychopathological idea that women with sexual appetites were ‘immoral’.99 The inclusion of Mammen in such a publication signalled the widespread understanding that her work represented authentic experiences which ran close to the political struggle for sexual democracy in Weimar Germany. Ladies Club II (c. 1926) features in a section on lesbians and transvestites written by Roellig (Figure 1.11). In this sensitive contribution, Roellig sought to homonormalize same-sex relations between women and explored female transvestism.100 Mammen’s illustration foregrounds various ‘types’ of women once more: they wear suits and monocles or lowcut dresses and jewellery. Although the book’s proclaimed challenges to patriarchal diagnosis were ultimately questionable, it took significant steps in inviting women to self-identify with the figures described, as well as becoming voyeurs of erotic images. Mammen’s representations of homosexuality differ from contemporaries Georg Scholz, Christian Schad and Rudolf Schlichter, whose characterization of same-sex relations between women ranges from images of heterosexual voyeurism to grotesque renderings of sexual pathology. The frequency and persistence of such works, Janina

Figure 1.11  Jeanne Mammen, untitled (Im Damenclub II) (In the Ladies Club II), undated, c. 1926, watercolour and pencil on paper, original size and whereabouts unknown. Jugend, 41, no. 4, 1926. Photo: © author, Birmingham.

 Forging a Career 33 Nentwig argues, stems, in part, from the fact that female homosexuality was not illegal.101 To represent women engaged in such acts as such, therefore, was not an outright criminal offence. Yet, the unmarried, childless new woman, along with the women’s rights campaigner (Frauenrechtlerin), quickly became synonymous with the female homosexual, all of whom were united in the eyes of their critics, through their perceived threat to normative sexual roles and relations. Schlichter’s watercolour drawing Ladies’ Pub (1925), for example, depicts the well-known lesbian tourist haunt, Toppkeller, in which the clientele forms a grotesque jamboree of alterity, cross-dressed in sailor suit-style tops, ties and fetishist boots (Figure 1.12). Schlichter’s figures appear awkward and isolated in the sterile main room of the club, which is sparsely furnished with trestle beer tables and a stage.102 By contrast, Mammen’s work does not appear to sensationalize or exaggerate sexual subjectivity. We know she moved around the city and recorded what she encountered. We might also suppose that her empathy with the subject was partly due to her sister, Mimi’s long-term relationship with a woman named Henriette Goldenberg, with whom she eventually moved to Tehran in 1936. However, we know nothing about Mammen’s own sexuality. It is perhaps fruitful, therefore, to consider her works as foregrounding the equalities and sexual freedoms that were so obviously lacking in the republic for both women and men. As Kirsten Leng has persuasively argued, the discursive conjunction of women’s rights and homosexuality was used by some as a (positive) ‘opportunity to challenge the limitations of existing

Figure 1.12  Rudolf Schlichter, Damenkneipe (Ladies Pub), c. 1925, watercolour and ink over pencil on paper, 60 × 50.2 centimetres. © Viola Roehr v. Alvensleben, Munich. Photo: © akg-images.

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sexual subjectivities and espouse alternatives’.103 The artist may not have joined any political parties or been an official member of reform movements, but certainly, we could interpret her artwork in this period as likewise agitating for change. Mammen’s most important artwork on the subject was created in the outgoing years of the republic. The art dealer Wolfgang Gurlitt commissioned her to produce a suite of lithographs to illustrate a bibliophile edition of Pierre Louÿs’ 1894 fictitious Greek poems, Les Chansons de Bilitis (The Songs of Bilitis). The nine two-colour lithographs completed sometime between 1930 and 1932 stand out in that they were probably the only graphic portfolio commission that the artist ever received during the Weimar period and her only commission as a fine-art printmaker (see Colour Plates 7–10). The series powerfully exposed the gaps between sexual fantasy and reality for women and, in so doing, remains one of the most sensitive and enduring artworks by any artist to address same-sex desire.

The Songs of Bilitis Pierre Louÿs’ The Songs of Bilitis tells the life of ‘Bilitis’, an ancient Greek peasant, who becomes a member of Sappho’s circle on the Island of Lesbos and falls in love with the female student Mnasidika. The poems are written in the first person and are divided into three parts: Bucolics in Pamphylia describing Bilitis’ early life when she gave birth to a child out of wedlock, Elegies at Mytilene outlining Bilitis’ liaison with Sappho and her subsequent relationship with the youthful Mnasidika and Epigrams in the Isle of Cyprus, in which Bilitis tells of her time as a renowned courtesan for Aphrodite, until her death. Bilitis is one of the first examples of the explicitly eroticized relationship between Sappho and her female students in fiction.104 Without question, Louÿs’ text is highly erotic; many intimate moments such as bathing, game-playing, undressing and love-making among women are explored. Bilitis’ description of her lying with her one great love, Mnasidika, is indicative of the sensuality of much of the text: Underneath the cover of transparent wool, we slipped, she and I. Even our heads were covered, and the lamp illuminated the cloth above us. Thus I saw her dear body in a mysterious light. We were very near, one to the other, more free, more intimate, more naked. ‘In the same chiton’, she said. We had left our hair bound up to be still more uncovered, and in the close air of the bed, the odours of two women ascended, of two natural cassolettes.105

The graceful motifs in Mammen’s nine lithographs, Girlfriends; Siesta; Jealousy; The Choice; Morning; Applying Makeup; Ladies’ Bar; Woman and Girl and Scene in a Brothel are rendered in modulated pink, red, brown, yellow and grey, which add depth and texture and stress certain accents of hair and clothing.106 Given their sophistication, it is perhaps surprising to note that up until 1930, the artist had not worked in the lithographic print medium before.107 In addition, various drawings of female nudes in pastel and pencil, and pen and ink suggest that she was carefully experimenting with different compositions and figure configurations before completing the suite.108

 Forging a Career 35 The Fritz Gurlitt Printing Press had set up a private imprint Privatdrucke der GurlittPresse, to specialize in luxury, erotic bibliophile books. Under its auspices Gurlitt had perhaps intended to publish this new edition of Louÿs’ poems.109 No specific prose exists in Mammen’s archive that relates the lithographs directly to Louÿs’ poems. Hildegardt Reinhardt has argued that the artist’s works appear to relate to the second part, Elegies at Mytilene. Here, the maturing of the relationship between the older Bilitis (who Reinhardt suggests is the brown-haired figure in the lithographs) and virginal Mnasidika (blonde hair) is outlined, from the moment they meet until Mnasidika sends a letter terminating her love.110 Indeed, Mammen’s lithographs place emphasis on the familial intimacy of two, sometimes three, women – potentially Bilitis, Mnasidika and another student – who are shown sleeping and embracing (see Colour Plate 7). Bilitis’ bitter rejection by Mnasidika seemingly forms the narrative of Mammen’s Ladies’ Bar, where the triad of older woman (Sappho?) and her two female protégés likewise found in Brothel Scene is disrupted by a fourth, unknown dance partner, who seems to have commanded Mnasidika’s attention (see Colour Plates 8 and 10). Louÿs’ poems also portrayed Bilitis as a type of teacher, offering instructions on keeping house, personal appearance and sexual relations. His characterization makes her tantamount to the role of the erotic instructor in ancient Greek paiderastía, the programme of civic and virile initiation carried out between an adult male teacher and a young boy. While male homosexuality in Greece was socially and culturally esteemed, it remained underdeveloped and unhonoured for women. Louÿs’ narrative challenged this. Bilitis explicitly asserts the viability of women as the virtuous ‘other’, stating, ‘Thou askest, O Bilitis, why I have become Lesbian? [. . .] How then can we love man, who is rough with us? He takes us as women and leaves us before the delight. Thou, thou art a woman; thou knowest how I feel. Thou canst take it as for thyself.’111 Through her visualization of habitual rituals of a similar kind, Mammen can be understood as reinforcing Louÿs’ alternative model. Her reiteration of a mature female and a lithe young girl, particularly seen in Woman and Girl, likewise follow the pederast virtues of the virile male and ephebe (see Colour Plate 9). Yet, her lithographs deliberately moved away from classicized scenes from an ancient Greek setting to concentrate on present-day contexts and details – providing an important link between sapphic myth and Weimar lesbian culture. In doing so, she answered Gurlitt’s request to produce works that were specifically ‘free and “modern” in style’ (ganz frei und ‘modern’ bebildern sollte).112 Gone are the islands or Arcadias inferring the civic virtues of Greek pederasty. Instead, her new woman protagonists smoke cigars, sport make-up and cropped haircuts, and wear tailored suits, cloche hats and translucent drapes of modern, artificial fabrics. They move between modern bedroom, dressingroom and bar interiors, the latter signalling, once more, Mammen’s recognition of the urban bar or nightclub as a key site of contemporary sexual autonomy. Like much of the artist’s work, her interpretation continued to draw on her youthful experiences of Paris. Despite fluctuating censorship and the 1929 Depression, unabated enthusiasm for erotica in Weimar Germany meant that Gurlitt’s new edition of Louÿs would probably sell. In matters of eroticism, like in fashion, many Germans looked towards France. Not only was France considered far more ‘enlightened’ in such matters, but the frisson of (sexual) alterity was also in-built.113 Consequently, it was often artworks by Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, Edgar Degas, Marcel Vertès and Edouard Chimot that dominated erotic Sittengeschichten. This would also explain why Curt Moreck deliberately

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gave French titles to some of the reproductions used in his publications, including Mammen’s Transvestite Club, which he pointedly renamed, ‘La Mère Gibert’, Paris (Bekanntes Homosexuellen-Lokal) (A Famous Homosexual Pub).114 The eccentricities surrounding Louÿs’ own life (his untimely death in 1925 aged 54) and the story of Bilitis, which first appeared in German translation in 1900, also explains why the poems held their charm.115 When Louÿs first published Les Chansons de Bilitis in 1894, he claimed it was based on poems etched onto the tomb of Bilitis and discovered by a certain German archaeologist, ‘G. Heim’. Indeed, in the first edition, Louÿs compiled a fake bibliography, which included a German version of Bilitis by the said archaeologist.116 But in the meantime, philologists found and translated real Egyptian papyri fragments of Sappho’s poems, thereby exposing Louÿs assertions as fraudulent.117 We can assume that the artist, being an avid reader, was familiar with Louÿs’ work early on. Her library contained numerous volumes of French literature (with almost twice as many works as in German) including a 1911 volume of Bilitis, with illustrations by ‘Notor’ (Vicomte Gabriel de Roton).118 The reviewers of her solo exhibition at Galerie Gurlitt also repeatedly emphasized the ‘French’ aspect of her artworks. Hugo Kubsch in the Deutsche Tageszeitung claimed, ‘There is a good deal to her [work]; Toulouse-Lautrec, Grosz, Dix, although there is not a single image that does not represent her stylistic uniqueness: this superiority, this curious empathy, this sharpness, this distance to her models.’119 Similarly Curt Glaser – director of the Berliner Kunstbibliothek – claimed in the Börsen Courier, ‘This draftswoman has the talent to be able to articulate a situation precisely. She appears initially to have learnt from Toulouse-Lautrec and then George Groß [sic] how to capture the impressions of big city amusements using a simple formula.’120 Scholars uphold such similarities.121 Yet, we do not know whether Mammen saw Toulouse-Lautrec’s 1896 portfolio, Elles. Although Mammen’s images are intimate, unlike Elles, they are not particularly voyeuristic, and there is little by way of intimation of a male customer. Put differently, Mammen’s lithographs expose the gaps between male (hetero)sexual fantasy and the normative experiences of lesbians living in Weimar Germany – regardless of whether the figures are depicted together in private or in public bars and brothels. There is perhaps a reason for this in that the suite was not necessarily created for a male viewer and/or collector. Sappho was an important figure of identification and historical validation for women in same-sex relationships during this period. Hirschfeld drew upon the narrative of Sappho (and Socrates), in his first publication on the subject in an attempt at historical legitimation.122 Ruth Margarete Roellig also used the Island of Lesbos to underpin the meaning of lesbian love and friendship in Das Lasterhafte Weib.123 Advertisements for novels including Heinz Martenau’s 1929 Sappho und Lesbos (Die Homosexualität unter Frauen) (Sappho and Lesbos (Homosexuality among Women)) appeared in women’s journals such as Die Freundin.124 But beyond novels, advertisements in such journals with inviting captions, ‘Daring Portfolio’ (Galante Mappe) and ‘sophisticated work delivered upon special request’, signal an expanding erotic market to include women. The range of works and prices is considerable: from cheap illustrated novels for less than three marks, to bibliophile rarities and luxury editions.125 Based on narratives of the circle of Sappho, Bilitis would undoubtedly have boasted contemporary relevance among women collectors. Had it been published, Gurlitt’s new edition would have made an important statement regarding the growing visibility of women homosexuals in Germany.126 But such a project

 Forging a Career 37 probably became too risky because of the backlash from the right.127 Lesbianism was vilified as part of the liberal women’s rights movement and used for political purposes.128 And in 1932, the party notably used images of Magnus Hirschfeld on some of its campaign posters.129 Once in power, they wasted little time in ransacking and burning the contents of the Institute for Sexual Science’s library.130 Right-wing conservatism impacted upon portrayals of women in the media already by the end of the 1920s. Scholars note how the ‘look’ of the new woman changed; skirts became longer and fuller, and frills and bows appeared upon clothing and women grew longer hair.131 Mammen’s Bilitis continued to give prominence to the androgynous garçonne and by doing so potentially sustained her association with feminism and gay rights, which had no place under the National Socialist Regime.132 Gurlitt also had his own problems that potentially impacted upon his ability to complete transactions with artists during the early 1930s including, perhaps, Mammen. Despite holding various art exhibitions – including a group show in which Mammen’s work was displayed alongside artists Albert Schaefer-Ast (1890–1951) and Hans Uhlmann (1900–75) – between December 1932 the same year and January 1933, Kunsthandlung Fritz Gurlitt filed for bankruptcy. Gurlitt appears to have enlisted the help of artists to sell

Figure 1.13  Albert Schaefer-Ast, Zur lächelnden Berolina (At the Smiling Berolina), undated, c. 1933, crayon on paper, 31.5 × 23 centimetres. Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin; Inv.-Nr.: SM 2019-01226. © The Estate of Albert Schaefer-Ast. All rights reserved. DACS, London, 2021. Photo: © Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin.

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works from the gallery. From August until December 1933, Mammen, most likely with Uhlmann, stood on Wielandstraße at the corner of Kurfürstendamm with a book-trolley, selling not only second-hand books and magazines but also original graphic works provided by Gurlitt, Galerie Nierendorf and others. On a surviving photograph, Mammen can be seen alongside the trolley, advertising the names of artists Max Liebermann, Max Slevogt, Lovis Corinth and Max Pechstein, many of whom Galerie Gurlitt had once represented. It was not a lucrative venture, however. Pages with accounting notes document that during a period of five months, it earned the very modest sum of ‘98.35’ (marks).133 A caricatural drawing produced by Schaefer-Ast shows the trolley replete with a canopied-table displaying graphics and books (Figure 1.13). His title, At the Smiling Berolina, was a not only a play on the female personification of the city of Berlin, but also derived from the name of Uhlmann’s wire sculpture that can be seen here, perched on top of the trolley. But more turbulent times for both the artist and Gurlitt were yet to come.134

Conclusion As a successful Gebrauchsgraphikerin creating artwork that featured in popular Weimar journals, Mammen mediated and actively shaped a fast-paced modern age. But her works filtered its realities too. The artist used some of her commercial work to address points of suffrage and equal rights, helping foreground important shortcomings of Germany’s first liberal democracy. Consequently, she is one of the few women artists whose artwork featured in sexological publications and lexica by key reformers and cultural commentators of the period. Notwithstanding her success and financial independence, the artist nonetheless remained ambivalent towards the media. Her attitude was underpinned not only by her academic training as an artist but also by her complex characterization of the new woman. Mammen drew distinctions between her commercial work and her painting throughout the rest of her career. After 1932, she did not exhibit at Galerie Gurlitt again. Over the course of the following twelve years, she made the decision to remain in her studio apartment and no longer produce commercial graphic work. Instead, she finally began to paint ‘for herself’. *  *  * The next time Mammen would have a solo exhibition would be almost seventeen years later, in February 1947. The next chapter jumps forward to that very exhibition held at Galerie Gerd Rosen in Berlin. The reception of her works on display here acts as a useful entry point to explore the dynamic political and cultural situation that unfolded in Germany immediately after the Second World War. As I hope will become clear, in-depth analysis of art criticism in the press reveals the extent to which Mammen was rapidly drawn into ensuing debates regarding the form and function of artwork. The mixed reception of her work is also inextricably linked to the moral and ethical dimensions of exile and migration developing during this period. How, or whether, to rehabilitate those artists who, like Mammen, had remained in Germany, but did not necessarily conform to state art, is established in this next chapter, which helps lay the groundwork for a re-reading of the artist’s work produced under the conditions of inner emigration in the succeeding chapters.

2

Berlin 1947 – going solo

Introduction In February 1947, almost two years after the Second World War had ended, Mammen had her second solo exhibition, ‘Jeanne Mammen, Bilder und Zeichnungen’ (Jeanne Mammen, Paintings and Drawings), which took place at Galerie Gerd Rosen in Berlin. It was a very different exhibition from the one that had occurred almost two decades earlier at Galerie Gurlitt. If the post-war public had been hoping to see examples of Mammen’s neusachlich watercolours and drawings that had featured in popular magazines from the 1920s, they were to be disappointed. Instead, many of the paintings the artist had completed during her twelve-year inner emigration, including Church on Winterfeldtplatz (c. 1940) and Juggler (1935–40), were on display (see Colour Plates 11 and 12). The style of these paintings was characteristic of much of her new work, in which forms are simplified and start to become abstracted, but never entirely abstract. In Winterfeldtplatz, Mammen depicts the neo-Gothic Catholic Church of St Matthias from the north side, looking onto the apse. The artist divides the architecture into a series of segments comprising striking contour lines, thereby contrasting the rich colours of the church with a series of dark recessed windows. The impressive steeple towers above the lower structures of the sacristy and baptistery. In Juggler, a lone male figure sits quietly, leaning against a table or ledge. He rests his head on his hand, while the other hand grasps the ball in his lap. He looks past the viewer, his melancholy pose appearing to contrast with his light and colourful costume. How far Pablo Picasso captured Mammen’s imagination becomes clear when comparing their work. Mammen’s Juggler, for example, is not unlike Picasso’s first painting, Harlequin (1901), dealing with a similar subject (Figure 2.1). The image forms one of six works completed by Picasso in which single figures or couples are depicted seated at café tables. Despite the harlequin’s motley costume, the painting’s mood is sombre. His pallid profile conveys a sense of sadness and longing. He sits awkwardly and alone, his long fingers pressed against the side of his whitened cheek. A match striker is on the table in front of him. The subject of circus figures – harlequins, clowns, jugglers and acrobats – became a focus for Picasso during his Blue and Rose Periods between 1901 and 1906, when he lived in abject poverty in Montmartre among bohemians, performers and writers. Mammen owned books on Picasso’s early career – including his first Cubist phase when he was working alongside Georges Braque – suggesting these were periods of interest to her.1 His Harlequin was also indebted to

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Jeanne Mammen

Figure 2.1  Pablo Picasso, Harlequin, 1901. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art. Oil on canvas, 32 5/8 × 24 1/8 inches (82.9 × 61.3 centimetres). Gift of Mr and Mrs John L. Loeb, 1960. Acc.n.: 60.87 © 2021 Image copyright The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Art Resource/Scala, Florence © Succession Picasso/DACS, London, 2021.

the café scenes of Degas, as well as sinewy flora wallpaper from Van Gogh’s portraits – artists likewise of fascination for Mammen. Besides the painting Juggler, Mammen completed several other paintings on the subject, some of which were also shown in different exhibitions. Mother Clown with Child (Columbine) (1935–40), Clown (1935–40) (see Colour Plates 13 and 14) and Female Juggler (1935–40) depict circus figures who stand or sit in brightly coloured, enclosed spaces. In Mother Clown with Child (Columbine), the seated mother caresses the child. The mother dons a pointed hat and her dress reveals ruffles of fabric that spill out behind her. The child’s hat is placed on the floor. The bird perch behind them appears to reinforce the idea that they are dressed for a performance and are perhaps seated in a dressing room. The term ‘columbine’ expressly signals the figure’s partnership with the male harlequin. Like Juggler, the work reprises characteristics of Picasso’s watercolours and pastels of acrobat and harlequin families from 1904–5, in which the figures are shown backstage, joyless and estranged from one another. In addition, there are proto-Cubist forms in Mammen’s work, in which columbine’s body is made up of a series of schematic geometric planes. In Clown and Juggler this wilful dislocation of forms becomes more pronounced. The clown’s polyperspective profile results in the sharp contours of his head extending upwards to form a fleshcoloured point. The red shadow of his profile no longer forms an illusionary function; rather, it appears to become a solid form of its own, which extends into a geometric plane behind the clown’s head, complicating the picture’s overall spatial coherence. The painting of the female juggler, perhaps intended as the counterpart to Mammen’s male figure, depicts a full-length nude figure, who balances a ball on her fingertip.2 Like the clown, her body comprises a series of interlocking geometric planes, which sharpen the interpenetration between her colourful body and the space in which she stands. Mammen’s paintings immediately show that she was not copying Picasso, nor does her encounter with his work conform to a neat pattern of artistic ‘influence’. She merges the figurative subjects of Picasso’s pre-war work with his later experiments into Cubist abstraction. Her circus subject matter potentially looked towards Picasso’s

 Berlin 1947 – Going Solo 41 Cubist paintings of musicians and harlequins from the 1920s. Some of her works also notably demonstrate experiments with collage. In Winterfeldtplatz, Mammen uses doilies for window tracery, and paper strips of red bricks form church pediments. In the foreground, grey fabric and woven plastic-like material (much like that found under a carpet to stop it from slipping) serve both as asphalt in the foreground and to rupture the otherwise smooth, painted surface. In Juggler, she draws attention to his lapel by using a strip of floral paper. Such insertions were clearly motivated by, and resembled, what they should replace. In other words, Mammen’s doily-style windows and her paper lapel are a play on the painterly illusion of the real object. Picasso first began incorporating collage materials into his work in 1912, while working closely alongside Braque, who is, in fact, first attributed with developing the technique of papier-collé. Picasso’s insertion of wicker into the painting to represent the surface of a chair in Still Life with Chair Caning (1912), for example, is an early example of such resemblance at play. The subject matter of these paintings was also not incidental. The scale of works such as Female Juggler, which measures 150 × 75 centimetres, made from cardboard deliberately cut for a full-length figure, signals Mammen’s intentionality. In other words, these paintings were not simply experiments in formal painting techniques – the figurative remained crucial to Mammen’s work and its understanding throughout the 1930s and early 1940s, as the following chapters demonstrate. But this is not how the reviewers of her solo exhibition at Galerie Gerd Rosen in 1947  interpreted her work. The only work that sold during this exhibition was Church on Winterfeldtplatz – for 300 marks to the city of Berlin – precisely because it portrayed a topographical scene, and one that had (now) been extensively destroyed during Allied bombing. In her old age, Mammen recalls how ‘No one came, [to the Rosen exhibition], I spent two hours bored as a stint [gelangweilt wie ein Stint]’.3 After six years of war, Berliners were eager for art again, but wanted something palpable, uplifting, not works depicting a melancholy juggler or sombre columbine that potentially symbolized forms of existential anxiety. The reception of Mammen’s exhibition is significant and reveals the extreme social and political situation of Germany after the war. The wartime alliance between Western democrats and Soviet communists proved to be anything but a solid basis for a vanquished country and was fraught with tensions and conflicts from the outset. Berlin, like many other cities, was marked by displacement, starvation and extreme economic weakness. Critical responses to art became not simply a question of like or dislike. In the four years between the end of the war and the establishment of the democratic Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and the communist German Democratic Republic (GDR) in 1949, debates about art – including its style and its function – also played a role in shaping the increasing ideological division of the country. These debates would continue to make their mark on the next four decades of German cultural history. How Mammen’s work was received in this period affected her legacy as an artist in the FRG. To distance themselves from the politicization of art under the National Socialist regime, reviews generated by the Western Allied zone newspapers underplayed the potential social and political relevance of any of Mammen’s new artwork. Instead,

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they sought to focus on many of its formal aspects. Her inner emigration was also largely ignored as it involved an uncomfortable confrontation with the immediate past, raising questions regarding resistance to National Socialism. To reinforce claims to sustained anti-fascism, the Soviet zone, on the other hand, promoted the artwork of realist painters. This chapter explores these debates in more detail, using reviews of Mammen’s artworks, and in particular her solo exhibition at Galerie Gerd Rosen. Its primary focus is the promotion of art within the occupied American and British zones, in the southwest and west of Berlin, where Mammen lived and worked, and where Galerie Rosen was situated.4 There has been no shortage of commentary on the role of art in the fledgling Cold War. The aim of this chapter is not to challenge the perceived polarity of Eastern and Western attitudes towards art, which more recent scholarship has successfully undertaken.5 Rather, it intends to demonstrate that the detailed analysis of the wider political and cultural contexts presented here will frame the re-reading of Mammen’s artwork produced under the conditions of inner emigration, which forms the basis of the following two chapters.

Post-war exhibition cultures The staging of Mammen’s solo exhibition in February 1947 in the centre of Berlin was quite an accomplishment given that over 70 per cent of the city had been destroyed. Germany had been defeated by the Allied powers, Britain, France, America and Russia, which led to its unconditional surrender. Berlin, along with Rotterdam, Warsaw, Dresden and Stalingrad, was one of the most badly destroyed cities in Europe. Mammen’s own studio apartment had been hit by Allied bombing several times. But the artist had survived. She commented in a letter to her close friend, Max Delbrück (1906–81), who lived in the United States, ‘What is left of Jeanne is sitting in the remains of Berlin [we] have lived through so much horror and terror [. . .] awful weeks of siege followed by the conquest of Berlin.’6 The conquest, to which the artist referred, was that of the Soviet military government, which had been the first to capture the city from the rapidly retreating Nazis on 8 May 1945. Soon after, French, British and American troops arrived and by 5 June, this four-power authority – Allied Control Authority (Alliierten-Kontrollrat) – divided Germany, as well as Berlin itself, into four military zones. Germany ceased to exist as a sovereign state until its division in 1949. Having taken control, the Allied powers agreed that to ensure and sustain peace, they should enforce policies of demilitarization, decommissioning of weapons and deindustrialization. They would also carry out crucial programmes of denazification and re-education, which would help restore Germany to a democratic country.7 From the outset, culture was high on the Allies’ agenda, as it was perceived as a form of cohesion. Various interzonal committees were created, including the Cultural Association for the Democratic renewal of Germany (Kulturbund zur demokratischen Erneuerung Deutschlands), to promote museums, exhibitions and artists. Set up in July 1945 initially by the Soviet authority, the association exemplified the high hopes for culture, proposing that art should act as a form of humanitarianism.8 The Allies also quickly established the Chamber of Artists (Kammer der Kunstschaffenden), which

 Berlin 1947 – Going Solo 43 offered financial support for professional artists – including distribution of ration cards – and used administrative offices (Bezirksämter) in different city districts to host exhibitions. The aim of these exhibitions was twofold: to promote Allied national culture on German soil, as well as reviving Germany’s art scene.9 In the case of the latter, a consolidated attempt was made to rehabilitate artists whose careers had suffered through professional prohibition and other forms of persecution under the National Socialists. Moreover, the Allied forces were all too aware of the vacuum opened by the totalitarian control of culture and sought to reacquaint the German public with diverse forms of art under the broader framework of its re-education policies. As a result, works by Heinrich Ehmsen, Karl Hofer, Oskar Moll, Ernst Wilhlem Nay, Oskar Nerlinger, Willi Baumeister, Hans Grundig, Max Pechstein and Erich Heckel, among others, were widely exhibited. During what would become an extraordinary four years of cultural activity, despite the irreparable damage to state museums and art collections, Berlin managed to become one of the world’s leading cultural cities once more. Indeed, by summer 1949, the Allies alone had organized no fewer than 500 exhibitions.10 But, as we will see, the Berliners themselves were also very active in re-establishing a thriving cultural scene. There is no doubt that Allied infrastructures helped Mammen revive her public career during this period. Having worked alone in her studio for twelve years, she was presumably eager to become involved in the city’s art scene and took part in some of the most important exhibitions, not just in Berlin, but also in Dresden, Hamburg and Überlingen by Lake Constance. She also registered with the Chamber of Artists, officially declaring herself to be a professional artist to the post-war authorities.11 Before her solo exhibition, she took part in various group exhibitions, two of which stand out. ‘“Nach 12 Jahren” – Antifaschistische Maler und Bildhauer stellen aus –Kunstschau Sommer 1945’ (After Twelve Years – Anti-fascist Painter and Sculptors Exhibit – Art Exhibition 1945) and the ‘Allgemeine Deutsche Kunstausstellung’ (General German Art Exhibition) reveal the already intractable relationship between art and politics and are worth briefly exploring here. ‘Nach 12 Jahren’ was organized and curated by the sculptor Hans Uhlmann. Like Mammen, Uhlmann had become an inner émigré and had continued to sculpt (in secret) during the 1930s and early 1940s. During this time, he produced examples of wire sculptures not unlike the Smiling Berolina that Mammen owned (Figure 1.13).12 In July 1945, he was working as a consultant for painting and sculpture in Steglitz’ Office of Public Education (Volksbildungsamt) and organized one of the very first art exhibitions. Alongside a total of twenty-six works by Mammen, including the paintings Church on Winterfeldtplatz, Mother Clown with Child (Columbine), Clown, Juggler and Female Juggler, the exhibition showcased only the work of artists who had remained in Germany, including Oskar Nerlinger, Alice Lex-Nerlinger, Else Koller, Renée Sintenis, Hans Kellner and Heinrich Görke. ‘Nach 12 Jahren’ was Mammen’s first exhibition after the war. She was represented with the highest number of works by any individual artist. In line with much Allied cultural policy, Uhlmann’s curatorial approach foregrounded the rehabilitation of wellknown artists, many of whose public careers had suffered under the National Socialists. His use of the term ‘anti-fascist’ was unusual, however, in that it directly associated the exhibited artists with forms of opposition. And as we will see, it was a term used little

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by the West. His preface to the exhibition leaflet, still extant in Mammen’s archive, reinforced this idea: ‘12 years of oppression and struggle are behind us. [. . .] They [the exhibited artists] remained loyal to their task, they simply worked on, as they had no choice. For them these 12 years were years of consolidation and maturity.’ The exhibition was a success, attracting 1,354 visitors.13 However, it notably remained one of the very few exhibitions to adopt this approach. As will become clear, during the immediate post-war period, Mammen’s work becomes disentangled from political forms of anti-fascism or anti-Nazism by being considered first and foremost as formal experiments in abstraction. A year later, examples of her new paintings Woman with Blue Hat (1943–5) and Head (1944–5) were shown at the Allgemeine Deutsche Kunstausstellung (General German Art Exhibition) in Dresden, an exhibition organized by the Cultural Association for the Democratic renewal of Germany in the summer of 1946.14 Comments in a letter to Mammen’s close friend, the biochemist Hans Gaffron (1902–79), suggest she was thrilled to travel to see what she wryly calls, her ‘two products (zwei Produckte [sic])’, on show alongside artwork of other ‘famous artists’ (nebst allen anderen Grössen).15 Much like Uhlmann’s approach, the exhibition sought to rehabilitate eminent prewar artists, but on a much grander scale. Berlin artists now appeared alongside works from all over Germany, which together comprised nearly 600 works by 250 different artists.16 The exhibition was significant not least because it became the first and the last exhibition showcasing work from a united Germany before the establishment of the FRG and GDR. As the art critic Carl Linfert explained: The exhibition was initially like a memory: it awoke in us first and foremost those daring fantasies of the Expressionists, Constructivists and whatever their names were, who did not deviate from nature out of nothing but mischief, but rather who had the aim of trying to get to the bottom of it.17

The reviews were mostly positive, heralding the exhibition as the new face of German art and celebrating its versatile selection of artworks as a ‘fiery protest’ and a ‘courageous’ riposte to the cultural stagnancy of the past twelve years.18 Nonetheless, some critics did not fail to notice an apparent schism in the exhibition hang. The Western Allies exhibited primarily modernist and abstract work, whereas the Soviet zone foregrounded more traditional figurative styles.19 Whether she liked it or not, Mammen’s two paintings were drawn into what was soon to be identified as a Western approach towards art.

Galerie Gerd Rosen and Mammen’s solo exhibition The success of ‘Nach 12 Jahren’ brought with it new possibilities, and Hans Uhlmann began to work for the antiquarian Gert Rosen. Along with the art collector Max Leon Flemming (1881–1956), and the artists Heinz Trökes (1913–97) and Ilse-Margret Vogel (1914–2001), Rosen converted a former military supply store into a commercial art gallery and bookstore, Galerie Gerd Rosen (or simply Galerie Rosen), situated on

 Berlin 1947 – Going Solo 45 Kurfürstendamm 215, which, as it happened, was directly opposite Mammen’s studio apartment.20 As a well-respected antiquarian book dealer, Rosen had sold books in Berlin’s Wertheim department store.21 Consequently (despite being Jewish), he had managed to survive the Nazis. After the war, he ran the bookshop and employed artists to head the gallery under the guidance of Vogel. Uhlmann became the gallery’s first director. The artist Werner Heldt (1904–54), who held a solo exhibition at Rosen in March 1946, described the set-up: Rosen is like [Alfred] Flechtheim and [Igor] Stravinsky and is still the leading gallery here. He’s boycotted by the Communists (Russians), which isn’t of course officially acknowledged, but everyone knows it. Heinz Trökes, the painter [who had already taken over from Uhlmann as Artistic Director], is his [Karl] Valentin.22

Largely unhindered by the bureaucratic red tape of official Allied exhibitions, its provocative programme showcased work from the classical modern, rehabilitating German and international artists alike. In the immediate post-war period, it displayed works by Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, August Macke, Hannah Höch, Ernst Wilhelm Nay, Willi Baumeister, Ernst Barlach, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and Marc Chagall, among many others. But it also drew the public’s attention towards artists, including Held, Uhlmann and Trökes, along with contemporaries Hans Thiemann, Mac Zimmermann (1912–95) and Juro Kubicêk (1906–70), whose careers had barely started in 1933, and who were certainly not household names. In its first year alone, the gallery held a new exhibition every month, ranging from smaller displays based on one artist, to largerscale group exhibitions. Gerd Rosen was clearly keen to build upon Kufürstendamm’s cultural history, which was at one time home to the Dada Malik publishing house, the Berlin Secession and nearby bohemian haunt, the Romanisches Café. And he succeeded. As Heldt’s assessment suggests, thanks to its daring exhibitions and the Valentinesque ‘showmanship’ of regular public events, the Rosen Galerie quickly became a nucleus around which much of Berlin’s art scene converged. As a member of an older, established generation of artists whose current work engaged with abstraction, Mammen’s work fitted well into the gallery’s programme. In noting which artists were exhibited in the General German Art Exhibition in Dresden in 1946, abstract painter Theodor Werner wrote to art dealer Ferdinand Möller, that he had seen the work of ‘the Rosen-people [die Rosen-Leute], Thiemann, Trökes, Mammen, Heldt’.23 Werner’s comment suggests the extent to which Mammen had already become associated with Rosen’s core artist’s circle, even before her solo exhibition at the gallery a few months later. However, galvanizing public support for their work often proved difficult. Rosen’s exhibitions were contentious among both art critics and much of the public, who considered art a national, post-fascist concern. Window displays were deemed bad taste, artworks were classed as irrelevant and illogical.24 Mammen’s solo exhibition made a provocative statement about forms of artistic nonconformity under the National Socialists and as a result, it too became the subject of debate. The exhibition ran for the duration of February 1947. Mammen showed sixteen tempera paintings, including Church on Winterfeldtplatz; ten drawings; two coloured

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Jeanne Mammen

Figure 2.2  View of Jeanne Mammen’s solo exhibition at Galerie Gerd Rosen, photographer Ewald Gnielka, 1947. Photo: © Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin. Trumpeting Cockerel c. 1943, can be seen to the right.

pen drawings; one, mixed technique and one, painting on glass. A couple of black-andwhite photographs in her archive give an impression of how some of her paintings were hung. One image shows Uhlmann and Vogel sitting on modern tubular steel chairs at a table (Figure 2.2). A painting used to advertise the exhibition depicts two faces linked through their right eye, neck and a sweeping forehead. Their chins, mouth and nose are aligned. The image, like much of Mammen’s exhibited artwork, foregrounds the artist’s exploration of Cubist polyperspectives. Originally painted onto Perspex, it also demonstrates her interest in omnispection (Figure 2.3).25 The exhibition was organized at a time when animosity between the Allied powers was starting to increase, making a division between Eastern and Western zones ever more likely. In January 1947 the British and US governments struck a bizone agreement. By March the same year, the Truman Doctrine consolidated America’s anti-communist politics. These tensions had palpable effects on Berlin. The very real threat of starvation and the collapse of the economy made life extremely difficult. As noted previously, although culture was initially considered unifying, in such a febrile environment, it inevitably began to reveal the ideological fault lines of the East and West. While the Allies all agreed that the classicizing figurative art promoted under National Socialism could not continue, they were less sure about what contemporary art should look like. What subjects were appropriate? Was it enough to revive art created before National Socialism? What relevance did Expressionism and New Objectivity have for post-war Germany? And so on. A comment by Mammen to fellow artist and friend Steffie Schaefer-Nathan, in the wake of her exhibition, is indicative of the power the press held in forming public opinion. She wrote: ‘the critics are twisting and turning things; and each newspaper

 Berlin 1947 – Going Solo 47

Figure 2.3  Jeanne Mammen, untitled (Doppelkopf) (Double Head), undated, c. 1947, mixed media on Perspex, 47 × 37.5 centimetres. Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin; Inv.-Nr.: SM 2020-02610. Photographer Ewald Gnielka. Used for the artist’s solo exhibition at Galerie Gerd Rosen in February 1947. Photo: © Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung, Berlin.

blows into its own horn as is customary, sometimes pitifully, but always careful of not being completely negative; and slight progress is to be noted.’26 Under the National Socialists there had been no freedom of the press. Now, more than ever, newspapers sought to re-engage with debates about culture in all its forms. Indeed, the American art collector Virginia Fontaine (1915–91) noted on her visit to the city in May 1947 how the Berlin papers contained far more discussion on the local art scene in comparison with their Frankfurt counterparts (the city where she and her artist husband, Paul Fontaine, were based).27 The many reviews relating to Mammen’s solo exhibition collected by the artist attest to the importance of the press for her personally. Some of these reviews are substantial and appeared in party-political newspapers, such as Der Kurier, which was issued by the French zone and to which prominent art critics contributed. Other short digests featured in Berlin daily newspapers such as Der Abend in the Western zone and Nacht-Express in the East. In his review entitled ‘Gesehen und Verzaubert’ (Viewed and Enchanted) that featured in Der Kurier, the newspaper’s co-founder, the prominent art critic Carl Linfert (1900–81) extolled the virtues of Mammen’s new work. He expressly praised her engagement with Picasso and tried to describe the impact of her work on the viewer:

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Jeanne Mammen what occurs [in her works] and then is transformed into magical structures of latticework, so that one can hardly differentiate between observation and transformation [. . .] What is it? Is it Constructivism redefining the world? Not far from it. [. . .] So, a whole area opens itself up to her, and as odd as it sounds, is not without idyllic invitation, an idyll out of ‘abstract’ but not wholly flirtatious forms.28

During the 1930s, Linfert had remained in Germany and become the cultural correspondent for the Frankfurter Zeitung and, later, the National Socialist newspaper Das Reich. However, he became a master of ‘shrouded language’ (verhüllten Schreibens), camouflaging his criticism of the Nazis in his writing.29 After the war, he remained a vocal supporter of modern and contemporary art. Indeed, his praise of the stylistic diversity in the General German Art Exhibition, noted previously, confirm his early enthusiasms. His avid support of Mammen’s painting in his review is therefore perhaps unsurprising. In a very short review of just a few lines printed in Berlin’s daily newspaper Der Abend, Roland Schacht agreed, pronouncing her art ‘fundamentally stirring and exciting’.30 An anonymous critic was equally enthusiastic in Der Tagesspiegel, heralding the artist as an ‘amazon’ in troubled times. They suggested that her works fell somewhere in between the abstraction and emotion of Picasso. The tone of the piece is perhaps to be expected, given that it featured in a newspaper set up by the well-known art historian and critic Edwin Redslob (1884–1973). During the 1920s, Redslob had been the Superintendent of Art for the Weimar Republic (Reichskunstwart) but was dismissed in 1933 shortly after the National Socialists came to power.31 After the war, he once again became an active figure in Berlin’s contemporary art scene and notably gave the opening speech for the very first exhibition at Galerie Rosen. The review, like Linfert’s, sought to engage with Mammen’s artworks primarily from a formalist perspective. Mammen’s large painting Trumpeting Cockerel (c. 1943), which can be seen hanging on the wall above Uhlmann and Vogel in the black-and-white photograph of Mammen’s solo exhibition (Figure 2.2), was most likely influenced by Picasso’s powerful use of animals in Guernica. And as a result, it could potentially be understood as an antifascist statement. It depicts an embattled figure with the head of a cockerel, sitting on horseback and aggressively brandishing a sabre. Mammen had, in fact, visited the Paris World Fair in 1937 where Guernica was first exhibited. Whether the reviewer had access to such biographical details is not known. Nonetheless, they chose to draw no direct comparisons with Picasso, describing Trumpeting Cockerel simply, as follows: Her ‘trumpeter’ is a successful painterly wake-up call in dazzling reds and yellows, curves and parallel curves that one instinctively has to close one’s ears in front of the image, but open one’s eyes widely. There are some very artistically convincing paintings by Jeanne Mammen in this exhibition.32

Any possible political messages were therefore ignored. Other reviews continued in a similar vein. The Stadt-Telegraf, for example, sought to ally paintings such as Church on Winterfeldplatz with forms of pre-war Dada montage because of their playful insertion of paper and material.33 Dr C. A. Werner’s review, ‘Die Freude zu leben: Jeanne Mammen stellt aus’ (The Joy of Living: Jeanne

 Berlin 1947 – Going Solo 49 Mammen Exhibits), on the other hand, described her style as being the cultural heir to modernism: After the elapsed periods of Impressionism and Expressionism, an apparent synthesis has emerged that distances itself from imitating nature just as much, but also from the complete dissolution of the environment in immaterial abstraction. [. . .] Under the ‘rules of art’, [Mammen’s art] comprises of carefully balanced compositions out of lines, forms and colours, effective through this means and not through representational clues. That Jeanne Mammen succeeds to meet the demands of real art through her images, is what one can gain in our daily grind from visiting this exhibition.34

Mammen was lucky: she had clearly gained the support of some of the most important art critics. Her work was praised as being the type of art that had been prohibited under the National Socialists. While her work had not been exhibited in any of the Degenerate Art exhibitions, by drawing links to Picasso and Dada, critics nevertheless interpreted it as provocative statements of nonconformity. However, as has also become clear, these reviews demonstrate a notable absence of engagement with the subject matter beyond its painterly surface and/or modern style. With certainty, Mammen’s engagement with Picasso and Cubism symbolized a move towards abstraction. Indeed, by the 1930s Cubism and abstract art were considered symbiotic.35 But these reviewers ignored the potentially critical meanings of the melancholy circus figures, aggressive animals or the symbolism of a painting with a Catholic Church as its subject – the significance of which is explained shortly. Some critics from the Soviet zone were less enthusiastic about the exhibition. Two negative reviews appeared in Neues Deutschland which, by 1947, had become the main newspaper and political mouthpiece for the newly established Socialist Union Party (SED) – formed in 1946 – in the Soviet zone. For reviewers Erich Vogt and Erich Link, Mammen’s art did not productively engage with the urgent social and political situation in Germany. Artworks that appeared not to grapple with wartime experiences, including shortages, refugees and destruction in any meaningful way, were regarded with caution. Put simply, what was the use or value of works like Mammen’s in helping rebuild a new Germany? Vogt’s review, ‘Die Drei Phasen des Kubismus: Zu der Ausstellung Jeanne Mammen in der Galerie Rosen’ (The Three Phases of Cubism: On the Exhibition of Jeanne Mammen at Galerie Rosen), offered a detailed investigation of her work in relation to Cubism. Vogt sought to order her new work into three distinct developmental phases of Cubism as set out by the art critic and friend of the French Surrealists, Régine Raufast, only to negatively dismiss the style at the end of his article.36 Raufast argued that to free itself entirely from the subject, Cubism followed a trajectory in which style sought to distort reality. According to Vogt, citing Raufast, the third and final phase of this trajectory arrives at abstract art: From now on, there appears to be another way out available [for Cubism]. ‘The image must itself become the object and no longer has the aim of imitating reality. In other words, it cannot be pictorial in the traditional sense: it itself

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Jeanne Mammen becomes the reality in that it becomes an autonomous object in which it finds its own regulation and real purpose.’ In other words, Cubism leads eventually into abstract art.37

Vogt categorized Mammen’s Rosen exhibits into similar phases. While her works produced during the early to mid-1930s could be linked to phases one and two, her more recent paintings on show, such as Ballerina (1943–5) (Figure 2.5), which Vogt expressly mentioned, no longer represented any attempts at realism and was effectively abstract art. The review went on to suggest that Cubism had ultimately failed in its attempts at artistic objecthood and, according to Vogt, instead, ‘sunk into absolute subjectivity’, of which Mammen’s work was a prime example. In sum, Vogt’s article suggested not only that her work was a failure in its claims to abstraction, but also that, more crucially, it implied that it represented a rehashing of past styles that were now irrelevant for Germany.38 Appearing two weeks later, Erich Link’s review was less ambivalent. It included a reproduction of Mammen’s polyperspective head used to advertise her solo exhibition, with the image caption, ‘Kunst oder Schwindel?’ (Art or Swindle?). Link’s article ‘Malerei um Effekt’ (Painting for Effect) offered a pointed critique of the state of contemporary art in Germany, and of which Mammen’s current works displayed at Galerie Rosen could be considered characteristic.39 Not dissimilar to Vogt, Link argued that her work was imitative of outdated styles, this time connecting her works with Expressionism. His criticisms immediately betray political undertones. Instead of producing works in a more socially conscientious style – which would have been more appropriate for the post-war situation – her work was rather seen as being derivative of advertisements (Plakatkunst). ‘Among the works by Jeanne Mammen that are now in the Galerie Rosen, there are many of this sort of effectively “created” images, that appear purely constructed and are reminiscent of advertisements.’ Link’s review implicated the other artists associated with the Rosen gallery too by stating: ‘Many of the works adhere to this type of factory manufacture. In general, it appears that most of the artists [in Rosen] are lacking a fundamental value.’40 In other words, Mammen’s work inadvertently symbolized the failings of Weimar capitalism. Like her Rosen colleagues, her work lacked the core values expected of contemporary art, and for Link, without a doubt, these values were dictated by Soviet politics. The Soviet elite had already made its position clear regarding what it thought of Expressionism (and New Objectivity) during the early 1930s. In an article ‘Grosse und Verfall des Expressionismus’ (Expressionism: Its Significance and Decline) from 1934, the influential Marxist philosopher Georg Lukács condemned both styles for their ‘decadence’, their ‘impoverished content’ and ‘overemphasis on form’. He also stressed their link to National Socialism.41 While the Nazis eventually defamed both styles publicly, for Lukács, nonetheless, Expressionism and New Objectivity remained concomitant with bourgeois capitalism and Germany’s failed socialist revolution.42 Increasing tensions between the Western Allies and the Soviet zone after the war called for stricter control of art, narrowing the East’s position on bourgeois art further. The left-wing press might have been more positively disposed towards Mammen’s work during this period, had she perhaps made a public show of her left-leaning political

 Berlin 1947 – Going Solo 51 sympathies through artist statements or interviews. But she did not. Her new work was perceived as focusing too much on painterly surface and consequently unsuited for the process of socialist transformation. Her prolific contribution to the popular press during the Weimar period did not change this. As Chapter 1 explained, her neusachlich watercolours were dismissed by critic Alfred Durus, in the German Communist Party newspaper Die Rote Fahne, as characteristic of bourgeois art. Link’s and Vogt’s reviews demonstrate how far questions of style had become synonymous with political affiliation. Implicit in their criticisms was the artist’s (problematic) engagement with Picasso.43 Public dislike of him helps explain why the reception of Mammen’s own work remained conflicted. In November 1948, almost two years after her solo exhibition, the Soviet zone newspaper, Tägliche Rundschau, published a two-part article by the literary scientist, Alexander Dymschitz, who was director of the Soviet Department of Literature, Music and the Fine Arts in Germany. In his second article, Dymschitz expressly attacked Picasso: The appearance of his latest new works, in which human form has been dealt with so wildly, looks like all these figures with their hacked faces and squinty eyes, with their broken arms and dislocated legs have come from a torture chamber of the Middle Ages Inquisitor. Tempted by a misguided understanding of newness on the way to formalism, Picasso has managed in his painting to create a manifest form of anti-humanism.44

His criticisms are noteworthy for two reasons. First, his vocabulary – ‘hacked’ (zerhackten), ‘torture’ (Folter) and ‘broken’ (gebrochen) – immediately drew attention to the perceived anti-humanistic aspects of Picasso’s work. As Nicolaj van der Meulen persuasively argues, much criticism of Cubism inextricably links it to destruction, violence and aggression. In other words, the style effectively evoked the existential anxieties surrounding post-war conflict.45 Second, Dymschitz’s articles dismissed Picasso’s artwork as ‘bourgeois decadence’, echoing the sentiments of Vogt and Link. Picasso’s work represented a critical paradox: on the one hand, it called forth uncomfortable post-war realities, but on the other, it was focused too much on (arbitrary) surface detail. Dymschitz’s polemical articles reinforced the Formalism Debate (FormalismusDebatte) that had been developing across the zones for several years, and that, by the end of 1948, left little ambiguity as to the increasing role culture played in the East/ West divide. The Western Allies continued to promote a plurality of styles, including modern and contemporary post-war art. This plurality effectively became a byword for ‘democracy’. Contrastingly, the Soviet zone developed a narrower view of art. By 1948, it no longer sought to establish German Socialism. Instead, focus was directed towards the official Soviet policy of zhdanovshchina – the ideological cultural campaign waged against ‘bourgeois art’ – which advocated Socialist Realism as the only art appropriate for a new social order.46 The Formalism Debate would rumble on during the early 1950s and shape the cultural policies of the fledgling FRG and GDR. In a long article, ‘Wo stehen die Feinde der deutschen Kunst? Bemerkungen zur Frage des Formalismus und des

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Kosmopolitismus II’ (Where do the Enemies of German Art Stand? Comments Regarding the Question of Formalism and Cosmopolitanism II) printed in Neues Deutschland in 1951, the paper’s editor, literary scholar and prominent SED politician, Wilhelm Girnus (1906–85), singled out Mammen’s work.47 The article acted as a rallying cry against cultural cosmopolitanism, which Girnus argued was threatening German culture. Citing Lenin, Stalin and catchlines from a recent SED Party congress, the GDR politician Girnus branded artistic formalism a ‘culprit’ widely promoted by a ‘European Army’ supported by the United States, whom he deemed the ‘overarching rulers’ of such cultural decline. To reinforce his aggressive views, the newspaper printed a series of crude contrasting images showcasing German art, architecture and sculpture opposite cosmopolitan examples. Frank Lloyd Wright’s house appeared next to the fifteenth-century town hall of Tangermünde, and a bronze sculpture of Peter Vischer (1460–1529) was coupled with a photograph of one of Alexander Calder’s kinetic sculptures from the 1940s. The final comparison placed Mammen’s polyperspective head advertising her Galerie Rosen exhibition next to the painted portrait of an unknown man by Albrecht Dürer. Mammen was notably the only German artist whose work was directly attacked. The use of inverted commas in the image caption, ‘Cosmopolitan “Art” Jeanne Mammen “Portrait”’, reinforced Girnus’ scorn. He concluded, ‘Where the enemies of German art stand is clear. The question now remains: where do German artists stand?’ While the article does not explore Mammen’s work in any more detail, it demonstrates just how far it had become entangled in debates regarding the form and function of art. By 1951, for Girnus at least, she was a ‘traitor’, whose work appeared to effectively symbolize all that was ‘wrong’ with West German art.48

Inner emigration Beyond the immanent criticism of Mammen’s paintings, it is not possible to fully understand their reception without exploring the artist’s position as an inner émigré. Outlining the debates regarding exile and inner emigration already unfolding in postwar Germany also allows us to begin to understand the enduring impact this has had on interpretations of her work. Indeed, beyond his ardent commitment to communism, Wilhelm Girnus’ dismissal of Mammen’s work, just discussed, potentially rests further on the very different responses of the West and East to perceived forms of anti-fascism as I set out. The term ‘inner émigré’ at its very basic level has been typically used to describe those who remained in Germany during the 1930s and 1940s and distanced themselves from National Socialism. The term was already used by artists and writers, notably Ernst Barlach, who was hounded by the Nazis to the point of his own death.49 Through a series of articles that appeared in the press in 1945, writers Thomas Mann, Walter von Molo and Frank Thiess debated the legitimacy of inner emigration and exile (either forced or by choice), which ultimately established the trenchant, binary positions of ‘resistance’ (Widerstand) or ‘conformity’ (Anpassung) to National Socialism.50

 Berlin 1947 – Going Solo 53 Mann, who had left Germany in 1933 and settled in the United States, denied the possibility of forms of inner emigration, insinuating that those who remained (despite in many instances not becoming part of official Nazi cultural life) had automatically contributed to the stabilization of the regime. Implicit in this viewpoint was the unrealistic expectation of open opposition and public action by writers who remained. Consequently, the cultural production of ‘remainers’ became connected with ethical and moral questions of guilt, regardless of their political affiliation. Whether he had intended to or not, Mann established a moral higher ground for the exile community, whose experience was distinguished by clearer social consequences of ‘homelessness’ (Ortlosigkeit). Moreover, as Michael Philipp points out, this in turn led to the further underlying assumption that those who left Germany were automatically anti-Nazi.51 In answer to Mann, von Molo and Thiess sought to promote the goodness of those writers who had stayed. Thiess argued that inner émigrés were, in fact, the real patriots, as they were the ones who had remained and suffered for their work (and defended German culture). Of note is Thiess’ emphasis on the idea of an ‘alternative Germany’: the idea that inner émigrés occupied an ‘inner’ or ‘spiritual/mental space’ that Hitler could not infiltrate. This emphasis helped rebut Mann’s claim of complicity and the notion of collective German guilt. However, this stress on interiority came at a cost and effectively meant that inner emigration became, at best, tantamount to social isolation and lack of contact (Kontaktlosigkeit) and, at worst, synonymous with forms of solipsism. One of the longer-term consequences of this debate was that inner emigration was often written in quotation marks, denoting a degree of scepticism regarding its potential to exist, let alone signal forms of resistance. This public debate focused on writers, but its reverberations defined the way in which the work of inner émigré artists was also considered.52 How to deal with inner émigré artists – whether they should be celebrated, condemned or ignored – clearly troubled Berlin’s art scene immediately after the war. The inner émigré artist Karl Hofer, who had been against National Socialism from the outset, claimed that the Allied denazification process had proven extremely ineffective as artists such as Emil Nolde, Arno Breker and ‘Naziwill’ (Franz Radziwill) were still at large.53 And to a degree, Hofer was right. The problems of the Allied processes of denazification notwithstanding, there were initial slippages in the way the term ‘inner emigration’ was understood. The term at first seemed to describe any artist who worked in a modernist vein, regardless of wartime allegiances. Hans Uhlmann’s previously discussed exhibition ‘Nach 12 Jahren’ was a case in point. Mammen undertook no official state commissions we know of; instead, she worked under the radar in her studio. Keen to promote such courage, Uhlmann nonetheless seemed to ignore the political affiliation of sculptor Otto Placzek (1884–1968), whose work appeared alongside Mammen’s in the exhibition. Placzek had, in fact, been a member of the Nazi Party and his work had appeared in several of the official National Socialist Great German Art Exhibitions (Große Deutsche Kunstausstellungen) and also been used in the 1936 Olympics.54 Moreover, Placzek had initially lied about his Nazi affiliations after the war.55 Consequently, it was not unusual for inner émigré artists to appear alongside Nazi sympathizers in exhibitions during this period. The debates regarding the form and function of art vis-à-vis East and West, outlined earlier, also brought various assumptions to the fore regarding inner emigration. The

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Soviet zone and, later, the GDR characterized inner emigration simply as oppositional and ‘anti-fascist’ as a basis for the legitimacy of German Socialism.56 Put differently, inner emigration as such did not exist. Instead, focus was directed towards a select group of artists, including Käthe Kollwitz, Ernst Barlach, Fritz Cremer, Lea and Hans Grundig, Conrad Felixmüller and Otto Nagel, who had remained in Germany and whose prominent left-wing affiliations automatically made their opposition to National Socialism incontrovertible. Likewise, their artworks broadly conformed to Socialist Realism and would therefore ‘fit’ more easily into the administration’s push for major new, socio-economic and cultural changes, rather than a focus on recuperation of ‘degenerate’ art.57 In contrast, the Western and, later, FRG’s celebration of modern and contemporary artistic diversity made conscious attempts to disentangle art from politics (and continued to do so well into the 1970s). This was made easier by the widespread understanding of modernist styles of art – abstraction in particular – as being devoid of epochal awareness. There were already debates among artists and critics – from both within the inner émigré and the international exile community during the 1930s – regarding what styles of art ‘best’ represented forms of resistance.58 And international journals such as Axis (1935–7) and Abstraction, création, art non-figuratif (1932–6) discussed whether abstraction could be understood as both (political) intention and formal experimentation. Nonetheless, as Klaus Herding more recently put it, back then (and, indeed, still now) there remained a general consensus that the type of art that functioned as dissenting or resistant cannot spend too much time on surface and aesthetic considerations.59 While abstract art is acknowledged as an important tendency in inner emigration, it is primarily considered an heir to the spiritual, emotional and artistic characteristics of pre-war Expressionism – put simply, ‘inward looking’.60 Formative in this respect was the approach of art critic, Franz Roh (1890–1965), whose apologist attempt at categorizing inner emigration as a form of ‘anti-Nazi spiritual/mental position’ (anti-nationalsozialitische Geisteshaltung) in 1962 set the trend for aligning inner emigration with forms of interiority.61 While artists tried to rebuild their careers, uneasy periods of inner emigration were therefore often downplayed. The West’s approach has had long-term consequences for shaping attitudes towards inner emigration and art. Harvard Art Museums’ extensive study of works by many little-known inner émigré artists for the exhibition ‘Iventur – Art in Germany, 1943– 55’ in 2018 drew attention to the fact that histories of German art often begin in 1945, thereby enforcing a form of artificial caesura, as if to ignore the period immediately before this.62 The assumption widely remains that ‘inner’ emigration was tantamount to interiority and that artists ‘tamed’ their work in order to evade Nazi censorship. Their production was therefore either too diffuse to be critical (work was deliberately non-confrontational such as landscapes or still lives), it was ‘cryptic’ and ‘personal’, or simply focused on art for art’s sake (material form and surface to the detriment of subject matter or content).63 In addition, if works remained in the private sphere (in other words, they were not publicly exhibited), artists could not make valid claims to forms of dissent. As a result, it is the agitational photomontages by the émigré artist, John Heartfield (1891–1968), or the realist intensity of press illustrations of the popular front by Max Lingner (1888–1959) for Paris’ weekly newspaper Monde

 Berlin 1947 – Going Solo 55

Figure 2.4 John Heartfield, S. M. Adolf – Ich führe Euch herrlichen Pleiten entgegen (Kaiser Adolf: The Man Against Europe), photomontage. Gravure printing, page size 36 × 28 centimetres, Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung (AIZ), XI, no. 34; 21 August 1932, 795 © bpkBildagentur; © The Heartfield Community of Heirs / DACS, London, 2021.

that are widely heralded as successful articulations of resistance (Figure 2.4).64 John Heartfield’s photomontages mocking Hitler were reproduced on many anti-fascist magazine covers throughout the 1930s including Picture Post and the communist paper the Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung, first from Berlin, and after April 1933, from Prague. Thousands potentially saw these images. At its height in popularity in 1932, the print run of the AIZ amounted to some 500,000 copies.65 Yet, as John Klapper has more recently pointed out, the actual oppositional value of work produced in exile in practical terms was often limited.66 Returning to the Western newspaper reviews of Mammen’s work, helps explain why art critics Werner, Linfert and Redslob downplayed the political potential of her art in the immediate post-war period. The labelling of her work as ‘postExpressionist’, ‘Cubist’ or ‘abstract’ by critics and subsequent scholars is problematic and misleadingly implies a narrow focus on painterly surface and introspection. Her pictorial references to Picasso’s more recent political works such as Guernica, noted previously, were (deliberately?) ignored. Picasso’s own connections to the Communist Party, which he made clear in 1943, also potentially influenced the West’s reluctance to consider his work beyond the formal.67 In addition, the reviews of Mammen’s exhibition paid no attention to her extraordinary survival as an inner émigré. Questions relating to forms of resistance – what was, and was not possible under such

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restrictive conditions – remained unanswered. And as far as critics and editors like Girnus, writing for party-political mouthpiece Neues Deutschland, were concerned, therefore, Mammen’s anti-fascism simply did not exist. These fundamental absences demonstrate the more widespread selective awareness that occurred. As Dorothea Schöne explains, the flawed process of denazification meant that no real attempt was made to engage with inner emigration, or the public role played by artists, collectors and curators working with or, indeed, against National Socialism.68

Ulenspiegel One review of Mammen’s Rosen exhibition appeared in the important colour journal, Ulenspiegel: Literatur, Kunst, Satire (Ulenspiegel [a play on folk hero Till Eulenspiegel]: Literature, Art, Satire) (1945–50). The review is worth exploring briefly, as Ulenspiegel was one of the very few publications that came close to foregrounding the social, even potentially resistant, relevance of Mammen’s artwork. In addition, the journal makes clear that cultural debates did not just take place at an intellectual level among wellknown critics and political figures. Rather, art became a matter of national importance, widely discussed among the German public. ‘Was in Deutschland kaum Jemand kennt. Die Malerei von Jeanne Mammen’ (What Hardly Anyone Knows in Germany. The Paintings of Jeanne Mammen) by Wolfgang Weyrauch – a prominent writer for both the Frankfurter and Vossische Zeitung – appeared in Ulenspiegel in February 1947 to coincide with her Rosen exhibition. The short article was one of a series that attempted to re/introduce readers to artists such as Ernst Ludwig Kircher, Paula Modersohn-Becker and Heinz Trökes. Weyrauch’s article included two images from the Rosen exhibition: the painting of a male rider on a horse from c. 1943 to 1945 and Ballerina (Figure 2.5). His positive assessment of Mammen’s work agreed with that of other Western critics. However, his description of her work differed in that he made claims about its dissenting intent: Jeanne Mammen does not stay up there in her studio under the roof, she goes out into the streets, then she carries her finds back and starts working on them. No doubt, this X-ray art [Röntgenkunst] is neither aimless nor easy to come by. This is not couch-art [Sofakunst]. The nature of Mammen’s paintings makes us think, think about our constraints [Geschnürtheit] and breathlessness, about causes and those who cause. [. . .] By awakening and guiding our thoughts she becomes the great artist she is.69

In contrast with other reviews, then, Weyrauch suggests that Mammen’s work was expressly linked to, and engaged with, her repressive circumstances, offering us answers regarding ‘causes and those who cause’. The emphasis of Weyrauch’s review might be explained in the wider context of Ulenspiegel. Published fortnightly and initially under American licence, the journal was founded by two inner émigrés, the satirical artist Herbert Sandberg, and the writer Günter Weisenborn, both of whom had been prohibited from working and

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Figure 2.5  Invitation to a discussion by Ulenspiegel at the Volkshaus in Berlin-Wilmersdorf, 11 November 1946, with Jeanne Mammen’s painting Ballerina, undated, c. 1943–5, tempera on cardboard, 100 × 70  centimetres. Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin; Inv.-Nr.: SM 2018-09216. Photo: © Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin.

had also endured periods of internment.70 The journal stood out, as it was not afraid to tackle uncomfortable subjects. Along with its regular dose of puzzles, poetry and jokes, the reader might expect to find polemical articles (and illustrations) on subjects including inner emigration, exile, Allied occupation, collective guilt and concentration camps. It also printed contributions by émigré authors such as Erich Kästner, Thomas Mann, Bertolt Brecht and Alfred Döblin, publishing some of their first, post-war commentaries. The inclusion of other examples of Mammen’s work created during inner emigration in the journal, therefore, appears to endorse its potential to engage with pressing issues that Weyrauch recognized. One featured drawing, for example, depicts a prim nurse in uniform sitting awkwardly on a chair. She clasps a large spoon that she aggressively thrusts at the viewer. The image is given the caption, ‘Die junge Demokratie’ (The Young Democracy), which makes a play on Germany’s ailing condition under occupation (Figure 2.6).71 Mammen’s drawing appears alongside Friedrich Wolf ’s article, ‘Die Verschwörung der Ärzte’ (The Doctors’ Conspiracy), exposing the diminished state of the German healthcare system and, consequently, could be interpreted quite literally here too. To date, little scholarship on the journal exists from an art historical perspective.72 This is surprising given the crucial role the visual, and specifically, political satire played, in shaping the journal’s appearance. A3 in size, Ulenspiegel contained many colour images by prominent artists including Otto Dix, Oskar Nerlinger and Karl Hofer. In contrast to

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Figure 2.6 Jeanne Mammen, untitled (Krankenschwester IV) (Nurse IV), undated, c. 1939–45, pencil, 60.5 × 44.5  centimetres. Private owner. Ulenspiegel, 4, no. 3, February 1948, 2, image caption: ‘Die junge Demokratie’ (The Young Democracy). Photo: © JeanneMammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin.

the newspapers and reviews discussed thus far in this chapter, the journal sought to rise above partisan or zonal commentary. This approach was also reflected in its attitudes towards art: it made a consolidated effort to re/introduce all kinds of art to the public, by both modern and contemporary German and non-German artists. Even if National Socialism was not the only reason for an open distaste for modern and contemporary art in post-war Germany, it had certainly helped encourage it. In response to the 1946 General German Art Exhibition in Dresden, where two of Mammen’s works were on display, 65 per cent of the 74,000 visitors claimed they did not like what they saw on show and would like National Socialist art back again.73 According to Franz Roh, the removal of much modern art from public view (certainly after 1937) meant that a type of ‘memory loss’ (Gedächtnisverlust) had occurred and museum-goers were simply no longer equipped with the (cognitive) tools to understand it.74 A satirical collage by Hans Thiemann, featured in Ulenspiegel, brought some of the issues to the fore. Outraged Visitors at the Exhibition ‘Revolutionary Painting’, March 2048 (1948) might be understood as a comment not only on the destruction of modern art by the Nazis, but also, more fundamentally, about the type of narrow viewing politics that had developed over the last twelve years (Figure 2.7).75 Outraged Visitors shows a group of figures in an art gallery depicted in the characteristic styles of Giorgio de Chirico, Paul Klee, Joan Miró, Marc Chagall, Picasso and Oskar Schlemmer. They

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Figure 2.7  Hans Thiemann, Empörte Besucher in der Ausstellung ‘Revolutionäre Malerei’ März 2048 (Outraged Visitors at the Exhibition ‘Revolutionary Painting’ March 2048), 1948, collage, opaque colours and ink on paper, 34 × 44 centimetres. Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin. © Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin. Photo: © Markus Hawlik.

appear dismayed by the mediocre forms of naturalism (mostly the female figure) that comprise the subject of almost all the artworks in the room. The artworks are, in fact, collage images that Thiemann inserted into the watercolour. Klee’s figure – arms thrown in the air and mouth aghast – runs near the exit. Picasso’s contorted figure screams in anguish, while Chagall’s seems to punch one of the paintings. The selection of works on display could be one of any number of official Great German Art Exhibitions held by the Nazis between 1937 and 1944. The significant inclusion of ‘2048’ in the title, however, is Thiemann’s satirical take on a grim future if the contemporary narrowmindedness towards art were to persist. Just how far Ulenspiegel supported Mammen’s work is made clear by its already using her painting of a biomorphic ballerina figure on the front of a flyer advertising one of the talks on modern and contemporary art that the journal organized (Figure 2.5). In November 1946, three months before her solo exhibition, the journal hosted the discussion, ‘What is this supposed to be? What can Expressionism and Surrealism tell us today?’, which took place at the Volkshaus in Wilmersdorf led by the philosopher Wolfgang Harich and the artist Oskar Nerlinger. No typescripts from the discussion exist. Suffice to say, however, it is likely to have followed the similar tone of the journal in its attempts to rally public support for art, forging a middle ground between realism and abstraction, but from the vantage point of the latter.

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Mammen’s response There is little evidence to show how the artist herself reacted to the reception of her work, or the public debates about art during this period. Given the proximity of her studio apartment to Galerie Rosen, we can assume with certainty that she knew about and, indeed, witnessed first-hand, some of the controversy the Galerie Rosen exhibitions attracted. Comments in letters to close friends reveal her admixture of excitement and frustration: Pictures can make people sick, drive them mad, even kill! Perhaps mental bacteria and viruses sit on their surface lustfully awaiting to drill their way into the victim’s brain. We experience similar responses all the time in our exhibitions, where sculptures are smashed, pictures are scribbled on or smeared and wounded by secret stabs. What kind of life flourishes in these ruins!76

Drawing analogies between bacteria and art probably struck a chord with the recipient of this letter, her friend, the microbiologist Max Delbrück. At the same time, describing responses to art in such visceral terms betrays her frustration at the enduring forms of Nazi iconoclasm among exhibition-goers. Indeed, she had already noted several months previously that ‘Nazi stupification’ (Naziverblödung) was still rife.77 Her description of the reviews of her solo exhibition to Steffie Schaefer-Nathan, the following year, is characterized by similarly destructive metaphors. She quoted a review as stating, ‘if something like this [Mammen’s artwork] was created during the last 12 years, it would have been better if a bomb had shown mercy for it’.78 It appears that she was pleased, nonetheless, with how her solo exhibition had turned out: ‘Enclosed I’m sending you [Delbrück] a view from my exhibition. Magnificent, don’t you think?’ (Saubere Sache, nicht?)79 The artist is perhaps referring to the four-page leaflet with five black-and-white reproductions accompanying the exhibition with Mammen’s polyperspective head on the cover. Given the scarcity and poor quality of paper after the war – exhibition ‘catalogues’ were in fact slim brochures/leaflets (Faltblatt) – her comment suggests that she was somewhat amazed by the caliber of the marketing material nonetheless. Of all the commercial galleries in Berlin during this period, Rosen was unusual in that it consistently produced posters and small brochures showcasing its exhibitions. Indeed, in a previous letter to Delbrück, Mammen described how books had become just another product sold on the black market and turning the antiquarian booksellers into ‘poor lunatics with the prices’ (arme Irren).80 Mammen clearly read exhibition reviews closely. Comments in letters indicate that she had also internalized some of the critical views of her own work. In describing the painting Trumpeting Cockerel (c. 1943) in a letter to Delbrück, for example, she characterizes the work in light-hearted terms alluding to critical remarks about it: and a [. . .] cock-a-doodle-doo monster that is blowing the trumpet, holding a saber sitting on a horse. The horse sticks his tongue out and has lots of teeth. There are people who maintain that it swallowed a piano and the remains of the keyboard have not yet been choked down.81

 Berlin 1947 – Going Solo 61 As suggested earlier, the painting was potentially politically motivated, a point entirely lost on critics. Conversely, it was only the ‘odd’ appearance of the beast and the horse’s teeth that seemed to catch their imagination. One review of the group exhibition ‘Nach 12 Jahren’ – in which Mammen showed twenty-six works – appears to have infuriated her in particular. ‘Kunstschau des Volksbildungsamtes Steglitz’ (The Art Exhibition at the Office of Public Education Steglitz) was published in the Tägliche Rundschau, a newspaper that was initially distributed for free by the Soviet Army. The polemical review, written by ‘Seng’, attacked the exhibition stating that Mammen’s work demonstrated the ‘crassest levels of Cubism’, dismissing it further as Unfettered form, devoid of any idea, yes, due to the nonsensical manner of representation of every idea. For example, like in the pictures, ‘Life’ and ‘War’, strangling and killing have no place in the art of the future. This is most evident in ‘War’, a subject that has hardly faded away as an experience, captivating a mass audience, distorted here into nonsense through the expressionist type of representation.82

Mammen’s handwritten comments, in French and German, at the bottom of a newspaper article in her archive, reveal the extent of her annoyance at Seng’s dismissal of the exhibits: X’elle [sic] n’a même pas vu que C’était du plâtre! Heb dies bitte auf! Die Kritikerin ist eine 20-jährige Gans. [sic] (She did not even see that it is made of plaster! Keep this! The female critic is a 20-year-old goose.) (Figure 2.8)

Figure 2.8 Cartoon strip ‘Bäbchens Abenteuer – Moderne Kunst-Ausstellung’ (Bäbchen’s Adventures – Modern Art Exhibition), Tägliche Rundschau, July 1945, with Jeanne Mammen’s handwritten comments on it and an article printed on the same page, ‘Kunstschau des Volksbildungsamtes Steglitz’ by Seng. Photo: © Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin.

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The sculptor Otto Placzek’s works were made of plaster, not marble, which Seng mistakenly wrote in her review. The artist’s emphasis on Seng’s youth implies that the critic probably knew little beyond the types of art produced over the last twelve years. As a result, Seng, along with great swathes of the German public, had simply lost their ability to meaningfully engage with art, just as Thiemann’s collage in Ulenspiegel would so cleverly satirize several years later.83 It is noteworthy that Mammen’s comment appeared partly in French. This not only suggests the potential distancing of herself – and by implication her opinions on art – from the current German context but also that she perhaps shared this article with the exhibition’s organizer, Uhlmann, an avid Francophile. The cartoon strip, ‘Bäbchen’s Adventures – Modern Art Exhibition’, printed under the review reinforces Seng’s criticism. In marked contrast to Thiemann’s image depicting a group of horrified artists to a gallery, it, instead, shows the average visitor, ‘Bäbchen’, standing in front of an abstract painting called House by the Lake. Unsure which way around to look at the work, he does a handstand in the hope of understanding it better upside down. Beside it Mammen has written, ‘an adequate joke’ (ein adäquater Witz). In summer 1945 such jokes were seemingly already wearing thin. However, as this chapter has demonstrated, Seng and ‘Bäbchen’ would ultimately become one of many responses in the press debating the relevance of modern and contemporary art with which Mammen would have to contend.

Conclusion After the Second World War, the reception of art became inherently linked with political, moral and ethical debates. By staging an exhibition based solely upon her most recent work, Galerie Gerd Rosen was making an important statement regarding Mammen’s contemporary importance and relevance as an inner émigré artist. Attempts were likewise made by the journal Ulenspiegel to promote her work along with other Rosen contemporaries. But convincing the German public proved difficult. Mammen’s painterly modernism had become a double-edged sword; on the one hand, her work was ‘rediscovered’ and celebrated by Western Allies because of its nonconformity to National Socialism, but on the other, repeated emphasis on abstraction and her stylistic affinities with Picasso undermined the possibilities of her work symbolizing anything more consequential in terms of political dissent. At a time when modern and contemporary art became a politicized matter, paradoxically neither the East nor the West considered Mammen’s work to be politically motivated. Through an extended flashback structure, Chapters 3 and 4 explore the ways in which her work and her withdrawal from public life should, in fact, be understood as deliberate forms of private protest.

3

National Socialism and private dissent

It [Berlin] then became more ‘cosmopolitan’ again, 1920, I think it was. Until Hitler appeared with the new chaos, with which we are still all struggling. (Jeanne Mammen, 1971)1

Introduction When Hitler became chancellor of Germany on 30 January 1933, Mammen was forty-three years old. She had lived in her studio apartment for over a decade and forged a successful career as a commercial graphic artist. As Chapter 1 explained, her watercolour drawings in the popular press helped shape representations of the new woman. The height of her career, thus far, saw her solo exhibition at Galerie Gurlitt in 1930 and the subsequent commission of the lithographic suite The Songs of Bilitis (1930–2). However, over the next few years, she saw the city around her rapidly change. The following two chapters turn their attention towards artworks Mammen created during her twelve-year inner emigration. As previously established, the term inner emigration (innere Emigration) has a troubled history, which heavily influenced the post-war context in which Mammen’s artworks created during the 1930s and early 1940s were initially shown. A number of different terms are used to describe the stance of those who remained in Germany and sought to distance themselves from the Nazi Party and National Socialist ideologies, including ‘inner realm’ (inneres Reich), ‘nonconformity’ (Nonkonformität), ‘refusal’ (Verweigerung), ‘immunity’ (Resistenz) and ‘resistance’ (Widerstand).2 The term itself and its derivative, ‘inner emigrant’, are also misleading. Implicit in the prefix ‘inner’ is the assumption of interiority, and ‘emigrant’ implies travel away from a country.3 Despite its shortfalls, the term, nonetheless, remains a useful way of describing the complexities of the emigrant existence – through loss of livelihood, prohibitions, public defaming – endured by many artists who did not conform to National Socialism.4 After 1933, Mammen gave up her livelihood as a commercial artist and remained in her studio apartment working under the radar. However, in what unfolds, I show that she was not isolated. When asked later in life about this period, Mammen said little. Few letters and no diaries exist. Statements regarding Hitler’s ‘chaos’, noted at the outset of this chapter, are rare. She was neither condemnatory nor full of praise for inner émigrés. In fact, she never used the term to describe her own experience, or that of any of her contemporaries.

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Although Mammen was not politically active after the autumn of 1933, her inner emigration was born out of her hostility and contempt towards National Socialism from the outset. Taking inner emigration as an oppositional starting point, therefore, the following two chapters explore the ways in which Mammen’s artwork, and her means of artistic survival, should be considered forms of dissent.5 The first part of this chapter examines the straightforward nonconformist style of Mammen’s artworks in relation to National Socialist cultural policy. In addition, it analyses her translation of French literature, arguing that the artist deliberately explored forms of literature concomitant to her artworks in defiance of officially endorsed mimetic styles of art. Using the concept of ‘camouflage’, this chapter investigates the critical ambiguities of the subject matter of Mammen’s paintings. The second part of this chapter moves the discussion beyond image immanent analysis by considering how the artist worked, with whom she associated and whether her artworks can legitimately be considered dissenting if they remained in the private sphere. I argue they can. The private sphere, too, produced positional and strategic identities: Mammen’s work rejected official cultural forms, while at the same time, as a member of the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts, she tactically remained part of the Nazi Party’s centralized systems. I suggest that, by doing so she represented a type of ‘third position’ – a position that was somewhere between the polarities of public resistance and acquiescent conformity. The role of gender politics in relation to this position is also considered. The prominence of Picasso in this chapter and the next should be noted at this point. Mammen’s engagement with Picasso’s work needs to be read against the grain, which helps open up the dissenting meaning of her own work and takes it beyond formal imitation and introspection rehearsed in the reviews of post-war critics discussed in the previous chapter. The role Picasso played for Mammen – as a modernist artist, a contemporary in Paris and, indeed, as the anti-fascist painter of Guernica – remains essential to understanding her own nonconformity. Considering the artist’s engagement with his work also sheds light not only on how an inner émigré artist continued to be motivated and informed by continental modernism but also on how far modernist art continued to develop in Germany under the radar. *  *  * The artwork Mammen created during the peacetime years is the focus of what follows. Chapter 4 then turns towards her experience as an artist after the outbreak of the Second World War.

National Socialism and art

During the early 1930s, Mammen’s work is briefly drawn into debates regarding the establishment of a distinct cultural heritage as part of the rise of the right. Although the idea of establishing a Kulturnation was not a new one, it was, as Corey Ross reminds us, ‘particularly acute in Germany, where the idea had long been celebrated as a surrogate to actual political unification prior to 1870’.6 In a political system that tried to present itself as united, art’s defining purpose was the promotion of German racial purity and

 National Socialism and Private Dissent 65 national unity. Its central importance was consolidated by the state’s first, substantial architectural project – establishing the House of German Art (Haus der Deutschen Kunst). From 1937 onwards, this new gallery would become the home of the annual Great German Art Exhibitions. Yet, up until this time, it remained wholly unclear as to what style this officially sanctioned art should take. While Joseph Goebbels and the painter and leader of the National Socialist German Students’ League (Nationalsozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund), Otto Andreas Schreiber, explored the possibility of reconciling Expressionism with National Socialism, Alfred Rosenberg’s anti-modernist Militant League for German Culture (Kampfbund für Deutsche Kunst) considered the classicizing, figurative style (based broadly on naturalism) a more apposite mode of representation.7 For Rosenberg and his followers, German art should not imitate foreign art (fremde Kunst) and less value should be attributed to the ‘newest’ (avantgarde) art. Instead, the Nordic painterly tradition should be promoted. Many of these ideas found credence in the press, which saw mounting articles by art critics, artists and museum directors discussing the so-called ‘art crisis’ (Kunstkrise) – a noticeable decline in public interest for art and plummeting sales. The 1929 Depression notwithstanding, for conservative critics, including Rosenberg, foreign art (in particular, abstract art) was to blame.8 For others, notably the Dresden artist-cum-art critic, Bettina FeistelRohmeder, it was, in fact, the very ‘un-German’ style of New Objectivity that drove audiences away from museums.9 The protracted nature of these debates led some artists to believe that their work would ultimately be accepted by the regime and that they would be able to make a positive contribution. Others hoped to gain support from the state’s generous financial rewards. And indeed, some (modernists) did. Three years after they came to power, German audiences would still have encountered works by both Expressionist and New Objectivity artists such as Erich Heckel, Rudolf Belling, Max Beckmann, Karl Hofer, Max Pechstein, Hans Grundig and Otto Dix in public collections.10 Despite their aims, therefore, the artwork both produced and exhibited under the National Socialists was far from monolithic. Mammen’s artwork was caught up in these early disputes. In March 1933, her work had been shown in a group exhibition at the Berlin Women Artists Association (Verein der Berliner Künstlerinnen: VdBK).11 The exhibition was vehemently attacked in the nationalist newspaper Völkischer Beobachter (Racial Observer), whose editor was Rosenberg. A sarcastic report by an author under the initials F. B. stated: The full glory is housed in two small rooms and the participation is just as meager as the quality [of the artwork]. With few exceptions the Flechtheim spirit is represented. And even in those exceptions the subject is Jewish: ‘Negros from Liberia’ (are of course not absent), ‘Arthur Schnitzler’, ‘Girl in a Blue Corset’, ‘Chinese Woman’, ‘Ethiopian Woman’ etc. The names in the catalogue leave little to the imagination. We read Erna Pinner, Jeanne Mammen, Gertrud Koref, Julie Wolfthorn, Milly Steger, and it goes on until Käthe Münzer-Neumann, who, despite her good relations with a Jewish critic did not manage to get into the Kronprinzen-Palais, although she is just as purebred a Jewess as Else Lasker-Schüler. [. . .] The aristocratic ladies and

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The extent to which art criticism and anti-Semitism – levelled specifically at Jewish art dealer Alfred Flechtheim – had already become interconnected is made clear here. Mammen was not Jewish, but the subject matter of much of her work was enough to see her associated with the forms of so-called political chaos and sexual degeneration analogous with Weimar urbanism. But despite this, the exhibition review was the only time Mammen was expressly criticized in the Völkischer Beobachter, or by the right-wing press. In fact, another review of the same exhibition in the more liberal Berliner Zeitung praises Mammen as ‘a valuable artist’ (eine wertvolle Künstlerin).13 As the debates on modern art escalated, there is also no evidence to suggest that Mammen was ever officially prohibited from working and exhibiting. Nevertheless, as will become clear, the artist never sought artistic acceptance nor, as the derogatory review in the Völkischer Beobachter suggests, would she ever have achieved it. Her neusachlich work was not part of the classicizing wing of Magic Realism, unlike that of contemporaries Franz Radziwill, Alexander Kanoldt, Franz Lenk and Georg Schrimpf. She stood little chance, therefore, of being heralded as an heir to the legacy of German Romanticism, as some of these artists were. Indeed, some also enjoyed degrees of recognition as part of the naturalist tendency that would ultimately become the dominant style of art. And with that, party attempts at consolidating Nordic Expressionism had finally come to an end. Like many of the other exhibition reviews in which her work was featured, Mammen kept the Völkischer Beobachter report. Written across the top of it in her handwriting are the words ‘teutsche Kunstkritik!!!’ (German art criticism!!!). The German ‘t’ is significant, for it denotes the obsolete spelling of ‘Deutsch’ (German), and in this context is presumably used ironically to imply ‘deutscher als deutsch’ ([it is] more German than German). Written here, it signals the artist’s vexation at the oldfashioned and völkisch-national attitude of the report and its insults. From very early on then, the artist was clear that she did not want to be associated with the nationalist sentiments behind this type of critique.

Early political resistance Even before they were officially in power, Nazi attacks on art rapidly increased the pressing issue of whether many artists would leave or stay in Germany.14 Mammen did not emigrate in 1933 during the first wave of emigrants, nor did she go with the second in 1938. Instead, she went into inner emigration. Why she decided to remain in Germany and Berlin is not known. Perhaps she hoped the anonymity of the capital city would keep her safe.15 Artists stayed for various reasons. Beyond the hope of finding acclaim in the new state, many did not want to leave their studios, while others simply had nowhere else to go. Mammen had already experienced the dramatic upheaval of her family’s enforced move from Paris (back) to Berlin at the beginning of the First World War. While many artists who remained in Germany after

 National Socialism and Private Dissent 67 1933 endured similar sets of restrictions, a distinction should be noted between those artists who were forced through professional prohibitions, such as Otto Dix, and those, like Jeanne Mammen, who deliberately withdrew from public life of their own accord. Dix, as Olaf Peters argues, was an inner émigré ‘of a kind’. In other words, Dix was not a pure inner emigrant ‘type’, for want of a better term. His career demonstrates that the dividing line between inner emigration, opportunism and collaboration was often an uneasy one.16 His work was removed from public museums, and he was dismissed from his professorial position, but those factors did not in themselves constitute inner emigration or, indeed, automatically mean that an artist was anti-Nazi.17 Moreover, despite such restrictions, Dix was, in fact, still able to exhibit until the early 1940s. Critics therefore might well argue that his public exhibiting alone contributed to a ‘stabilization’ of the cultural field under the Nazis. However, crucially, he did actively seek to criticize National Socialism in his works and by doing so, demonstrates dissenting intent. As Reinhold Grimm persuasively explains, inner emigration must equate to a recognizable posture of opposition – ambivalence is not enough – but a differentiated approach that focuses on the everyday realities [of an individual artist] is nonetheless essential.18 Unlike Dix, Mammen’s refusal to conform was unambiguous and demonstrative. Her motivations for public withdrawal were certainly political. Relying just on her statements regarding this period (the few we have), which were made very much later in life, is nonetheless problematic. Artists often ‘wittingly or unwittingly misrepresented and concealed what actually transpired during this period’.19 Evidence of Mammen’s aversion towards National Socialism might be sought in her liberal, left-leaning sympathies, as well as in her attitude towards mass forms of cultural and political life. It was probably the artist’s friendship with sculptor Hans Uhlmann that motivated her alignment with the left during the early 1930s. Mammen and Uhlmann met at evening life-drawing classes at the Abendaktstudio Erdmann on Kantstraße during the late 1920s.20 During the day, Uhlmann worked as a teacher of engineering at the Technical Institute of Berlin-Charlottenburg (Technische Hochschule Charlottenburg: now the Technical University of Berlin). The paths of both artists crossed several times during this period and a friendship developed. Both had solo exhibitions at Galerie Gurlitt in 1930 and later featured in a group exhibition organized by the gallery in 1932. In addition, as Chapter 1 explored, Uhlmann also helped Mammen with the book-trolley on the corner of Wielandstraße the following autumn. Uhlmann was a committed communist. After the First World War, he was linked to the revolutionary November Group (Novembergruppe) and his diaries indicate his interest in agitprop.21 Although Berlin was a communist stronghold in the early 1930s, Mammen never joined the Communist Party. In 1932, she nonetheless contributed a series of drawings to the Deutsche Zentral-Zeitung, a communist newspaper published in Moscow for German émigrés living in Russia.22 She and Uhlmann had also visited Moscow together that same year. Her ink drawing, The Mask, featured in an article entitled ‘Berliner Momentbilder, Naziterror und Polizeiattacken’ (Berlin Snapshots, Nazi Terror and Police Attacks), which reported on the increased political violence on Berlin’s streets (Figure 3.1).23 It depicts a small group of proletariat men in heated discussion, standing in front of an advertising column plastered with propaganda

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Figure 3.1 Jeanne Mammen, untitled (Die Maske) (The Mask), undated, c. 1932, ink drawing, original size and whereabouts unknown. ‘Berliner Momentbilder, Naziterror und Polizeiattacken’ (Berlin Snapshots, Nazi Terror and Police Attacks), Deutsche Zentral-Zeitung, Moscow 7, no. 209, 11 September 1932, 4, Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin; Inv.-Nr.: SM 2018-09222. Photo: © Stefanie Schulze-Buschhoff, Paretz.

posters for the NSDAP and the SPD (Social Democratic Party). The article is significant for two reasons. First, we might interpret Mammen’s contribution to such a newspaper as indicative of her own political sympathies. Second, the article points towards the problematic relationship between the media and politics, which directly impacted on Mammen’s livelihood as a graphic artist. The article bemoans the vast sums of money that the Nazi Party was spending on its political campaign. In her drawing, Mammen shows the men deliberately turning their backs on an advertising column. Once a symbol of mass consumer ‘freedoms’, this column, instead, becomes a new tool for galvanizing an emerging mass electorate. As mass media and politics began to move ever closer together, the artist responded by deliberately withdrawing her work from magazines. She told the publishing house of Simplicissimus in Munich that she was ‘now otherwise engaged’ and would no longer provide them with any work.24 From the outset, the press played a fundamental role in helping the National Socialists consolidate power and, indeed, sustain it. It acted as a way of controlling the people and was therefore swiftly brought into line (Gleichschaltung) under the control of the centrally organized Reich Chamber of Culture (Reichskulturkammer: RKK). The chamber was set up in September 1933 and exercised control over all means of communication. However, this did not mean crudely ‘shouting the virtues’ of Nazi Party ideals at readers of popular magazines.25 Party methods were subtler than this. Attention was diverted away from the regime’s brutalities through reassuring, pleasurable and amusing article topics. Many of the magazines to which Mammen had previously contributed, such as Simplicissimus and Die Dame, continued to flourish during the 1930s.26 In fact, her watercolours were still appearing in Simplicissimus (most probably without her consent) in March 1934, over a year after the Nazis had come to power. Mammen’s resolve to withdraw her commercial works was entirely her own and should be understood as a deliberate anti-Nazi act, which likewise reinforced her ambivalence towards mass cultural forms. Having worked for the press for over a decade, she was aware of the editorial methods of ‘persuasion’ and, therefore, we

 National Socialism and Private Dissent 69 might reasonably assume, did not wish her work to conform to its now increasingly paranational message. What a bold move this was should not be underestimated. The years between 1928 and 1933 had been the artist’s most productive. By turning her back on the press, she effectively lost her entire income overnight. In autumn 1933, Mammen’s anti-Nazi feelings became clearer still. In October she and Uhlmann proceeded to distribute anti-fascist leaflets for the communist newspaper Die Rote Fahne. This was an extraordinary act of defiance in the light of the current political radicalization and purges. The quashing of political dissenters, and in particular the left wing, happened with frightening efficiency as the Nazi Party moved to extend and consolidate its power in the spring of 1933. The February Reichstag fire was blamed on the left, legitimizing the mass arrests of communists and social democrats, and the Communist Party was the first to be outlawed.27 The left-wing press was also quickly shut down. Die Rote Fahne called a general strike and was immediately banned.28 Hastily made concentration camps outside of Berlin in Oranienburg were used to detain unwanted communists, trade union leaders and socialists.29 Moreover, it was Kurfürstendamm, where Mammen continued to live and work, which saw some of the most furious political attacks during these early years.30 There is no explanation by the artist herself as to why she and Uhlmann potentially risked their own lives to distribute such material. But like other artists who signed petitions and letters against the rise of Hitler, we can only assume that their public act of defiance was born out of sheer conviction and the desperation to try and stop what was rapidly becoming a dangerous reality. In May of that year, the German Students Union (Deutsche Studentenschaft) ransacked libraries and bookshops across Germany to purge and burn ‘Un-German’ books. Although the National Socialists failed in entirely eradicating books by banned authors across Germany, scholars argue that this was nonetheless a ‘defining’ moment for culture, which saw the politics of conformity inextricably linked with forms of violent exclusion.31 The effects of this were almost certainly felt by Mammen. Besides the potential impact the rise of the right had on her lithographic suite, Bilitis (1930–2), discussed previously, other erotic publications in which her work appeared were presumably also gathered up and burnt in the purge of the Institute for Sexual Science. The idea, therefore, that the artist would simply conform to the narrow edicts imposed by the Nazi Party is hard to imagine. As Hans-Ernst Mittig has argued with regards to theories of social psychology, for artist professionals in particular, conformity to a series of external forces ran counter to forms of subjective creativity.32 Certainly for Mammen, Mittig’s argument holds weight. Her frank and, at times, uncompromising representations of the late 1920s and early 1930s had helped shape Berlin’s reputation as a refuge for anders Denkende (dissidents; those who thought outside of the box). She was certainly not afraid to work on the periphery of acceptability. However, under an authoritarian system that expressly defined itself through mass cohesion, some of the methods of the criticism that she developed during the 1930s were less conspicuous, as we will see. Uhlmann was arrested for his part in their distribution of leaflets in October 1933. He was placed in a Gestapo facility in Columbiahaus in Tempelhof for five weeks and was then transferred to a remand prison in Moabit. He then served a further eighteen months in Tegel prison. It is not known whether Mammen was with Uhlmann when

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his arrest occurred. While Uhlmann defiantly continued to draw in prison, Mammen stayed in her studio apartment and began to engage with Cubist realism as a form of artistic dissent.

A (re-)turn to Cubism No, painting was not invented to simply decorate apartment walls! Painting is a weapon in attack or in defence against the enemy (Pablo Picasso, 1945).33 Look at our holy Father Picasso: he was not afraid, but he had courage (Jeanne Mammen, 1975).34

The following twelve years became a period of intense artistic experimentation. Much of Mammen’s attention was directed towards painting large-scale works in tempera on cardboard. During the early to mid-1930s, she depicted several still lives potentially motivated by Paul Cézanne, Picasso and Braque and in which experiments into the conventions of pictorial illusionism became important. She began to wilfully play with dislocations of form, spatial illusion and perspective. Most of her work was developed in her studio apartment, where she arranged fruit, candles, flowers and musical instruments to paint. Already at the end of the 1920s, Mammen had begun to explore the distortion and refiguration of objects through reflection. Studio Interior depicts a glass bell jar, candlestick and glass in which colour and pattern function to heighten the ambiguities of the relationships between the solid volumes (see Colour Plate 15). The distance between the table’s surface and stool in the foreground appears to give way. In contrast, the line of the table edge, visible through the draped fabrics, exaggerates the interpenetration of objects. Like many of Mammen’s other still lives from this period, the overall effect is never incoherence. Rather, her works demonstrate a careful balancing of colour, texture and volume. In other works, there are also residual references to grid systems used to accentuate linear geometries as well as collage insertions. From the mid-1930s onwards, Mammen turned her attention more towards figures, creating works such as Juggler (1935–40) and Mother Clown with Child (Columbine) (c. 1935– 40) (see Colour Plates 12 and 13). The importance of Picasso for the conception of Mammen’s artworks during her inner emigration cannot be understated. By the 1930s, a nod in the direction of Cubism in an artwork was certainly a ‘habitual gesture for an international avant-garde’.35 But for Mammen, her conscious turn towards his work was synonymous with the fin de siècle Paris of her youth. As Chapter 1 explained, the artist continued to remain abreast of developments in France after she moved back to Berlin, returning to Paris in 1924 and as we will see, again in 1937.36 Mammen was a seventeen-year-old art student at the Académie Julian in 1907, when Picasso produced his groundbreaking painting Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. Cubism quickly rose to its height in terms of public notoriety thereafter. The development of such independent artistic apparatus symbolized a significant historical moment, which without a doubt, was important to Mammen’s own artistic subjectivity. As a student

 National Socialism and Private Dissent 71 of the private Académie, Mammen was part of an emergent generation of artists who were challenging the dominance of the École des Beaux-Arts and its prescriptive art forms. Indeed, the artist’s early sketchbooks show the extent to which the social and cultural diversity of areas such as Montmartre and Montparnasse inspired her drawings (see Figure 1.2 and Colour Plate 3). It was this environment that motivated much of Picasso’s Blue and Rose Periods too, with his images of absinthe drinkers and harlequins, columbines and punchinellos.37 For in Paris, like no other European city, the popularity of the clown figure and its potential for social critique persisted.38 It was this Parisian unorthodoxy that Mammen so craved upon her arrival back in Berlin during the First World War. Recalling her despondency later in life she described her initial encounter with Berlin, in which its streets appeared ‘pompous’ (pompös), with everything so ‘frosty’ (frostig) and ‘respectable’ (hochanständig). She went on, ‘Heaven forbid a Negro or Japanese person or someone with unkempt hair should dare walk down Kurfürstendamm’, sights with which she was presumably long familiar in Paris.39 After Picasso’s death in 1973, Mammen wrote in a letter to her painter friend, Hans Thiemann, ‘the whole heroic epoch [in Paris] is now over,’ and that in the modern age ‘My Paris is stone-dead [. . .] I shudder to read about all those cars, high-rise flats and metro stations etc.’40 These comments not only signal Picasso’s synonymity with Paris for the artist, but also the extent to which her own image of pre-war Paris was enduring. As a consequence, we might surmise that the city provided both a crucial counterpoint and an important means of (her) dissociation from Germany. Mammen tells us almost nothing about her artwork from this period. In other words, the real extent of her political motivations is therefore difficult to gauge. Her work nevertheless symbolized more than simple nostalgia. The artist herself made it very clear that her engagement with Picasso was, in fact, a response to her immediate environment, in other words, motivated by anti-Nazism in the first instance: ‘The end of my “realistic” period and a crossover into an aggressive style which breaks up the subject matter (in opposition to official cultural ideology).’41 There can be little doubt as to the legitimacy of such a claim. For despite the protracted debates regarding a national German style, upon their dislike of Picasso, the conservative critics were unanimous: his work was considered unambiguously ‘degenerate’. German enthusiasm for the Russian Revolution meant that the criticism of modernist (abstracted) art among right-leaning political camps remained particularly acute after the First World War and continued to do so under the Nazis.42 Hence the term ‘Picasso-art’ (PicassoKunst) quickly became synonymous with modernism from the continent.43 In Kunst und Rasse (Art and Race), published in 1928, the architect and art historian (later National Socialist advisor on culture to the Reich Interior Minister) Paul SchultzeNaumburg, reproduced untitled und undated examples of Picasso’s work alongside photographs of deformed infants and patients.44 This would become one of the first of many Nazi comparisons of modern art with madness. In Mein Kampf (1925–6), Hitler already blamed the ongoing ‘spiritual degeneration’ of culture on Cubism and Dadaism, labelling both ‘morbid excrescences of mad and degenerate people’.45 In a speech he made in 1929, he continued to single out both styles, proclaiming ‘we [Germans] don’t need your art, we don’t want it’, precisely because, he explained, it was ‘incomprehensible’.46 Any real understanding of Cubism’s, or, indeed, abstraction’s

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diversity, as a range of different pictorial spaces, was eradicated. In other words, as Charles Harrison has succinctly put it, what is ‘abstract’ at any given time is often based upon the expectations aroused by antecedent and contemporary figurative art.47 In the case of 1930s Germany, the National Socialist preference for the classicizing figurative style meant that Cubism and, more specifically, Picasso became synonymous with a negative state of ‘no depiction’ – a blanket ‘abstractness’. Mammen’s stylistic shift towards Cubist realism in the early 1930s signalled a compelling mode of nonconformity, well before the public consolidation of National Socialist cultural policy (in as far as there was one) with the opening of the first Great German Art Exhibition and its antithesis, the Degenerate Art exhibition, both held in Munich in 1937. Picasso’s work never appeared in this, or any other exhibitions of this type. Instead, many of his works were either burnt or sold to raise capital for war.48 Yet despite the fact that his work was not on public display in Germany, he continued to garner international attention and as we will see, his work maintained powerful critical currency among inner émigré and exile artists alike.

Camouflage I: Circus as criticism Among the artworks created during Mammen’s inner emigration, a number focus on circus and theatre performers (see Colour Plates 12–14).49 I contend that this subject matter was a deliberate form of critical camouflage, which operated beyond simple forms of stylistic nonconformity associated with Picasso. An analysis of her work in relation to similar themes by other inner émigré artists suggests that beyond an enduring history of subversion, circus and fool figures and their associations with the symbolic inversion of carnival or the theatre offered critical subtexts that were more widely understood. The figure of the clown, harlequin and pierrot – the clown’s tragic counterpart that develops out of French theatre – along with the Hanswurst or Narr (fool) figures in Germany, share a long history in philosophy and vernacular culture.50 While often possessing burlesque, crude and anarchic characteristics, the figure of the clown or fool symbolizes a ‘doublesidedness’, in that it is also burdened with revealing wisdom and truth. In addition, the figure usually stands outside of societal norms as a type of ‘underdog’, associated with events such as the fair, circus or the religious feast of carnival. These events represented a challenge – albeit within sanctioned frameworks – to prevailing forms of authority by the lower orders. This last point is important, for as the political scientist, James C. Scott, argues in his analysis of the different forms political resistance can take, ‘nothing illustrates the veiled cultural resistance of subordinate groups better than what have been termed trickster tales’. The popularity of such tales among serf, peasant or slave societies, Scott explains, means that the figure of the fool and clown often bear a ‘marked resemblance to the existential dilemma of subordinate groups’.51 Moreover, precisely because the figure is authorized, its various characterizations offered the types of critical ambiguity needed for someone (an inner émigré artist, for example) seeking to disguise open dissent in their work. As Barbara Correll explains, ‘[narratives involving the fool and clown] operated not only between

 National Socialism and Private Dissent 73 meanings: the said and the unsaid, but between receivers: ironists, interpreters, and targets.’52 As such, the figure had the potential to mock the very system of which it was part. Already as a young woman, Mammen was interested in the Francophone tradition of the pierrot, completing several watercolours depicting the melancholy figure. Mammen’s library contained books on artists James Ensor, Pieter Brueghel, Francisco Goya and Honoré Daumier, whose works depict pierrot and harlequin figures in similar critical frames of reference. In addition, she owned the collected works of François Rabelais, whose work is lauded by critics for its carnivalesque subversion, as well as copies of The Pranks of the Priest Ameis (1250), Hermann Bote’s Till Eulenspiegel (c. 1515) and Sebastian Brant’s Ship of Fools (1494), which also explore the concept of folly from folkloric and humanist traditions. These sources emphasize the figure’s pedagogic role by particularly exposing the greed, and gullibility, of the ruling authorities (often the Catholic Church).53 While the historical context of the pierrot and the Hanswurst are both very different, together, they nonetheless demonstrate the figure’s enduring significance as a revealer of moral truths. Yet, Mammen’s juggler, clown and columbine figures share little with the satirical abundance of the motley trickster Eulenspiegel, or the grotesque characters from an Ensor carnival parade. Instead, as noted previously, her figures appear isolated and troubled. They are seemingly powerless, caught in airless settings: the child clings to its mother, the clowns do not smile and the juggler’s ball rests on his hand. Their melancholy impression is precisely the point. Mammen uses the rich historical symbolism of clowns and fools as revealers here to signal the current political paralysis of Nazi Germany. Parallels might be drawn between the way in which Mammen’s artworks functioned and the rhetorical methods adopted by nonconformist inner émigré writers to condemn National Socialism. Writers used various devices, including historical narratives, fables, folklore and broadsheets as coded forms of critique. They built upon established methods, which foregrounded enduring moral messages, for example using animals to explore human relations, a device discussed in more detail in Chapter 4.54 In terms of a critical text, this meant that its ‘actual’ meaning was deliberately withheld to evade censorship and/or, ultimately, persecution of the author. In other words, the meaning or message was made beyond the text through wider cultural references the reader was expected to know. Given the fool’s long history, it is hardly surprising to find references to the figure Till Eulenspiegel in contemporary critical texts by inner émigrés, including the anti-Nazi political scientist and journalist, Dolf Sternberger (1907–89). His essay ‘Der Narr und der Weltlauf ’ (The Fool and the Way of the World) from 1935, published in Die Neue Rundschau, did not recount Eulenspiegel’s story, but, rather, used him to provide an analysis of how the figure could be understood to expose the language of power, as well as human fallibility.55 Sternberger’s analysis brought to the fore the ways in which historical figures associated with carnival and the circus offered forms of critical ambiguity that were entirely apposite for nonconformists working under authoritarian regimes. Described in exile studies as ‘concealed/concealing writing style’ (verdeckte/ verdeckende Schreibweise) or simply as ‘disguised’ or ‘camouflaged’ (getarnt/Tarnung), there are no equivalent terms in art history.56 This is perhaps surprising given the

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contemporary use of the term by the art critic Paul Westheim, to describe the Christological and allegorical paintings that enabled Otto Dix to seemingly criticize National Socialism.57 As scholars have since explored, Dix tempered both his style and his criticism just enough to ‘aesthetically immunize’ himself against further attack – even in the case of some of his works exhibited publicly – using narratives such as the Temptation of Saint Anthony and Saint Christopher, as well as metaphors of threatening landscapes to signal Nazi tyranny.58 While Mammen did not selfconsciously describe her own artistic practice as ‘camouflaged’, she did, in fact, later use the term to substantiate her reasoning for joining the Reich Chamber of Culture, as we will see. The term ‘camouflage’ was originally used during the First World War and takes its root from the French ‘camouflet’, which describes the use of gunpowder explosions to obfuscate enemy advances. As Maggie M. Cao explains, ‘it was the very forces of modernity (namely, conflict on a mass scale) that made camouflage into a preserve.’59 Given the restrictive conditions under which many nonconformist artists operated in Germany – fundamentally in fear of ‘being found out’– those forces seem particularly relevant here. As noted, Mammen’s involvement in political leaflet distribution meant that she had only narrowly escaped arrest in 1933, for which Hans Uhlmann served almost two years in prison. Explicit opposition came at a high price. And as one might expect, therefore, it is unusual to find artworks created in Germany that depicted overtly oppositional subject matter.60 Artworks can function as particularly effective forms of resistance all the same, argue Elizabeth Otto and Deborah Ascher Barnstone, precisely because of their inherent ambiguities of meaning, which ‘provides cover against potential persecution in certain instances, and [. . .] allows viewers to choose their level of engagement and understanding’.61 Mammen’s engagement with Picasso, then, was explicitly nonconformist. But she disguised other potential forms of criticism. The figure of the clown or folly can be taken to have no political significance whatsoever. In sum, the artist rarely directly attacked anybody or any concrete political symbols in her artworks. This, later, changed during the war, as the next chapter explores. A further reason to believe the dissident intent of Mammen’s artworks might be sought through her friendship with the journalist, publisher and artist Erich Kuby (1910–2005). After his conscription into the Wehrmacht (German armed forces), Kuby was posted in both the Western and Eastern fronts. But he remained an ardent antiNazi, and his contemporary diaries and letters reveal as much. He was imprisoned in 1942 for five months for slandering a sergeant and disobeying orders.62 Mammen explained in one of her letters sent to him on the front that she was reading about the life of Erasmus von Rotterdam.63 Given that their letter exchange was likely to have been checked, we might reasonably assume that this was a coded anti-Nazi comment relating to the current relevance of Erasmus’ work. Erasmus’ most famous treatise, In Praise of Folly (1511), comprises an over-long, self-praising sermon, which refuses any formal order of service delivered by ‘Stultitia’ (a female fool). Her speech functions as a satirical exposé of clerical oratory, and its mindless reiteration by the congregation, who ‘roar out their Psalms in church, like braying Asses (counting their prayers indeed, but understanding them not at all)’.64 Kuby was a cultured and well-read man. He was a great admirer of the work of Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine and Michel de

 National Socialism and Private Dissent 75 Montaigne; he and Mammen certainly shared interests.65 It is likely he would have understood the criticism implicit in Mammen’s reference. Indeed, Hitler’s distinct rhetorical style, interspersed with plenty of audience opportunities for ‘Sieg Heil’, must have seemed all too familiar in a military environment. Kuby also gave Mammen a copy of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace in 1940, a narrative that became popular among resisters. Tolstoy’s famous account of the Russian victory over the Napoleonic enemy acted as a cipher for the (hope of) Soviet defeat of the Germans.66 Mammen and Kuby, then, seem to have been aware of dissident texts and their potential for camouflage. Certainly, Mammen’s reading of Erasmus shows that she was exploring the work of important humanist writers, whose moral figures were concomitant with the critical subject matter of some of her artworks. But successful camouflage is predicated upon wider visibility. If camouflage were a total effect, this would mean failure. In other words, camouflage is always partial – a strange dialectic of in/visibility. Mammen was neither alone in her experimentation with Picasso among inner émigrés nor in her choice of subject matter. For example, in his triptych, 1000-Year-Reich (1935–8), Hans Grundig used a scene of carnival fervour in the left panel (completed in 1935) to show the brutal rise of the Nazis (Figure 3.2). With clear reference to the work of Bosch and Goya, a diabolical masquerade unfolds in front of an imposing city, perhaps Dresden, where the artist lived. Grundig uses references to the temporal and uncontrolled behaviour associated with carnival as

Figure 3.2  Hans Grundig, left panel, Carnival, from the triptych Das Tausendjährige Reich (1000-Year-Reich), 1935–8, 150 × 178 centimetres, oil on wood. Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden © DACS, London, 2021. Photo: © bpk-Bildagentur.

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a way of undermining Reich ideals of tradition and longevity.67 His triptych is very different to Mammen’s, not least in his Nazi criticism, which is probably more explicit. Nonetheless, working as part of the Association of Revolutionary Visual Artists (Assoziation revolutionärer bildender Künstler: ASSO), which managed to reform in depleted numbers, Grundig recalled his anger towards and shame for the regime. But discussing this openly, let alone painting it, Grundig realized, was difficult. Spies were never far away, ‘[with] eyes that hear and ears that see’, the artist claimed.68 The subject of carnival thus offered essential forms of ambiguity, for in 1936, Grundig was arrested and detained by the Gestapo for the first time. Closer stylistic similarities exist between Mammen and the Berlin artist, Walter Kröhnke (1903–44). Paintings such as The Violinist (1932/8), Violinist II (1932), Circus Folk (1933) and Troubadour (1932/8) appear to fuse the subjects of Picasso’s Blue and Rose Periods and the synthetic Cubist style of his later harlequin and pierrot paintings (Figure 3.3).69 Whether Mammen had any personal contact with Kröhnke, or knew his paintings, is unknown. There would have been opportunities to see his work publicly in Galerie Feldhäusser und Fritze in Berlin until 1936.70 And they also shared a mutual friend, Hans Uhlmann. No longer able to exhibit after this date, however, Kröhnke held small exhibitions in his studio and also tried to smuggle artworks out of Germany through friends and foreign artists.71 For Kröhnke, like Mammen, then, the figures of the harlequin and clown were a notable source of focus, suggesting that the subject also served as a coded form of criticism for the current political situation.

Figure 3.3 Walter Kröhnke, Troubadour, 1932/8, oil on canvas. 81 × 65  centimetres. Courtesy of Museum Atelierhaus Rösler-Kröhnke.

 National Socialism and Private Dissent 77 We can never be entirely sure of the intention behind Mammen’s circus paintings. But given Mammen’s purposeful (and bold) engagement with dissenting styles, her subject matter was unlikely to have been arbitrary. Moreover, the fact that artists were using similar motifs suggests that her forms of dissidence had wider currency. How to deal with the contemporary situation and what forms criticism should take were at the heart of how Mammen was working during her inner emigration. Not content to explore pictorial representation alone, the artist began to turn her attention towards translating longer passages of French prose, which also acted as an important expression of her nonconformity.

Artist as translator Mammen had an intense relationship with books and magazines, as has been noted. Volumes in her library contained underlining and drawings and were also an important talking point between friends. During his imprisonment, Uhlmann’s diary entries show that when Mammen visited him they discussed French literature.72 They shared a deep admiration for the Symbolist poet, Arthur Rimbaud (1854–91), whose dark, visionary works tested literary boundaries. During this period, Mammen began to translate Rimbaud’s poetry into German.73 The handwritten collection of manuscripts of her translation of Illuminations (originally written in 1886) and A Season in Hell (1873), as well as a typescript of the latter from a much later date, are preserved in her archive.74 Season was one of Rimbaud’s most seminal works, begun when he was just nineteen years old. Divided into nine parts, the poem represents the dramatic nightmare of a single protagonist – potentially Rimbaud himself – trying to escape the ‘polite hypocrisies’ of French bourgeois culture.75 This can be achieved only through vanguard writing and the cultivation of the poet-prophet figure, the ‘voyant’, who creates new literary forms through his phantasmagoric visions.76 During the 1930s, Rimbaud’s work certainly boasted dissenting appeal. Season symbolized attempts to find absolute ‘freedom’ outside social conformity – Rimbaud even used the term ‘exile’ – which would certainly resonate with an inner émigré living under the extreme conditions of totalitarianism.77 In an attempt to establish a national German literature, the Reich Chamber’s enforced coordination of literature meant that translations with no racial specificity were considered pernicious. Yet, as Kate Sturge’s extensive research on translation under National Socialism has shown, whether a translation was accepted for publication actually depended upon a range of factors such as the author, publisher, portrayal of foreign cultures and, ultimately, the degree of triviality.78 At the most basic level, therefore, Mammen’s translation of a French Symbolist author (who was also homosexual) was a dissenting act. Rimbaud’s texts not only appeared on the Nazi ‘Liste des schädlichen und unerwünschten Schrifttums’ (List of Damaging and Undesirable Writing), but he also enjoyed long associations with the Dadaists and Expressionists, who used both his biography and his work as rebellious orientation points.79 But Season was far from Mammen’s subaltern retreat from the political. The text, in fact, offered acute social relevance. Rimbaud’s prose is redolent of power, coercion and denunciation. Loaded terms such as ‘hate’ (Der Hass), ‘the righteousness’ (Die

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Gerechtigkeit), ‘the executioners’ (Henker) and ‘wind of crime’ (Wind des Verbrechens) appear in the opening paragraph alone.80 This continues throughout the poem in order to summon the narrator’s discordance with reality. Rimbaud’s angst-ridden prose notes, for example, how ‘I saw myself before an angry mob, facing a firing squad, weeping out sorrows they could not understand [. . .] I belong to the race that sang on the scaffold.’81 Rimbaud’s language (and Mammen’s translation of it) contrasts markedly with the carefully filtered vocabulary developed by the mainstream press to underplay the violent policies of Nazism – words or phrases such as ‘Abbeförderung’ (‘dispatching or removing’ as a euphemism for killing), ‘Aktion’ (‘action’ as a euphemism for massmurder operation) and ‘Betreuen’ (‘look after’, for imprison), to name but a few.82 This was a press from which, as noted previously, the artist had immediately distanced herself in 1933. Beyond her artwork, exploring the expressive vocabulary of Rimbaud offered an important outlet through which Mammen could attempt to engage with the horrors of National Socialism. Pages from her handwritten manuscript show crossing out and reworking, revealing that this was, without doubt, a difficult and meticulous process.83 *  *  * However appealing it might be to forge correspondences between the subject matter of Mammen’s paintings and Rimbaud’s prose, the relationship functions differently. As has been established, the artist’s initial turn towards Picasso focused particularly on his pre-war oeuvre, when abstraction began to emerge seriously as a historical phenomenon. But it is Rimbaud, not Picasso, who is, in fact, credited with initiating the relationship between signifiers (words and visual forms) and their meaning.84 Rimbaud played with the meaning of language as an autonomous system of signs at a time when pictorial representation was likewise beginning to challenge notions of ‘resemblance’ and ‘reality’, and, instead, focus on colour, shape and line.85 Rimbaud himself noted the connection between the syntactical experiments of language and art. In Season, he envisaged a way of breaking down colour, by claiming he actually assigned a specific colour to each vowel: ‘I invented colours for the vowels. A black, E white, I red, O blue, U green. [. . .] a kind of poetry that all the senses, sooner or later, would recognize’.86 Consequently, his writing had a profound effect on avant-garde circles working in pre-war Paris, including Picasso. Reviewed alongside the artist’s (re)turn to Picasso in her art, the further motivations for Mammen’s translation of Season start to become clearer. The artist deliberately gravitated towards the avant-gardes of Paris – the Cubists and Symbolist writers before them – precisely because they represented an upheaval to prevailing cultural and social orders.87 At a time when the value of culture was determined by the ‘norms’ of verisimilitude and inextricably bound by National Socialist politic, these (historic) forms of avant-gardism became more pressing and, indeed, more relevant than ever before. Nonetheless, her work was never simply concerned with imitating surface abstraction. She emphatically claimed later in life, ‘When a painting reflects the dialog between art and the world, then it is valuable’, and also, ‘I do not have any totally abstract paintings – they always contain an experienced form’.88 Other translations the artist undertook

 National Socialism and Private Dissent 79 during the 1930s, particularly of Picasso, enforce this point. In his interview with Christian Zervos, published in the journal Cahiers d’Art in 1935, Picasso discussed the conception and meaning of Cubism and explained what he understood by abstract art: Abstract art is only painting. What about drama? There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality. There’s no danger then, anyway, because the idea of the object will have left an indelible mark. It is what started the artist off, excited his ideas, and stirred up his emotions.89

The year this conversation was published, Cahiers d’Art was in its ninth year and had become a tour de force in promoting contemporary modern art, when much of Europe was stifled by fascism. Mammen’s four-page, unpublished translation of the conversation signals that it was also an important source for an inner émigré wishing to stay abreast of cultural developments outside Germany.90 Her translation of Picasso’s definition of abstraction contains several alterations in her manuscript: Abstrakte Kunst ist nur Malerei. Und das Drama? Es gibt keine Abstrakte Kunst. Man muss immer mit etwas anfangen. Es muss immer mit irgendeinem Ding begonnen werden. Dann Man kann dann jeden Schein der Realität fortnehmen. Die Idee des Dinges hat ihren unauslöschbaren Stempel aufgedrückt. Es (das Ding) hat den Künstler gereizt herausgefordert, seine Gedanken gereizt, seine emotionen in Bewegung gesetzt.

Like her translations of Rimbaud’s work, capturing Picasso’s precise meaning was clearly important. Mammen’s German translation appears more forceful than Alfred Barr’s English language version cited above it. Words such as ‘challenge’ (herausgefordert) instead of Barr’s ‘start the artist off ’ and ‘excited his thoughts’ (Gedanken gereizt), rather than ‘excited his ideas’, reinforce Picasso’s claims to the material as necessary in the conception of artworks. Moreover, Mammen’s use of ‘the thing – object’ (das Ding), twice, emphasizes experienced form, in contrast with Barr’s more conceptual use of ‘something’. What arises in Mammen’s artwork from this period through her close engagement with Rimbaud’s and Picasso’s writing, then, is as much about a requisition of abstract forms, as it is the disavowal of them. There is no seamless appropriation of Picasso in her work. Instead, a unique and clever confluence of the abstract and figurative is always present. This perhaps also explains some of Mammen’s frustrations at her work being drawn into post-war debates that were based upon distinctions between abstraction and figuration discussed in the previous chapter. Instead, Mammen’s work was marked by her unique and sustained exploration of the interpellation of both. Whether Mammen had hoped to publish her translation of Season during this period is unknown. She never completed the draft manuscript. Despite translation restrictions, a surprising number of texts that contravened völkisch values were, in fact, still available

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in Germany during the 1930s, and in Berlin could be obtained through the French bookstore ‘Maison du Livre français’, which survived until the summer of 1939. In fact, French literature remained the second most translated foreign language.91 Even during the war, wide-ranging bans on works from ‘enemy states’ did not reduce the proportion of translations as much as might be expected.92 However, Mammen’s acts of defiance remained firmly private. Her translations of Picasso and Rimbaud were not published (the latter not until over thirty years later), and none of her circus paintings were exhibited publicly.93 The validity of her work functioning as forms of ‘dissent’, therefore, might well be open to question. For as William Dodd has highlighted in relation to camouflaged texts, they might symbolize courageous examples of Resistenz – immunity to Nazi ideas, to use the Broszatian term – but as a result, they often suffered ultimately from a type of ‘Sprachlosigkeit’ ([politically] being without a voice), if their meanings were lost on readers or their publication withheld.94 In the last two parts of this chapter, I suggest how Mammen’s working environment and her conformity with Nazi institutions, as well as her engagement with a private network of friends, aided the production and circulation of her work and demonstrate bold forms of nonconformist dissent.

Towards a third position It is no less symbolic that the control of the Fine Arts has been placed in the hands of the Minister of Propaganda! (Joseph Roth, 1933)

As writer Joseph Roth pointed out in exile in an article published in the Parisian newspaper Le Mois, the blatant conflation of art with propaganda in the form of the Reich Chamber of Culture, presided over by Joseph Goebbels, was deeply alarming.95 For artists (and writers) who had no intention of conforming, their survival depended nonetheless on being a registered member of the chamber. It was the only way that permitted them to gain access to state subsidies towards professional materials and qualify for unemployment benefits (Bezugskarten). For these reasons, in January 1936, the artist applied under the name ‘Johanna Jeanne Mammen’, to become a member of the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts (Reichskammer der bildenden Künste: RdbK) and specifically to the Professional Group of Commercial Graphic Artists (Fachgruppe Gebrauchsgraphiker) (Figure 3.4).96 Acceptance was based upon a person’s reliability and suitability, established through an Ariernachweis (confirming Aryan descent – dating back to 1800) and professional experience (provided by two guarantors).97 On the application form, in the response to ‘main profession’, Mammen wrote ‘painting and commercial graphics’ and ticked the option of ‘self-employed’. In response to the question on ‘Curriculum Vitae and Professional Training’, she recorded that she had been trained in Paris, Brussels and Rome and had been forced to leave France during the war, and settled in Berlin permanently in 1915. She indicated ‘not applicable’ with a customary long slash to questions asking whether she was a member of the Nazi Party; whether she was married, widowed, divorced; whether she had children and whether she was part of other chamber organizations or art institutions. Correspondence from

 National Socialism and Private Dissent 81

Figure 3.4  Jeanne Mammen’s registration application form for the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts – Professional Group of Commercial Graphic Artists (Reichskammer der bildenden Künste: RdbK; Fachgruppe Gebrauchsgraphiker), January 1936, Landesarchiv, Berlin, Personenakte ‘Johanna Mammen’: A Rep. 243-04 Nr. 5578. Photo: © Landesarchiv Berlin.

Mammen’s archive files dated 15 September 1936 shows that she was granted the membership and was assigned the number G4009. As members, artists were permitted to exhibit and sell their works publicly. Mammen did not do either. Conversely, registration, in fact, enabled many artists who stayed in Germany to slip under the radar. Joining did not automatically mean becoming a member of the party, nor subscribing to Nazi ideals, as Mammen’s case makes wholly clear.98 Enforced coordination remained difficult to implement. While the Nazi Party controlled the government, they did not control the state. This resulted in the creation of parallel party agencies giving way to competing tendencies and overlaps with existing administrations.99 The lack of uniformity and consistency in cultural policy and the implementation of rules and regulations, which ranged from methods of outright prohibition to repressive censorship, denial of chamber membership and seizure from collections meant that many artists continued to produce work undetected. Monitoring of chamber membership was also far from foolproof. As Nina Kubowitsch’s extensive study into the rules and regulations of the Chamber of Fine Arts has shown, the application process was complicated and drawn out. In 1937, for example, some 800 applications were still pending, mostly because of the applicants’ inability to present evidence of their racial origin.100 Once admitted, members were required to pay monthly membership fees of five marks (many of whom did not), while

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other artists who were prohibited from exhibiting works in public were able to join. In fact, in some cases, removal from other state institutions did not preclude becoming a member of the chamber.101 In other instances, policies of ‘tactical tolerance’ were exercised. Artists such as Käthe Kollwitz continued working, even though she had been prohibited from joining the chamber. Kollwitz was too well respected internationally to risk an outright ban, and for the most part therefore, the Nazis left her alone.102 As far as we know, Mammen – who remained a member – never produced any graphic illustrations for the state whatsoever. As such, her art making was, in and of itself, a form of political dissidence. She separately registered with the unemployment agency in Berlin-Mitte, as Kunstmalerin (female painter), and as a welfare recipient claimed low unemployment benefits.103 Recent studies of artists such as Max Pechstein, Franz Radziwill, Werner Peiner and Walter Schumacher draw attention to the complexity of their public positions in Nazi Germany. Besides revealing the tangled and contradictory attitudes the Nazi Party fostered towards modern art, scholarship demonstrates the difficult ideological positions these artists nonetheless occupied. These positions fluctuated between degrees of conformity and resistance. As James A. van Dyke succinctly puts it, artists who remained in Germany (for whatever reason) typically showed ‘various and shifting mixtures of doubt, concern, partial critique, apathy and habit, opportunism, partial agreement, and deeply seated patriotism’.104 It was not simply a case of being ‘for’ or ‘against’. There was an endless array of possible responses towards National Socialism, irrespective of actual party membership. Unlike artists who sought accommodation and/or negotiation, inner émigré artists, who actively distanced themselves from the regime, did not benefit from advantages that came with degrees of public toleration. Rather (if we are to adopt a more nuanced Broszatian approach to resistance), I contend that inner emigration could be any one or more fluid positions on a spectrum from open nonconformist dissent to private acts of refusal.105 To take this further, many inner émigrés operated from what might be usefully termed dialectical ‘third positions’ – positions that were somewhere in between. This position asserts that inner emigration is not a priori analogous to passive interiority and solipsistic retreat. In fact, in many cases, inner émigré artists did not live in complete isolation or produce artwork in a vacuum outside of National Socialist structures, despite often working illegally.106 Nor was their work necessarily unaffected by societal changes developing around them. As Ian Kershaw aptly maintains, resistance is a dialectical process, a ‘product and reflection of the system of rule itself ’.107 As a member of the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts – a part of Nazi centralized structures – Mammen nonetheless produced nonconformist artworks that deliberately adopted modes of camouflaged dissent, and she is representative of this third position. In explaining to Hans Kinkel in the 1970s how she survived this difficult period, Mammen revealed how her chamber registration had functioned as a type of disguise or camouflage: ‘I disguised myself [mich getarnt]. A woman as a commercial graphic artist: she just makes sweet flowers [. . . but] I painted and painted on [cardboard] plates with tempera.’108 The artist said nothing more on the subject. We do not know what she thought about Nazi gender politics, although we might reasonably assume that she disliked the party’s condemnation of women’s emancipation. However, her

 National Socialism and Private Dissent 83 comment implies that back then, in 1936, she understood that her work would be regarded less seriously, precisely because she was a female commercial graphic artist. The tight regulation of National Socialist gender dynamics prohibited women from entering political life and enforced the idea that ‘responsible, feminine citizenship’ meant first and foremost the propagation of the Aryan race.109 As Claudia Koonz’s seminal work on Nazi family politics has shown, on their revival of motherhood at least, the Nazis propagated a cogent set of imperatives for women.110 Indeed, Hitler made clear even before coming to power that ‘women were to be the support of men in the party’.111 Consequently, motherhood did not underpin programmatic demands for greater social and political agency as it had done for some previous women’s movements. However, in reality, the party had no great success in driving women from the labour market, nor from public institutions. Although Hitler publicly attacked working women, the overall percentage of women in work actually grew from 33.4 per cent in 1933 to 36.7 per cent in 1939, when pressures of rearmament mounted.112 In fact, in many ways, the state represented a ‘smooth continuation’ of some of the existing structures and processes that women had previously endured.113 Prejudices regarding women’s involvement in certain (intellectual) areas including medicine, law and academia continued under the (Weimar) law of ‘double earners’ (Doppelverdiener) to discourage married women out of the labour market.114 Conversely, in areas such as schooling, domestic service and professional care, women’s engagement was supported and, indeed, it increased. Attitudes towards professional women artists were also not clear-cut. Early Nazi purging of educational institutions affected women. Among the 252 professional art historians and artist professors that were forcibly removed from their positions during the early 1930s, seventy were women.115 The most prominent was Käthe Kollwitz, who was dismissed from her professorial position at the Academy of Arts in Berlin. The male bias of the cultural sphere was underscored further by both the representation and reception of the role of women in art. An exhibition, ‘Die Deutsche Frau’ (The German Woman) held in May 1934 by the Westfälische Kunstverein in the Landesmuseum Münster, for example, is representative of this wider partiality.116 It displayed the work of fifty-four artists among whom only three – Charlotte BerendCorinth, Sofie Wenning and Ida Gerhardi – were professional artists. For although there were some ‘outstanding achievements’ (hervorragende Leistungen) by women artists, explained Paul Schultze-Naumburg, ‘they remain [and indeed, remained], in the background in terms of artistic developments.’117 Thus, the resounding focus in the Münster exhibition was on naturalist representations of women by proclaimed male artists such as Max Klinger and Wilhelm Leibl, whose artworks seemingly reinforced Nazi gender programmatic.118 So while the party did not specifically condemn the artist profession for women, they did not put any centralized structures in place to actively promote it either.119 It should also be noted that Hitler himself, singled out ‘Malweiber’ (women painters) in particular as neglecting their appearance, which he condemned.120 The focus remained decidedly on women’s maternal rather than their cultural re/production. The lack of structures in place to support women artists as serious professionals ultimately translated into far fewer contributions to official National Socialist

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exhibitions, thereby denying women artists the exposure and opportunity to build a reputation (and a successful career). Of the top thirty most exhibited artists between 1933 and 1945, including Georg Ehmig, Albert Birkle, Leonard Sandrock and Arno Breker, none were women.121 Of the eighty-nine official exhibitions held between 1933 and 1944 and hosted by the Prussian Academy of Arts, the Society of Berlin Artists (Verein Berliner Künstler: VBK) or Berlin’s Nationalgalerie, the work of fewer than fifty women artists were shown.122 While there were exhibitions dedicated to showcasing the work of women professional artists – ‘Gast-Ausstellung des Vereins der Künstlerinnen zu Berlin’; Verein Berliner Künstler in 1940 and ‘Künstlerisches Frauenschaffen der Gegenwart’; Gästehaus der Reichsfrauenführung in 1941 – these were unusual.123 Lists of exhibition participants in Berlin reveal that as the exhibition criteria became more rigorous towards the end of the 1930s (and after the start of the war when fewer exhibitions were held overall), only a select group of women artists such as Gerda Rotermund, Elisabeth Voigt, Charlotte Harting, Magdalena MüllerMartin, Milly Steger and Hanna Cauer whose work conformed to official party lines were regularly shown.124 Exclusion from the political realm also meant that women artists were less likely to be participants in the majority of exhibitions propagating maritime and military supremacy. Certainly, they were unable to contribute to exhibitions of the Frontline Legion of Fine Artists (Frontkämpferbund bildender Künstler).125 However, it also meant that the registration of women artists, photographers or graphic artists to the Reich Chamber, while potentially more disruptive of the image of the ideal woman, was paradoxically considered less seriously. Ute Frevert’s work on the position of women during National Socialism has shown that while enormous energy was spent on defining the organization of men and male party roles, women by comparison featured in barely any official party pronouncements. Consequently, women sought to ‘fill the gap on their own’.126 Women proactively shaped organizations and societies such as the German Women’s Enterprise (Deutsches Frauenwerk) and National Socialist Women’s Organization (NS-Frauenschaft).127 But for women unwilling to conform, the lack of party engagement offered a potentially different advantage too, which Mammen seemed to recognize. In sum, the work of women artists, be they party members or not, was simply of less importance and by inference, posed less of a nonconformist ‘threat’ compared to that of their male counterparts. Women artists were more easily able to slip under the radar than men, therefore, and craft positions for themselves both in and outside of the confines of National Socialist structures. This should not undermine their courageous acts of defiance, only serve to reinforce them, for it shows that women (artists) were not simply deprived victims that allowed themselves to be dominated by an omnipotent Nazi polity.128 On the contrary, they, in fact often exploited their position. Mammen filed a second application as a fine artist with the Professional Group of Painters and Graphic Designers (Fachgruppe Maler und Graphiker) only a week after her first application to the Professional Group of Commercial Graphic Artists in January 1936.129 It is not known why the artist made this second application so soon after the first: perhaps she felt unclear as to which professional group she belonged. Or was it perhaps because she hoped to secure more material to paint?130 A copy of a

 National Socialism and Private Dissent 85 one-line letter sent to Mammen on 14 December 1937 appears in her Reich Chamber files in relation to this second application stating simply ‘an answer has yet to be received. I am therefore reminding you of the completion’, signed ‘Heuseler’ from the Berlin state administration.131 In other words, state administration – with whom applications to join the chamber were registered – was chasing Mammen (nearly two years after her application), who appears not to have complied with the request to submit necessary artwork to complete her application. This was risky, for out of all seven chambers, the fine arts received the greatest supervisory authority by Goebbels, who demanded to see the names of all participating artists. Her second application was therefore never successful, making her decision to produce sizeable paintings – some of which are several metres in height – even bolder and more defiant. Nonetheless, their size and bright colours belie the trauma of their execution. As a member of the chamber, Mammen’s ‘private’ space was precarious; fear of denunciation leading to house searches was an ever-real possibility. Consequently, almost all her paintings were rendered on cardboard and in tempera. Not only was this cheaper, but tempera also dried quicker than oil, allowing works to be stored and concealed more easily. Moreover, she had registered as a ‘graphic artist’, and thus procuring canvas may have raised suspicion. Unlike her previous commercial watercolours, therefore, the artist rarely signed any of this new work. This was a deliberate tactic, inasmuch as it offered some sense of anonymity if work was ever discovered by the authorities.132 There is good reason to suspect that besides Mammen, other women artists in Germany who were working both in and outside of the public eye, used their gender as a way of establishing and/or sustaining their nonconformity. For example, Elsa Thiemann, who took Mammen’s photographic portrait after the war, registered with the Reich Chamber as a graphic artist in January 1934, to collect materials for her inner émigré partner, the Surrealist painter Hans Thiemann.133 Despite both of them having trained at the Bauhaus, where they, in fact, first met, the Thiemanns used Elsa’s registration (under her maiden name ‘Franke’), believing it to be less conspicuous than Hans registering. And perhaps they were right. Hans Thiemann was able to continue painting undetected throughout the 1930s and during the war. Elsa took up a secretarial position in the publishing house Hoffmann und Campe and unofficially continued her New Vision photography.134 Unlike the Thiemanns, by the mid-1930s, the sculptor and painter Margarethe (Marg) Moll (1884–1977) was well known. She became the president of the Berlin Women Artists Association (VdBK) in 1939, and despite its rapidly dwindling public profile and financial support, managed to keep the society afloat during the war. It actively fostered links to the Artist Cooperative Klosterstraße (Ateliergemeinschaft Klosterstraße), which housed studios of several resistant artists, including Käthe Kollwitz and Ottilie and Ludwig Kasper.135 As noted earlier, Kollwitz was excluded from the Chamber of Fine Arts, prohibited from exhibiting and forced to resign from her position at the Academy of Arts. She was nonetheless able to become an honorary member of the VdBK who chose to ignore Nazi directives stating that she was a communist enemy of the state.136 Some of the society’s artists also cleverly evaded official membership of the Nazi Party by, instead, joining grassroots-level organizations led by women. When pressed to paint propaganda during the war, Darius Cierpialkowski

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und Carina Keil argue that VdBK members, instead, deliberately turned to landscapes and still lives.137 In other words, the suitably ‘feminine’ subject matter of many of their works belied their underlying dissenting function. The fact that Moll – who was taught by Matisse and whose work was heavily influenced by French modernism – was able to become president is also striking. Oskar Moll was prohibited to work and exhibit, precisely because of his ‘continental’ artwork. Considered in relation to the treatment of her husband, therefore, Marg Moll’s presidency not only signals the contradictions inherent in Nazi cultural policy but also reinforces the overall second-rate position that women artists occupied in the regime. Mammen, Thiemann, Moll and Kollwitz are just four examples of women artists who played active and decisive roles in negotiating their professional survival (or even their partner’s) without becoming official Nazi Party members. Their survival should not be defined solely by gender politics, but this sometimes played to their advantage. Their experiences were very different, not least because Mammen and Thiemann worked under the radar. But if, as I have argued, inner emigration constitutes a deliberate distancing and rejection of the regime, all four artists are also representative. Yet, the broad field of exile studies which explores the experience of exile and inner emigration until relatively recently, has been criticized as representing almost exclusively a ‘history about men, written by men’ (Männergeschichte).138 Certainly, within the discipline of art history more specifically, it is the experience of male artists that continues to dominate scholarship, with a narrow focus on a ‘core’ group of artists: Karl Hofer, William Wauer, Heinrich Ehmsen, Gustav Seitz, Franz Lenk, Ernst Wilhelm Nay, Hermann Blumenthal and Ernst Barlach. As a result, women’s experience under totalitarianism is still incorrectly perceived as being of ‘lesser value’. Given that ‘exile’ is a priori a societal position from which women operate on a day-today basis, Renate Berger has questioned whether we should even legitimately use the term to describe women’s experience during this period.139 However, it is precisely this outsider status that created strategic and positional opportunities that women could consciously exploit. As an inner émigré woman artist, Mammen’s experience appears to have been neglected on many different levels, and she is not alone. Until 1939 Mammen was in touch with the graphic artist ‘Steffie’ (Stephanie) Schaefer-Nathan (née Nathan) (1895– 1972). During the previous decade, Schaefer-Nathan had been a successful graphic artist illustrating books and creating film set designs, as well as regularly contributing to magazines such as Die Dame and Styl, where, perhaps, she and Mammen had initially become acquainted.140 She, too, depicted modern and fashionably dressed ‘new women’ and her work is also often mildly cynical (Figure 3.5). For example, the sleeping reverie in the advert for Emil Jacoby-Wichert’s designer shoes appears more like a nightmare in which the sleeper is wrenched from her slumber to witness a surreal encounter with seven pairs of militantly marching shoes. But like the legacy of many fashion practitioners (editors, designers, illustrators, photographers, journalists), as Chapter 1 explained, her work has garnered little attention. Instead, focus has been directed towards Schaefer-Nathan’s husband, the illustrator Albert Schaefer-Ast. As a Jewish graphic artist, fewer options were open to Schaefer-Nathan during the 1930s, and she found it very difficult to find work during this period. In 1939

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Figure 3.5  Steffie Nathan, untitled (Ein Schöner Traum) (A Beautiful Dream), illustration for Emil Jacoby-Wichert shoes, undated, c. 1924, original medium, size and whereabouts unknown. Styl, no. 3, 1924, plate 8. Photo: © Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin.

she escaped to the UK on a domestic permit, following Suzanne, her twelve-year-old daughter, to safety in London.141 After the war, she found work again as a graphic artist. A handful of letters exist, which provide vivid accounts of survival in postwar Berlin and life as an émigré in London.142 These letters are at times funny and affectionate. The women who had at one time been independent, highly successful graphic artists were now reduced to creating art in secret in Germany and performing menial household tasks for a rich British family in London. It was to Schaefer-Nathan that Mammen wrote about the critics in post-war Berlin, and with whom she most empathized. Schaefer-Nathan was in a precarious situation. She was a single mother with no money and no longer able to undertake any art commissions. Letters reveal Mammen’s concern: ‘Do you know what sort of ‘fee’ you will get at the Campells? [the family for whom Steffie was a domestic help] Your current one is precious little, I think. How is life in England? Can you do a bit or nothing with the few pennies?’143 And, ‘I would like so much for you to leave this boring job. Hopefully it will not take too long before I can energetically help.’144 We do not know if Mammen and Schaefer-Nathan regularly met up as friends during the early 1930s. Certainly, Mammen’s letters suggest that they were close; she refers to Schaefer-Nathan as ‘mein Steffchen’ (the ‘chen’ denotes a playful and affectionate closeness) and ‘kleines Steff ’ (little Steff). However, beyond Schaefer-Nathan, Mammen’s social situation was not defined by lack of contact

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(Kontaktlosigkeit). She made a new set of acquaintances during the mid-1930s, many of whom would go on to become lifelong friends. In addition, some of them purchased her dissenting artwork.

Kontakt/los In 1935, Mammen began regularly attending concerts and discussions by Hans and Clara Gaffron in their house in Berlin-Schlachtensee. They lived in the same house as the Jewish couple Kurt and Grete Wohl. Grete Wohl was a professional pianist. Hans Gaffron and Kurt Wohl were connected through their work as natural scientists at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Biochemistry in Berlin-Dahlem (now the Max-PlanckInstitut für Biochemie).145 It was here that the artist also first met Erich Kuby, who was working in the image archive at Scherl and Steininger publishing houses in Berlin.146 A photograph shows a house concert from one of these evenings, with Kuby seated in the middle with a cello. One of Mammen’s paintings, Still Life with Carafe, Glass and Fan (c. 1933–6) can be seen hanging on the wall behind him (Figure 3.6). The image reveals that the Wohls and Gaffrons had already begun purchasing the artist’s work during the 1930s, which offered a source of some financial support during this period. Along with Kuby, one other figure stands out within this circle, the microbiologist and, later, Nobel Prize laureate, Max Delbrück (1906–81), who, back then, worked at

Figure 3.6  A house concert at families Gaffron and Wohl, Klopstockstraße 34, BerlinSchlachtensee, photographer unknown. In the middle Erich Kuby, above him Jeanne Mammen’s painting, untitled, undated (Stilleben mit Karaffe, Glas und Fächer) (Still Life with Carafe, Glass and Fan), c. 1933–6, tempera on cardboard, original size and whereabouts unknown. Photo: © Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin.

 National Socialism and Private Dissent 89 the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry (now the Max-Planck-Institut für Chemie, also known as the Otto-Hahn-Institut).147 The substantial number of letters between Delbrück and the artist in her archive dating from between 1946 and 1975 reveals the closeness of their friendship. In letters sometimes affectionately addressed, ‘Dearest most beloved Jeanne’ (Heiß geliebte Jeanne) and ‘Dear Maxi’ (Lieber Maxi!), they wrote about art, science and literature. When they first met in 1937, however, Delbrück knew little about art. He was a young research assistant in his late twenties working on gene structures and their mutation; Mammen by comparison was already in her mid-forties. Yet, besides Steffie Schaefer-Nathan, Delbrück was one of the first people with whom the artist corresponded after the war. Beyond distributing anti-fascist leaflets with Uhlmann during the autumn of 1933, we do not know if Mammen engaged in any similar activities again. There is no further evidence in her archive to suggest that she was an active member of any political resistance groups. Nonetheless, even if the artist herself did not take part in any more public acts of resistance, her association with this group of scientists meant that she was friends with people who did. Indeed, their overriding sympathies with the left were not dissimilar to her own. Hans Gaffron had openly supported the German Communist Party and voted for them in 1932. He was also a friend of Jürgen Kuczynski (1904–97), a former editor of Die Rote Fahne.148 During the period in which Gaffron and Mammen became acquainted, he was arrested, but later released by the Gestapo without any charge.149 The son of eminent military historian Hans Delbrück (1848– 1929), Max Delbrück was also politically engaged.150 Max’s sister, Emilie ‘Emmi’, and their brother Justus became part of the active resistance group, the Red Orchestra (Rote Kapelle), led by Harro Schulze-Boysen and Arvid Harnack from the mid-1930s. The group undertook various acts of espionage, distributed anti-fascist leaflets and sought to hide and protect those persecuted by the Nazis.151 The Harnacks and Delbrücks were close family friends, living almost next door to each other, and were later also related through marriage.152 In 1930, Emmi married Klaus Bonhoeffer who likewise became an active resister connected with the group. Beyond helping to facilitate some of the meetings for members of the Red Orchestra, how closely Max became involved remains unclear.153 However, his father’s reputation – as a member of the delegation that signed the Versailles Treaty after the First World War – was enough to hinder him securing a post-doctoral fellowship in Germany during the mid-1930s.154 Delbrück engaged in his own methods of dissent. He refused to sign letters ‘Heil Hitler’ or sing Nazi hymns, and (as a scientific member of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute) ignored pressure to attend the commemorative celebration for Fritz Haber.155 We might reasonably assume that Mammen’s new friendship circle strengthened her own anti-Nazi feelings. The convivial meetings would have been where she could have articulated her thoughts among like-minded individuals. With certainty, it provided a rare environment where she could show (and sell) some of her new artwork. In a letter to Delbrück many years later – when the artist was taking stock of her work for a planned retrospective – she wrote that the Wohls owned a dozen of her works and Kuby another half dozen.156 Indeed, it was the private domain, with its ‘informal networks of kin, neighbours, friends, and community, rather than formal organization’ that often became an essential facilitator of dissent or ‘infrapolitics’, as James C. Scott

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has termed it. In this domain, strategies of resistance go unnoticed by superordinate groups, Scott explains.157 Delbrück writes that he first encountered Mammen’s work at the Wohls’ home, which is clearly reinforced by the photograph of one of their house concerts showing her work on the wall.158 In this way, private, material acts (such as the producing and hanging of a nonconformist artwork, for example) should be understood as plausible ‘stratagems designed to minimize personal domination’.159 In a liberal democracy, forms of behaviour such as meeting friends and hanging artworks hardly constitute dissenting acts, but under the Nazi police state, they could potentially be politicized and, indeed, criminalized. As Hans-Ernst Mittig explains, Nazi totalitarianism was deliberately organized to impede the idea of privacy and its associations with ‘free time’ and ‘personal life’. Compulsory participation in large-scale public Nazi events, such as marches, instruction evenings, meetings and so on, meant that there was little time left for anything else.160 Maintaining a ‘private’ space, insofar as that was possible, was a pushback against this type of interference when more public acts of defiance were inconceivable. Mammen’s works were seen and potentially understood, therefore, by a group of friends ‘in the know’.161 Private studios as well as domestic residences became sites of fundamental importance for artists who were otherwise prohibited from showing their works more publicly.162 Käthe Kollwitz, for example, used her studio in the Artist Cooperative Klosterstraße to hang new works.163 And Walter Kröhnke invited friends, including Hans Uhlmann, to his small studio exhibitions.164 Beyond the possibility of meetings afforded by the Wohl-Gaffron residence, the (re)ordering of Mammen’s paintings and images on her studio walls also acted as a crucial method of her own self-determination. Kuby attests to the importance of this space for the artist. He was one of the few people who visited Mammen during the war and saw her paintings there. He later remarked that the artist clearly took a great deal of care of her collection of objects, cleaning and arranging items.165 This collection consists of many unusual articles: boxes full of wooden beads, dried crabs and snail shells, as well as Christmas decorations, votives and wooden and glass figurines. When not only private space but also personal beliefs were under threat, Mammen’s drive to collect should be understood as nothing less than essential forms of ‘personhood’.166 The collections of inner émigré artists, Hans Thiemann, Hannah Höch, Juro Kubicêk and Mac Zimmermann – with whom Mammen would later go on to exhibit after the war – symbolize attendant methods of autonomy. Some of Mammen’s objects were also re-presented in her artworks. In Studio Interior (c. 1929), she uses a distinctly painted red stool as a surface to place articles from her collection (see Colour Plate 15). By 1937, however, Mammen’s new friendship circle was already rapidly diminishing. Unable to tolerate the increasing intrusion of the Nazi Party into scientific affairs (particularly after the official mobilization for war), the Wohls and the Gaffrons emigrated to the UK and the United States, respectively. In 1937, a year after Mammen’s sister, Mimi, left Berlin to start a new life in Tehran with her partner, Max Delbrück emigrated to the United States, where he had been awarded a Rockefeller Fellowship at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena. Despite his absence, Delbrück continued to support Mammen’s artwork: if her work could not be shown in Germany under the Nazis, he would exhibit it, instead. When he left, he took three

 National Socialism and Private Dissent 91 small oil paintings and several watercolours with him and mounted a small exhibition at Caltech the following year. ‘By the sweat of my face I composed a short notice about your missing artist’s biography; it is hanging on the wall. People read it and shake their heads’, Delbrück wrote in a letter.167 The money he gave Mammen for the work undoubtedly helped her survive during the war.

Conclusion With most of her friends now gone, Mammen nonetheless stayed in her Berlin studio apartment and continued to work furiously. Moreover, despite her Reich Chamber membership, the artist was able to create ‘degenerate’ artworks under the radar. She constantly ran the risk of being discovered, and in hindsight recognized how lucky she had been to survive: ‘I painted and painted on card with tempera. I had a guardian angel.’168 Beyond formal engagement with Picasso, her artworks offered forms of camouflaged critique, which was deliberate and held dissenting currency. While her works were not publicly exhibited in Germany, this did not mean that they were an ineffective form of dissent. Rather, the circle of friends with whom she met during the mid-1930s saw and, indeed, acquired some of this new artwork. Although Nazi structures did limit activity, the artist and her friends upheld forms of civil courage, when they could.169 We can only assume that the paintings Juggler, Clown and Mother Clown with Child (Columbine) and others like them provided succour for a group of like-minded anti-Nazis.

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4

Propaganda, war and the home front

Food coupons, unemployment, forced labour, bomb raids, mandatory training as ‘fire warden’: keeping watch for fires after the all-clear signal until 3.00 am. No windows, no heating, neither gas nor electric light, no food supplies. Paintings, lithographs, drawings, furniture partly burnt, damaged by extinguishing water, stolen. (Jeanne Mammen, 1974)1 My role as a spectator in this war is intellectually and politically motivated – anything less would be disingenuous. [. . .] The abysmal disgust that I feel for those [the Nazis] whom I must still call my country fellows has a moral quality through and through. (Erich Kuby, 1943)2

Introduction This chapter focuses on Mammen’s experiences during the Second World War (1939– 45). Throughout the 1930s until the mid-1940s, the artist continued to produce a great number of pencil drawings. In fact, the 1,274 drawings listed in Mammen’s catalogue raisonné (in pencil and some in pen and ink) comprise the largest part of her oeuvre. Some of these are understood here as capturing the far-reaching consequences of war on the home front. In addition, they offer a stark contrast to her group of Cubist portrait paintings of military figures depicted in bright colours with collage insertions (see Colour Plates 16, 17, 18). One of these paintings in particular, The Hunter (Sunday Hunter) – a portrait of Adolf Hitler as an inept hunter – signals the extent to which Nazi myths of military triumph and powerful leadership were rapidly losing credibility back home (see Colour Plate 19). In comparing Mammen’s artworks with those from National Socialist exhibitions in this chapter, it is not my intention to dismiss Nazi art simply as ‘kitsch’. Rather, I argue that Mammen’s critical engagement with Nazi political propaganda continues to reveal her ambivalence towards mass culture and its effects.3 Correspondence with Erich Kuby, who was drafted into the Wehrmacht, becomes an important source of contact during this period. As we will see, Kuby’s attitude towards the National Socialists potentially informs Mammen’s own. As one might perhaps expect, her artwork did not withdraw from wartime realities, nor did she

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shy away from representing violence. Although she was not proactively anti-war, her works continue to function as forms of dissent. Picasso’s work also remains a motivating factor in the artist’s creative process. Mammen travelled to the Paris World Fair in 1937, where she saw Guernica. The last part of this chapter explores the artist’s response to Picasso’s painting through her own engagement with animals as subject matter. Animals are understood as further camouflaged ciphers of the mounting Nazi brutality both at home and abroad.

Life on the home front Mobilizing the nation for war was one of the primary motivations behind the National Socialist coordination of culture.4 Almost immediately after coming to power, the party began to contravene the Versailles Treaty and rearm. The call to arms was a crucial precondition if Hitler’s expansion of Reich territory (Lebensraum) was to be achieved. Thus, in February 1933, Hitler informed his ministers that unemployment was to be reduced by rearmament. And by August 1936, Hitler issued a memorandum making it clear that Germany must be ready for war within four years. War eventually began in March 1939. Germany quickly captured Prague and then turned to, and dismembered, Poland. But by 1940, it was already plundering its occupied territories due to the increasing economic strain of its escalating armament production. The invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 proved disastrous. Unable to inflict rapid defeat as hoped, the campaign suffered from overextended lines of communication and inadequate reserves. Positive propaganda attempts were ultimately unable to disguise the scale of German defeat at the Battle of Stalingrad that took place during 1942–3. But war dragged on for over two more years. On the home front things were difficult. Mammen had been displaced during the First World War. This time around there were hardships of a different sort to bear. Rationing began four days before the war with the introduction of food cards. From 1943 onwards, most women and children were evacuated from German cities because of regular and heavy Allied shelling.5 It is difficult to imagine how frightening this must have been for Mammen, who remained in her studio apartment throughout the entire duration of the war. Berlin was the European city that suffered the greatest number of bombs. Some 50,000 tons of incendiary high explosive, phosphorous and fragmentation bombs, aerial mines, and delayed-action caps fell over the city.6 Despite such devastation, Mammen later emphasized, ‘If someone worked, then it was me.’7 Cardboard used for her paintings was also kept to mask out the light during raids and to ‘replace’ shattered windows, demonstrating her ingenuity and, indeed, her resolve not to give up.8 Her studio apartment came perilously close to destruction: parts of the north-facing large window and the skylight collapsed and heavily damaged some of her artwork.9 As the artist also wryly put it, ‘a lot was nicked up in the “Kabuff ” [the attic space where she stored some of her work]. That is to say: well cleaned up.’10 She went for periods without heating, gas and electricity, and was also forced to work as a civilian fire warden (Luftschutzwart), presumably watching for fires from the attic roof. Not an easy task, given the height of her

 Propaganda, War and the Home Front 95 building of over four floors.11 Her extensive attic space in this, now much restored building, still bears traces of destruction with its charred beams, battered walls and pencil markings. Mammen survived – or as she put it, ‘You have to be unlucky to have some luck.’12 Her eldest sister Ernestine Louise, ‘Loulou’, who was divorced, had now moved back to the city with her son, Folkert. Loulou worked for paper specialists and was presumably able to supply the artist with some material to work.13 Mammen’s parents died within two years of each other: her mother in December 1943 in BerlinSchöneberg and her father in Berlin-Wannsee, just over four months after the war ended in September 1945.14 Erich Kuby was one of the few friends able to visit the artist during the war, and she painted him in his soldier’s uniform sometime around 1940 (Figure 4.1). A handsome young man of thirty with prominent features, his large eyes appear to look past the viewer. From the outset, he had been resolutely opposed to his conscription.15 His friendships with active resisters from the Delbrück-Harnack families, noted in the previous chapter, without a doubt motivated his views. Kuby played music at the house of Ernst von Harnack (Max Delbrück’s cousin) who was executed in 1945 as part of the active resistance. Kuby both drew and wrote about his experiences as a corporal. His diaries are at times unexpectedly frank in their attack of the types of military bravado and self-importance he witnessed on the front. He also wrote letters to Mammen. Their correspondence was not regular. But the artist’s comment, ‘write to me often’, in a letter to Kuby dated April 1942, suggests the importance of their contact during this period, their letters effectively serving as a mode of conversation.16 Indeed, in many ways letter or diary writing offered an extended place for critical thought, inasmuch as it could be kept private, and appears to have acted as an existential need for many inner émigrés, Kuby and Mammen included.17 Mammen’s letters reveal her day-to-day survival: what she reads and which concerts and theatre productions she attends.18 She was sometimes upbeat about the situation, like her comments regarding how she planned to celebrate New Year 1942 in a letter to Kuby’s wife:

Figure 4.1  Jeanne Mammen, Soldat Erich [Kuby] (Soldier Erich [Kuby]), undated, c. 1935– 40, tempera on cardboard, 100 × 72 centimetres. Private owner. Photo: © Jeanne-MammenStiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin.

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Jeanne Mammen I have ‘purchased’ a bottle of wine for myself for New Year’s Eve, pompously named ‘Chanson de fou’ [Song of the Fool]. If only everything wasn’t so ambiguous and obscure, holy January! I shall greet the New Year in my studio apartment before that there’s ‘The Art of the Fugue’ [from Johann Sebastian Bach]. All’s well that ends well!19

Upon other occasions, letters reveal that she was simply too exhausted to paint.20 Nonetheless, her output was prolific. As some psychologists argue, it is, in fact, often the most adverse conditions that ‘prove to be well-springs of creativity’.21 Mammen used what she saw around her as nourishment for her artworks, for never before had a war been (mis)communicated so extensively to civilian audiences.22 On his way to join the reserve troops (Ersatztruppe) posted in Ingolstadt in 1942, Kuby wrote in his diary how Mammen appeared to be ‘obsessed with painting’ (malbesessen) and that he had seen large, half-finished ‘degenerate’ artworks stacked against her studio apartment walls.23 A photograph taken in one of her rooms after the war reveals how Kuby may have encountered some of her works (Figure 4.2). Stacking work in this way helped not only to conceal subject matter, but also to maximize living/workspace. There is reason to suspect that Mammen was not necessarily anti-war. Put differently, at the very least, she was probably interested in the phenomenon of war. For example, there are books in her library relating to military strategy, such as a 1915 edition of Carl von Clausewitz’s famous 1832 war treatise, On War (Grundgedanken über Krieg und Kriegsführung). The work emphasized that war should function primarily as defensive;

Figure 4.2 Jeanne Mammen’s studio apartment, photographer unknown, undated, c. 1946–9. Photo: © Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin.

 Propaganda, War and the Home Front 97 it had far-reaching consequences, most notably on the civilian population, and was to be strategically undergone with political and military institutions working together. Mammen’s copy contains heavy underlining. It is impossible to confirm whether it was the artist who read the text so closely. What is notable is that the edition dates from the First World War signalling that whoever did read it, was interested in understanding more about the moral and ethical dimensions of war, having presumably experienced it first-hand. Moreover, markings under ‘courage in the face of all else’ (Mut vor allen Dingen), ‘indifference’ (Gleichgültigkeit) and ‘patriotism’ (Vaterlandsliebe) must have gained (renewed) relevance for an anti-Nazi like Mammen.24 Clausewitz, who had himself been a general in the Prussian army, remained a well-respected military theorist in modern Germany.25 But the National Socialists disregarded his original emphasis on the social and political aspects of war, by propagating total war that was directed above all else, through the autonomous power of military leadership.26 This was a type of war in which Mammen wanted no part. Instead, she used her work to mediate her experience of war on the home front, which included mocking the pervasive myths of leadership. Numerous pencil drawings, mostly portraits and some life models, record her experiences (Figures 4.3–4.5). Many of these were probably made spontaneously. The rapid strokes and cross-hatching demonstrate the artist’s confidence as a draftsperson.

Figure 4.3  Jeanne Mammen, untitled (Brustbild eines Soldaten mit Hakenkreuzbinde von links) (head and shoulders of a soldier with a swastika armband from the left), undated, c. 1939–45, pencil, 62.2 × 50 centimetres. Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin; Inv.-Nr.: SM 2021-00597. Photo: © Dorin Alexandru Ionita, Berlin.

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Figure 4.4  Jeanne Mammen, untitled (Mann im Anzug, am Tisch sitzend und zeichnend) (man in a suit sitting, drawing at a table), undated, c. 1939–45, pencil, 61.5 × 50.3 centimetres. Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin; Inv.-Nr.: SM 2020-03481. Photo: © Dorin Alexandru Ionita, Berlin.

A handful depict soldiers in their neat uniforms, reading, drawing, eating or drinking. Mammen wrote in a letter to Kuby in 1943 how ‘worn’ (durchgearbeitet) the soldiers’ faces appeared when they hurriedly smoked a cigarette. Conscription had changed them, she notes; before the war ‘they had been just normal, everyday people going about their business’.27 Indeed, both of Mammen’s nephews were posted on the front28 – and one was killed. This was now the Clausewitzian far-reaching realities of war, its presence felt back home on the streets and among families – captured by the artist in her drawings in raw, unwavering terms. Other portraits are of unsuspecting classmates from the drawing sessions she attended until Allied bombings made it too dangerous.29 Some of these figures are well dressed, smoke and hold notebooks, paper or drawing implements in their hands. They reveal Mammen’s steadfast humour; physiognomies are often caricatured with elongated noses, distorted mouths and squinting eyes. These private classes offered a point of contact for the artist as well as ‘freedom’, during a period defined almost solely by restrictions: ‘It was a totally free atmosphere, it was wonderful, I liked it a lot. One sitting cost fifty Pfennige, one could come and go as one pleased.’30 Much later in her life and in preparation for a retrospective of her work, the artist wrote in a letter to the artist Hans Thiemann: With the help of Hans Laabs [the artist] I worked like a horse trying to straighten out some of my artwork, looking through all my drawings. The result: 9 plastic

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Figure 4.5  Jeanne Mammen, untitled (Brustbild einer vollbusigen Frau in gestreiftem Kleid) (head and shoulders of a busty woman in a striped dress), undated, c. 1939–45, pencil, 65 × 50 centimetres. Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin; Inv.-Nr.: SM 202003485. Photo: © Dorin Alexandru Ionita, Berlin.

Bilka [department store] shopping bags stuffed with torn up sketches. Now I still must sign the one thousand three hundred and sixty.31

Her comment gives a sense of the extraordinary number of drawings she made and, indeed, how many survived. It also reveals the extent to which Mammen’s painting was still very much grounded in the figurative realism of previous decades. The drawing of a female figure is a case in point (Figure 4.5). Here realism is fused with the dynamic surface play of lines and planes characteristic of Cubism, demonstrating that drawing acted as a crucial way of exploring the conceptual orientation of much of her painting. Like her drawings, Mammen’s letters to Kuby vividly capture what many Berliners went through during these years. Caught out in the city during an air-raid strike, she crammed into an overly full shelter at Berlin’s Potsdamer Bridge. Here she describes how she perched on the small corner of a wooden bench – with only half a bottom cheek, next to a ‘chick embryo face [Kückenembryogesicht], who sucked the fat cheeks of a small (tiny, overweight) drop-dead gorgeous, white-collar, female worker’. Mammen watched as ‘others yanked their headgear down over their eyes and laughed until they cried’.32 The quickening pace of the shelling campaigns during 1943 meant that seeking shelter became more frequent and, therefore, almost habitual. Heated conversation,

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casual flirtations and card games were common. Air raids assumed a bizarre façade of civilian ‘normality’, with the Nazis effectively achieving their propagandistic aim of making people believe they were a necessary part of the city’s day-to-day defences.33 On the contrary, for an astute observer like Mammen, her description reveals a highly charged atmosphere in which many Berliners from across the social divides were thrust together in extreme danger. Friendship with Kuby was important for the artist in other ways, too. Between 1938 and 1940, she worked for Kuby’s wife, the sculptor Edith Kuby-Schumacher, who ran a mail-order business in orthopaedic shoes, and for which there was still good demand. Mammen helped cut the shoe leather.34 Once Edith moved away from Berlin to Überlingen at Lake Constance (Bodensee) in 1940 with her son, she sent Mammen rare luxuries, including nuts and apples.35 The Kubys also potentially helped the artist secure work, painting heads and hands for the renowned puppet maker Harro Siegel (1900–85).36 Mammen kept two small hollow, linden-wood heads of a black wolf and a red parrot in a bookcase in her studio apartment that were probably examples of Siegel’s work (Figure 4.6). It is unknown whether she herself painted them. The heads are elegantly carved with expressive, painted features and were perhaps intended as part of one of Siegel’s sophisticated productions such as Faust, Beowulf, Dido and Aeneas or Tristan and Isolde. Comments in a letter to Hans Gaffron reveal that she

Figure 4.6 Painted, wooden hand puppet head of a wolf, 16.5 × 13  centimetres, in Mammen’s bookcase in her studio apartment. Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin; Inv.-Nr.: SM 2018-09353. Photo: © Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin.

 Propaganda, War and the Home Front 101 enjoyed it too: ‘Did I tell you already that I have a pretty nice night job? I am painting the heads and hands of Punch and Judy puppets. The wonderful thing is that I can come and leave as I wish (it is paid by the piece), so I go there from 6 [pm] until 12 [midnight].’37 Siegel was no ordinary puppet maker. Some of his figures were up to 2 metres high, with flexible joints allowing them to move in an exaggerated way and based upon the amplified style of Japanese puppets. In 1941 he was given little choice but to direct the newly established Reich Institute for Puppetry (Reichsinstitut für Puppenspiel), founded in 1938, as puppets became a crucial way of promoting superior Nazi craftsmanship in German Heimatkunst (Homeland Art) exhibitions abroad.38 Like Mammen, Siegel never became a member of the Nazi Party. In fact, he was a close friend of Adolf Reichwein (1898–1944), who played a role in reformatory pedagogics and was an active member of the resistance. Through Reichwein, Siegel designed a signet for the resistance group, the Kreisau Circle (Kreisauer Kreis).39 After the defeat at Stalingrad in the winter of 1942–3, Joseph Goebbels’ proclamation of total war in February 1943 was a desperate attempt to turn the tide. All economic resources were mobilized for war, which meant forcing larger businesses into armament production and civilians into assembly-line work at munitions factories. All women between seventeen and forty-five (later fifty) were obliged to report to the authorities.40 As Jill Stephenson has so aptly put it, whenever shortages in male personnel appeared, it was women who became like a ‘reserve army’ workforce.41 Mammen had just turned fifty in November 1940 (she was also unmarried and without children), which meant she may have been at greater risk. The Reich Institute for Puppetry also contributed to the war effort, making puppets to entertain soldiers (particularly in hospitals), officials in Reich work camps, schoolchildren and Kindergarten. In 1942 Mammen mentioned in a letter to Kuby that she was preparing to travel to Prague ‘for the Institute’, where productions were held for German soldiers and where she could ‘draw motifs for theater decorations’.42 She appears to have helped with the stage design for these productions. In a typed letter in Mammen’s Reich Chamber file, dated 10 February 1945, the artist states that she had filled in the questionnaire regarding her contribution to the war effort – sent to her on 1 December 1944 – and that she had returned it along with a certificate issued by the Reich Institute for Puppetry. This certificate simply confirmed that she continued to be ‘urgently needed’ (auch weiterhin dringend benötigt) for this position.43 The overall extent of Mammen’s contribution – how many puppet heads she painted and in which productions they appeared – remains unknown. Her contribution may, in fact, have been only very slight. Nonetheless, it was significant: the only work the artist produced for the Reich was not as a fine artist, nor as a commercial illustrator of magazines, but, rather, surprisingly, as a painter of puppets. Mammen’s involvement with the institute, like Siegel’s, nonetheless, should be understood as a deliberate attempt to avoid contributing to the war effort in more direct ways. Puppet painting also potentially informed her paintings. Admiral (c. 1939–42), Mackensen (c. 1939–42) and General (c. 1939–42) (see Colour Plates 16–18) are united by their three-quarter length, forward-facing poses and Cubist style of depiction. Crude jagged teeth resemble knives, moustaches appear like brushes and eyes like dots, and a series of overlapping geometric segments replace organic human features. A preparatory pen sketch reduces one of these figures to a series of essential, comic

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Figure 4.7  Jeanne Mammen, untitled, drawing of a military figure, undated, c. 1939–42, pen on paper, Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin; Inv.-Nr.: SM 2018-09218. Photo: © Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin.

lines (Figure 4.7). Contrastingly, attention has been given to their military uniforms, such as the braiding on the coat arm of Mackensen and the medals and tasselled helmet adorned by the General. In Admiral, the artist playfully inserts doilies, cardboard, gold paper and tin foil for helmet plumes, medals and military insignia. Together, these paintings merge propagandist myth with artistic fantasy and act as a powerful riposte to the exclusive and aggressively male character of Nazi war propaganda.

National Socialism, masculinity and warfare Given that experiences of war were defined and made almost solely by men, Annelie Lütgens has argued that Mammen’s engagement with the subject was unusual.44 Yet, for an artist whose scrutable vision revealed an ambivalence towards the pervasive presence of the new women, it seems logical that she would, in turn, seek to explore the masculinization of cultural politics. Some of Mammen’s drawings of soldiers were an attempt to assert, perhaps even mimic, this masculine experience of war. Indeed, Eberhard Roters notes how they possess a certain kind of ‘angry energy’, with layers of pencil lines, ‘scratched, carved and pierced into the paper sheet as if the pencil was a halberd’.45 Lütgens’ point is also worth noting in the context of inner emigration: Mammen did not shy away from war, nor use her work to escape it, as perhaps some other inner émigrés did.46 On the contrary, her work is both fascinating and compelling during this period precisely because it blurs the demarcation line between the public and private roles of men and women. While far more pronounced under National Socialist ideology, this line risked becoming ‘unstuck’ during the war.47 It is well known that women actively contributed to the war effort by working in armaments factories, as well as taking up other public roles. As noted previously, Mammen did not do this. Instead, she used her new paintings created under the radar to confront, challenge and, sometimes, even mock the masculine and very public face of war. There had been an overall reluctance to represent conflict during the Weimar Republic, which was partly upheld in the early 1930s. This diffidence was a response

 Propaganda, War and the Home Front 103 not only to the colossal death toll of the First World War but also to the nationalist myth that the German army had not been defeated, but, rather, had been betrayed as a ‘stab in the back’ (Dolchstoss) by socialist revolutionaries at home. A snapshot of the types of exhibitions held in Berlin and their narrow focus on military portraits, medals or steel helmets during the mid-1930s make this clear.48 Nonetheless, attempts to generate a ‘fighting spirit’ among the German populace had failed in the lead up to war. How to represent unfolding events to overcome public fears once the war was underway, therefore, remained crucial, and the propaganda ministry wasted little time in establishing a programme for doing so.49 The initial tactic was to insist that war was being fought as a ‘defensive’ measure. Images depicting open conflict would have contravened the idea of a propagandistic ‘wish for peace’. Thus, displays of uniforms, medals and trophies became primary indexes of German patriotism. However, as the war progressed, the subject of war and the military became increasingly popular and was used to generate a sense of invincibility through the regular depiction of triumphs to galvanize popular opinion behind the war effort, as well as agitating against the enemy on the home front. One of the first official war exhibitions, ‘Polenfeldzug in Bildern und Bildnissen’ (The Polish Campaign in Images and Portraits) in the Berliner Künstlerhaus in January 1940, marked German victory in Poland and was organized by Alfred Rosenberg.50 The term ‘Campaign’ (Feldzug) instead of ‘war’ (Krieg) in the title of the exhibition deliberately set the heraldic tone by harking back to antiquity. The watercolour Fighter in Poland (1939) by the celebrated painter, Franz Eichhorst, featured as part of this exhibition. It shows a Wehrmacht soldier as a resolute captor of the city of Warsaw, framed by ruins (Figure 4.8). Any trace of the carnage and chaos of invasion are erased, the effects of which result in an abstract representation of conflict – in other words, conflict as symbol, not as a specific situation. The soldier’s rifle and steel helmet form essential signifiers of modern, masculine impenetrability in accordance with contemporary glorifications of war.51 In his book on art and war written the same year, the critic Wilhelm Westecker, for example, claimed: The German hero, steadfast in will and noble in attitude, resigned to his fate as death threatens. The steel helmet becomes here an expression of his warlike being/ self. One meets soldiers again and again who wear their steel helmets as if they were part of them.52

Representations like this, in which the single body of the soldier symbolized the Germanic race, with his ‘iron will’ (eiserne Entschlossenheit) and ‘fight-ready masculinity’ (kampfbereite Männlichkeit), became stock-in-trade propaganda during the early war years.53 Indeed, Eichhorst’s work was shown again at the Great German Art Exhibition in Munich later that year.54 Other works in the same exhibition by Eduard Thöny, Paul Bronisch and Erst Gorsemann, among others, diverged little from Eichhorst’s formula. It is not known whether Mammen saw either of these exhibitions. However, she does appear to have avidly read the newspaper and kept up to date with wartime developments. Kuby’s diary indicates that they discussed Poland just days before the

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Figure 4.8  Franz Eichhorst, Polenkämpfer (Fighter in Poland), 1939, watercolour, original size unknown. © Archiv der NS-Kunst, Photothek des Zentralinstituts für Kunstgeschichte, Munich.

German invasion, when he visited Mammen in her studio at the end of August 1939.55 We might surmise that paintings such as Polish Peasant Woman during the War (c. 1939–42) are responses to some of these unfolding events (Figure 4.9). Indeed, the artist later described the work in the draft of a letter to the gallery owner G. A. Richter in Stuttgart as ‘the Polish refugee woman’.56 Mammen depicts a solitary female figure against a dark backdrop. The figure’s head is covered with a headscarf, and her face appears mask-like with anguish. Her contorted arms and large hands are crossed defensively around her upper body. Like her drawing of a woman in a striped dress, discussed previously, Mammen suspends the organic and inorganic, as if to signal the intense effects of war here. The subject of the work is unusual with regards to the artist’s war oeuvre in that the main protagonist is a woman. In other words, the Polish Peasant Woman is not particularly characteristic of the artist’s subjects during this period. It, nonetheless, offers a useful counterpoint to the types of National Socialist body politic exemplified by Eichhorst’s work and, indeed, to Mammen’s own colourful portraits of military figures, discussed shortly. We know for certain that the artist did go to other Nazi exhibitions. In a letter to Max Delbrück shortly after the war, she wrote how pleased she was to hear that Wilhelm Lehmbruck’s sculptures were now on show in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The last time she had seen his work in Germany, she tells him, was as part of the Degenerate Art exhibition on tour to Berlin in 1938. Her comments

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Figure 4.9  Jeanne Mammen, Polnische Bauersfrau im Krieg (Polish Peasant Woman during the War), undated, c. 1939–42, tempera on cardboard, 100 × 70  centimetres. JeanneMammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin; Inv.-Nr.: SM 2018-09314. Photo: © Mathias Schormann, Berlin.

indicate that she had suffered under the Nazi’s purging of museums and galleries, noting in the same letter, ‘How I long to visit a beautiful museum again!’57 But she writes nothing more. Surviving exhibition leaflets in her archive suggest that she also attended the autumn exhibition at the Prussian Academy of Arts in 1935 and the ‘Grosse Deutsche in Bildnissen ihrer Zeit’ (Great Germans in Portraits of Their Time) at the National Gallery in 1936. Despite Hitler’s wish that Munich would again become Germany’s cultural centre, Berlin continued to host the highest number of National Socialist exhibitions – showcasing approximately 20 per cent of all National Socialist exhibitions.58 For an artist like Mammen, who regularly visited art galleries and museums, officially sanctioned art was, therefore, probably difficult to ignore. Her attendance at the ‘Grosse Deutsche’ exhibition is worth noting. Not only did the exhibition signal the increasing radicalization of Nazi cultural policy shortly before the Degenerate Art exhibition opened on a grand scale in Munich the following year, but its presentation of a myopic, androcentric history also offered an opportunity for both artistic inspiration and defiance in Mammen’s own work. ‘Grosse Deutsche’ showcased National Socialist culture to an international audience as part of the 1936 Olympic festivities. Although its focus was not military superiority, its conception of history, much like the representation of war, was shown through a series of individual, posthumous portraits of figures whose contribution to German

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Kultur was celebrated. These figures included Charles the Great (Karl der Große), Richard Wagner and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.59 The famous self-portrait of Albrecht Dürer from c. 1500 (a unifying symbol of German culture) adorned the exhibition poster. Besides confirming the party’s official emphasis on the classicizing figurative style, Adolf Ziegler (the new president of the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts) explained in the exhibition leaflet that the ‘blood heritage’ of German art lay in the Middle Ages.60 Through its honouring of past figures and artistic predecessors, the exhibition was the epitome of what Ernst Bloch had termed ‘non-contemporaneity’ (Ungleichzeitigkeit) in his seminal text Erbschaft dieser Zeit (Heritage of Our Times) the previous year. According to Bloch, it was ‘age-old images’ that were revived and proliferated in Nazi ideology above all else, which helped establish nostalgia for the ‘good old times’. Such nostalgia, in turn, acted as an important precondition of fascist conformity.61 Nazi perception of the past also left little ambiguity as to the non-role of women throughout art/history and in great events. In other words, the paintings, sculptures, medals and graphic works that were included in this prestigious exhibition valorized a Reich that was mostly shaped by, and represented through, men.62 The motivation for Mammen’s military portraits can be understood against the backdrop of the ‘Polenfeldzug in Bildern’ and ‘Grosse Deutsche’ and many other exhibitions like them. Despite their marked difference in style, portraits such as Admiral, General and Mackensen draw on and subvert much of the stock-in-trade body politic of Nazi propaganda. The works focus on uniformed, male figures wearing resplendent headgear. War or concrete references to conflict are absent. Instead, the male figure stands for unequivocal leadership and, ultimately, invincibility, both of which are exaggerated and distorted to dramatic effect by the artist. Indeed, what distinguishes these portraits from the artist’s other artworks created during her inner emigration is their seemingly ‘aggressive’ Cubist representation. The figures recede into the background; the geometric form segments and colours work to eliminate the distinctions between the subject and the surrounding context. This was perhaps deliberate. Mammen shrewdly asserts the combative nature of Cubism as avantgarde provocateur par excellence, using camouflage as an expressive, representational method. Picasso, in fact, initially claimed to have invented the term ‘camouflage’, having witnessed disguised vehicles on the streets of Paris in 1914.63 He then set about transforming it into the Cubist renegotiation of picture planes. In her own military portraits, then, Mammen cleverly uses Cubism’s connection with combat strategies to attack propagandist depictions of soldiers and military figures, which sought to play down open forms of conflict. The splitting and splicing of the figures themselves not only appear combative, but their organic, human features also appear to have been entirely transformed into a type of mechanized body armour. Mammen’s emphasis on military uniforms plays an important role in establishing the dissenting potential of these portraits further. As a former fashion illustrator, she was clearly fascinated by the social and cultural values associated with clothing that she so vividly recorded in her sketchbooks. Her scrapbooks attest further to this, with pictures of figures dressed in anything from ceremonial robes to soldier trench coats (Figures 1.6 and 1.7). In her portraits, uniform acts as a powerful index of German patriotism, as it did in much contemporary imagery. This is most evident in her

 Propaganda, War and the Home Front 107 configuration of Field Marshall August von Mackensen (1849–1945), the only named figure she depicted. Mackensen had played a prominent role in some of the successes of the German troops during the First World War, for which he was awarded the Grand Cross of the Iron Cross. He was made a Prussian State Councillor in August 1933, and his son (Hans Georg von Mackensen) became an authority figure in the Schutzstaffel (SS).64 But it was his unusual appearance that marked him out as a figurehead of the old militaristic guard. Well into his eighties, he continued to wear the distinctive uniform of the Death’s Head Hussars (Totenkopfhusaren), which was black with white, gold and red trims, and an unmistakable busby hat with plume, skull and crossbones. He was also photographed on numerous occasions in it, including in the formal studio portrait that Mammen owned in her collection (Figure 4.10).65 And this is how she playfully recasts him in paint. His war medals sit prominently on his chest, his small eyes appear as if set into the busby hat and his gloved hands clutch the handle of his sword. Here is uniform that so powerfully symbolizes forms of Ungleichzeitigkeit, acting as a sartorial signifier of the reactionary continuity between Empire and Third Reich that Mackensen himself so effectively embodied.66 The uniform of Mammen’s general and admiral figures signal similar criticism. The General notably wears an old-fashioned Pickelhaube, a type of spiked leather helmet, sometimes decorated with horsehair plumes and worn by soldiers during the First World War, before steel helmets were developed. It was, nonetheless, still sported by prominent right-wing factions of the Weimar Republic, including General Erich Ludendorff and Reich President Paul von Hindenburg. Although Mammen’s Admiral wears a more modern, flat naval cap, its silver plumage appears more in keeping with its old-fashioned predecessor – the tricorne hat. This sartorial conflation of the old with the new was perhaps a deliberate attempt by the artist to draw attention to the narratives of strength and glory associated with the Imperial Navy and used by the Nazis to counter the naval restrictions imposed by the Versailles Treaty.67 Indeed, under the command of Admiral Erich Raeder (1876–1960), the processes of rank and order for the newly formed Kriegsmarine (navy) (in 1935) were understood to have been even more ‘Prussian’ than the Prussian army!68

Figure 4.10  Original studio photograph of Field Marshall Anton Ludwig Friedrich August von Mackensen from Gottheil & Sohn, Danzig, c. 1905. Photo: © Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin.

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Figure 4.11  Gingerbread figure preserved in a Perspex case, 19 × 13 centimetres, mounted on a wall in Mammen’s studio apartment. Date unknown. Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin; Inv.-Nr.: SM 2018-09351. Photo: © author, Birmingham.

With their bright colours and shiny insertions, these portraits call forth comments mocking the Wehrmacht found in Kuby’s diary. Here Kuby quipped that their heinous crimes of ‘steel’ were tarnished to reveal nothing but ‘Braunau [the place of Hitler’s birth] cardboard (Braunau Pappe)’ underneath.69 For all their illusion of the pomp and glory of military insignia, the paper insertions in Mammen’s paintings were ultimately a sham, playfully used to draw attention to the type of artificial myth-making that Kuby, too, despised. Other objects housed in the artist’s studio suggest similar criticism. Among various small figurines, Mammen owned a handful of toy soldiers of the types that proliferated in wartime Germany and reinforced the rigid gender divisions associated with combat.70 In addition, hung on the wall and preserved in a Perspex case originally used for candied fruits was a gingerbread figure on horseback resplendent in the paper head of a cavalry figure (Figure 4.11). This biscuit figure, with its faded fondant icing and cheeky paper addition, appears more like a whimsical equestrian ‘sculpture’ intended to diminish the male combatant on horseback. Mammen’s military portraits were created sometime between 1939 and 1942. Their potential completion during 1942 suggests that their distinct style also probably resulted from dwindling morale on the home front. During 1942, and the protracted defeat in Russia, there was a sea change in attitudes towards victory claims made by the party.71 From a cultural perspective, Lynette Roth notes the increase in experimental and, indeed, more openly critical artworks during this period.72 A portrait, The Hunter (Sunday Hunter) (1939–42), which adopts a similar format to Mammen’s military portraits, is worth considering by way of the final point in this context, as it is by far the most overtly critical artwork the artist created during her inner emigration (see Colour Plate 19).

Deconstructing the Führer myth The Hunter depicts a single male figure dressed in a green hunting outfit in front of a matching green background. He wears an alpine-style hat pulled down almost over his

 Propaganda, War and the Home Front 109 eyes and has a rifle slung over his shoulder, partly obscured by his white torso. Sporting red gloves to match his red collar, he clasps a bird by the neck in his right hand. His angular shoulders and forearms appear more pronounced considering his triangularshaped head visible beneath his hat, his inverted triangular collar and his long nose. The hunter’s features are radically simplified, geometric and mask-like. The one recognizable feature is his clipped moustache above the line of his mouth. Mammen reprises the aggressive Cubist style found in her other military portraits, only this time, she places the figure in front of a backdrop of organic foliage. The Hunter sets about mocking some of the metanarratives created by representations of Hitler, and like her portrait of Mackensen, Mammen appears to have turned not only to painting but also to photographs in order to do so. As Ian Kershaw’s persuasive biography of Hitler argues, throughout his twelve years in power, the representation of the leader became a crucial way of establishing the ‘Führer myth’. Having merged the roles of chancellor and president after the death of Hindenburg in 1934, Hitler styled himself as the omnipresent leader – Führer and Reich Chancellor who ‘transcend[ed] sectional interests and grievances through the overriding ideal of national unity, made possible through his necessary aloofness from the “conflict sphere” of daily politics’ between the Nazi Party and the state.73 During the war, the ways in which the Führer could be represented in the media were more tightly controlled. Strict censorship issued from 29 January 1940 meant that any images of Hitler that were to be published in the press were supposed to be authorized by Hitler himself. To be more precise, Hitler should be shown only as Führer and Feldherr, Commander-in-Chief of the Wehrmacht. Consequently, the number of images of the so-called ‘private’ Hitler that had featured in the press noticeably decreased. This marked a distinct move away from countless images produced by Hitler’s favoured photographer, Heinrich Hoffmann (1885–1957), which portrayed him not as the Führer, but, rather, as ‘Adolf ’, talking to children, picnicking, pensive, reading and walking in the mountains, clearly drawing on the long-standing symbolism of the head of state’s ‘two bodies’.74 Images in Hoffmann’s numerous photo books, including Hitler wie ihn keiner kennt (Hitler As You’ve Never Seen Him Before) (1932), captured Hitler as a frugal, peaceful man – a lone alpine hunter (here with his favourite breed of dog) in upper Salzburg, where he had a house (Figure 4.12).75 The accompanying (none too subtle) text by Baldur von Schirach (Nazi politician and Hoffmann’s son-in law) reinforced the way in which Hoffmann’s photographs should be understood: ‘So he lives – the “party big-wig” [Bonze] Marxist liars dupe their workers into thinking that Hitler has parties, drinks Prosecco and is surrounded by beautiful women. Hitler does not drink one drop of alcohol! (Hitler is also a non-smoker).’76 Thus, the representational myth of the man in nature and the ‘leader above the fray’ had already become powerfully enmeshed before the war, epitomizing what Walter Benjamin unambiguously recognized to be the ‘aestheticization of politics’, from his exile in Paris.77 Given the saturation of the press and the extraordinary high print numbers of Hoffmann’s photo books, it is likely that Mammen would have known his work. In one of Mammen’s copies of Der Querschnitt, a photograph of a young, smartly dressed Mussolini has been defaced – a pair of bull, or goat, horns have been pencilled onto

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Figure 4.12  Heinrich Hoffmann and Baldur von Schirach, Hitler wie ihn keiner kennt. 100 Bild-Dokumente aus dem Leben des Führers (Hitler As You’ve Never Seen Him Before. 100 Picture Documents from the Life of the Führer), 1932, Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin. © bpk-Bildagentur. Photo: © Sebastian Ahlers.

his head. The original image caption reads, ‘Der Duce spricht in Villa Glori’ (the Duce speaks at Villa Glori). Scrawled across the top of the photograph in pencil are the words ‘Schafs Korf [sic]’ (Figure 4.13). The similarities with the German term ‘Schafskopf ’ (blockhead) are unmistakable. Whoever drew on it appears to have been aware of a fascist body politic and, indeed, of the power of photography to both construct and sustain it. Benjamin’s essay referred to the (ab)use of fine arts by the Nazis, not photography. Nonetheless, by using the characterization of Hitler found in photo books and postcards as the potential genesis for a painting, Mammen (like Benjamin) was challenging the status attached to so-called ‘original’ works of art promoted by the party. Put differently, her painting turns the tensions between mass-produced imagery ‘kitsch’– which the Nazis sought to guard against – and fine art into the painting’s subject matter.78 Unlike Hoffmann, who captured Hitler in expansive mountain landscapes, the hunter’s thickset body dominates the natural setting blocking it almost entirely from the viewer in Mammen’s painting. The overriding use of green on both Hitler’s clothing and the matching foliage plays once more on forms of camouflage. To attack successfully, a hunter’s appearance should be as inconspicuous as possible. However, here, the angularity of Hitler’s body, outlined in black, marks an awkward disjunction from the nature behind him. If, according to Hoffmann’s photography, nature and

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Figure 4.13  ‘Der Duce spricht in Villa Glori’ (The Duce speaks at Villa Glori), photograph published in Der Querschnitt, no. 7, 8 August 1927, 21. Photo: © Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin.

the natural were supposed signifiers of Hitler’s authenticity, both have been entirely quashed here. Mammen’s painting artfully turns Hoffmann’s rural ‘Adolf ’ on its head, collapsing the distinction between the public and private life of Hitler. The Führer is no longer a ‘human’ subject. Instead, he is shown throttling a bird (a dove of peace?) in his blood-red gloves. The bird is an unequal match for a tyrannical, but no less slow and incompetent hunter made explicit by the painting’s derogatory subtitle ‘Sunday hunter’ (Sonntagsjäger). Painted sometime between 1939 and 1942, when Germany was at war on several fronts – with south-eastern Europe, with campaigns in North Africa, with the Soviets in the East and with Britain resisting in the West – Mammen’s portrait draws attention to the systematic aggression on both home and international fronts symbolized by one, weak figure and ein Führer alone. Not unlike Mammen’s other military portraits, The Hunter can also be understood as a gendered riposte to the Nazi body politic. The rendering of Hitler’s torso is deliberately ambiguous; the outline of his chest (and nipples?) appears visible beneath his clothes. Mammen fragments parts of Hitler’s body, turning him into a spectacle for the female gaze. Her play on the visual lexicon of the male combatant was particularly apt in relation to Hitler’s obsession with the perceived defects and flaws of body image. In her compelling study of modernist women filmmakers, writers and photographers, Annalisa Zox-Weaver shows how Lee Miller, Janet Flanner and others adopted processes of dismemberment fused with fantasy, projection and reanimation in their works as a way of critically engaging with National Socialism. According to

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Zox-Weaver, these processes could be understood as a strategic bid for violational representation and as such, an empowering form of (gendered) nonconformity, when little else seemed possible.79 The scrutiny and ultimate painterly subjugation of the so-called hypermasculine figures of authority in Mammen’s military portraits suggests that they, too, functioned in a similar way. Mammen was not the only inner émigré artist attacking the powerful role images played in constructing Nazi myths. Hans Thiemann’s Der 4er-maler (The Four Painter or Painter of ‘Fours’) (1942) expressly mocks mass representations of Hitler during the same period (Figure 4.14). Like Mammen, Thiemann remained in Berlin during the war and continued to paint throughout the Allied bombing raids, moving his painting materials into the basement.80 Comments by Thiemann in wartime letters to the architect Paul Matthias Naeff suggest that like many others, he did not believe in the Nazi hubris of victory, claiming that there is simply no place for him in the whole of the ‘hallucinationalsocialist-want-to-be-greater-Germany [halluzinationalsozialistischen gernegrossdeutschland]’. His own critical self-reflexivity as an inner émigré is also notably addressed in the next sentence: ‘I am holding this position not as a hero, but as a courageous coward.’81 Much later, in 1968, he would take up the subject again, only this time in letters to Mammen, stating that he mostly kept out of political matters, but nonetheless carried on being a type of ‘private anarchist’ (Privatanarchist) like he had done under Hitler.82 Der 4er-maler certainly corroborates his stance.

Figure 4.14  Hans Thiemann, Der 4er-maler (The Four Painter or Painter of ‘Fours’), 1942, mixed media (photocollage and ink), 24 × 5 centimetres. Private owner, Berlin. © Franziska Kubicêk. Photo: © Gunter Lepkowski.

 Propaganda, War and the Home Front 113 Thiemann depicts an artist carefully painting a postage stamp of Hitler’s head. Upon closer inspection, the image is, in fact, a circulating stamp inserted into Thiemann’s drawing.83 The collage mocks not only the reproductive surfeit of Hitler’s image, but also its potential scale. As Paul Gilroy has persuasively shown, the reiterative success of the Führer myth was predicated, in part, upon the flexibility of his image. In other words, reproductions of Hitler’s image should be small enough to fit a postage stamp, but also large enough to fill a cinema screen.84 Here, the contours of a sexless and ageless artist are connected to the chair by a seemingly unbroken, automatic line. Thiemann’s incline towards Surrealism was perhaps intentional. Letters between the artist and Wassily Kandinsky (Thiemann’s former Bauhaus teacher), now in Paris, reveal that despite remaining in Germany, Thiemann was not entirely cut off from the latest ‘gossip’ on the continent, including Kandinsky’s lengthy description of the 1938 ‘Exposition internationale du Surréalisme’.85 In Der 4er-maler, the freedoms of Surrealist automatism clash with the artist’s conformity to sanctioned naturalism, signalled through his use of a magnifying glass to paint Hitler’s moustache ‘correctly’. Thiemann’s title not only plays skilfully on the four Reichspfennig stamp, but also signals the (symbolic) value of an opportunist artist who so eagerly strove for acclaim under the Nazis.86 This artist’s (misguided) enthusiasm is reinforced by Thiemann’s linguistic play in the title: the German pronunciation of ‘4er’ has an unmistakable aural affinity with ‘Führer’. The more openly critical nature of both Thiemann’s and Mammen’s artworks might also be explained by the bold actions of other artists during the late 1930s, namely Picasso. Like many other artists, both Thiemann and Mammen travelled (independently) to the Paris World Fair in 1937, where they first encountered Picasso’s painting Guernica. For the many who saw it, Picasso’s anti-fascist stance now seemed incontrovertible. Guernica quickly became a source of dissident inspiration that was referenced by inner émigré and exiled artists alike.

Camouflage II: The Picasso Effect Picasso’s large 3.49 × 7.76 metre oil painting of Guernica was set into the entrance hall of the Spanish Pavilion at the World Fair. The painting depicts a room filled with violent carnage, in which the silence of death and agony of pain collide. Picasso’s painting, along with the pavilion itself, was financed by the Spanish Republic as a response to the ongoing civil war that had engulfed the country since July 1936. Although José Luis Sert’s modest pavilion could do little to compete with the monumental size of its German counterpart designed by Albert Speer, its powerful interior attracted fervent international attention. Besides Picasso, works by Joan Miró and Julio Gonzáles, and photographs from the civil war – particularly of mothers and children – decorated its walls. Together, these works symbolized the republican struggle against the current onslaught of European fascism. Rallying slogans such as ‘We are fighting for the essential unity of Spain’ and ‘We are fighting for the independence of our country’ on the outside walls reinforced this further.87 Picasso’s painting immediately inspired debate. What did the work mean? Was it political? Was it Cubist? Could Cubism be political? Picasso had yet to publicly align

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himself with communism, and he remained tight-lipped on the political meaning of the work. His silence nonetheless permitted members of the popular front and other anti-fascists to herald the work as a response to the atrocious bombing of the Basque town carried out by the Nazis to aid Franco’s war effort. The artist and his work, therefore, came to symbolize the struggle against fascism, with some critics even believing that he had deliberately returned to the ‘degenerate’ style of Cubism, to make his opposition more explicit.88 There are good grounds to suspect that Picasso’s painting informed and perhaps, to a degree, even indirectly motivated propagandist representations of war in Germany. A long review by the art critic Robert Volz published in a 1938 edition of Die Kunst im Dritten Reich on Franz Eichhorst suggests this to be the case.89 At a time when mobilization for war was well underway, Eichhorst’s newly installed wall murals in Berlin-Schöneberg’s town hall in 1938 effectively laid the groundwork for art that should motivate the Germans for war. The murals presented the viewer with a valorization of wartime sacrifice personified through figures of young lovers, the mother, the worker, the farmer and, of course, the departure of a Wehrmacht soldier from his family. According to Volz, one of art’s primary tasks was to restore ‘the feeling of honour regarding the war for the German nation’. To do so was to move away from the ‘bloodthirsty, sensationalist painters’ (blutrünstige Sensationsmaler) of the past. Volz went on, ‘blood, yelling or injury and unbearable realism’ are not necessary in the depiction of war.90 Picasso is not named, but there is little ambiguity as to which ‘sensationalist’ painter was meant here. Volz’s review betrays the extent to which Picasso’s painting had potentially sent shock waves through Nazi Germany. As Rosi Huhn notes, the violence of Guernica appeared even more extreme considering the fair’s intended motto ‘Art and Technology in Modern Life’.91 If, overall, the fair had sought to foreground constructive, modern life, Picasso’s image dramatically compromised this message by, instead, depicting the sheer destruction of modern warfare. French aims of making the exhibition a site for European peace failed on artistic grounds alone. More fundamentally, the international focus Picasso and his work garnered publicly exposed the weaknesses of Nazi totalitarian politics. His work might have been vehemently attacked in Germany, but he was still active elsewhere, still making artwork and, indeed, seemingly more defiant than ever. Picasso’s new work offered compelling forms of nonconformity for anti-Nazi artists like Mammen. The impact of Guernica on her paintings such as The Strangling Angel (1939–42) is immediately palpable (see Colour Plate 20). The artist depicts the emaciated torso of a male figure, whose mouth with jagged teeth is thrust wide open as if to scream. Like Guernica, this is a pivotal moment of attack, only this time the perpetrator is a reptilian animal, with bulbous, pale human hands and long spiked tail slithering out of sight. The image is violent and full of anguish. The stark contrast in light, darkness and colour heightens the aggression further. The figure struggles, one arm flailing behind his body, as he appears to gasp for air and fend off his opponent. In Guernica, Picasso turned the human form inside out ‘dislodging the body’s organs and pulling back its hard shell’, to the extent that, Jutta Held suggests, even its hair appeared ‘bone-like’.92 Mammen’s Strangling Angel evokes a similar viscerality. Skin

 Propaganda, War and the Home Front 115 becomes a translucent carrier of veins and tendons, and the victim’s facial features are almost engulfed by his open mouth and prominent teeth.93 His left eye, reminiscent of the symbol of the ‘Eye of Horus’, which in ancient Egyptian myth, Horus lost in battle, serves to intensify the ferocity of the scene further still. Compared with the static composure of the melancholy male figure in Juggler (c. 1935–40) (see Colour Plate 12) and the figures of Mammen’s earlier circus works, it is possible to see by the early 1940s just how far the artist’s style had shifted away from previous engagement with Picasso’s pre-war oeuvre. Warlike hostility is likewise caught in a group of artworks depicting snarling dogs, militant cockerels on horseback and hybrid dog-wolves, which begin appearing as dominant subjects in Mammen’s artworks towards the end of the 1930s. These works are devoid of human figures and, instead, it is the animals themselves who are engaged in violent confrontations, as victims and perpetrators. One such work, Trumpeting Cockerel (c. 1943), was exhibited in Mammen’s solo exhibition at the Gerd Rosen Galerie after the war (Figure 2.2). A warlike hybrid cockerel-human figure with a long trumpet in its open beak sits atop a horse. It appears to be calling to battle, confirmed by the sabre it brandishes in its right arm. The horse’s mouth is wide open revealing a huge set of teeth and a long tongue. Instead of ears, bullhorns jut prominently out from the horse’s head. Its rendering is certainly reminiscent of Guernica, which is made more explicit by Mammen’s addition of the horns – a reference perhaps to the frequent pairing of the bull and horse in Picasso’s current work.94 The work combines the fragmented system of facetted colour forms found in Mammen’s military portraits, with the newer, broader contoured form segments similarly found in Guernica. These similarities were not discussed by critics, as Chapter 2 explored. The formal delineation of Wolf (1939–42) (see Colour Plate 21) is quite different, however. Here, the artist portrays a demonic animal reduced to little more than a series of intersecting white outlines, holding the remnants of its feathery prey between its teeth. Nonetheless, like The Strangling Angel and Trumpeting Cockerel, the painting is both combative and threatening, the accents of red paint recalling blood. As Jutta Held has pointed out, anti-fascist or, indeed, anti-war images (animal representations included) did not necessarily mean a rejection of violence by artists; it was often quite the contrary, which is certainly the case with Mammen’s work during this period.95 A preliminary study for the painting Wolf in pencil and crayon exists on a sheet of newspaper from July 1939 (Figure 4.15). There is perhaps some (unintended?) irony here: while ‘degenerate’ modern art began to be sold to foreign buyers in 1938 to raise capital for arms, the artist was secretly producing it on the newspaper pages expressly advertising the German stock market. Conceptually, there is little to separate the well-dressed Sunday hunter in Mammen’s painting from this bestial wolf, but then that is just the point. The artist’s inner émigré oeuvre reveals forms of explicit and implicit criticism to varying degrees. The same victim–perpetrator dynamic dominates Mammen’s Hunter, only here it is the dove of peace that takes centre stage, a bird that Picasso likewise included in Guernica to dramatic effect, spliced by a crack in the wall. As Chapter 3 demonstrated, parallels can be drawn between the methods of camouflage used by both writers and artists in inner emigration. This is certainly also the case with regards to the widespread

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Figure 4.15 Jeanne Mammen, Wolf, undated, c. 1939, pencil and coloured pencil on newspaper, 85 × 64  centimetres. Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin; Inv.-Nr.: SM 2019-03546. Photo: © Oliver Ziebe, Berlin.

use of animals as critical ciphers. Termed ‘Aesopian language’ or the ‘Aesopian method’96 in literature, an important example of this can be found in the writings of Dolf Sternberger again, whose essay on the critical potential of the figure of folly was discussed in the previous chapter. In an article entitled, ‘Figuren der Fabel’ (The Figures from Fables), published in the Frankfurter Zeitung in 1941, Sternberger turned his attention to the enduring relevance of Aesop’s fables to describe the contemporary (political) situation.97 He explored the long narrative tradition of the interrelationships between animals and humans used in the ancient art of Christian fables, mythology and fairy tales. He argued that fables were a good way of exposing not simply good and bad, but also the power dynamics of relationships (Machtverhältnisse). Crucially, because fables were exemplars, they helped the individual to reflect on their own role/ actions in society – whether to accept or challenge a given situation.98 Sternberger’s account also foregrounded certain fables, including the menacing exchange between the predatory wolf and the innocent lamb.99 During a period in which public violence on Jews noticeably intensified – in part, through the blaming of Jews for ongoing military defeat – we can assume that readers of the Frankfurter Zeitung understood the wolf–lamb narrative as symbolizing the Nazi and the Jew. Under National Socialism, the Frankfurter Zeitung made publishing anti-Nazi texts its mission.100 The fact that many of these were camouflaged enabled it to do so. Moreover, it also crucially meant that many of its readers effectively became ‘practised’ in reading between the lines.

 Propaganda, War and the Home Front 117 Mammen may not have known Sternberger’s account. But beyond his emphasis on the critical relevance of fables, the artist was certainly familiar with similar narrative traditions in art, owning monographs in her library on Francisco Goya and Hieronymus Bosch, to whose works Picasso’s treatment of animals in Guernica was also readily compared at the time. In addition, she owned a copy of Wera von Blankenburg’s richly illustrated book, Heilige und dämonische Tiere: die Symbolsprache der Ornamentik im frühen Mittelalter (Sacred and Demonic Animals: The Symbolism of Ornamentation in the Early Middle Ages) from 1943.101 The book contains numerous photographic examples of stonework in which animals, half-humans and gargoyles appear on Christian churches and temples across the world. Photographs of capital heads on the Cloister of St Zeno in Bad Reichenhall, as well as a similar carving from pillars in Brauweiler Benedictine Abbey, are noteworthy in that they both show the figure of a wolf eating a bird. ‘The Wolf and the Crane’ is also attributed to Aesop and is a story in which the crane (the only willing animal) helps the choking wolf remove a bone from his throat.102 The ungrateful wolf does not honour the crane, however, arguing that not eating him is reward enough. Much like Aesop’s ‘Wolf and the Lamb’, the story in its various incantations symbolizes the oppressor (the wolf is a recognized symbol of ‘sin’ or ‘the devil’ as predator) and the innocent victim. But the story hints at a political message, too. Blankenburg explains that the ungrateful wolf represents the exploitation of the lower orders by those in power, or those who would effectively find an excuse to swallow (exterminate) an ally or friend.103 It cannot be a coincidence, therefore, that in a period of such profound conflict, the wolf (or a Cerberus-type creature identified variously as a ‘hell dog’ (Höllenhund) in some of Mammen’s paintings and preliminary drawings) becomes such a prominent subject in her work.104 Conversely, she never depicted lions or eagles, which featured more readily in National Socialist propaganda.105 Whether it was through Picasso’s Guernica, or Sternberger’s articles, the potential for animals to act as anti-fascist critical ciphers was lent renewed currency during the late 1930s for nonconformist artists and writers. Most striking and worth noting in this context is the work of Josef Scharl.106 Born in 1896 and trained in Munich, the year the National Socialists came to power, Scharl held his first solo exhibition in Galerie Nierendorf in Berlin. Undeterred by exhibition prohibitions, he continued to work, and like Mammen, his private friendship circles acquired his works.107 He could not bear the searches of his studio, however, and in 1938, he left Germany for good, emigrating to the United States. His work created in Germany shows strong thematic and stylistic connections with Mammen’s, in terms of his use of both animal narratives (creating paintings of hybrid animal–human creatures) and a number of demonic military portraits.108 Scholars argue that the grotesque reptilian creature replete with large horns, fangs and speckled flesh portrayed in The Beast (1933) – and in other similar works Scharl completed – symbolizes the abhorrent menace of Hitler himself (Figure 4.16).109 Singular comparisons such as this are perhaps a coincidence. However, the use of animals as discernible subject matter in the work of other anti-Nazi artists, including Hans Grundig, is not. Grundig created a powerful series of forty-nine lithographs entitled The Fate of Animals (1933–8), portraying bears, wolves and horses as both victims and aggressors, some of which were smuggled out of Germany and reprinted

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Figure 4.16  Josef Scharl, Die Bestie (The Beast), 1933, oil on canvas, 66 × 100 centimetres. Private owner. © Susanne Scharl.

and exhibited abroad.110 Other artists such as André Masson, Jacques Lipchitz and Max Ernst, who were all working in France during the war, also used animals in their works in similar ways. But if the thematic of animals among nonconformist and anti-fascist artists and writers was so widespread, just how camouflaged was such criticism then? To what extent the Nazis themselves were aware of camouflaged writing techniques, or critical ciphers and symbols in artworks, remains a complex, but nonetheless crucial question. To suggest that the National Socialists did not understand, or were unaware of such techniques, would be to underestimate their intelligence. Comments made by Goebbels to the Berlin office of the Frankfurter Zeitung a few days after Sternberger’s article on fables was published suggest that upon this occasion, he understood all too well its critical intentions.111 Moreover, as William Dodd points out in his extensive study of National Socialist discourse and resistant voices, the Nazis were, in fact, constantly re-employing such techniques in their own propaganda. The whole point of Sternberger’s article self-consciously exploring the Aesopian method was used to demonstrate the extent to which the regime abused language in its attempts to shroud violence in a deceitful veil of ‘legitimacy’.112 Given the sensitivity surrounding the representation of war discussed earlier, there can be little doubt the Nazis also understood the critical message of Picasso’s Guernica. We can reasonably assume, therefore, that many National Socialists understood the critical use of animals as metaphors for fascist barbarity in artworks. Yet, Picasso’s international acclaim ultimately secured him his creative immunity. As James Lord appositely put it, ‘Denounced as degenerate and subversive, forbidden to exhibit, [. . .] left in peace to work as he pleased’.113 For inner émigré artists like Mammen, Scharl, Krönke or Grundig, who were in less ‘luxurious’ positions, however, animals, circus and carnival subjects, no matter how widespread,

 Propaganda, War and the Home Front 119 continued to offer the camouflage dialectic of in/visibility that their own restrictive circumstances demanded. The impact of Picasso’s work on inner émigré artists explored in both this and the previous chapter reveals that there is another facet to the National Socialist’s troubled relationship to modernism. Thus far, persuasive scholarship exposing the complex relationship of the Nazis with modern art has focused on prominent artist figures and dealers who remained in the public eye. A closer examination of inner émigré artists has demonstrated that this relationship was complicated further by the reception of, and engagement with, modern art under the radar. As the engagement with Picasso alone shows, this ‘Picasso Effect’ is uneven and often residual, but potentially became more profound in periods when Picasso was at the forefront of international debates. More than this, the far-reaching impact of his work also importantly demonstrates that the work of many artists in inner emigration was not necessarily developing in social isolation. As has been shown in the case of Mammen, the work of inner émigrés often engaged with, and responded to, official National Socialist exhibitions as well as artistic developments outside of Germany.

Conclusion Mammen’s The Hunter (Sunday Hunter) (1939–42) is subtler than many of John Heartfield’s anti-Nazi photomontages, which as noted previously, have enjoyed widespread acclaim as incontrovertibly ‘resistant’. Like most of Mammen’s paintings created during the Nazi period, The Hunter remained in the artist’s studio apartment. But her painting is no less of a bold and powerful statement of dissenting intent made by an artist who risked daily discovery in her studio apartment situated in the fashionable West End of Berlin. Mammen’s work shared camouflaged language with other anti-fascist artists working both in and outside of Germany. And although her work was deliberately concealed, it still had an impact. The anti-Nazi circle of friends who acquired some of her paintings during this period would presumably have understood their critical meaning. Employing forms of camouflage ultimately came at a cost for the reception of Mammen’s artwork after the war, however. As Chapter 2 established, the formal influence of Picasso and associations with Cubist abstraction dominated. With reference to her animal works, one reviewer did, in fact, pick up on potentially deeper meanings, noting: ‘Dragons and unicorns, mythological fabled animals are at once hidden and visible in the dogs. Decorative and agitational, these paintings penetrate the field of art.’114 Yet, the ‘agitational’ appears incongruent with the ‘decorative’, the latter ultimately commanding the overall meaning ascribed to her work. In other instances, when Mammen’s paintings of clowns, jugglers and circus figures were exhibited, their potential to offer critical commentary went unseen or was, perhaps, even ignored. Mammen’s military portraits, including The Hunter, did not feature in any of her immediate post-war exhibitions. It was first presented in several exhibitions during the 1970s. Combining a scathing attack on enduring right-wing factions of the Weimar Republic with playful, idiosyncratic forms of Cubism would, perhaps, have

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been too hard to swallow for many post-war viewers trying their best to ignore the recent political past. Moreover, while it appears to have been acceptable for Heartfield to employ humour in what was widely regarded as the political medium of photomontage, for an inner émigré painter showcasing her work in occupied Germany, such forms of wit were, and to a degree, still are, considered problematic.115 The Hunter was notably absent in Mammen’s substantial retrospective organized by the Berlinische Galerie in 2017–18. As noted previously, the only artwork Mammen sold from her solo exhibition in 1947 was a scene of Berlin-Schöneberg’s Saint Matthias Church (see Colour Plate 11). The painting is unusual given that the artist painted very few topographical scenes throughout her career. But that is not to say that it, too, was not without recourse to contemporary National Socialist politics. Mammen’s decision to depict the church from the choir and apse, rather than the front, is striking. From this angle the building’s neo-Gothic grandeur is partly obscured by a low set of modern buildings, which feature prominently in the foreground.116 A highly worked-up preparatory drawing of the church from the same angle in her archive suggests that this position was most certainly deliberate.117 During the late 1930s, the Hitler Youth used these modern buildings, which led to acrimony between the church and the organization. This, in fact, resulted in the arrest of the parish priest, Albert Coppenrath (for his inflammatory sermons) and his ban from the bishopric of Berlin. As Julia Schubert observed in Mammen’s recent retrospective, her painting seems to ‘stage the buildings [. . .] as quasi-rivals. [. . .] the two buildings compet[ing] in terms of form and colour’.118 Indeed, the artist took care to depict the architectonic features of Saint Matthias: the arched windows and pinnacles of the building are adorned with a tracery made from doilies that she inserted into the work. Stone mullions are likewise formed out of paper brick template insertions. By contrast, the undifferentiated, dense brown tones of the modern building are a rude intrusion destroying the sight-lines of the church. Is this yet another work with hidden criticism? Do such architectural incongruences symbolize the sustained tensions between church and state, which, by 1940, when the painting was perhaps completed, saw persecution of the church increase through the confiscation of monasteries, imprisonment and expulsion of religious orders?119 Or does it, instead, point towards the courageous acts of Coppenrath or, indeed, many other little-known pastors and priests who sacrificed liberty and sometimes their lives in opposition to the Nazi regime? We cannot know for sure. But it is precisely these ambiguities of meaning, camouflaged or otherwise, that deserve attention in Mammen’s works.

5

Beginning again Post-war Berlin

Introduction The immediate post-war years were a period of hope and frustration for many artists. The four years preceding the formation of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) in May of 1949 and the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in October of the same year were marked by wartime defeat and military occupation. Germany found itself in an extraordinary situation – referred to as the ‘Zero Hour’, and with good reason. There was a paradoxical sense of dis/continuity: the hope of new beginnings, but at the same time, the overwhelming task of dealing with the immediate past.1 As Mammen’s contemporary, the artist Wolfgang Frankenstein so aptly put it, this was a period riddled with contradictions, ‘between absurdity and tragedy’ in which the ‘disorder’ of endless possibilities reigned.2 Chapter 2 set out Mammen’s relationship to some of the key artistic debates in the years leading up to the formation of the FRG and the GDR. It focused on the reception of the artist’s work created over the course of her twelve-year inner emigration. It showed how these works were drawn into debates regarding the style and function of art, which, in turn, related to the complex status of inner emigration in Germany at this time. Some of the most supportive reviews of her artwork came from well-known art historians and critics including Carl Linfert, who in his evaluation of Mammen’s 1947 solo exhibition, positively foregrounded her engagement with Picasso. Linfert was one of several Western critics who underplayed any political motivations connected with the artist’s work. His assessment of Mammen’s work could be considered characteristic of wider appraisals of modern and contemporary art that continued after the war. Linfert thought that it was difficult for artists to develop ‘independent style’ (eigenständige Formsprache) so soon after National Socialism and that, instead, they were reliant on previous trends.3 Writing three years later in an essay assessing Germany’s contemporary cultural climate published in Frankfurter Hefte, Theodor Adorno would conclude much the same. While there was certainly a ‘craving’ for art and culture, in comparison to the period after the First World War, it was difficult to speak of ‘new orientation’. Instead, contemporary German art was simply ‘epigonic’.4 It is misleading to underplay the innovation of artists after the war. In a period of such disorder, new artist formations and networks evolved, shaping fresh, imaginative

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modes of artistic expression. In line with the approaches of Antje von Graevenitz, Richard Langston and, more recently, Lynette Roth, whose scholarship emphasizes the ways in which avant-garde cultural forms rematerialized and found new purpose, the last two chapters of this book explore Mammen’s new artworks and her involvement with contemporary artist groups and exhibitions during the immediate post-war years.5 This chapter considers the ways in which her new work can be aligned with artist contemporaries Juro Kubicêk, Karl Hartung, Mac Zimmermann, Hans Uhlmann and Hans Thiemann associated with Galerie Gerd Rosen, which also organized her first solo exhibition after the war. The artist’s relationship to some of these artists was not one of unequivocal friendship. Nonetheless, she kept exhibition brochures in her studio and took a potential interest in their work and/or working methods. Together they not only ‘shared’ the experience of inner emigration, but their artworks also raised fundamental questions of how to deal with the immediate past and the current military occupation. During a period in which Germany rapidly sought to reframe new art as an outwardfacing, preeminently post-fascist concern, many critics considered their artistic styles discordant or even inappropriate for the desperate situation. Many were sceptical of the national significance of their artworks, which promoted strong internationalist strands of Surrealism, Primitivism and existentialism. They questioned what role such work could productively play in the reconstruction of a new German nation. Indeed, Mammen’s new artwork was potentially even less popular than her paintings created during inner emigration.6 This chapter unpacks why. It also examines some of the setbacks and difficulties Mammen experienced as a woman artist during a period heralded by some as the ‘hour of women’. While conformity to National Socialism fell away, the immediate post-war period was fraught with a new set of challenges.

Forging the new out of detritus After the war Germany’s resources were utterly depleted. Until the new Deutsche Mark was introduced in the Western zones in June 1948, sugar, flour, fat, coffee, bread and meat were rationed. In the second biggest city in Europe, roughly a third of all apartment blocks had been reduced to rubble.7 Life played out on the city streets with its foragers, war-wounded and refugees. While makeshift cabbages and tobacco fields were planted in the shells of ruined buildings, Berliners scoured the mounds of rubble and went out into the nearby countryside in the hope of finding anything worth salvaging.8 Mammen used her artist’s eyes to observe and record her surroundings; her work remained socially engaged and did not stand still. She describes in a letter to Steffie Schaefer-Nathan in London how ‘long lines [. . .] form in the front of [food] stores like an apocalypse, an incredible number of beggars are tiptoeing up and down in the buildings, Breughel [sic] would turn pale with envy at their clothing’.9 In Returnees (1946–7), the artist captures the fatigue of two hollow-cheeked soldiers (Figure 5.1). Both stand awkwardly in what appear to be makeshift shoes. One of the men leans on a walking stick. Between them their material possessions comprise just a small bag and a bundle that the other man clutches in his hands. Mammen’s drawing acts as a powerful

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Figure 5.1  Jeanne Mammen, untitled (Heimkehrer) (Returnees), undated, c. 1946–7, pen drawing, 29 × 20 centimetres. Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin. Inv.-Nr.: SM 2019-01400. Photo: © Dorin Alexandru Ionita, Berlin.

reminder of the nameless and homeless soldiers, prisoners or refugees who returned home utterly desolate. Shortly after the war, contact resumed between the artist and her friends Max Delbrück, and Clara and Hans Gaffron, who had emigrated to the United States. Although paint could initially be acquired through ration cards, Delbrück and Hans Gaffron continued to supply her with much-needed materials. ‘It is awfully kind of you to offer to send me things. I would be so very happy if you could send me tobacco – coffee, sugar, – tempera colours – above all white (in tubes) and two pairs of stockings.’10 Mammen’s request for stockings is probably down to the fact that clothing was rationed; in any one year, women were permitted to have only one pair of stockings for 4 points.11 The Delbrücks (Hans married in 1941) and Gaffrons also sent the artist food and painting materials through a series of CARE packages that were organized by the US Cooperative of American Remittances to Europe (CARE) to aid German shortages, typically comprising bacon, corned beef, fruit preserves, honey, sugar, coffee and chocolate. The artist collected the first of these in December 1946 and continued to receive them for over a year later: The announcement of your CARE-packet sent me into great excitement. Daily I await its arrival feverishly (the fever rises to 39 degrees at 9.30 am when the post comes, and I might get a gentle dove-white letter-thingy, ‘Then and then there and there you can pick up a large Care packet’ sailing through the letterbox slot. [. . .] I am so looking forward to coffee and cigarettes [sic].12

The bitterly cold winter of 1946/7 brought food shortages in the city to a crisis point, which led to hunger marches and strikes. Mammen wrote to Schaefer-Nathan that she had moved into the smaller room of her studio apartment, as it was ten degrees below zero Celsius and icicles were dangling from the tall ceiling in the studio.13 A year on, although things were a little easier, she was under no illusions as to the extent these friendships helped her survive. ‘I am managing to muddle my way through this “cold snap” as best as I can and am sawing up my canvas frames [for firewood]. I have you [Hans Gaffron] and Max to thank that I am much stronger and so much more resistant

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than the previous winter.’14 Despite regularly exhibiting, Mammen sold very few works in Germany during this period. She later indicated that some thirty works were taken to the United States by ‘Amis [Americans] [. . .] whose names I forgot, after the conquest of Berlin and the Allied occupation’. But whether she actually sold them is not known.15 In itself, this was not unusual. In what was barely a subsistence market, money became almost meaningless.16 She also did not have the luxury of a regular salary from a cultural state institution by becoming a teacher at the newly established College of Fine Arts (Akademische Hochschule für bildende Künste: HFBK, now the Universität der Künste Berlin). There can be little doubt that it was primarily the financial support of Delbrück, together with the Gaffrons, which kept the artist from going under. Shortly after the Berlin Blockade had ended in May 1949 – which effectively cut off supplies to West Berlin from the rest of the world for almost a year – Mammen sent Delbrück a large package of works, an arduous task, which she achieved only after ‘one and a half years of fighting to organize wood for containers, wrapping and transport’.17 She must have received money in return, for shortly afterwards she wrote in a letter to him, ‘If you can throw another one of my paintings on the market and send me the result you would help me cross the abyss one more time as my guardian angel.’18 However, a second shipment sent in January 1952 tragically sank in the carrier ship, or as the artist wryly put it, ‘the ocean devoured another dozen [works]’.19 Sometime between 1945 and 1946, Mammen created a group of works including Melancholy Woman at the Window and Profiles (Figure 5.2) (see Colour Plate 22). Referred to by scholars as ‘wire collages’ or ‘material images’, they are dominated by muted greys and blues and in which she mounted wire, cable, nails, cloth, sewing pins and string.20 This idea was not new to the artist who, as we have seen, inserted patterned paper to fashion a juggler’s sleeve or doilies to construct church glass. Only now, the colour density of the 1930s tempera paintings vanishes completely and, instead, the application of paint is more tangible. Paint is dragged and dabbed across the surface encouraging a haptic engagement with the works. Playing with polyperspectives once more, Profiles is made from cable coiled to form the silhouette of two intertwined heads. In Melancholy Woman at the Window, the only material collage to be exhibited

Figure 5.2 Jeanne Mammen, Schwermütige am Fenster (Melancholy Woman at the Window), undated, c. 1945–6, mixed media (paint and wire on cardboard). Private owner. Photo: © Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin.

 Beginning Again: Post-War Berlin 125 in Mammen’s 1947 solo exhibition, the artist uses wire to outline the face of a figure in the centre of the composition. Daubs of paint and lines scratched onto the surface of the work forge the outlines of a frame, through which this ethereal figure or apparition stares. Mammen’s material collages should be considered innovative, experimental solutions to material shortages. Not unlike the aftermath of the First World War, a type of Ersatzkultur (replacement culture) developed in Germany that affected all areas of life, even art. Kitchen utensils were made from steel helmets, bed sheets were used for nappies and cloth sugar bags helped make clothing.21 Consequently, the use of alien materials and even debris in artwork became a widespread phenomenon. The abstract painter Karl Otto Götz wrote to Will Grohmann, the art critic and Professor of Art History at the College of Fine Arts, that he felt he needed to use absolutely everything he could lay his hands on to produce artwork, even if this meant using coffee grains and toilet paper!22 Friends visiting Mammen’s studio apartment during the late 1940s noted how inventive she was, transforming inexpensive furniture into ‘magnificent specimens’ (Prachtstücke). She had created a large coffee table out of an old small table and stacked picture frames on it, and used a large board covered with red and black plastic material as the table’s surface.23 Lynette Roth has argued how habitual objects in or as artworks should be considered an attempt to (re)engage with society – a way of ‘taking stock’ of what was left, so to speak, in both a physical and a moral sense.24 Mammen’s collages could likewise be considered from this perspective. As noted, the artwork she created in inner emigration bore the material traces of her difficult existence. After the war, material shortages became both the subject and material object of her works, functioning as visual testimonies to hardship. As with so much of Mammen’s work, these material collages have a ludic quality, nonetheless. A photograph shows the artist in her studio using string from one of the CARE packages she received to create the collage of a trumpet (Figure 5.3). The purpose of this photograph is not known. Despite its somewhat staged appearance, it reveals how the artist made her work. Mammen is shown carefully unravelling long pieces of string, looping them around her fingers. The half-finished collage is visible on a surface next to her. The trumpet’s form is already taking shape, its long pipe and mouthpiece with three valves comprising undulating forms on black fabric – this familiar, metallic object, now weightless and transformed by the soft organic threads of emergency packaging. The face in Melancholy Woman at the Window exhibits a similar dialectic. A ghostly face peers out or into a frame. Yet, in the absence of any discernible built construction, it appears to float among daubs of paint, which cling to the surface like tiny particles of rubble. With the city of Berlin reduced to little more than a ruinscape, it is perhaps hardly surprising to find aesthetic references to ruins in Mammen’s work. In Burning House (c. 1946–7), this string now zigzags across the surface like flames engulfing the colourful forms beneath (see Colour Plate 23). There is a strange beauty and luminous chaos to the work, which in places appears to give way to a more organized system of grids. Beyond the immediate terror of Allied destruction, Mammen’s work as a fire warden meant keeping watch for fires long into the night. She was familiar with the sight of fire on the horizon – at once mesmerizing and dangerous.

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Figure 5.3 Jeanne Mammen in her studio creating the artwork Trumpet, undated, c. 1946–7. Photographer K. L. Haenchen, Berlin. Photo: © Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin.

Out of such devastation came a paradoxical sense of creative reanimation. Ruins represented a new terrain of self-discovery and experimentation. Indeed, there were even exhibitions dedicated to the developing genre of ‘ruin paintings’ (Ruinenmalerei).25 The group of artists associated with Galerie Gerd Rosen pushed the boundaries of acceptability when it came to the subject. Their surreal artworks were neither topographic nor commemorative. Instead, they used ruins to explore Germany’s reflexivity regarding its own recent past, presenting the city as an uncanny, alien terrain of loss and vacuity and demanding that the viewer engage with the semantic ambiguities of ruins and their meaning.

Ruinenmalerei Whether its inhabitants liked it or not, the city’s ruins were not simply a backdrop; they were charged with emotional resonance lending ‘shape to people’s memories, sights, emotions, and experiences’.26 Elsa Thiemann’s photograph Berlin-Motzstrasse (c. 1950) captures a woman pushing a pram along the pavement to be confronted by the bizarre prospect of an enormous half ruined wall (Figure 5.4). Behind this, the remaining part of the façade of another housing block is visible. The magnitude of the ruin dwarfs her and the other seeming features of ‘normality’ – the car and the

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Figure 5.4  Elsa Thiemann, Berlin-Motzstrasse, c. 1950s. Silvergelatine, vintage print, 23.6 × 17.8 centimetres. Berlinische Galerie Landesmuseum für Moderne Kunst, Fotografie und Architektur, Berlin; BG-FS 10/80, 48. © Margot Schmidt, Hamburg. Photo: © Berlinische Galerie.

solitary tree. Thiemann’s photograph reveals the disorientating and, indeed, menacing effects of ruins. Mammen may well have known about the destruction of this street, as number 33 was the place where the Mammen family had lived when they arrived back in Berlin in 1915. In letters to friends, she struggled to describe the ‘unfathomable, final, monotonous destruction’ of the city.27 Central districts such as Tiergarten, Mitte and Kreuzberg were covered in anywhere between 55 and 100 cubic metres of rubble, concrete and sand. Mammen clearly went out on to the streets and studied ruined forms, suggesting in a letter to Delbrück that if he made it to Berlin on a visit in the coming year (1946), she would be his tourist guide (Bärenführer), for ‘with each ruin I can say whether, when, how and where’.28 Black-and-white photographs of the ruined city also survive in her archive. These show views of the damaged Brandenburg Gate, the Berlin Palace, the State Opera House and the Town Hall, among other scenes of unidentifiable ruined buildings, a military tank and a collapsed bridge. In addition, there are a handful of drawings completed in oil chalk, pen and pencil. These drawings are not topographical, as one might expect, however. In Berlin Ruins (1946–7), a series of interlocking constructions and dark recesses form a dense, almost abstract scene (Figure 5.5). With no fixed perspective or homogenous space, above and below, inside and outside, become undifferentiated. Here topography becomes an irrelevant marker of place. How was this jumble of forms once an imposing street or

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Figure 5.5  Jeanne Mammen, Berliner Ruinen (Berlin Ruins), undated, c. 1946–7, oil chalk and pen, 15.8 × 19.7  centimetres. Private owner. Photo: © Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin.

a logical traffic intersection? The towering Kaiser Wilhelm Church (now the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church), only a couple of hundred yards down the road from Mammen’s studio apartment, had been reduced to nothing more than a skeletal form. Like Burning House, Mammen’s ruins have a singularly haunting character, reminiscent of the Gothic Carceri (prisons) of Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–78). In the chaos of post-conflict Europe, Piranesi’s work gathered renewed interest, his dungeons anticipating the ‘l’Univers concentrationnaire of fascism’.29 The representation of ruins in the work of fellow Rosen artists, Mac Zimmermann, Heinz Trökes, Juro Kubicêk and Hans Thiemann, was, in many ways, not dissimilar to Mammen’s. It lacked the historic landmarks or religious narratives readily found in the work of contemporaries such as Hans Goetsch, Karl Hofer and Wilhelm Lachnit. Their preoccupation with dreamlike scenes, instead, saw them dubbed ‘Berliner Surrealisten’ (Berlin Surrealists) – the derivative, ‘followers of the followers’ (Nachfolger als Nach-folger), by the critics.30 The paradoxical reception of their work also diverged little from Mammen’s. On the one hand, their (Surrealist) style was criticized for its seeming inability to engage with the contemporary crisis. But on the other, focus on their modernist sensibility helped disentangle their work from the troubled political context of Germany.31 They strongly refuted the label, however, preferring the term ‘fantastical painting’ (phantastische Malerei).32 As the art historian (and, later, director of the Franco-German Society in Berlin) Albert Buesche (1895–1976) explained, the work of these Rosen artists took a distinctly different approach from that of their French predecessors, capturing, instead, the chaos in which Berliners lived.33 Surrealism was therefore a necessary way of envisioning the destruction of Germany as a historic reality. Mammen was not a ‘Berlin Surrealist’, nor was she ever labelled as such. However, this should not undermine the interactional process (her) artistic praxis took during this period. The Rosen artists provided a vital network, a reconnection to the public art scene as it were, which so many artists working under the conditions of inner emigration had been denied. In a letter to Delbrück in 1946, Mammen wrote that for a long time she had not dared to let anyone glance into her studio. Her comment ‘thank

 Beginning Again: Post-War Berlin 129 god those times are over’ suggests her need for contact.34 A statement she also made in her old age specifically recalls the significance of the gallery during this period, ‘No one gave a toss about me [Kein Schwein hat sich um mich gekümmert] – apart from Rosen. Through his circle I got to know many other artists.’35 As well as organizing her solo exhibition, Mammen appeared in the ‘Review and Preview’ exhibition in 1945–6 and in the Rosen Almanac in 1947. And she developed lasting friendships with Hans Thiemann and Juro Kubicêk (1906–70). Exploring a characteristic sample of their confrontational works reveals how, together, they helped shape Berlin’s cultural scene. In his montage Berlin 1947 (c. 1947), the Hungarian-Czech artist Kubicêk juxtaposes teetering piles of crockery and a grandfather clock with spliced photographs of buildings, setting them against the silhouette of hands and a blue backdrop (Figure  5.6). Like Mammen, Kubicêk inserted objects into much of his artwork, including photographs, fabric and bits of paper. They also lived near one another and fostered good contact: Mammen owned books he gifted her, as well as an original Chagall drawing, which still exists in her archive.36 Berlin 1947 cleverly draws attention to the dialectical presence and absence of ruins through the technique of montage, which sees the chaos of the scene arranged. Indeed, as a former window dresser, Kubicêk was used – quite literally – to constructing an image with precision.37 The domestic objects suggest the fragility of the habitué – the trappings of a bourgeois interior turned inside out. The bowls are all empty – there is no food to eat. Kubicêk claimed in the Rosen Almanac in 1947

Figure 5.6 Juro Kubicêk, Berlin 1947, 1947, collage, airbrush on cardboard, 39.2 × 20.5 centimetres. Berlinische Galerie, Landesmuseum für Moderne Kunst, Fotografie und Architektur, Berlin; BG-G 2044/80 © Franziska Kubicêk. Photo: © Kai-Annett Becker.

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Figure 5.7  Mac Zimmermann, Ruinendamen; Zwei Ruinen (Ruin Ladies; Two Ruins) c. 1946, tempera, size unknown. Private owner. © DACS, London, 2021.

that he expressly disliked ‘anything that is stuffy, grandfatherly and bourgeois’.38 Berlin 1947 appears to support this attitude, for the imposing clock, now entirely diminished in size, might be read as a symbol of the (useless) social structures and hierarchies of the past. Mac Zimmermann’s tempera painting, Ruin Ladies (Two Ruins) of the same date, also explores ruins as symbolic of a bygone age, but in a very different way (Figure 5.7). Two elongated female figures with no arms or legs, sport long tattered skirts/dresses. They represent a form of uncouth elegance, with their sculpted, immobile hair and flesh morphed into stone. The female form is fetishized – the prominent outline of the breasts, the slits of the skirt and the numerous tiny buttons of a bodice (or necklace?) evoke the interior (sexed) body. Unable to join the Reich Chamber during the 1930s, Zimmermann worked in a bookshop on Kurfürstendamm, not far from Mammen’s studio apartment. He amassed a substantial collection of art history books, which motivated his own work.39 Ruin Ladies demonstrates his profound interest in Pittura Metafisica (Metaphysical Painting). In the context of post-war Berlin, it also potentially symbolizes the rapacious new woman as a bygone signifier of modernity. As reports in newspapers made clear, despite heavy bombing, certain places, including Kurfürstendamm – the West’s former grandiose entertainment and shopping street (coincidentally the site of Galerie Gerd Rosen) – quickly regained their appeal.40 To see glamorous women with perfect hair and make-up on the street set against a ruinous, yet hastily recalibrated space of the British and American zones, for many people,

 Beginning Again: Post-War Berlin 131 nonetheless, was emblematic of the triumph of the banal over the carnivalesque.41 But it was also reality for many of the 3.3 million widows, some of whom were forced to resort to prostitution in order to survive.42 Zimmermann’s ironic title, ‘ladies’ (Damen), and not ‘women’ (Frauen), highlights these incongruities. Thus, his ‘ruin ladies’, or better put, ‘ruined ladies’, and are out for a promenade in a type of no man’s land, in which their artificial ‘glamour’ is laid bare. Living in a city in which the passing of zone borders became a day-to-day necessity, partitions defined many Berliners’ very existence. Mammen describes (not without irony) in a letter to Hans Gaffron how she had needed a bag of stamped papers and permissions to travel by train across Allied zones to get to Dresden’s Allgemeine Deutsche Kunstausstellung in 1946.43 But these boundaries also raised more existential issues: life and death or the transitional zone between real and surreal worlds.44 Mammen’s painting Door to Nothingness (1946–7) and Hans Thiemann’s The Open Door (1946), exhibited at his solo exhibition in Galerie Rosen in June 1947, might be interpreted from this perspective (Figures 5.8 and 5.9).45 Thiemann depicts a man carrying a sharp instrument and entering a dark space. He appears on a threshold, between interior and exterior worlds. Behind him, a ruined structure is visible. His nudity and ‘weapon’ suggest he is vulnerable and in a hostile environment, reinforced further by the airless, static quality of the painting. Mammen may well have known Thiemann’s image, for it was around this time they first met, and became close friends.46 After Thiemann and his wife, Elsa, moved to Hamburg so he could take up

Figure 5.8  Jeanne Mammen, Die Tür zum Nichts (Door to Nothingness), undated, 1946–7, oil on cardboard, 100 × 70 centimetres. Berlinische Galerie Landesmuseum für Moderne Kunst, Fotografie und Architektur, Berlin; BG-M 1739/79. Photo: © Berlinische Galerie.

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Figure 5.9  Hans Thiemann, Die offene Tür (The Open Door), 1946, oil on canvas, size unknown. Private owner. © Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin.

the position as Professor at the College of Fine Arts in the early 1960s, they corresponded regularly. It was only with Thiemann that Mammen talked about her art, calling him her ‘painter friend’ (Malerfreund).47 Similar uncertainty defines Mammen’s Door to Nothingness, in which a hanging door springs into black nothingness. The door functions, yet it has no hinges or handle. The parts of a building – a doorframe, wall, chimney and windows – are all present, but together form no cohesive architecture. Like the work of her contemporaries discussed so far, the motif creates an odd dialectic of absence and presence, and fantasy and reality. And as is the case with so much of her artwork, there is a playfulness or even absurdity here: a ubiquitous door now rendered entirely useless. Indeed, comments in her letters to Schaefer-Nathan sometimes suggest that the artist regarded ‘everyday life’ in Berlin, insofar as it was even possible to survive, utterly baffling: ‘Upon waking up, you think, Hello! another day, how funny! [. . .] We’ve all gone a bit nuts, most people jabber away to themselves on the streets.’48 *  *  * As noted previously, the Surrealist focus of Rosen artists was regarded with misgivings.49 Critics described their works as ‘bloodless abstractions’ (blutleere Abstraktionen) that belonged on an ‘anti-human planet’ ([einem] menschenfeindlichen Planet).50 But it was not just the mode of depiction that frustrated critics; rather, the challenging subject of

 Beginning Again: Post-War Berlin 133 ruins also revealed deep fissures among the public. Berliners fostered a deep-seated love/hate relationship with the city. The population had quadrupled over the short period of fifty years and by the 1920s it was considered ugly and overpopulated, and its absorption of surrounding areas was deemed inorganic.51 Yet, the city was also considered cosmopolitan, glamorous and exciting, as Chapter 1 explored. Representing it in a ruinous state in artworks during a period of rapid reconstruction was therefore both traumatic and incendiary. And the recent (and surviving) additions to the architectural landscape by the National Socialists only intensified the situation. A form of Allied ruin-management ensued, which mobilized some 50,000 Trümmerfrauen (women who gathered rubble) across German cities. This was not only a practical solution, but it also took on a symbolic role, for it was an attempt to ‘master’ the streetscape.52 From this perspective, it is not difficult to see why works by Rosen artists appeared seemingly antithetical to these efficacious aims. Beyond their reception, the Rosen artists began to run into other difficulties. In the autumn of 1948, Mammen, Thiemann, Zimmermann and Trökes, along with the contemporary sculptors Hans Uhlmann and Karl Hartung, exhibited together for the first time in Galerie Franz. Besides making a political statement regarding the frustrating conditions of Allied partition, their exhibition ‘Zone 5’ marked a very public shift in the dynamic of the original Rosen group. The exhibition invitation made little secret of the animosity that had developed between these artists and Galerie Rosen: ‘because of insurmountable aversion [unüberwindlicher Abneigung] towards the business procedures of the Galerie Rosen, we painters and sculptors are parting company from it.’ The main reason for their split from the gallery was financial. How Rosen obtained modernist works to sell in his gallery so soon after the war remains unclear.53 In many instances he relied on the goodwill of artists who provided him with work to exhibit and sell. He may well have owed some of these artists money. Mammen’s Melancholy Woman at the Window appeared in this new exhibition, alongside Zimmermann’s Ruin Ladies. In his appraisal of the show, Will Grohmann foregrounded other developments characterizing Mammen’s artworks as revealing a new sense of ‘plasticity’.54 Mammen’s insertion of objects into paintings, as well as her overriding use of monochrome colours presumably called forth sculptural associations. As far as we know, Mammen never actually exhibited any of her sculptures during her lifetime. To date, they have also received little scholarly attention.55 They are worth examining briefly here, for they reinforce the strong connections between the developments in her work and that of Rosen contemporaries. In addition, sculpture was an important way of engaging with post-war enthusiasm for world cultures and the rehabilitative and de-isolationist associations this brought with it.

Exploring plasticity From the mid- to late 1940s, Mammen created a group of sculptural heads such as Double Profile (1945–9), Double Eye (1945–9) and Child (1945–9), in which the facial features are radically simplified (Figures 5.10 and 5.11). Like some of her paintings, Double Eye and Double Profile are motivated by the artist’s interest in exploring

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Figure 5.10  Jeanne Mammen, Doppelprofil (Double Profile), 1945–9, plaster, 35 × 23 × 4.5  centimetres. Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin; Inv.-Nr.: SM 201801242. Photo: © Matthias Viertel, Berlin.

polyperspectives. Both sculptures are flat relief-type forms but are nonetheless freestanding. Double Profile comprises two connected biomorphic heads arising from a base. The profiles of the faces are formed through convex and concave indentations. The various hollows of the cheek, nose and forehead reveal Mammen’s interest in playing with sculpture in space, using voids as a way of connecting the back and front side of her works. The two heads of the sculpture dovetail with each other: the profile of one, smaller head on the right protrudes into the negative space of the second, larger profile on the left. They are inextricably bound together, the back of the larger head forming the profile possibilities of its smaller counterpart. In Child, the single face is formulated as a smooth, flat disc-shaped relief. The mouth is cut away, the eyes, nose and cheeks are indicated through line indentations scratched into the plaster and paint. Not unlike Mammen’s material collages, the medium and finish of these sculptures affirm her continued economic difficulties. She experimented with plaster, paper and terracotta. Although terracotta was the cheapest earthenware to purchase, all her sculptures remained unfired and unglazed. Instead, she used paint as a way of decorating the surface. A rare photograph suggests that she modelled the sculptures freehand, without using a potter’s wheel or an armature (Figure 5.12). Like her profile heads, the sculpture Male Head (c. 1945–9), which she is modelling in the black-and-white photograph, reveals similar experimentation with biomorphic forms and space. In the first instance, there were perhaps practical reasons why Mammen made sculptures.

 Beginning Again: Post-War Berlin 135

Figure 5.11  Jeanne Mammen, Kind (Child), c. 1945–9, plaster, painted, 23.7 × 15.2 × 2  centimetres. Estate of Hans Laabs. Berlinische Galerie Landesmuseum für Moderne Kunst, Fotografie und Architektur, Berlin; BG-S 10773/05. Photo: © Kai-Annett Becker.

Energy remained strictly rationed for some years after the war as the rebuilding of Berlin’s electricity and gas supply plants proved more difficult than anticipated.56 The working conditions described in a letter to Delbrück suggest that it was probably easier to work with clay rather than to draw or paint: ‘Due to the lack of coal we have the so-called “light lock” here nearly every day. The electricity is turned off, typically for two hours, one sits there, whoops, suddenly in the dark and it can’t be helped because there aren’t any matches or candles or petroleum.’57 The photograph testifies to other hardships, too. With the rationing of clothes during the war, fur coats had become precious items that had been collected (often via house searches) by the ‘Winter Aid Agency’ (Winterhilfswerk: WHW) and sent to the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front.58 How Mammen retained her coat is not known. But in many ways, it, too, points towards her resilience. In addition, the photograph demonstrates the close relationship her sculptures shared with her paintings: the bulge of the forehead and long nose that form the Male Head’s distinct profile echo those of the figure in the painting Man with a Basque Cap from the Right Side (c. 1943–5) hanging behind the artist on the wall.59 Indeed, the move from the insertion of foreign objects into paintings, towards sculptural experiments, was not far for Mammen, who had, in fact, already begun sculpting around 1936. And it was perhaps her friendship with Hans Uhlmann that encouraged her to do so. Almost all her sculptures focus on the head, a characteristic feature of Uhlmann’s early sculpture.60 One of his first wire sculptures was the Smiling Berolina, which

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Figure 5.12  Jeanne Mammen working on the sculpture, Männerkopf (Male Head), undated, c. 1945. Photographer Bob Klebig. Photo: © Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin.

would later stand for many years on a shelf in Mammen’s studio apartment (Figure 1.13). After his release from prison in October 1935, Uhlmann worked for the patent department of Krupps and began to develop wire sculptures in secret in his Steglitz flat.

Figure 5.13  Hans Uhlmann, Dichter und Muse (Poet and Muse), 1945, iron sheet and wire, 40 centimetre. Private owner. DACS, London, 2021.

 Beginning Again: Post-War Berlin 137 Although contact between him and Mammen dwindled by the late 1930s, as Chapter 2 outlined, it quickly resumed after the war. During this period, their influence on one another is palpable. Uhlmann had a solo exhibition at Rosen in 1947, and before this, his wire heads were on display in the ‘“Nach 12 Jahren” – Antifaschistische Maler und Bildhauer stellen aus – Kunstschau Sommer 1945’, where Mammen had also shown many of her paintings. For both artists, the exploration of interlocking forms demanded expression across a range of media.61 Poet and Muse (1945), for example, comprises two interconnected profile heads cut out of a flat sheet of iron with wire insertions (Figure 5.13). Like much of Mammen’s sculpture, Uhlmann’s work explores the tensions between a relief and a free-standing piece. The concave spaces form facial features and the hair is delineated through a series of curved iron pieces. It bears striking similarities to Mammen’s contemporaneous drawing, Dialogue (c. 1946–7), a preparatory sketch for a painting she completed, with the same name (Figure 5.14).62 In the ‘Zone 5’ exhibition, Mammen’s work also appeared alongside the sculptures of Karl Hartung (1908–67). Given that Hartung did not join the Reich Chamber, the fact that he managed to secure (any) material to create nonconformist sculpture in secret in his studio in Berlin was quite a feat. Chamber acceptance was more difficult, as the cost of materials was far greater.63 Like Mammen’s sculptures, most of Hartung’s works were carved or modelled and remained uncast. The facial features of Hartung’s plaster sculpture Uncanny Head (1946) are radically reduced (Figure 5.15). A hole signals the remembered sign of an eye and the flesh markings of measured spans, slopes and hollows, which keep recognizable features in place, give way. If ruins had become markers of the uncanny, so too had the human form itself: the once ‘homely’ facial features now transformed into a smooth, but barren surface. Mammen was certainly familiar with Hartung’s sculptures; her work is illustrated along with the photograph of Hartung’s Uncanny Head in a 1946 Rosen exhibition brochure that she kept in her library.64 Hartung’s training in Paris under the sculptors Aristide Maillol, Charles Despiau and Antoine Bourdelle, as well as his personal acquaintance with Picasso, would presumably have been of further interest to her.65 All three sculptors – Mammen included – were united through their confrontation with the pressing vicissitudes of war, at a time when sculpture was being promoted as

Figure 5.14 Jeanne Mammen, Zwiegespräch (Dialogue), undated, c. 1946–7, coloured pencil and pen, 24 × 33 centimetres. Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin; Inv.-Nr.: SM 2020-01150. Photo: © Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin.

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Figure 5.15 Karl Hartung, Unheimlicher Kopf (Uncanny Head), 1946, plaster, height 39 centimetres. Photograph from Galerie Gerd Rosen 1945 August 1946: Rückblick und Vorschau exhibition brochure, 13. Private owner. Karl Hartung: © DACS, London, 2021.

the most expressive medium in the writings of Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–80) and Albert Camus (1913–60), whose ideas were becoming increasingly popular. In L’Homme révolté (The Rebel; An Essay on Man in Revolt) (1951) in which Camus explored the history of revolt and revolutions, sculpture symbolized the most ‘ambitious’ of art forms, precisely because it helped unite the ‘disorder’ of man’s movements into a ‘unity of great style’.66 It powerfully demonstrated the artist’s (necessary) rebellion against reality to understand the times. Hartung saw his work functioning in commensurate ways. He wrote in a Rosen exhibition brochure – also in Mammen’s library – that he hoped his sculpture would help explore the post-war condition: ‘Today man is fundamentally different from what he has ever been before. I want to give form and shape [Form und Gestalt] to this new man.’67 The genesis of Mammen’s and Uhlmann’s preoccupation with the double articulation of heads – the Janus-head symbol of duality in Roman mythology – might reasonably be understood as giving shape to forms of conflict and resolution experienced in such a politically divisive climate. Mammen’s Dialogue permits these inferences. Amid such destruction, it was perhaps the very act of construction intrinsic to the sculptural process that became a compelling medium for engaging with the urgency of the current situation, and was, indeed, perhaps one of the reasons why Mammen worked with it. Among her sculptures, it is perhaps Child that makes the extent of Mammen’s engagement with the calamities of war most tangible (Figure 5.11). Children were prominent victims of war: bombsites acted as unorthodox playgrounds, food shortages

 Beginning Again: Post-War Berlin 139 meant that they were badly nourished and the loss of parents led to a proliferation of advertisements for child adoption in the press.68 Thiemann’s photograph of Motzstrasse, in which a lone mother pushes a pram towards a ruined apartment block, was just one of many haunting images foregrounding the vulnerabilities of children in a war-torn environment (Figure 5.4).69 Children are also the subject of a number of Mammen’s drawings and paintings, including Mother and Child (c. 1946–7), which portrays two closely interlocking biomorphic heads (see Colour Plate 24).70 The artist plays with positive and negative space once more, using hollows for facial features as she does in Double Profile (Figure 5.10). The outlines of the mother’s face appear like a protective casing, making her own features inseparable from the child’s. Her long arms envelop the smaller head. This was precisely the type of painterly ‘plasticity’ to which the critic Will Grohmann had referred in his exhibition review, noted previously. It is undeniable, however, that the simplification of sculptural forms – particularly by both Mammen and Hartung – evoke the childlike. Coupled with the use of modelling and carving, their work shared affinities with some of the styles and working processes of ethnographic artefacts that began to garner renewed excitement after the war. The dominance of the face and head suggest the influence of African and/or Oceanic masks that were well known in Germany through substantial ethnographic collections in Dresden and Berlin. Moreover, the relief style of both Uhlmann’s and Mammen’s sculptures indicates that they were intended to hang on the wall like talismans. While Grohmann identified her plasticity with sculptures from the Easter Island in the Pacific, Carl Linfert considered Mammen’s work evocative of ‘symbolic structures’ erected by tribes from the South Seas or the coast of north-western America.71 Such comparisons were not incidental. As Susanne Leeb explains, after twelve years of cultural isolation and a National Socialist politic that focused on nationalism, a new emphasis on world cultures became a crucial way of reconnecting contemporary German art with cultural developments on an international level.72 Similar enthusiasms were promoted by the Rosen Galerie. An exhibition dedicated to figures, masks and talismans from Cameroon, Congo, Sudan, Nigeria and the Ivory Coast, ‘Negerplastik’ (Negro Sculpture), took place in spring 1947. A copy of this exhibition brochure also existed in Mammen’s library. The small selection of African sculptures on show by no means covered ‘world cultures’, but in an immediate post-war context, selfconscious references to alterity could certainly be construed as political. ‘Negerplastik’ was taken from Carl Einstein’s seminal essay of the same name (from 1915), in which he sought to connect the spatial awareness of African sculpture with Cubism.73 As noted in previous chapters, defective vision and psychological imbalance were programmatic in the Nazis’ attack on modernist art. Western Primitivism was certainly considered synonymous with these styles.74 While the Nazis defamed key artist exponents of Primitivism in public exhibitions, in the United States, by contrast, prominent exhibitions held at New York’s Museum of Modern Art during the 1930s and Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art the following decade set out to explore and celebrate the connections between Western art and Primitivism.75 Rekindling interest in Primitivism signalled openness towards world cultures, marking a deliberate move away from the isolationist politics of National Socialism.76 Einstein’s connections with the Spanish resistance – and his internment by the Nazis – undoubtedly made this even more explicit.

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Books in Mammen’s library suggest that she, too, was interested in aesthetic theories that sought to engage with non-Western forms. She owned publications by the art historian Wilhelm Worringer (1881–1965), for example, whose theory of the psychological basis for an ‘urge to abstraction’ was grounded in the sharing of ‘primitive’ and modern cultural forms.77 Most noteworthy is her copy of Willi Baumeister’s contemporary treatise on world art, Das Unbekannte in der Kunst (The Unknown in Art), published in 1947. Written during his own inner emigration, Baumeister advanced a poly-historical theory of art based upon the reception of world art that incorporated discussion of ethnographic and prehistoric artefacts.78 Not unlike Worringer, he suggested that abstraction symbolized a universal Ur-Kraft (elemental force). Abstract art – which Baumeister himself had been creating during the 1930s – was a free, curative and humane form of art, which would help mankind find itself once more.79 His ideas were greeted enthusiastically after the war, precisely because of his focus on universalism.80 Mammen is likely to have embraced the symbolism of world cultures in post-Nazi Germany, not least because she had, in fact, already begun making sculptures during her inner emigration. The painted plaster heads African Mask (c. 1936) and African Warrior Head (c. 1936) – the latter stands on the high casing of an old-fashioned radiator to the right of Mammen in Thiemann’s photographic portrait – emphasize the Schädelkult (cult of the skull), as Einstein termed it, which elevated the head to the most symbolic and important part of the body in many African rituals (Figure 5.16 and Figure I.1).81 Mammen’s dramatic use of tempera – the blue and red stripes down the bridge of the nose and across the cheeks of the African Mask and the black tempera across the cheeks, nose and neck of the African Warrior Head – functions like warpaint or tattooing, with the light plaster base providing a powerful (skin) contrast.82 Such markings are characteristic of African masks used in battle, which often served as forms of camouflage, imitating the survival techniques of zebras, leopards and giraffes. Mammen’s African Mask evokes the morphing of animal and human faces. It is not difficult to gauge how these works functioned as modes of nonconformist expression during the 1930s. Almost everything about them is antithetical to National Socialist sculpture. Their size alone – African Mask measuring only 15 × 10.5 ×

Figure 5.16  Jeanne Mammen, Afrikanische Maske (African Mask), undated, c. 1936, plaster, painted, glued strip of material, 15 × 10.5 × 4 centimetres. Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin; Inv.-Nr.: SM 2018-01233. Photo: © Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin.

 Beginning Again: Post-War Berlin 141 4 centimetres and African Warrior Head 40 × 19 × 17 centimetres – meant that they did not adhere to the proportions and neo-classical aesthetic espoused in Adolf von Hildebrand’s enduring essay, Das Problem der Form in der Bildenden Kunst (The Problem of Form in Painting and Sculpture) (1893). Hildebrand (1847–1921), himself a sculptor, advocated a clear front and back for sculpture, fixed viewing points and a logical graduation of the figurative form, which was often at odds with more modern/ ist sculptural conceptions. His ideas later helped support the standardized formulation of Aryan male and female figures, exemplified by the work of favoured sculptors Arno Breker, Josef Thorak, Adolf Wamper or Willy Meller.83 These artists set out to construct monumental forms that were ‘beyond the reach of the average spectator’s physique and psyche’ and were designed for large public spaces.84 Some of Breker’s figures were up to five feet tall.85 By contrast, plaster and clay – the materials on which Mammen worked – were ostensibly disliked as they were considered ‘preparatory’ and characterless. Plaster also carried historical associations with casts and copies that the Nazis tried to avoid. Their small size and the fact that the artist never exhibited any of them (even after the war) suggests that they were probably conceived as an integral part of the collection of objects housed in her studio apartment. The wax votives, Buddha sculpture, Hühnergötter (witch stones from the Baltic Coast) and stone head of Medusa, are just some of the spiritual and secular ‘sculptural’ objects she displayed. She also owned richly illustrated books on Gothic windows, as well as Asian art, guidebooks on Northeast Africa and photo books on peasants and voodoo. In her own private space, the relativism of geographic and historic contexts, academic or not, fell away entirely as objects were placed next to one another. This collection was assembled over a long time, that is to say, the artist fostered a profound interest in world cultures and travelled extensively. There were trips to Russia (1932) noted previously, Italy (1954), Spain (1968), Morocco (1969), Britain (1969) and the Canary Islands (1972). She loved the sea, perhaps partly down to the fact that her father was from an Ostfriesischen family – a coastal region along the south-eastern corner of the North Sea. The photograph of Mimi and Mammen at the end of the 1920s shows a Hanseatic model ship alongside two small African/Oceanic figurines on top of a bookcase (Figure 1.5). But certainly, during the 1930s when Nazi cultural policy was defined by the splitting of ‘good’ and ‘bad’, Mammen’s collection challenged narrow categories of cultural value.86 Although this method of collecting was not new – we need only think of art historian Aby Warburg (1866–1929), and his Mnemosyne Atlas or Le Musée imaginaire by French art historian and philosopher, André Malraux (1901–76), translated into German in 1949 – where she stood out from her contemporaries is through the apparent integration of her own work. African Mask hung on the wall forming its own set of interdependencies next to pictures cut out from magazines. African Warrior Head stood among other objects, near the artist’s portrait painting of Erich Kuby on the wall (Figures I.1 and 4.1). Different photographs of the studio apartment make clear that objects and artworks were moved around. Empty spaces in Mammen’s scrapbooks suggest that images were also removed as part of this display (Figure 1.6). Exploring the endless interdependencies of objects in this collection acted as an important way of self-determining private space, which, as argued previously, became crucial under National Socialism. Mammen’s new sculptures, Double Profile and Child, continued to forge new and powerful connections with world cultures as part of an international art scene that she

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and her colleagues craved. As Grohmann expressly outlined in his ‘Zone 5’ exhibition review, there could be no more talk of ‘national’ forms of art, rather only ‘World art [. . .] which has national nuances but is basically homogenous’. The same task now awaited all artists making new work, he noted, whether they were from England, France, America or Spain.87 The critic Ludwig Rebe agreed. Allied culture had disunited the city by focusing too much on promoting its ‘own’ national art above anything else. Yet, Rebe was not convinced by world cultures either, pointing out that post-war Berlin had been denigrated to the colonial ‘test case of Europe’ (Probierstein Europas).88 Such comments reveal the dialectical tension between internationalism and nationalism that was already at play in much cultural criticism during the immediate post-war years. Indeed, the division of Germany in 1949 marked a new shift in dynamics, both politically and culturally, which, in turn, perhaps already drew Mammen’s attention away from the seemingly utopian narratives of collectivity and collective heritage that sculpture had come to represent. She created no more sculpture after 1949. *  *  * It would also be misleading to give the impression that this new ‘Zone 5’ artist constellation was any more harmonious than the Rosen set-up. Evidence suggests that there were tensions among the artists during their very first (and only) exhibition together. Mammen’s poster design for the exhibition alluded to her sculptural heads (Figure 5.17). But the design was not used. Instead, the group opted for an image by Karl Hartung. In a letter exchange between Mac Zimmermann and Heinz Trökes some five weeks before the exhibition opened, Zimmermann complained: It’s a pity [schade] about Mammen; why have something like that again right away. Can’t it be made clear to her that she doesn’t fit in here [nicht rein passt]? I suggest we take a vote on it. Uhlmann is surely responsible for this. If it comes to a vote, I’m voting against Mammen.89

Figure 5.17 Jeanne Mammen, untitled (Zone 5), undated, c. 1948, pencil, 29.5 × 22.5  centimetres. Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin; Inv.-Nr.: SM 201901361. Photo: © Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin.

 Beginning Again: Post-War Berlin 143 It is unclear whether these tensions related to the poster or, more fundamentally, as Zimmermann’s comment suggests, the exhibition of Mammen’s work per se. Mammen was the only artist to have had a successful career before the war and she was older and more experienced. But she was also the only woman artist. Whatever ‘problem’ existed seemed, nonetheless, not to go unnoted by Mammen, whose émigré friends Kurt Wohl and Max Delbrück in their letter exchange in 1952 described what happened as simply a ‘boycott’ against her.90 Although Grohman’s appraisal of the exhibition sought to find affinities between the artists, his review also betrayed a gendered subtext. It was ultimately the works of Uhlmann, Hartung, Trökes and Zimmermann that were praised for their international recognition.91 Other remarks condescendingly singled Mammen out as a woman artist: ‘[she] takes everything very seriously and only rarely ventures into the realm of the femininely decorative and playful.’92 And in a later newspaper article about the same exhibition, he claimed that her work overcompensated for her ‘sensitivity and fear’.93 Comments in other Grohmann articles about Berlin’s art scene reveal a similar gender bias: The hero of the day is Werner Heldt [Der Held des Tages]. There are works from the older, earlier [Karl] Hofer and [Karl] Schmidt-Rotluff. This time completely different influences become apparent, from the abstractionists and the Surrealists and the French and the imaginative Germans [the Berlin Surrealists]. For women the work of Paula Modersohn-Becker has been revived.94

At a time when canonical pre-war male artists were celebrated with renewed vigour, and the Berlin ‘Surrealists’ were bringing new influences to Germany, Grohmann implies that women were only looking backwards towards the work (of a distinct category) of pre-war women artists. Such comments were not unique in this period. Yet, women artists made up almost a third of exhibitors between 1946 and 1949. Katja Meirowsky, Christa Düll, Brigitte Jonelat-Saebisch, Elisabeth Wurster, Anna Wozilka, Elsa Thiemann and Woty Werner were part of a younger generation of artists. Others, such as Hannah Höch, Renée Sintenis and Louise Stomps had, like Mammen, forged successful careers during the 1920s. Nonetheless, women artists and dealers struggled to find acclaim. The last part of this chapter briefly explores reasons why and suggests that gender may also have been one of the reasons leading to the ‘boycott’ of Mammen’s work.

‘Madame Picasso’ As Chapter 2 explored, critics’ responses to Mammen’s solo exhibition in Galerie Rosen were mixed and, inevitably, some were gendered, too. While similarities to Picasso were noted, reviewers commented on her ‘feminine temperament’ (weibliches Temperament), as well as her ‘ornamental’ and ‘decorative’ approaches which, whether intentional or not, implied that her work was, ultimately, a derivative of his.95 One review went even further:

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What, does the wife of Picasso, this dazzling chameleon [jenem schillernden Chamäleon] between Cubism and Classicism, paint too? [. . .] We don’t mean her – it is Jeanne Mammen, who we’ve audaciously renamed here ‘Madame Picasso.’ [ . . .] An astonishing male strength [männliche Kraft] in her empathetic ability.96

Although seemingly jocular in tone, this was mixed praise indeed, for the article signalled the reviewer’s difficulty in reconciling modern art – specifically Cubism – with a woman. Similar assumptions were made about Mammen’s gender in exhibition catalogues, too. For example, Mammen’s painting Girl with a Cat (1943), shown at the ‘Deutsche Kunst unserer Zeit’ (German Art of our Time) exhibition in Überlingen in 1945, was listed in the catalogue under ‘Jan’ Mammen.97 The three-quarter-length portrait of a girl holding a tabby cat that appears to climb over her shoulder employs bold forms of Cubist fragmentation. If deliberate, the Überlingen exhibition catalogue betrays the assumption that the artist who worked in such a style was male. Such suppositions were probably motivated in part by the ‘quasi-Promethean’ proportions Picasso had developed among his admirers. Despite condemnation of his work by the general public, in the end, very few artists played more of a role model function than Picasso for German artists after the war.98 Whether this was through published photographs of Kubicêk and Zimmermann in their studios alongside pictures and books on Picasso, or by the lyricist and art historian Kurt Leonhard (1910–2005) in the journal, Das Kunstwerk: Zeitschrift für Moderne Kunst (The Work of Art: Magazine for Modern Art) heralding him as a hero for withstanding the hardships of Nazi occupation, Picasso (and his work) became paradigmatic of the ‘great’ male artist.99 The extent to which masculine bias defined abstract art per se was further reinforced by Hanns Theodor Flemming’s Kleines Lexikon abstrakter Maler (Small Dictionary of Abstract Painters), which appeared as a supplement in a 1946/7 edition of the same journal. The dictionary contained the names of sixty-two leading representatives, including Arp, Baumeister, Braque, Dalí, Di Chirico, Ernst, Klee, all of the Rosen ‘Surrealists’ and, notably, Jeanne Mammen. The fact that the artist appears as the only woman – besides the photographs of Marta Hoepffner – effectively marked her out as an anomaly.100 We can suspect that such issues did not go unnoticed by the artist either. Her copy of the Überlingen exhibition is annotated with various unambiguous evaluations such as ‘crap’ (Mist) and ‘beautiful’ (schön) next to the listed exhibits. These comments are not written in Mammen’s hand, suggesting that a friend perhaps gave her the brochure. She was, nonetheless, clearly aware of the responses and biases towards her own art.101 Mammen’s inner émigré artist colleagues Hannah Höch (1889–1978) and Renée Sintenis (1888–1965) likewise received mixed responses to their work. From an older generation, it was these artists who were pulled up in the press for their so-called ‘non-contribution’ to the contemporary art scene. Despite producing many paintings and watercolours during her inner emigration, some of which she exhibited in one of Rosen’s early controversial shows, the ‘Fantasten-Ausstellung’ (Fantastical Exhibition) in 1945, Höch’s more recent work received little critical acclaim after the war.102 During the 1930s and 1940s, many of her paintings centred on landscapes, flora and fauna, as well as self-portraits; she had returned to collage and photomontage only around 1940. Yet, for the critics, she remained first and foremost a Dadaist. The references to the

 Beginning Again: Post-War Berlin 145 Dada revolt in her first solo exhibition in Galerie Franz in 1949 were branded ‘motheaten and dusty’ (vermottet und verstaubt) by some critics.103 And like Mammen, retrospectives of her work occurred only during the last decades of her life. Conversely, Renée Sintenis was one of few women artists offered a senior position in Berlin’s new College of Fine Arts after the war. She received the Berliner Kunstpreis (Berlin Art Prize) in 1948, and her work was also exhibited internationally, partly because of her involvement with the Prolog Gruppe (Prolog Group) of artists, which promoted cultural relations between Germany and the United States.104 In an article that appeared in Der Tagesspiegel in 1951, Albert Buesche sought to address why Höch and Mammen, in contrast to Sintenis, had still made little impact in Berlin’s cultural scene.105 Although Mammen was undoubtedly a ‘bold and uncompromising painter’, she continued to work alone like Höch, and hence, their works were little known. In other words, women themselves were to blame for their lack of recognition, as his troubling title, ‘Women have more pride: How Berlin’s Women Artists Live’, implied. Women had more ‘pride’ and with it, ‘more courage to isolation’ that gave rise to their (artistic) situation. In contrast, Buesche surmised, married artists such as Renée Sintenis, who were part of an artist couple, had a better chance of recognition.106 Without their male counterpart, ‘the dog is the master of the house!’ (Der Hund ist der Herr im Hause!). The experiences of these artists is indicative of the wider gendered assumptions that were at play in the pursuit of ‘normality’ and stabilization in the immediate post-war period. Scholars agree that deeming the period between 1943 and 1948 the ‘hour of women’, partly because of the key role Trümmerfrauen played in helping to clear Germany’s streets for reconstruction, is misleading.107 It was, indeed, also women who set up provisional living quarters, fetched water from public pumps, collected fuel and made clothing out of old uniforms and flags. But this was partly down to the fact that for every thousand men in the Western zones between the ages of 25 and 30, there were nearly 1,700 women of the same age.108 But this certainly did not result in the structural transformation of the role of women in German society.109 Rubble clearance was effectively a ‘dead-end’, in that it did not result in their entering apprenticeships that might have allowed them to advance in the construction industry, yet it constituted between 5 and 10 per cent of employment for women in Berlin.110 Thus in a city dominated by women, Berlin was still very much controlled by men. There were scarcely any women to be found among the new, post-war administration systems, or the political parties. The same could be said of the board of cultural institutions. The proportion of women in work stood at 28.3 per cent, which was considerably lower than before the war.111 In fact, it was precisely because of women’s visibility during the war on the home front, as well as their encounters with the military and civilian authorities thereafter, that they were encouraged to ‘go back’ to concentrating on domestic life and the family and rebuilding their home.112 Social policy made a concerted effort to bring back family-based politics of conformism; reproductive citizenship was emphasized and abortion prohibition continued.113 Culture therefore played an important role in reaffirming traditional gender roles, with art criticism and articles in art magazines appearing to do much the same. In contemporary exhibition brochures, books, allied control reports, newspapers and art journals, it was also only a select group of pre-war male artists, including

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Karl Hofer, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Theodor Werner and Theo Balden, who appeared to achieve the greatest acclaim.114 This was even noticed by Rosen artist Werner Heldt, who scathingly called their prominence a ‘dictatorship of old men’ (Altmännerdiktatur).115 The way in which the legacy of Expressionist artist, Max Pechstein, plays out is a case in point. Like Mammen, he had enjoyed a successful career before the Nazis came to power and during the 1930s, he also remained in Germany. Almost immediately after the war, he was made Professor at the College of Fine Arts in Berlin. His professorship is typical of the various tacit forms of atonement or compensation, which saw many artists (mostly male) being offered public appointments as civil servants (Verbeamtung) in cultural institutions during this period. In 1946, Pechstein had a large retrospective exhibition in the Admiralspalast organized by Adolf Jannasch (1898–1984), the art historian in charge of public exhibitions in Berlin. It is worth noting the tone of Jannasch’s appraisal in the accompanying brochure, which gives a sense of just how far he was held up as an ideal anti-Nazi citizen to the German public: Pechstein has returned. Until recently he was homeless and persecuted, now he works tirelessly once more in our Berlin [. . .]. Uncompromising and uninfluenced [Unbeugsam und unbeeinflußt] by Hitler-art he went his own way. [. . .] The fortyyear oeuvre of a leading master is the mirror of the development of art in recent times and is a document of our way into the future. Pechstein belongs to us again.116

Unlike Mammen, Pechstein’s works were once held in many collections across Germany and this alone would have contributed to his prominence.117 Moreover, as a member of Die Brücke and a founder of the revolutionary November Group (Novembergruppe), he was also heralded more straightforwardly as ‘anti-fascist’ and a positive symbol of cultural reconstruction. His work also appeared in the Degenerate Art exhibitions. Consequently, Jannasch unambiguously portrays the artist in heroic terms as a defiant inner émigré, reinforced by the language ‘master’, ‘uncompromising’ and ‘uninfluenced’. However, Pechstein made compromises to continue to paint during the 1930s, many of which brought him in close contact with the Nazi Party, and he had, in fact, initially sought accommodation under the new regime.118 The familiarity of Jannasch’s tone ‘in our Berlin’ and ‘belongs to us again’ further positions Pechstein among Berliners, as ‘one of us’ – in other words, an innocent artist, whom the Nazis had temporarily taken away. Such jubilation and empathy were entirely lacking in critiques of Mammen’s exhibition. They said nothing about her dissent or the hardships she had endured. Zimmermann’s dismissive comments towards Mammen, noted earlier, perhaps start to become clearer. In addition, there were also the underlying attitudes among Rosen colleagues themselves to consider. Accounts of the gallery feature few women. Artist Heinz Trökes, the self-appointed spokesperson, appears to remember little about the impact of women artists in this period, instead recalling only Renée Sintenis’ ‘pretty, emaciated face’ (schöne, abgemagertes Gesicht). In the same interview later in life, Trökes describes how he and other Rosen artists Wolfgang Frankenstein, Zimmermann and Kubicêk would meet in a local pub on Uhlandstraße very close to the gallery, often accompanied by ‘their pretty girl fans’ (schöner Mädchenanhang).119

 Beginning Again: Post-War Berlin 147 Werner Heldt’s attitude towards women engaged in cultural affairs was more openly contemptuous. In a letter to the painter, Werner Gilles, in June 1946 he claimed: Every woman, who has been raped by the Russians umpteen times (and that to begin with) and whose husband is in a prisoner-of-war camp, is forming a literary or political salon or a magazine or an art dealership to quash her tuberculosis with help from American booty [mit Hilfe amerikanischer Besatzungsfette zu dämpfen].120

Such attitudes, however shocking, were not unusual. As Elizabeth Heineman has shown, the appropriation of the female rape experience, in fact, permeated culture after the war. It was also often indiscriminately connected with women – known as ‘fraternizers’ – who ‘willingly’ formed liaisons with occupation soldiers. Many sought both emotional and economic compensation and encountered heavy castigation among contemporaries.121 For male artists such as Heldt and his contemporary Mac Zimmermann, whose painting Ruin Ladies ambiguously captured the feminine postwar experience, the ‘surplus of women’ (Frauenüberschuß) seemed to fill the troubling vacuum left by the widely discredited (male) military experience. Besides being extraordinarily callous, Heldt’s misogynistic comment betrays the extent to which he appeared to equate a loss of sexual and moral control with wider issues of gendered order. What is perhaps surprising is that more recent histories of Gerd Rosen Galerie reaffirm a masculinist bias. In reality, however, it was women who were formative in the day-to-day running and success of the gallery. Not only did Jeanne Mammen, Woty Werner and Louise Stomps exhibit there, but Elsa Thiemann also photographed artists for the gallery’s official marketing material.122 Elfriede Wirnitzer undertook the administration of the gallery for eight years from 1946 until 1954 and went on to become a successful art dealer in her own right.123 Perhaps the greatest oversight is the acknowledgement of Ilse-Margret Vogel.124 Her presence from the gallery’s inception is made clear by photographs dating from autumn 1945. In 1948 she became Head of Modern Art in the gallery. But Vogel was effectively running the gallery long before that. A photograph of Mammen’s solo exhibition shows Vogel sitting alongside the gallery’s then artistic director, Hans Uhlmann (Figure 2.2). Both Uhlmann and Vogel are shown working. As the report by the American art collector, Virginia Fontaine – who visited the gallery to purchase works in 1947 – confirms, it was also ultimately Vogel who met the clients and arranged sales: This time I met Mrs. Vogel who runs the print department, owns much of the work in stock and jointly arranges the exhibitions with Mr. Rosen. I never did meet Mr. Rosen as he was away at the time. [. . .] Mrs. Vogel told of the fun the gallery had in showing extremely modern work and the public reaction. [. . .] I was able to make a few purchases of prints with my limited funds. It is an expensive gallery. Mrs. Vogel put me on her mailing list so that I can be informed of her new shows.125

Vogel was herself an artist and moved to Berlin in 1938. Besides distributing leaflets for the resistance, she was able to survive by selling her own still life and landscape

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paintings. She explained in her memoirs how her (conformist) artworks sold like ‘hotcakes’ during the war, as there was not much else to purchase.126 She would go into the Berlin department store, KaDeWe, and buy framed paintings of Hitler – which she defaced at home – in order to reframe her own works to raise the price.127 Vogel had intended to resume her career as an artist after the war. However, there is no evidence to suggest that she exhibited her own works in Galerie Rosen or in any other commercial galleries. Vogel migrated to the United States in 1950, taking a vivid watercolour of a girl with crossed arms (1946) by Mammen with her.128 In many ways, then, Albert Buesche’s assessment regarding the lack of prominence of women artists after the war was right. But this was not because they worked alone or were not part of an artist couple, as he contended in his article. Rather, in a cultural scene that was predominantly defined and dominated by male art critics and artists, women were often simply sidelined. Mammen kept a copy of Buesche’s article in her collection of newspaper critiques. A large exclamation mark is scrawled in blue crayon in the margin. As Hans Thiemann noted in a letter addressed to their mutual friend, the Surrealist poet Johannes Hübner, many years later, he suspected that Mammen sought to deny the influence of other artists upon her own works (throughout her career) partly out of ‘female cavalier duty’ (weibliche Kavalierspflicht).129 Perhaps the artist grew weary of working in such patriarchal environs and effectively built up strategies for dealing with it. As this chapter has demonstrated, contrary to Buesche’s impression, Mammen was extremely active in Berlin’s art scene after the war. A significant exhibition at the Haus am Waldsee in September 1947, in which the artist participated, is also worth briefly mentioning by way of conclusion, as it highlights one of the ways in which women artists actively sought to reaffirm their role as cultural producers in post-war Berlin. ‘Die Frau in Wort, Werk und Bildnis’ (Women in Word, Work and Image) was curated by a women’s collective in Berlin-Zehlendorf in 1947 (Figure 5.18). It showcased the work of contemporary artists and writers, and appears to have been one of a few exhibitions during this period to act as a form of self-positioning and, indeed, self-historicizing for women.130 The exhibition displayed the sculptural work of Margarethe Moll and Renée Sintenis, as well as watercolours by Hannah Höch and Jenny de Bloot, among others. It showcased different genres and as is typical of many exhibitions during this period, political affiliations also varied. Höch went into inner emigration, whereas De Bloot worked in National Socialist women’s organizations and exhibited publicly during the 1930s. Mammen showed ten paintings from her inner emigration, the most by any single artist represented. The preface in the exhibition brochure attempted to outline the task of women in post-war society. It acknowledged that under the National Socialists, women had played a minor role in public affairs, which should now change. Women must not dismiss their role in the family and should stand ‘side by side’ with their husbands. But they should not be subordinate to them either: Women in the future must stand alongside men in public life, [. . .] Her voice, her work, her hands, the charisma of her personality will play important roles in the formation of the new state. Powerful associations that have arisen all over

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Figure 5.18  ‘Die Frau in Wort, Werk und Bildnis’ (Women in Word, Work and Image), 1947, exhibition brochure, Haus am Waldsee. Photo: © Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin.

Germany, have established the basis for women’s vigilant awareness demanding the restructuring of social order in cordial union with women in other countries.131

Given that Mammen had never joined, nor shown any artworks in all-women artist associations, except for one exhibition with the Berlin Women Artists Association in 1933, discussed in Chapter 3, her substantial contribution to such an exhibition now, potentially signalled the artist’s collective impulse. Indeed, recalibrated women’s societies proved a vital way in which to re-establish a sense of collective purpose and gave women a civic voice when other democratic infrastructures were still in their infancy.132 But Mammen’s contribution also inadvertently acknowledged the difficulty women (artists) were currently facing. Mammen’s fellow exhibition contributor Hannah Höch was also conscious of these difficulties. One of the lectures organized by the district administrative office of Berlin-Reinickendorf the following year, ‘Women and Art’, made a pointed attempt to engage housewives in art.133 Höch’s lecture was not about women artists per se, but it nonetheless sought to address the importance of art for all women, arguing: The beauty of art is the fact that it offers ‘another side [. . .] to our life of hardship’, and it is the task of women time and again to refuel on a little beauty. Even if in our present day it is damn difficult for us to consciously weave divine roses into earthly

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life – our children should know the custodians of trueness, goodness, and beauty [die Hüterin des Wahren, Guten, Schönen] in us.134

Consonant with the hopeful message of ‘Die Frau in Wort, Werk und Bildnis’, Höch emphasized art’s humanitarian role. Despite the hurdles women currently faced, it was women and women alone who were given the moral responsibility to help communicate this to the next generations. In other words, for Höch, art and women were essential to the successful, modern reconstruction of Germany. The programme of the Haus am Waldsee shows that this was the only exhibition of this type to be curated by a women’s collective. Set in extensive parklands, the gallery quickly established itself as an important centre for international art, hosting the first major exhibition of Picasso’s new graphic works in Berlin in autumn 1949, followed by a series of high-profile exhibitions of Georges Rouault (1950); Max Ernst (1951); Joan Miró (1954 and 1957); and Georges Braque (1955).135 Holding an exhibition in such a location was a triumph, but its success nonetheless had its limits. The exhibition also showcased a small selection of works by male artists, Karl Hofer, Max Kaus, Oskar Moll, Max Pechstein and Paul Strecker, which it grouped under the theme ‘[male] painters see women’. These male artists were all listed prominently on the cover of the exhibition brochure (Figure 5.18). Even if the exhibition successfully foregrounded the importance of women artists and women curators, therefore, we might infer from this that it was ultimately male artists who drew the crowds, and, indeed, who continued to dominate the Haus am Waldsee’s international exhibition programme thereafter.

Conclusion Mammen contributed to some of the most important initial exhibitions on modern and contemporary art in post-war Berlin. Her post-war work, like that of her contemporaries, responded to Germany’s urgent political and economic situation. Her sculpture in particular reveals affinities with both Uhlmann’s and Hartung’s works, which, in turn points towards their wider engagement with the international avantgarde. However, the male-dominated culture of Rosen and, indeed, post-war society, impacted upon the reception of Mammen’s work: Cubism was a style associated with men and resistance to National Socialism was cast primarily in masculine terms. Mammen’s unwavering motivation for collaboration nonetheless saw her involvement in two artist cabarets at the end of the 1940s, Die Badewanne (Bathtub) – with which Rosen artists Zimmermann and Trökes were involved on the periphery – and its successor, Die Quallenpeitsche (Jellyfish Whip). Although she does not appear to have created any more sculptures after 1949, she now turned her hand to making costumes, props and stage sets. By adopting Dadaist and Surrealist techniques in a series of versatile programmes that combined modern dance, art, continental philosophy and literature, both cabarets demonstrate just how innovative post-war experimental theatre could be.

6

Bathtubs and Jellyfish Mammen and post-war cabaret

On Saturday everything was fine. Amongst the soft furniture and the plaster figures, gold frames and tassels a motley crowd had assembled. Through billowing clouds of smoke, one saw a familiar face. Latecomers had to be satisfied with a smirking peek at the wild goings-on unfolding from the entrance. There were no more seats all level surfaces as well as the floor were totally utilized. [. . .] A scintillating, exciting atmosphere, anything but the usual – so too a cabaret en miniature. (F. B., 1949)1

Introduction A satirical drawing by the artist Paul Rosié that appeared in Berlin’s Montags-Zeitung in July 1949, alongside the critic’s description above, shows a man and woman performing on a stage alongside a painting, sculpture and small bathtub (Figure 6.1). Audience members talk animatedly in the foreground. One of them wearing a beret and glasses and almost facing the viewer is the artist, Mac Zimmermann. Rosié sought to capture the atmosphere of Berlin’s latest bohemian venue: the newly opened Die Badewanne (Bathtub) Artists’ Cabaret in the basement of the modernist Femina-Palast, on Nürnberger Straße. During the immediate post-war years, small-scale underground and basement art (Kellerkunst) flourished. Young Germans were thrilled to have the opportunity to encounter new modes of satire and technical experimentation, and see adaptations of many texts that had, until recently, been forbidden.2 Indeed, a rare photograph shows a group of well-dressed cabaret-goers queuing to get in, with a uniformed doorman standing in the foreground (Figure 6.2). It was the artist, dancer and pantomime artist Alexander Camaro (1901–92), along with artist Katja Meirowsky (1920–2012), her husband Karl and the Surrealist poet, Johannes Hübner (1921–77), who had come up with the original idea. And they were quickly joined by some of their artistic friends. Camaro and Katja Meirowsky had both exhibited in Galerie Rosen and therefore knew many of the artists associated with the gallery.3 Although Mammen would never exhibit with the Rosen artists

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Figure 6.1  Paul Rosié, untitled (‘Künstlerkabarett in der Badewanne’) (Artists’ Cabaret – Bathtub) in Montags-Zeitung 18 July 1949, author, FB. Archivalien-Konvolut zum Künstlerkabarett in der Badewanne. Berlinische Galerie Landesmuseum für Moderne Kunst, Fotografie und Architektur, Berlin; BG-Ar 13/89, 31. Photo: © Berlinische Galerie.

again – apart from Hans Thiemann – her involvement with the Badewanne meant that they continued to move in similar circles (Figure 6.3). As we will see, the cabaret’s underlying connection with Berlin’s contemporary art scene was essential from the outset. It formed during an intensely difficult political period at the end of June 1949, just one month after the formation of the FRG (Federal Republic of Germany). Adopting the biting satire of pre-war cabaret and combining it with the mêlée of Dadaist and Surrealist inspired-sources and techniques, it concocted a new avant-garde that foregrounded the pitfalls of Allied denazification, while questioning West Germany’s rapidly developing sense of its own blamelessness under Konrad Adenauer. In an article, ‘The Audience Laughs Wrong’ from 1947/8, Walter Lennig, the editor of Der Tagesspiegel Feuilleton, claimed that no one knew how to respond to the cabaret anymore, as people had become paralysed in their judgement because of moral catastrophe.4 Lennig’s article drew attention to the current epidemic of ‘humourlessness’ as a real problem that needed to be tackled. Were people permitted to laugh in the aftermath of such devastation? The Badewanne cabaret thought they could and, indeed, should. Until now, the Badewanne has garnered no attention in English scholarship.5 Perhaps the cabaret’s neglect is also down to the fact that it was only short-lived: the original Badewanne split after just six months in December 1949, forming two successor cabarets,

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Figure 6.2 Entrance of the Artists’ Cabaret – Badewanne in the Femina-Palast on Nürnberger Straße. Archivalien-Konvolut zum Künstlerkabarett in der Badewanne. Berlinische Galerie Landesmuseum für Moderne Kunst, Fotografie und Architektur, Berlin; BG-Ar 13/89, 41. Photo: © Berlinische Galerie.

Figure 6.3 Group photograph at the Artists’ Cabaret – Badewanne. Photographer unknown, 1949. L-R: front row, Rolek Casella, Margot Schmidt and Wolfgang Frankenstein. In the bathtub, Katja Meirowsky. Middle row, Paul Rosié, Ute Hübner, Hans Laabs, Ursula Goldberg and Jeanne Mammen. Back row, Waldemar Grzimek, Johannes Hübner, Lo Berken, Christa Grzimek. Photo: © Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin.

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Die Quallenpeitsche (Jellyfish Whip) and Das Atelier (The Studio).6 The Quallenpeitsche remained in the Femina-Palast basement, while Das Atelier showcased a few performances in the Opernkeller and at Galerie Bremer, run by Anja Bremer in Meinekestraße.7 The Quallenpeitsche lasted a further six months from February to the beginning of August 1950. Like many initiatives during this immediate post-war period, rapidly changing economic and political circumstances meant that longer-term projects were difficult to sustain. In their short time, nonetheless, both the Badewanne and the Quallenpeitsche were extremely productive. They often performed twice weekly and offered their audience as many as eight short sketches in one programme. They staged the first-ever satirical scenes from Ernst Jünger’s new novel Heliopolis (1949), mocked Germany’s appetite for existentialism and created spoof operas. With a strong interest in the promotion of modern art, the cabaret also took the contemporary criticism of artworks to the stage, transforming paintings by Picasso, Klee and Miró into living tableaux. In fact, the Badewanne cabaret represents one of the few instances where aspects from the Formalism Debate were taken to the stage. Both the Badewanne and the Quallenpeitsche were important descendants of the Surrealists and the Dadaists.8 Whether it is possible to speak of ‘German Surrealism’ continues to generate much debate among scholars.9 In terms of a neat constellation of artists and writers around André Breton as in France, Germany had less to offer. As the previous chapter noted, the Surrealist artists associated with Galerie Rosen disliked this label. However, as well as translating and performing texts by Guillaume Apollinaire, André Breton and Henri Micheaux, the cabarets adopted the techniques of automatism, improvisation and simultaneity. In other words, there was certainly a form of Surrealism that developed in Germany during the immediate post-war years, which, as Johann Thun argues, should be recognized for its distinctly internationalist character.10 Like art, then, the cabarets draw attention to the dialectical tensions between the role of international and national cultural forms in Germany’s reconstruction. *  *  * Mammen was involved in the Badewanne cabaret early on and her name appears on some of the cabaret’s first programmes. Written on the back of a copy of the ‘Zone 5’ exhibition brochure in her archive is the name and address of Katja Meirowsky, suggesting that they perhaps initially shared contact details during the autumn of 1948. Before this, Meirowsky had been part of a group exhibition at Galerie Rosen in February 1948 in which Mammen was also listed as a participant.11 Mammen was not one of the cabaret’s founding members, however, and according to Karl Meirowsky, her appearance on the photograph of some of its associates was, in fact, purely coincidental.12 Only a small amount of material related to the Badewanne survives in the artist’s archive. By contrast, her role in the cabaret’s offshoot, the Quallenpeitsche, was formative and she was involved in ten sketches over its seven-month duration. Her archive also holds several drawings from this period, which presumably served as designs for cabaret stage sets.13 Her enjoyment in both cabarets is confirmed in letters to friends, as well as in an interview with Hans Kinkel during the 1970s, in which she remembers, ‘Then we started the Bathtub cabaret: my heart and soul [Leib und

 Bathtubs and Jellyfish 155 Magen]. I worked enthusiastically day and night: selected all costumes, all decorations, all presentations. One of my favorite children [Lieblingskinder].’14 This was also not the first time the artist had been involved with the stage. As Chapter 4 noted, Mammen’s work with puppet maker Harro Siegel saw her travel to Prague in 1942 to undertake theatre decorations. Less than a year after the war, she was illustrating reviews of the new Berlin cabaret, the Staubsauger (Vacuum Cleaner), with drawings of well-known performers Ethel Reschke, Ellen Avenarius and Maria Ney.15 Post-war editions of works in her library by Jean-Paul Sartre, Jean Cayrol, Raymond Queneau, Albert Camus, Alain Robbe-Grillet and Jean Anouilh suggest that she was also deliberately reading work that generated some of the cabaret sketches. As far as we know, she did not perform. Instead, the stage became an important testing ground for her translations of Rimbaud, which were read to the public for the first time. She also turned her hand to sculpting in paper, creating masks and enormous papier-mâché figures, and wrote a short pantomime. As will become clear, the cabarets may have been short-lived, but they had a lasting impact on Mammen and Berlin culture more widely.

A literary cabaret Literature was an important source of inspiration for both the Badewanne and the Quallenpeitsche. The influence of French Surrealism (and to a lesser extent from Latin America) as both source and theatrical technique, was explicit from the outset. The cabaret derived its name from an automatic poem written by Johannes Hübner, which comprised the first cabaret sketch ever performed. Along with close friend, the Surrealist poet Lothar Klünner (1922–2012), Hübner and Klünner became house poets, writing, translating and adapting sources to be performed.16 Johannes Hübner and Lothar Klünner are hardly household names for art historians. However, along with the poet and writer Richard Anders (1928–2012), painter and poet Karl Otto Götz (1914–2017) and writer Rudolf Wittkopf (1933–97), Hübner and Klünner became the most important Surrealist representatives in Germany after the war and over the following decades.17 Their translation of René Char’s poetry into German, for example, still remains the most formative to date.18 In a period that saw Germany question the contemporary relevance of Surrealism in art – when France was busy celebrating it – Hübner and Klünner translated important Surrealist texts from the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, bringing them to the attention of much of the German public for the first time. These texts were not only performed, but also featured in Fritz Hellwag’s journal Athena (1946–8) and, later, Götz’s Surrealist journal META (1949–53). To that end, the cabarets hosted a series of literary-music evenings, which found their precedent in the ‘Soirée de la Plume’, founded by poets Paul Verlaine and Guillaume Apollinaire. Neither the Badewanne nor the Quallenpeitsche paralleled a journal. Hellwag’s Athena, nonetheless, seemed to prepare the ground for both (Figure 6.4).19 Although the last issue of the journal was published a month before the Badewanne took to the stage, as will become clear, articles addressed concomitant topics including existentialism, Surrealism and Symbolism, as well as translating

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Figure 6.4  Jeanne Mammen, untitled (ballet scene from ‘Daphnis and Chloë’), undated, c. 1947, pen, original size and whereabouts unknown. On the cover of Athena, no. 6, 1947. Photo: © Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin.

passages of texts by Louis Aragon, Paul Éluard and André Breton (including the Surrealist manifestos). The journal was likewise an ardent defender of modern and contemporary art, foregrounding the artists affiliated with Galerie Rosen, and sought to establish intermedial links between some of the Surrealist texts and the images it published. Mammen was involved in designing the stage set for a Quallenpeitsche sketch of Surrealist author, Federico García Lorca’s Zwei Matrosen am Ufer (Two Sailors on the Shore), from his collection of poems, Canciones (1921–4).20 The poems explored Andalucía, the region where Lorca was born. The Badewanne had hosted a ‘Lorca Evening’ for which Hübner and Klünner had translated some of his poems earlier that year. In the performance of Two Sailors, Hübner stood and read out a German translation of the poem, while Klünner (right) and the artist Karl-Heinz Hartmann stood as the two sailors on stage (Figure 6.5). Lorca’s verse set out a melancholy scenario in which two sailors contemplate their travels and their lives that are filled with an exotic patchwork of fleeting encounters: Part 1 In his heart he wears, a fish from the China Sea. At times you see it cruising, diminished in his eyes. Being a seaman he forgets, the bars and oranges. He looks at the water. Part 2 He had a tongue of soap. He washed his words and was silent. Flat world and curling sea, a hundred stars and his ship. He saw the balconies of the Pope,

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Figure 6.5  Quallenpeitsche sketch of Federico García Lorca’s poem, Zwei Matrosen am Ufer (Two Sailors on the Shore), stage set by Jeanne Mammen, c. 1950. Photographer: Johannes Lederer. From L-R: Johannes Hübner, Karl-Heinz Hartmann and Lothar Klünner. Photo: © Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin.

the Cuban girls’ golden breasts. He looks at the water.21

With its provocative and ambiguous language, Lorca’s poem is likely to have garnered the cabaret’s interest. Two Sailors potentially symbolized parts of Lorca’s own youth and his tempestuous friendship with the painter Salvador Dali, with whom he became acquainted (and fell in love) during the early 1920s in Madrid.22 The sailor, a recurrent subject in Lorca’s poems as well as his artwork, has been interpreted as a symbol of latent homoeroticism.23 The lines in the poem in which the sailor appears unmoved by the Cuban girls reinforce this reading. Instead, ‘his tongue of soap’ suggests he is parched with desire. A drawing for the stage set by Mammen shows a series of abstract forms in warm reds, pinks and oranges arising from a green backdrop (see Colour Plate 25). The black-and-white photograph of the performance shows this backdrop in action (Figure 6.5). Mammen’s set is evocative of the poem’s mood. There is a sense of the infinite, the swelling of water infused with the exotic ‘other’ of travel through bright colours. The artist was familiar with Lorca’s work, owning books (in Spanish) from the 1940s and early 1950s.24 Lorca was a passionate admirer of abstract art, and his own artwork, although figurative, never illustrated his own poems directly.25 Lorca challenged the

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reader to make associative leaps between the poem and the image. The Quallenpeitsche followed suit. They developed a specific term to describe their adaptation of poetry for the stage, calling it a poème illustré (illustrated poem). The term ‘illustré’ is misleading, for a text was never simply acted out and/or illustrated as a stage set. Rather, performances deliberately moved away from representational or illustrative forms of stage action.26 Although translations of a work were read out, figures, objects, stage sets and sometimes also music were used intermedially to explore the narrative through mood, sensation and sentiment. As an artist who undertook translation – particularly of Rimbaud’s syntactical experiments with language – it is clear why this process would have captivated Mammen. Indeed, she met Hübner and Klünner regularly in her studio apartment, reserving Thursday evenings for the ‘Jeudisten’ (jeudi: French for Thursday) as she playfully called them. All three were united in their admiration of Rimbaud, whose ideas were undoubtedly the genesis of the poème illustré. A stylistic forerunner of Surrealism, Rimbaud’s work helped Breton formulate his thoughts on automatism and is cited directly in two of the Surrealist manifestos.27 As if echoing Breton, Hübner believed that the freedoms of Surrealist language had their roots in the Communard France of Rimbaud. In postwar Berlin, he saw the present role of the poet as ontological-revolutionary.28 Whether through the intermediality of Surrealist techniques, or directly through the poetry of Rimbaud or, indeed, both, the cabaret developed the idea of the poème illustré as a way of exploring the semantic possibilities of language and representation. With Hübner and Klünner, Mammen also returned to refine her own translation of Rimbaud’s final work Illuminations (1886), which she had begun during the 1930s. Nine extracts from her translations were recited at the Badewanne’s second ‘Rimbaud Evening’ on 15 December 1949 (Figure 6.6). The prohibition of Rimbaud’s work under the National Socialists meant he was greeted with even more enthusiasm after the war and, indeed, new German translations of his poems already began appearing in 1946.29 Other sketches the Quallenpeitsche performed, such as André Breton’s The Mystical Corset, foregrounded collage techniques as a way of playing with traditional grammatical structures and textual rhythms. Based on the last of a group of poems collectively known as The Pawnshop, from 1919, The Mystical Corset is the surreal evocation of the corset described through a collage of cutout advertisement texts and slogans, and in which Breton expressly acknowledged his debt to Dada. Translated and adapted by Hübner and Klünner, the cabaret performance visualized Breton’s poem on stage, which deliberately represented a collage of typefaces: The Mystical Corset My lovely readers, By seeing in all colors Splendid postcards, with lightning effects, Venice It used to be that my room’s furnishings were solidly Fixed to the walls and I had to be strapped down to write: I’m a good sailor We belong to a sort of sentimental Touring Club

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Figure 6.6  Programme from the Badewanne’s second ‘Rimbaud Evening’ on 15 December 1949. Archivalien-Konvolut zum Künstlerkabarett in der Badewanne. Berlinische Galerie Landesmuseum für Moderne Kunst, Fotografie und Architektur, Berlin; BG-Ar 13/89, 40. Photo: © Berlinische Galerie.

A CHATEAU INSTEAD OF A HEAD That’s the Charity Bazaar too Delightful games for all ages; Poetic games, etc. I hold Paris like – to unveil the future for you – your open hand With a waist tightly bound.30

The undergarment was considered mystical, in the sense that it should be invisible under the gown, replacing stays with stiffened fabric. For Breton, therefore, the corset symbolized a form of fantasy hidden beneath layers of fabric. He animated and fetishized it, which the last line of the poem makes clear. Breton’s chaotic reassembling of ready-made expressions cut out from newspapers, magazines and advertising slogans deliberately challenged the narrative logic and descriptive correspondence of words with the real world. His direct address ‘My lovely readers,’ for example, was taken from the magazine Le Miroir des Modes, whereas the phrase ‘we belong to a sort of sentimental Touring Club’, appeared a few months later in Tzara’s Bulletin DADA31 – a type of poème illustré of sorts, therefore, in which the cabaret audience was encouraged to make associative leaps between words, phrases and stage action, thereby leaving the potential overall meanings of Breton’s poem open and ambiguous.

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Mammen’s costumes for the sketch no longer exist, and no photographs of the stage set survive. However, descriptions of the performance give some sense of how it must have looked. Breton’s words were shown in different typefaces, imitating the format of the original poem and were carried onto the stage by a large, stylized hand. To be sure, Breton’s references to the Parisian fashion world would not have been lost on Mammen, and we might hazard that the set also involved the use of the mannequin or fitter’s torso – a Surrealist object par excellence. What remains evident in the staging of this and other sketches by the cabaret is the resourcefulness with which Mammen and her colleagues operated. To even contemplate setting up a cabaret just after the war and an eleven-month Blockade that had finished little over a month before the Badewanne’s first performance seemed almost impossible. Yet, through good contacts and the ready supply of cigarettes, coffee and schnapps, it worked. Thanks to its improvisational and adaptive quality, the cabaret form itself was, in fact, the perfect medium for hard times.32 As Mammen explained in a letter to Max Delbrück, there was no money in it: We have opened a little theatre – several painters and authors together – and present the most comical things that we can think of ourselves – That is lots of fun and provides a lot of stimulation, even if it is ‘pour l’amour de l’art’ and for the sake of experimenting. Our only pay is that we see our ideas realized on the stage.33

Costumes and props were scavenged from flea markets and pawnshops and, consequently, few survive. Mammen made costumes from bed sheets and masks out of paper.34 Photographs show her constructing the head of a lion, perhaps for a dance performance in front of a backdrop imitating one of Henri Rousseau’s jungle scenes, which was performed in the same programme as Breton’s poem (Figure 6.7). Photographs from this period show other paper heads the artist made, with paper coils and funnels for hair (Figure 4.2). Mammen revealed jubilantly in a letter to Delbrück just how imaginative their performances were: I am very busy making lions, snakes and monkeys out of old stockings and old cardigans for our small theatre – in the next programme we have a terrifying Wild West scene, not forgetting the tropical storm. It is all enormously good fun.35

Given such limitations, the astute attention to detail found on extant stage notes is perhaps unexpected. In the cabaret documentation held at the Berlinische Galerie, there are annotations regarding costumes, make-up, stage props and lighting.36 A comparison of Mammen’s preparatory drawing for Lorca’s Two Sailors with the photograph of the final performance reinforces just how closely the preparations tallied with the actual set. *  *  * The cabarets claimed they were not overtly political. However, their programmatic use of contentious subject matter suggests quite the contrary. Their sketches were also performed only in German, which implies that they translated and recontextualized

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Figure 6.7 Jeanne Mammen working on a paper sculpture in her studio. Photograph Rempor Studio, Berlin, undated, c. 1949. Photo: © Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin.

their sources as a direct response to contemporary German society. Indeed, during the late 1930s, Lorca’s work was increasingly politicized. He was heralded as a communist freedom fighter who had been shot by a fascist firing squad in Granada during the civil war in August 1936.37 His exploration of sexual subjectivity was also more widely recognized only after the posthumous publication of his work.38 After the homophobic animus under the Nazis, therefore, the Quallenpeitsche’s staging of Two Sailors on the Shore brought the urgent and controversial subject of same-sex desire to the attention of post-war audiences. The exploration of the freedoms of language in the work of Breton, on the other hand, potentially served to highlight the dangers of equating a ‘rule-governed’ language system of a dictatorship unquestioningly with notions of ‘reality’ or ‘truth’.39 The Mystical Corset demonstrated how the isolation of words and phrases from their original context served to heighten their evocative and (for Breton) seductive potential. As such, the poem pointed towards more recent ab/uses of language by the Nazis, who prohibited certain words from German vocabulary, while foregrounding others to reinforce, and ultimately aid, mass internalization of the Reich’s aims. As discussed previously, some nonconformists recognized, and, indeed, attempted to highlight this through camouflaged narratives in the press. Many cabaret-goers may not have made the critical connection between Surrealist collage techniques and Nazi discourse potentially being made here. Nonetheless, the contemporary relevance of Breton’s poem was perhaps made more explicit through the visualization of miscellaneous typefaces on stage. Visual and

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aural factors certainly played a role in the way the National Socialists constructed and controlled language. The typeface Fraktur – the calligraphic style of the Latin alphabet used for book and press typography since the first printed books in the Protestant German-speaking countries – was considered the only ‘true’ German script and thus was used almost exclusively on Nazi documentation.40 In other words, the Fraktur typeface implicitly reinforced the incontrovertible truth-claims Nazi language sought to instil. How post-war Germany would now ‘purify’ its language thus became a matter of great debate. Walter Höllerer, editor of the post-war literary journal Akzente, declared German language to have been ‘coarsened’ and abused to ‘glorify the tritest of virtues’ through a Nazi predilection for impressively large numbers, biological metaphors and use of superlatives.41 The extensive diaries of Victor Klemperer, in which he recorded lexical and rhetorical changes in the language by the Nazis, noted much the same.42 It meant adopting a type of site-levelling literature (Kahlschlagliteratur), which effectively reset the German language back to ‘zero’ as the state before the Nazis came to power. But even anti-fascist rhetoric, Klemperer noted, was problematically entrenched in fascist idioms.43 The cabaret offered no solutions. But by exploring the complex ideas of resemblance and reality in language and imagery in the work of Lorca, Breton, Rimbaud and other poets, they were, at the very least, challenging audience members to question the function of language and its presumed meaning. The Badewanne cabaret was not prepared to ignore the current criticisms of modern art either. They devised a series of moving tableaux based upon well-known paintings, taking the momentum and contention of the Formalism Debate to the stage.

Raumbilder: Dance and modern art From the outset, the artists associated with Galerie Gerd Rosen, although not strictly cabaret ‘members’, had a presence in both the Badewanne and the Quallenpeitsche. As well as Mammen, the artists Mac Zimmermann, Hans Thiemann, Paul Rosié, Heinz Trökes, Werner Heldt and Hans Laabs also helped organize sketches and sometimes designed stage sets and costumes. Alexander Camaro, one of the founders of the Badewanne, was an artist and dancer, who had been involved in various avant-garde artist groups during the early twentieth century. Along with Katja Meirowsky, Camaro devised a series of living dance tableaux, calling them Raumbilder (‘room’ or ‘spatial’ imagery). This meant that a work of art, such as Miró’s painting Spanish Dancer (1924), Picasso’s Woman in a Chair (1913) or Giorgio de Chirico’s The Red Tower (1913), was brought to life on stage.44 The stage set comprised a reproduction of the original artwork in front of which dancers would move. The performer was dressed in a costume that imitated the original painting. Each Raumbild was created with a specific artwork in mind.45 The Raumbild after Paul Klee’s painting, Little Fool in a Trance (1929), shows the dancer, Lo Berken, as the figure of the fool, wearing a paper mask, cloak and oversized hands. Existing stage notes describe the dancer moving back and forth across the stage under a blue light (Figure 6.8).46 As the photograph clearly captures, the dancer transformed Klee’s work into a series of spatial–temporal movements. Dances were set to experimental music composed by the cabaret’s resident pianist, Theo Goldberg, and in some instances, dancers moved to rhythmic sounds rather than harmonic

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Figure 6.8 Raumbild after Paul Klee’s painting, Kleiner Narr in Trance (Little Fool in a Trance) (1929), the Badewanne’s second programme, c. 1949, 18.2 × 24  centimetres. Archivalien-Konvolut zum Künstlerkabarett in der Badewanne. Berlinische Galerie Landesmuseum für Moderne Kunst, Fotografie und Architektur, BG-Ar 13/89, 11. Photo: © Berlinische Galerie.

music.47 The stage in the Femina-Palast was small, which meant movement had to be considered carefully. Building on the legacy of Dada’s dance performances at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich, Raumbilder often aggressively engaged with the audience. Indeed, eliciting audience responses was crucial for both cabarets, which sought to engage the theatrical techniques of Brechtian Verfremdung (alienation effect) and the shock cruelty of Antonin Artaud in some of their sketches. The performative suicides in sketches by artists Wolfgang Frankenstein and Hans Laabs, or the sketch Summa anatomiæ (in which artist Hans Laabs was seemingly dissected on stage with a knife and fork), both performed as part of Badewanne programmes, might be understood from these perspectives.48 In the case of Klee, the photograph reveals a range of reactions: a woman at the back on the left laughs, another in front of her covers her face, while the man in the front row on the left of the stage seems captivated, leaning his chin in his hand, his eyes fixed on the dancing figure before him. The motivation for the development of the cabaret’s avant-garde dancing perhaps stemmed from the Expressionist dance of Rudolf Laban and/or Mary Wigman. Before founding the Badewanne, Camaro had initially trained as a dancer under Wigman.49 He and his partner, Lo Berken (Liselore Bergmann, the performer in Klee’s Raumbild), had then toured Europe as dancers, and circus and pantomime artists.50 Having set up

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a dance studio in Zurich, in 1916 Laban and Wigman began to become involved with performances of the Zurich Dadaists.51 Although they were not interested in dance as pure form, the Dadaists combined the organized aesthetic of Labanian forms with anti-bourgeois improvisation to create original performances in which dancers wore primitive or abstractstyle masks, assumed pantomime and circus roles, or danced psychological states and even artistic styles, including, ‘Cubism’.52 With their concept of the Raumbild over thirty years later, the Badewanne clearly built upon such precedents. They also acknowledged their debt to Dada explicitly by performing sketches directly linked to Dada dance, such as the sketch Death/Death Dance after Tristan Tzara. However, the Raumbild was their distinct creation involving a unique, expressive form of dance. They cleverly united what had been considered ‘degenerate’ artworks with equivalent forms of prohibited dance in the hope perhaps, of re-engaging sceptical post-war audiences with modern art. Mammen wrote and designed a pantomime called ‘Notturno (Der Kampf mit dem Schatten)’ (Nocturne (Battle of the Shadows)). ‘Notturno’ was not a formal ballet, nor was it identified as a Raumbild, but it clearly drew upon the previous interest of the Badewanne in experimental dance and modern art. ‘Notturno’ was performed by the American expressionist artist Norris Embry (1921–81) and accompanied by Goldberg on the piano. ‘Notturno’ can also mean a pensive, lyrical piece of music for the piano, which in this instance perhaps referred to Goldberg’s composition. The programme states that the set was designed after the Bauhaus painter and photographer, László Moholy-Nagy. Unfortunately, neither the pantomime’s directions nor the set designs survive. However, through verbal testimonials and Mammen’s interest in playing with shadows, we can begin to build up some idea of what it may have been like. A contemporary account suggests that the performance consisted of two dancers, one dressed in white and the other completely in black: ‘They danced congruently, then the shadow became autonomous. The dancer tried everything (from seduction to violence), to realign himself with the shadow.’53 The pantomime subject may have been drawn from the contemporary poems of Hübner and Klünner. Hübner’s fantastical poem by the same name, from 1947, brought to life the contents of a bedroom in which the bedside table went to bed bathed in stars and the songbooks slumbered in the bookshelves. And all the while it was the steady moon that ‘trudged’ (stapft) around the house.54 Klünner’s poem, An den blauen Mond (To the Drunken/Blue Moon), which featured in a 1947 edition of Athena, was more cheeky. It made a deliberate wordplay on ‘blau sein’ (to be drunk) and the beauty of the ‘blauer Mond’ (blue moon).55 In addition, Mammen’s set design – after Moholy-Nagy – may have derived from a photogram. The photogram was photography’s attempt at abstraction, in which the exposed object hovered somewhere between lucid detail and dissolution, distorting depth and perspective.56 The spontaneity involved in the process – working in a darkroom and not knowing where the shadows would fall until the moment of exposure – shares affinities with automatism and therefore spoke directly to the cabaret’s motivations. It would also fit well with the type of expressionist, improvised dance used in Raumbilder performances. Mammen was certainly familiar with MoholyNagy’s work; a copy of Franz Roh’s 1930 monograph existed in her library.57 Moreover, her friend, the photographer Elsa Thiemann, likewise experimented with the technique. There are also instances where Mammen herself appears to play with transparency and opacity. The motif of the polyperspective head used on Mammen’s solo exhibition poster at Galerie

 Bathtubs and Jellyfish 165 Rosen, for example, was initially painted on Perspex (Figure 2.3). And before this, a group of seven collages using white chalk lines on coloured papers reveals a notable interest in experimenting with silhouettes. The subjects of these collages revolve around illumination and show dancers on a stage and firework celebrations (see Colour Plate 26). Whether the artist also made any attempts to direct the pantomime is unknown. Given Mammen’s interest in dance, however, it is likely that she gave some thought as to how Embry and his dance partner should move. Shortly before her involvement with the cabaret, the artist had attended rehearsals of prominent ballet dancers Tatjana Gsovsky (1901–93) and Gert Reinholm (1923–2005) at Berlin State Opera (Staatsoper) – where Gsovsky was also the lead choreographer – and completed a number of drawings published in, and on the cover of, Athena magazine (Figure 6.4).58 She wrote in a letter to Hans Gaffron that she was thoroughly enjoying her time drawing under a director’s lamp – and even went as far as writing, ‘I am learning a lot about directing – I think I would like to become assistant director as a second profession.’59 In her drawings, Mammen captures the ballet dancers through a series of essential dynamic lines, something, perhaps, she had wanted to achieve through the play on light and dark in ‘Notturno’. Nonetheless, the tension between Embry’s improvised dancing and more formal choreography during the performance seems to have left the critics divided. In Der Kurier, the Swiss-German actor and radio presenter, Gert Westphal (1920–2002), claimed that the pantomime was ‘musically excellent’. Contrastingly, the critic in Der Abend stated: ‘Notturno, danced by non-dancers [getanzt von Nichttänzern] who should have rehearsed a bit’.60 Embry performed the following month in the programme containing The Mystical Corset for which Mammen had designed the costumes.61 His dance in front of one of Henri Rousseau’s jungle scenes (playing animals and ‘Indians’) was apparently so wild that he nearly made the whole stage collapse!62 Such outlandish dancing certainly fit with Embry’s own artistic practice. A young nomad, he established himself as an artist in 1946 and left America to travel around Europe.63 His participation on stage also highlights the fact that the cabaret attracted the attention of international artists.64 Like many, Embry came to Berlin excited by the seemingly ‘new beginnings’ it offered. Other cabaret sketches were less interested in exploring the processes of improvisation and automatism and, instead, began to tackle pressing questions regarding National Socialism and rehabilitation. The republic had formed only three months prior to the cabaret opening, yet already there was a sense that West Germany was quickly turning its back on its Nazi past. The cabaret performed sketches that engaged with the work of contentious figures such as Ernst Jünger, as well as parodied grandiose opera and Greek tragedy to explore whether these cultural forms should have a role in this new democracy.

Renazification? From the outset the Allied policy of denazification was riddled with problems. Whether it was the false statements made in standardized questionnaires or the re-election of nationalist figures, National Socialism remained a very real threat in post-war German

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society.65 As scholars note, the fledgling republic’s swift economic and political rehabilitation by the West under its new chancellor, Konrad Adenauer – elected by a majority of only one vote in August 1949 – meant ostensibly jettisoning its recent Nazi past.66 Adenauer’s politics quickly aligned with the United States and thus re-routed attentions towards anti-communism, instead. Former Nazis (whether committed or conformist) were therefore able to fit relatively ‘easily’ into West Germany. In what some scathingly nicknamed ‘renazification’ (Renazifizierung), many SS officials and former Gestapo members found new positions in governmental organizations. As Jeffrey Herf points out, as a consequence, the troubling issue of dealing with the past fell on intellectuals, instead.67 In one of the few graphic commissions Mammen received during this period, the artist expressly addressed the residual Nazism of post-war politics. Under the headline, ‘Der Nichtwähler wählt auch’ (The non-voter also votes) and byline ‘Die Gestrigen: “Komm’ nur, wir wickeln Dich schon ein!”’ (The Diehards: Come on, We Will Dupe You!), her watercolour image featured on the front cover of a November edition of Ulenspiegel in 1946 (see Colour Plate 27). It satirizes the first free state elections after the war, which saw Adenauer begin his trajectory to chancellor by becoming the head of the newly established Christian Democratic Union Party (CDU). She depicts a lethargic male voter (Der Deutsche Michel; ‘Michael the German’ – a buffoonish personification of the German people) in tattered nightclothes, who is writhing in the air between two ideologues. One is dressed in imperial military uniform – including the old-fashioned spiked leather helmet with horsehair plume – and the other sports the uniform of the now outlawed Sturmabteilung (SA). These are the ‘Diehards’, whose facial features have been eradicated to reveal a skull and swastika. Together they hold a blanket to catch the falling voter. Behind him are four small makeshift houses, all of which appear to have been erected upon heaps of rubble. Four partypolitical figures wave at Michael from their respective windows, hoping to galvanize his support. Adenauer’s CDU is on the far left, alongside the Social Democratic Party (SPD), Socialist Union Party (SED) and Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Although the SPD won the election, Mammen’s image signals the extent to which nationalist rhetoric continued to appeal to many voters.68 Ulenspiegel’s additional headline, ‘the non-voter also votes’, made this problem expressly clear. In other words, those who do not believe in democracy or even understand it, vote regardless. Mammen’s feelings towards these elections are unequivocal in a letter to Max Delbrück: ‘We can currently go and vote again, which shirt should poor Michael wear for his operation – red, pink, black or blue?’69 This barbed remark demonstrates her continued despondency about mass politics; the parties were all the same, regardless of their party-political ‘colour’. The Diehards is also one of the few works in which Mammen made a discernible return to her realism of the 1920s. Perhaps she did so to engage with Ulenspiegel’s emphasis on graphic satire, which marked a distinct move away from the tightly controlled press of recent years, and, indeed, aligned the journal more closely with the new forms of satirical theatre and cabaret evolving during this period.70 Out of all the forms of culture controlled by the Reich Chamber, theatre had been subject to the strictest controls, with Joseph Goebbels branding cabaret as a ‘totally Jewish affair’.71 The National Socialists nonetheless used cabaret performances to advance party ideals,

 Bathtubs and Jellyfish 167 which quickly descended into bland and predictable attacks on enemies.72 Thus postwar cabarets, such as the Gruppe der ersten Stunde, Die Insel and the reconfigured Kabarett der Komiker, sought to deliberately re-engage with the political cabarets of Weimar.73 Critics likewise drew comparisons between some of the sketches performed in Berlin’s artist cafés of the 1920s and those that were staged by the Badewanne and the Quallenpeitsche.74 Satire, parody or downright absurdity formed constituent parts of their performances, which Hübner termed ‘laughing pessimism’ (lachender Pessimismus).75 Mammen likewise recalls their potent mix of satire and cynicism in a letter to Delbrück: ‘back then we had a backbone [Mumm in den Knochen] and Berlin was exploding with humour, intelligence and fantasy.’76 The cabaret often used satire as a provocative way of addressing failed attempts at denazification in many different areas of life. For example, in the sketch, ‘Nothing New on the Western Front’ (presumably a play on Remarque’s novel), two women and a man all wearing grotesque masks danced on the stage to a popular German folk song. While these seemingly bourgeois women accepted money (for their services), the likewise ‘respectable’ man turned around to reveal a swastika sewn onto the seat of his trousers.77 The cabarets also sought to adapt the work of contentious writers or use politically ambiguous narratives for the stage. The Quallenpeitsche performed Antigone (originally by Sophocles), with the text comprising a collage of poems by Stefan George (1868–1933) and Lothar Klünner.78 The decision to use George’s poem (and not Brecht’s more recent 1948 adaptation of Antigone) drew attention to the play’s renewed popularity under the Nazis.79 George was also heralded as a prophet of the National Socialist revolution.80 Uniting Sophocles, George and Klünner in one sketch meant that the cabaret could effectively unravel the layers of history ‘writ’ into one play, thereby revealing its contentious past and ever-present role in the future. Mammen’s library contained copies of Sophocles’ tragedy, as well as Jean Anouilh’s version (inspired by the French Resistance), indicating that she was aware of the ideological panacea Sophocles’ original inspired.81 Indeed, her involvement in the costume and set design for the cabaret’s spoof opera, ‘Odysseus and the Sirens’, based on Homer’s myth, sought to highlight similar ambiguities. Homer’s work symbolized the mythical origins of Western civilization, becoming a type of foundational text (Urtext) of the Nazi Thousand-Year Reich.82 And like the figure of Antigone, therefore, Odysseus himself became a symbolic pagan Teuton. The radical reduction of a tragedy to seven minutes, expressly ridiculed this symbolic value, as well as parodying the bombastic Gesamtkunstwerk that had also found favour. Indeed, other performances, including the cabaret’s rendition of Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, likewise only of seven minutes’ duration, suggest that they were aware of ongoing debates regarding the future of Bayreuth, which continued to showcase works of ultra-nationalist sentiment during the 1950s.83 Homer’s original was transposed into a type of Sprechgesang (speaking/chanting poem) written by Joachim Klünner (brother of Lothar), which consisted of Odysseus, exalted warrior of Troy, boasting about his potential to outwit Poseidon by resisting the seductive singing of three sirens. Klünner’s poem describes how Odysseus binds himself to the ship’s mast and plugs wax into the ears of his fellow boatmen (Appendix I). Surviving photographs from the performance show two partially covered sirens,

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Figure 6.9  Quallenpeitsche sketch, ‘Odysseus und die Sirenen’ (Odysseus and the Sirens), set design by Jeanne Mammen, performed on 23 February 1950. Photographer MarieAgnes Schürenberg. L-R: unknown singer from the Musikhochschule, Ute Hübner (only her legs are visible), Joachim Klünner, Michael Simó, unknown singer. Photo: © JeanneMammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin.

making their heads and legs appear detached, resulting in an absurd, uncanny sight (Figure 6.9). Mammen’s preparatory colour drawings also still exist. One depicts a simple stage with the fragmented sirens surrounded by classical pillars, with the ship’s bow and the figure of Odysseus to the left. The other shows a more elaborate nautical motif of octopus-like waves framing the sirens’ heads and legs (Figure 6.10). A comparison of the final set in the photograph with this drawing reveals that even the striped t-shirt in Mammen’s drawing is consistent with the costumes worn on stage. Many of the features of the sketch were kept deliberately modern, including the costumes of the boatmen and Odysseus’s marine officer uniform, to emphasize the narrative’s contemporary relevance. The photograph captures the dramatic moment when Odysseus and his boatmen see and hear the sirens. This was reinforced by Theo Goldberg’s innovative music score, which used the imitative sound of an air-raid siren. The term ‘Sirene’ (siren) means both ‘alarm’ and ‘temptress’ in German, as it does in English. Whatever the results, they appeared to garner the approval of eminent music historian and critic, Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt (1901–88), who concluded, ‘why not a commercial [Lemonadenoper] (modelled after New York) in Berlin?’84 Klünner characterizes Odysseus as a tyrant, who is only interested in calculating his own self-preservation and quashing his enemies. This moment and the moment upon which the entire sketch is based, was probably chosen precisely because it foregrounds the uneasy dialectic of rationalism and barbarity for a post-war audience.

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Figure 6.10 Jeanne Mammen, ‘Odysseus und die Sirenen’ (Odysseus and the Sirens), undated, c. 1949, oil chalk and pencil on paper, 21.5 × 23.7 centimetres. Jeanne-MammenStiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin; Inv.-Nr.: SM 2020-00976. Photo: © Jeanne-MammenStiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin.

In the Dialektik der Aufklärung (Dialectic of Enlightenment) published in 1944, Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno provocatively argued that fascism and enlightenment were fatally intertwined. Using an excursus on Odysseus, Horkheimer and Adorno suggested that the relationship of myth and enlightenment is dialectical. The enlightenment produces the myths (the logic of irrationality) that it would seek to attack as its ‘Other’. Myth in itself, with all its ‘identitarian, totalizing and instrumentalizing’ formulas, is a form that displays all of the characteristics of enlightenment.85 Homer’s mythical Greek hero, then, represents an ‘allegory of the enlightened Ego’, whose struggle with his boatmen (the focus of the cabaret sketch) renders him a premodern homo œconomicus.86 His self-prepossessing actions are a powerful presage of unequal labour relations in modern society: Just as he [Odysseus] cannot yield to the temptation of self-abandonment, so, as proprietor, he finally renounces even participation in labour, and ultimately even its management, whereas his men – despite their closeness to things – cannot enjoy their labour because it is performed under pressure, in desperation, with senses stopped by force. The servant remains enslaved in body and soul; the master regresses.87

Odysseus becomes one of the symbolic figures of bloody rationality in a text that, overall, offered a damning view of modernity’s dangerous desire for premodern origins

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through its sustained aggrandization of ancient myth. Six years on from Horkheimer and Adorno’s publication, the Quallenpeitsche sketch attempted to do something similar. Dialectic did not become popular in Germany until the 1960s. However, given the cabaret’s exhaustive engagement with contemporary literature and continental philosophy, as well as their left-leaning sympathies (Johannes Hübner was openly Marxist), it is reasonable to suggest that they would have been familiar with the work of two of the founding members of the Frankfurt School, both now working in exile in southern California.88 It would be wrong to assume that the cabarets were alone in their provocative engagement with the recent past on stage. As early as 1942, Carl Zuckmayer’s play Des Teufels General (The Devil’s General) was critical of the purpose of war and its aftermath. Four years later, Wolfgang Borchert’s Draußen vor der Tür (The Outsider) explored the fruitless attempts of a First World War soldier to reintegrate in civilian life and included the provocative scene with a Nazi figure goose-stepping on stage.89 But these plays were the exception, rather than the rule. Scholars agree that post-war German drama often struggled to engage with such difficult issues beyond an abstract level.90 In contrast, the cabarets used anti-naturalistic stage settings and exaggerated mannerisms to magnify events. The reduction of complex narratives into short scenes of a few minutes and the replacing of coherent dialogue with modern slang elicited visceral reactions from the audience. Modern-day clothing and habitual sounds such as air-raid sirens also acted as uneasy reminders for an audience living in an occupied city that conflict was never far away. Indeed, reviews in the press highlighted how unpredictable the public found the cabaret, ‘One day the public laughs at a scene – the next evening it remains serious. One day they dance the wildest Boogie-Woogie – and on the next they sit peacefully at tables.’91 This was the sort of reaction that the cabarets were hoping to achieve; the variable programme should jolt audience members into different responses.

The conflicted case of Ernst Jünger During 1949, the author Ernst Jünger (1895–1998) re-emerged at the centre of various debates regarding rehabilitation. Jünger had just published his new novel, Heliopolis: Rückblick auf eine Stadt (Heliopolis: Looking Back on a City), having enjoyed a long and successful career since the First World War.92 In a review for the press, Mammen’s friend, the writer and journalist Erich Kuby, dismissed it as a work of ‘cultural provinciality’ that offered no palpable engagement with the recent past.93 In a damning article published in an edition of Ulenspiegel four years previously, Karl Holtz had called Jünger a ‘neo-pacifist’ and an ‘intellectual predator’– an opportunist, whose early work had promoted the genius of war and now he looked to celebrate ‘peace’.94 Without doubt, the Nietzschean vitalism of Jünger’s descriptions of war in novels such as In Stahlgewittern (Storm of Steel) (1920) and Feuer und Blut (Fire and Blood) (1925) contributed to the rise of National Socialism and from a cultural perspective, they also helped sustain it.95 Jünger gained the support of the Nazi Party and he was able to continue his career relatively undisturbed, unlike most of those involved with

 Bathtubs and Jellyfish 171 the Badewanne or Quallenpeitsche.96 Cabaret members had been conscripted and interned, and suffered as inner émigrés. Some had also lost relatives in the Holocaust and had become involved in the active resistance. Katja Meirowsky is of note here, as she, like Mammen’s friend Max Delbrück, had connections with the resistance group, the Red Orchestra, and had to leave Germany and go into hiding in Poland. The subject of rehabilitation and inner emigration ran deep for the cabaret and raised uneasy questions as to individual experiences under National Socialism. The cabaret performed two scenes from Jünger’s Heliopolis, signalling their eagerness to engage with the controversy surrounding his new work. Indeed, their adaptations of the novel for the stage appear to have been the first ever undertaken. Jünger’s novel is a political metanarrative set in a dystopian, post-apocalypse, future metropolis, Heliopolis. New world order is re-established through innovative technology and the military rule of two feuding tribes: the ‘Proconsuls’ (who rule by military power and are considered noble) and the ‘Landvogt’ (country masters who are grotesque political demagogues).97 The novel focuses on a few days in the life of Proconsul Commander De Geer, who gradually becomes disillusioned with the city’s rules and eventually leaves. The work made no secret of Jünger’s interest in Greek myths, with Heliopolis set in the Mediterranean and De Geer a Grecian Teuton.98 Mammen was involved in the first sketch, ‘Ernst Jünger Parodie’ (Ernst Jünger Parody), designing and creating a gargantuan papier-mâché figure of De Geer (Figure 6.11). Transcripts have unfortunately not survived. Photographs suggest that the sketch consisted of De Geer – played by the artist Hans Laabs – who is characterized by his scientific collecting signalled by the oversized paper butterfly on stage in front of him.99 The second performance, ‘Heliopolitik’ (Heliopolitics), was performed six months later and mocked a detailed passage from the novel in which De Geer describes the ‘phonophor’ device, which (rather extraordinarily) prefigures the modern smartphone. The sketch mocked Jünger’s reactionary enthusiasm for technology.100 Over the top of the action of the first sketch of Heliopolis and in which Mammen’s papier-mâché figure towered at the back of the stage, extracts from In Stahlgewittern were read out. The simultaneity created a narrative of nonsense, a cacophony of sight

Figure 6.11 Badewanne sketch, ‘Ernst Jünger Parody’, 1949. Photographer Johannes Lederer. On stage, the painter Hans Laabs next to a gargantuan papier-mâché figure of De Geer by Jeanne Mammen. Photo: © Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin.

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and sound, evocative of the techniques employed by the Dadaists.101 Indeed, the seeming ‘heroics’ of De Geer as they were presented in the novel were certainly worth mocking. Widely considered a portrait of Jünger (an ardent entomologist), the text is ‘overburdened’ – to borrow Elliot Y. Neaman’s term – with descriptions of exotic plants and animals, which are supposed to mark De Geer out as a sensitive intellectual.102 Conversely, the brutality implicit in his insect collecting was recognized by the cabaret, who appear to have brought enlightenment dialectics to the stage once more. This is reinforced by the conspicuous military insignia on Mammen’s gargantuan figure, which declares De Geer first and foremost a warmonger, lest the audience should forget.103 The same playful derision connects this figure with Mammen’s earlier military portraits, but beyond this, its reference to historical acts of provocation by the Berlin Dadaists is unmistakable. In 1920, shortly after In Stahlgewittern was first published, John Heartfield and Rudolf Schlichter hung the sculptural assemblage (the Prussian archangel) of a military officer with a pig’s head from the ceiling at their First International Dada Fair. The figure was wearing an officer’s uniform and around his waist hung a sign with the words from a well-known Christmas carol, ‘Vom Himmel hoch, da komm ich her’ (I come from Heaven, from Heaven on high). These words offered an absurd contrast to the accompanying military command hung lower down the archangel’s body: ‘To understand this artwork completely, you need to exercise daily for twelve hours with fully packed backpack and in combat gear on the Tempelhof field [a military site in Berlin].’104 Although Mammen’s figure lacked such polemic slogans and animalistic conflations, in a cabaret performance that utilized Dadaist simultaneity, explicit references to their anti-war or, indeed, anti-militaristic acts would probably have been obvious to the audience. The cabaret performances left little ambiguity as to their disapproval of the West’s rehabilitation of Jünger. Like Mammen, many of the artists, writers and musicians involved had experienced public misgivings regarding their own work and its (social and political) relevance, making post-war admiration of Jünger even more difficult to comprehend. Moreover, like Mammen, many of them found themselves in professionally precarious positions and for a short time at least, the cabaret seemed to provide a creative outlet for such disappointments. They took to the stage once more to explore debates on collective guilt to challenge their viewers into thinking about their own guilt/less position in the new West. Only this time they turned their attention towards the current enthusiasm for existentialism.

Exploring collective guilt Questions raised by existential philosophy regarding human existence became noticeably popular after the war. Along with the powerful reflections posed by Karl Jaspers’ lectures tackling the concept of ‘collective guilt’ (Kollektivschuld), the work of his colleague, Jean-Paul Sartre, seemed in particular to correspond with Germany’s post-war feelings of despair and pessimism.105 Sartre’s L’Être et le néant (Being and Nothingness) from 1943, addressed questions of active consciousness and one’s ability to shape life (free will) vis-à-vis passive existence. Sartre’s ideas arose in part out of

 Bathtubs and Jellyfish 173 the chaos of the German invasion of France and its aftermath. Looking back in 1948, he wrote, ‘1945 does not resemble 1918 [. . .] today there is the threat of war, famine and dictatorship. We are again super-charged. 1918 was holiday time.’106 Appearing in German translation for the first time in 1947, Being and Nothingness went to the very heart of the moral and ethical dilemmas regarding individual actions under National Socialism. Sartre’s exploration of the genesis of ‘fear’ (being-done-to externally) and ‘anguish’ (inherent in us) as the primal drivers of our decision-making raised fundamental questions about one’s ability to decide for oneself (especially under the conditions of totalitarian systems).107 Moreover, this grappling with ‘free will’ remained entirely apposite in an environment determined by Allied occupation. Consequently, regular mention of his work appeared in journals including Athena and Ulenspiegel and adaptations of his work were staged in some of Berlin’s largest theatres.108 The Badewanne and Quallenpeitsche devised two sketches expressly attacking his work. In ‘Der Existentialismus ist ein Humanismus’ (Existentialism is a Humanism) taken from Sartre’s 1946 text of the same name, the cabaret explored his contentious idea that the individual had the moral responsibility to decide for all humankind (thereby implicating everyone in the atrocious actions of the recent past).109 Like their parody of Heliopolis, the cabaret used simultaneity to ridicule Sartre’s exegesis. While ‘Sartre’ (Laabs) stood at a lectern, a madwoman talks (Meirowsky) and a blind musician (Camaro) played the accordion. The original script notes that the words spoken by Meirowsky were taken from the ‘genuine text of a mad person’ (echter Irrentext).110 Their vehement attack on Sartre continued in the second sketch, which was based on the first volume of a trilogy of naturalist novels, L’Âge de raison (Age of Reason), which Sartre published in 1945. The stage comprised a disembodied, winged-head of Sartre (with downturned mouth, round spectacles and side-parting) replete with omnipresent booming voice (supposedly Sartre’s) that directed the action.111 By devising Surrealist performances, the cabaret not only promoted a style of art that Sartre himself wrote he expressly disliked, but they also appeared to deliberately challenge the naturalist adaptations of his work currently on stage in Germany.112 Mammen’s views of Sartre accord with those of her cabaret colleagues. She owned books by existential thinkers in her library, including novels from Sartre’s trilogy, as well as Marc Beigbeder’s recent Sartre biography, published in 1947. But she nonetheless remarked in correspondence with Max Delbrück that she would rather go and see the fantastical fairytale of Undine by Jean Giraudoux, than watch Sartre’s naturalist play Die schmutzigen Hände (Les mains sales; Dirty Hands) – about the violent conflict between competing resistance groups under fascist dictatorship – currently on stage in Berlin.113 This preference is reinforced by her translation and adaptation of The Books of Wisdom, a poem by the Symbolist Paul Valéry (1871–1945), in which the troubled concept of non-being is explored. Retitled ‘Ti und No’ (Ti and No) by Mammen, the sketch appeared in the same Quallenpeitsche programme as ‘Age of Reason’ (Appendix II) (Figure 6.12). On stage the sages Ti and No (Hübner and Klünner) discussed how existence could be determined only by a scholarly understanding of the empirical world. Their erroneous conviction that books were the route to all essential knowledge is made obvious through their admiration of nonsense texts such as Der Spiegel berühmter Fehlhandlungen und

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Figure 6.12  Jeanne Mammen, ‘Ti and No’, undated, c. 1950, watercolour, pencil and ink, 26 × 19.5 centimetres. Private owner. Photo: © Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin.

glücklicher Sünden, nebst den schönsten Irrtümern der Menschen, geschrieben von einem unter ihnen (The Mirror of Egregious Blunders, Happy Peccadillos and Man’s Loveliest Mistakes, by one of them) and Die Verwandlung des nichts (The Metamorphosis of Nothingness).114 As well as adapting Valéry’s poem, Mammen designed the stage set and costumes. The only surviving drawing shows both sages accompanied by the wife of No (who is also the lover of Ti) as well as the sister of Ti (who is, in fact, idolized by No). The sketch makes clear how both men’s intellectual posturing sees them entirely unaware of these romantic entanglements right under their noses. Valéry’s text appeared in Analects, a collection of poems, aphorisms, impressions and bons mots conceived during the First World War, with parts named after the Chinese philosopher Confucius (551–479 BC).115 Mammen’s set design purposefully placed the sages and their female counterparts in a type of oriental setting, wearing oriental costumes, perhaps to play on links to Confucius. The sages ruminate and drink tea together, seemingly ignoring the ladder to the metaphysical world. Mammen gave an important twist to the end of Valéry’s original poem by adding three lines of her own: Miss No: Ach, so many words! Women are the enemy of the spirit, whether they give in to love or refuse it. Ti: Don’t ever say ‘love me’, that’s of no use. Mrs Ti: Yes and yet it is, God says so!116

In these last lines, Miss No and Mrs Ti dismiss wisdom. For them, the male sages Ti and No waste too much energy on debate. Whether to love or not is not a question of intellect – to think thus, as the sages do, represents a negation of the human. Given the masculinist culture of post-war Berlin it seems significant here, then, that the artist should give the last line and, indeed, overall foresight regarding the state of existence to women. Valéry was neither an existentialist nor a phenomenologist. His chief objective in Analects, was to ‘figure out as simply and clearly as possible exactly how I function as a whole: i.e., composed as I am of world, body, and thoughts’.117 Analects made clear that

 Bathtubs and Jellyfish 175 the metaphysical world was fundamental to existence. Modern obsession with intellect (particularly science) had, according to Valéry, ‘devalued our naïve imagery and even our faculty of imagination’.118 Or as Walter Benjamin so aptly put it in his tribute to the author in 1931, ‘The Cartesian doubts about knowledge have been extended in Valéry in an almost reckless but also profound manner, to the point where they become doubts about the questions themselves.’119 The ironic title of his poem The Books of Wisdom reinforced this.120 Valéry’s championing of the imaginative world makes it easy to understand why his work would have interested Mammen and her cabaret colleagues.121 And certainly, there were also inflections of Rimbaud in it. Valéry’s work was not Gedankenlyrik (reflective poetry) rooted in ‘reality’ and ‘life’ as the Germans knew it, claimed Benjamin; rather, it was spontaneity, feeling and reverie.122 The metaphysical world and freedoms to experiment (with language) defined the notion of existence for Valéry, therefore, as opposed to the restrictive forms of the concrete and the physical for Sartre. ‘Ti and No’ did not satirize any recognizable figures. Nonetheless, the poem certainly emphasized the sages’ (and perhaps even Sartre’s) over-inflated self-worth. But the text was potentially motivated by other contentious figures, too. The past political affiliations of the phenomenologist Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) were also coming under increased public scrutiny during this period. He remained tight-lipped about his membership of the Nazi Party and by 1951, had, in fact, become Emeritus Professor at Freiburg University.123 In 1953 Mammen met Heidegger along with the physicist Werner Heisenberg for tea.124 Her description of the event in a letter to Delbrück (who, in fact, admired Heisenberg’s ideas on quantum mechanics) is worth recounting because of the way she patently mocked Heidegger’s self-conscious show of intellectualism: I had the great honour of drinking tea with Heidegger and Heisenberg [Heysenberg [sic]] in Weilheim – more specifically that is, in Schloss Hirschberg, the countess served, the geese [women] nattered [Gänse schnatterten], Heidegger had the complete volumes of the Greek Pre-Socratics under his arm, translated Heraclitus [presumably which he had read aloud], we refrained from smoking, because he doesn’t like it – the fireworks crackled – enormous flares crashed and burst [. . .]. In the end the room flew away on rosewood wings [flog das Zimmer fort auf Palisanderflügeln] – and then we were sitting in the car again.125

Mammen’s description highlights how the tea revolved entirely around Heidegger (even down to the non-smoking). The levitating room and fireworks are perhaps further barbs at his perceived ‘profundity’. Her reference to his enthusiasm for Greek philosophy on the other hand, serves as a pointed sneer at his dismissal of modern art. Heidegger demanded instead that society return to the ‘great art’ of antiquity.126 To be clear, there is no evidence to suggest that ‘Ti and No’ was based on Heidegger (or Sartre for that matter). Mammen’s encounter with him took place three years after she had translated Valéry’s poem. Nevertheless, the cabaret sketch she devised certainly set out to deride the figure of the intellectual or philosopher in commensurate ways. The Badewanne and Quallenpeitsche sketches demonstrate just how deeply the moral, political, existential and metaphysical were still all very much intertwined in

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Germany during this period. Dealing with the past was inherently tied to questions regarding how Germany should proceed in the future. On the one hand, Sartre’s concept of ‘free will’ seemed to imply that responsibility lay with everyone, thereby exonerating the real perpetrators. Although the cabaret disagreed with concepts of collective guilt, that did not stop them from being responsible artists. Their sketches deliberately drew attention to such moral dilemmas. Yet on the other hand, the already apparent political and cultural impasse of the newly established republic encouraged a type of whitewashing of the past altogether. Should Adenauer’s government continue to underplay the past by rehabilitating figures such as Ernst Jünger and Martin Heidegger? The cabaret did not offer solutions. Nor did they advocate the anarchy of Surrealism au service de la révolution despite frustrations with the new political order. But by using provocative Dadaist and Surrealist techniques and fusing them with a passion for French literature, they cleverly recast such complex issues into innovative performances.

Conclusion Post-war Berlin was not to be a new Weimar. Buoyed up by the feeling that ‘anything goes’, the initial excitement of cabaret members was short-lived. By 1950 the freedoms of those immediate post-war years were swept away as the Realpolitik of a politically divided Germany set in. Hopes of a united and neutral Germany, which struck a middle ground between democracy and socialism, had already passed. Hübner remembered, ‘so great was the euphoria of the first three post-war years, so black the disappointment’.127 Artist Hans Thiemann likewise recalled in a letter to Hübner, ‘I can still hear the Badewanne’s prophecies of doom ringing in my ear. From 1950 onwards the dream was up, but the jeering not yet over [der Bart nicht ab].’128 As Elliot Y. Neaman more recently explained, ‘when the stormy days ended and life returned to everyday routine in the years of economic building [under Adenauer], people’s imaginations seemed to shrink and the clearing of the past tended to lead more to lethargy than bold action.’129 Despite the fact that two-thirds of the cabaret audience were probably artists and intellectuals, people began to crave ‘easy’ laughter, not challenging scenes based on Lorca, Sartre or Breton. Innovative small-scale projects were quickly replaced by larger, more commercial ventures. As one initial review of the Badewanne predicted, such a ‘colourful chaos’ would not last in the ‘sober air of Berlin’.130 And the reviewer was right. Already by December 1949, the magazine Der Spiegel disparagingly contrasted the sketch of a ‘fake operation’ on stage at the Badewanne, with the more exciting prospect of being served by waiters on roller-skates at the Bierglocke (a beer cellar) around the corner.131 At a time when few prevailing social structures existed, the Badewanne and the Quallenpeitsche had initially thrived. Yet, the cabarets quickly became beholden to these structures for survival. In late summer of 1950, the Femina-Palast bar went bankrupt and was forced to close. A commercial jazz club opened there, instead. The Quallenpeitsche ceased to exist. For a short time at least, the cabarets had become important proponents of Dada and Surrealism after the war. Their performances

 Bathtubs and Jellyfish 177 helped reignite political satire, which corresponded with its rise in the press. The notable involvement of Mammen and many of her Rosen colleagues meant that the cabarets were unique in their engagement with modern and contemporary national and international art, foregrounding the work of some of Berlin’s most controversial artists through their innovative creation of Raumbilder and the exploration of the relationship between text and image through the development of poème illustrés. Even though both cabarets together lasted little more than a year, for many of those connected with them, including Mammen, they left an indelible mark on their lives. The cabarets were crucial not only in introducing foreign-language texts to German audiences for the first time, but also in encouraging writers and artists to actively seek out international connections after twelve years of relative isolation. The writing and translation of many of the texts discussed in this chapter were certainly motivated by their conception as cabaret sketches or as readings on stage. As noted earlier, Mammen worked with Hübner and Klünner on refining her German translation of Rimbaud’s Illuminations, which was later published by Insel Verlag in 1967. In preparation for their translation of Surrealist poet René Char’s work, Hübner and Klünner travelled to France in 1951 to stay with him. They developed a friendship, documented in numerous letters, which lasted well into the 1970s. Through this connection, Mammen also met Char upon several occasions and they discussed her work on Illuminations.132 Mammen’s role in the translation of Char’s own poems is also confirmed in a letter to her in which he expresses his ‘deepest gratitude for assisting K.H. [Klünner and Hübner] in their endeavours to translate my poetry’.133 Klünner also turned his hand to a collection of poems L’embrasure (Doorway) by the art critic and protégé of Char, Jacques Dupin (1927–2012). Mammen owned first editions of Dupin’s work, dating from the late 1950s until the mid-1970s.134 L’embrasure (first published in 1969) is among them.135 All but one of these editions have a personal dedication by the author to her, with the last edition dating from 1974, just two years before her death. In other words, perhaps it is not inconceivable to imagine that intellectual exchanges with Mammen informed Dupin’s Surrealist poetry – just as it did perhaps her art – during the last decades of her life. Klünner and Hübner continued to translate and publish many Surrealist texts from the 1950s and 1960s and established the yearbook Speichen (1968–71), which also promoted Surrealist writing by contemporary German writers. As noted previously, Mammen also remained close to the Galerie Rosen artist Hans Thiemann and his wife, Elsa, evidenced through their avid letter exchange and many visits, after their move to Hamburg. The correspondence between Mammen and Thiemann, as well as that between Thiemann and Hübner, shows that they were all still discussing and sharing Surrealist literature well into the 1970s.136 A rare photograph taken around 1950, shows Elsa and Hans Thiemann with Johannes Hübner and Jeanne Mammen, all sitting together in her studio apartment (Figure 6.13). The artist’s finished collage of the trumpet made from the string from one of her CARE packages can be seen hanging on the wall behind them. In contrast to scholarship suggesting Surrealism was shortlived in Germany, Mammen’s networks, translations and correspondence reveal the long-standing internationalist strains of West Germany’s avant-garde.137 At the most basic, essential level, however, the cabaret had provided a vital outlet for laughter after the war. It was this, too, that continued to unite these friends. In

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Figure 6.13  Photograph in Mammen’s studio, photographer unknown, c. 1950. L-R: Hans Thiemann, Elsa Thiemann, Johannes Hübner and Jeanne Mammen. Photo: © JeanneMammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin.

1971 in a letter to Thiemann, Mammen described how she had enjoyed dinner with Klünner and his wife Lopi and the Surrealist writer and poet, Richard Anders. Lopi had then proceeded to dance with the writer, poet and graphic artist, Günter Bruno Fuchs (1928–77), with his ‘fat tummy and short legs’. Mammen wrote how they had laughed so hard at the sight of this wonderful pair. To which Klünner had exclaimed: ‘That would be a number for the Badewanne!’138

Epilogue

In West Germany Mammen’s first substantial retrospective was organized three years after her death, at the Staatliche Kunsthalle Berlin in 1979, in cooperation with the Jeanne-Mammen-Gesellschaft e.V. and the Berlinische Galerie under its founding director, Eberhard Roters. Her work did not form part of any exhibitions held in the GDR. But she also did not feature in the first (1955) nor the second (1959) documenta in Kassel, which sought to explore German art in an international context and showcase modern art that had been branded ‘degenerate’. Despite the active role Mammen and her contemporaries had played in the post-war art scene in Berlin, the overall representation of women artists in the early documenta exhibitions was extremely limited. As debates regarding the meaning and value of abstract art rumbled on, the 1959 documenta exhibition sought to rival developments in Abstract Expressionism on the continent, noticeably foregrounding the work of male artists to do so.1 If abstraction acted as an index of Germany’s post-Nazi democratic values, it remained, nonetheless, a resolutely masculine style that precluded women artists. Whether gender politics were a motivating factor behind Mammen’s decision to rarely exhibit during the 1950s and 1960s is not known. Given the close links between debates on politics, gender and culture in the reconstruction of West Germany, it is quite probable. We might also remember her own ambivalence towards writing about her art, noted in the introduction to this book. Thus her desire to break away from art historical narratives reinforced by art criticism could, perhaps, be achieved only by moving away from them almost entirely. She continued to work tirelessly, nonetheless, creating almost half of her painting output from 1950 until 1975. She explored radical dissolutions of composition and form, in which mystical objects and figures appear like apparitions and ciphers, and her playful insertion of objects – particularly tinfoil sweet papers – become more prominent. As with her resolute positioning to National Socialism, to presume that Mammen’s disengagement from public art practice meant a disinterest in current cultural events (and West German politics) would be to misunderstand Mammen the artist. Her collage-painting Photogenic Monarchs (1967–8) is a powerful case in point.2 It was created when she was aged seventy-eight and had been swept up in a student demonstration on the Kurfürstendamm against a visit by Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, and his wife in June 1967. The Shah was considered a tyrant by many of the Iranian people, installed by a putsch organized by the CIA and Iranian military. Like her earlier depictions of the new woman and dissenting military portraits, then, Photogenic Monarchs demonstrates Mammen’s sustained concern with the media landscape and its strategies to shape mass opinion. The term ‘photogenic’ in the title, along with the glittering sweet papers masquerading

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as the clothing of these two hybrid animal–human forms, signals the media’s incessant fetishization of figures.3 Mammen’s work thus remained unequivocally engaged and critically relevant to the end. *  *  * Given what appears to be an unabated enthusiasm for Mammen’s Weimar watercolour drawings, it is perhaps surprising to note that the rediscovery of this work was also gradual. It was only during the last decade of her lifetime – when Hans Brockstedt first showed examples of images from the 1920s at his Hamburg gallery in 1971 – that this commercial work began to garner interest in West Germany. This was followed by several small exhibitions, including in the new Galerie Wolfgang Gurlitt in Munich in 1972.4 Mammen’s work from her Weimar period began selling to American buyers, too.5 During a period in which the West began to noticeably re-engage with Weimar and its legacies, her work was nonetheless absent from important monographs on New Objectivity by Wieland Schmied and Uwe M. Schneede.6 Beyond Mammen’s own positioning, there may be various reasons for this. As Annelie Lütgens highlights, attention towards many commercial graphic artists has been slow, partly because much of the material owned by the important publishing houses Mosse, Ullstein and Scherl, was destroyed during the Second World War.7 Scholars and curators have, therefore, simply had less access to the material, some of which is only now coming to light. But there are potentially further intersecting issues at stake here. Until recently, there have remained narrow assumptions about what constitutes modern art during this period. Histories of Weimar culture have often privileged established avant-gardist groupings and/or practices of novelty and invention. Thus, Dadaist collage, leftist photomontage, constructivist abstraction and Bauhaus functionalism appear to best demonstrate an unreserved link between modernity and modernism.8 Commercial photography and graphic illustrations featured in popular magazines – often showcasing neusachlich realism, a figurative style clearly at odds with the abstraction of dominant avant-gardism – inevitably raise uneasy questions of ‘originality’ and ‘authorship’ through the input of editors, designers and printers. This meant they were perhaps (more) easily neglected. Added to this, of course, is the issue of low-quality paper and printing that were characteristic of much mechanical reproduction at this time, as well as the fact that many illustrations, like Mammen’s, would have appeared in greyscale, or in limited colour range. In Germany, this focus is borne out by longstanding views on the lower status of commercial Gebrauchsgrafik, which Mammen herself appears to have internalized. Besides securing her an income, her contributions to weekly magazines such as Simplicissimus and Ulk, the latter boasting a staggering 250,000–300,000 weekly circulation, served her less well as a ‘serious artist’ during her own lifetime, as Chapter 1 set out. What is more, art criticism and art historical writing guarded against commercial graphic art. Even scarce publications on women artists, such as Hans Hildebrandt’s 1928 Die Frau als Künstlerin (The Woman as Artist), gave short shrift to commercial artists, including fashion illustrators.9 Schmied’s and Schneede’s omissions in more recent histories of New Objectivity are also perhaps less

 Epilogue 181 surprising, when we consider that the ‘roots’ of ‘New Objectivity’, a term coined in 1924, relate specifically to developments identified with painting.10 Focus is gradually shifting, however. Studies on the photojournalism of Erich Salomon and Ullstein’s prominent commercial photographer (and mannequin maker) Karl Schenker, as well as the fashion illustrations of Erna Schmidt-Caroll, persuasively broaden the parameters of Weimar modernism.11 While Jeanne Mammen remains far from a household name in the UK, The Guardian newspaper heralded her three commercial watercolours as by far the ‘biggest discovery’ of Tate Modern’s display of Magic Realism in 2018–19, and in which, according to the critic Jonathan Jones, works by Dix, Grosz and Schlichter seemed to pale in comparison.12 After reunification, a second retrospective of Mammen’s work was held in 1997–8 at the Berlinische Galerie. A third retrospective at the same gallery would follow twenty years later in 2017–18. This offered new perspectives for scholars familiar with her work, which included a screenplay written by students from Berlin University of the Arts (Hochschule für Künste) and a graphic novel with illustrations by contemporary artist Manuel Kirsch.13 And so, too, does the renovation of the artist’s studio apartment in the heart of Berlin. In 1976, shortly after Mammen passed away, her closest friends established the Jeanne-Mammen-Gesellschaft e.V., a non-profit organization to administer her oeuvre. It arranged exhibitions, edited publications to promote her work and supported scholarly research on the artist. It was a priority to maintain Mammen’s studio apartment where she had lived and worked for over fifty years, with her sister until 1936, and then alone until she died in 1976. Over the course of forty-two years thereafter, it offered a unique, incredibly rich, palimpsestic archive of personal experience to many researchers and visitors – a rare chance to become part of a lived space, in which much of the original painted furniture, library and original artworks were still in situ. Due to organizational and legal changes, in 2003 the Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung was founded within the Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin, which acted as Trustee to ensure Mammen’s artwork would be secured sustainably. The Jeanne-MammenGesellschaft e.V., now Förderverein der Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung e.V., continued to work in cooperation until 2018. At this time, security issues and declining conditions in Mammen’s studio apartment required original artworks, Mammen’s library, her furniture and archive to be moved to the secure and climate-controlled depot of the Stiftung Stadtmuseum. The Förderverein was also then dissolved. The Stiftung Stadtmuseum took over the lease of the now empty studio apartment. In 2019, it completed a reconstruction of the space, with some of the original furniture, decorations and copies of Mammen’s artworks on the walls. In a city of fragments and ghosts, besides the modern postal bank and designer fashion stores, a commemorative porcelain plaque (KPM-Gedenktafel) at the front entrance of the building on the busy Kurfürstendamm announces Jeanne Mammen’s enduring presence here. As scholars and curators begin exploring her work from fresh perspectives, this studio apartment awaits exciting new guests once more.

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Appendices

Appendix I ‘Odysseus and the Sirens’ (Odysseus und die Sirenen) (1950): Homer’s original text adapted for the stage by Joachim Klünner, stage set and costume design by Jeanne Mammen and music by Theo Goldberg.1

Set Black partition curtain. Odysseus stands wearing high boots, tie and a marine officer’s uniform. One boatman stands in the background, the other sits at the front of the stage, both of his hands placed over his mouth.

Characters Odysseus, unknown Boatman, Michael Simó Boatman, Joachim Klünner Siren 1, unknown Siren 2, Ute Hübner

Dialogue Odysseus O what pleasure is the recollection, And what glory decorates my proud breast! The storm signal sounded in front of Trojan’s wall, The gates sprung open through my cunning No blockhead [fool] thought of the wooden horse. O how most cunning und valuable is my head I knew I had to protect it before battle: The storm signal sounded in front of Trojan’s wall, But I lay with thirteen small whores From this town in my tent in bed, (one must do something beyond one’s work) I kissed them and let them all be beheaded. Spies, I said, they believed me And gave me a medal for the deed. Even if Poseidon is angry with me for it

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And unsteadies me through driving storm and waves, I won’t avoid wonders of the world, That in their attraction appeal to my curiosity. On, boatmen, to the island of the sirens! Boatmen O good spirit, come over the master! O master, think of the terrible hours In storm and darkness, we experienced. How in the rage of all spirits of hell In lightning – and thunderbolt and angry hale Surrounded and shattered the boats With the desperate companions within Destroyed and the crew dead And none of them could be helped. Don’t tempt the god’s anger anew! Odysseus Alright, that’s true, that many of the companions made the journey in Hades instead of going home But to reach the objective and To speak of the glories amongst the circle of friends, It must be that we defy Poseidon! Boatmen Look at the companions: dumb, blind and deaf Are the rest that are still alive, In fearful brooding To have sinned against God! Odysseus I am not fearful of the gods, I am Odysseus, I am anonymous in the anger of the gods And hated by Polyphen as well as Poseidon. So what? I search for fame in this world And I have no fame, until I have experienced the true core of the rumour. They say that the sirens can enchant The atmosphere with the perdition of their voices, That sweet sensuality of the listener In their arms pulled to hell. I am Odysseus, now come sirens! Boatmen Let the fame you have suffice! Turn away, you’ll take the companions down with you Turn away, from tempting Poseidon anew! You too cannot escape the sirens! Odysseus I am Odysseus, now come sirens!

 Appendices 185

Appendix II ‘Ti and No’ (1950): translated and adapted for the stage by Jeanne Mammen based upon Paul Valéry’s ‘The Books of Wisdom’ written during the First World War.2

Characters Ti, Johannes Hübner No, Lothar Klünner Mrs Ti, Ute Hübner Miss No, Sister of No (And Ti’s lover), Mucki Simo.

Dialogue Ti I am the learned man Ti. I have written a book entitled ‘Concerning the things which are behind our back and those which are in a drawer’. No I am the learned man No and think that these were not the words of a truly wise man and the title should be: ‘Concerning the things which were – if we consult our memory – or the things which will be, if we turn around, or if we open the drawer.’ This fine distinction could be justified and shown to be a wise precaution by studying our dreams: those states in which there are no ‘ifs’ – no hypotheses – since if any such occurred that would at once expel what in dreams does duty for ‘reality’ and usurps its authority. Mrs Ti I am the wife of Ti, and the lover of No. Both Sages sit amongst their flowers and argue on and on about Being and Nonbeing. Miss No I am the sister of No. Both Sages are great friends and could not live without one another. I am the passion and pleasure of Ti. Mrs Ti and Miss No together We too understand one another well and hold our philosophical treatise behind the backs of our Sages. Ti We have many books in the cupboards of our house, we prize none but our own works – except for a small volume named Thesaurus of the Works and Treatise on Wisdom whose Titles alone have come down to us. No Only one page of this miscellany is extant and it runs as follows: ‘Concerning the wisdom of the Ignorant and the Ignorance of the Wise; the impotence of the Mighty and the power of the Weak; and other kindred matters.’

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− The Universal Key to the respective languages of our several and diverse organs, with their transcriptions into the vulgar tongue. − A Complete List of useless expressions and the true method of employing them to the exclusion of all others. − History as viewed from Heaven, with each event accompanied by a host of others that could just as well have taken place. − The discreet art of loving little and getting much joy of it. − The Mirror of Egregious Blunders, Happy Peccadillos and Men’s Loveliest Mistakes, by one of them. And lastly: − The Metamorphosis of Nothingness.’ Ti It is a crying shame that all are lost! Irreplaceable! Irreplaceable! No We want to write a great work – both of us together – in the following manner: one of us thinks – and says nothing; the other writes – and thinks nothing. Ti Visiting a graveyard, a clairvoyant perceived upon each tomb a curious cairn of wriggling objects. After a while he made sense of this heap of teeming life in a state of horrid agitation, seeming to devour itself and then take shape again. Each cairn consisted of all the dead man had done, undergone, and produced in his life on earth: innumerable steps, meals, sensations, acts, digestive processes and copulations . . . . But not a single thought. Miss No Ach, so many words! Women are the enemy of the spirit, whether they give in to love or refuse it. Ti Don’t ever say ‘love me’, that’s of no use. Mrs Ti Yes, and yet it is, God says so!

Notes

Introduction 1 Thomas Köhler and Annelie Lütgens, eds, Jeanne Mammen The Observer. Retrospective 1910–1975, exh. cat. Berlinische Galerie, Berlin (Munich: Hirmer, 2017). 2 For example: ‘Die einzigartige Beobachterin’, Berliner Kurier, 5 October 2017, 19 and Ingeborg Ruthe, ‘Eigensinnig, sperrig, emanzipiert’, Berliner Zeitung, 6 October 2017. As exemplified in Heinrich Wölfflin’s The Principles of Art History: The Problem of the Development of Style in Early Modern Art (1915). 3 According to numbers provided by the Berlinische Galerie, over 80,000 visitors attended the exhibition, which puts its popularity just beneath that of their exhibition on Max Beckmann held in 2015–16. 4 Lena Braun, ‘Von Freiheit getrieben’, L–MAG – Das Magazin für Lesben, 1 September 2017. 5 The reproductions of the artist’s Weimar work featured in the press reviews alone demonstrate this bias. For example: Anon, ‘Eros als Erzieher’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 14 October 2017, Anon, ‘Frl. Mammen. City Girl’, Harper’s Bazaar, 12 September 2017 and Anon, ‘Die Diva’, AD-Magazin, 13 September 2017. 6 For example in the exhibitions: ‘Tanz auf dem Vulkan. Das Berlin der Zwanziger Jahre im Spiegel der Künste’, Stiftung Stadtmuseum, Berlin, 2015–16; ‘Berlin Metropolis, 1918–1933’, Neue Galerie, New York, 2015–16; ‘New Objectivity: Modern German Art in the Weimar Republic, 1919–1933’, Los Angeles County Museum, 2015–16 and ‘Splendor and Misery in the Weimar Republic: From Otto Dix to Jeanne Mammen’, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, 2017. Reviews from the artist’s most recent retrospective also compared her work to Dix and Grosz, for example: Anon, ‘Schwestern im Geiste. Malerinnen wie Jeanne Mammen machten die Kunstgeschichte bunter und vollständiger – ihr Werk ist auch für die jüngere Kunstszene Berlins ein Thema’, Der Tagesspiegel, 4 October 2017. 7 John-Paul Stonard, Fault Lines: Art in Germany, 1945–1955 (London: Ridinghouse, 2007), 23. 8 Förderverein der Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung e. V., Berlin ed., Jeanne Mammen: Paris – Bruxelles – Berlin (Berlin: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2017). 9 Michael Glasmeier and Annelie Lütgens, eds, Jeanne Mammen, RimbaudÜbertragungen: Illuminationen und Fragmente (Hamburg: Textem Verlag, 2017). 10 Annelie Lütgens, ‘Nur ein Paar Augen sein’: Jeanne Mammen – eine Künstlerin in ihrer Zeit (Reimer: Berlin, 1991). Two very fulsome biographies/timelines of the artist’s whole career feature in the catalogue of Mammen’s retrospective (2017; note 1), and in the anthology of essays on the artist (2017; note 8). 11 The idea of artistic/stylistic breaks has been used, for example, in relation to the careers of George Grosz, Otto Dix, Rudolf Schlichter and Hanna Nagel. For Mammen,

188

12

13 14 15

16

17

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see Eberhard Roters, ‘Jeanne Mammen –Leben und Werk’, in Jeanne Mammen, 1890–1976, ed. Jeanne-Mammen-Gesellschaft e.V. (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Cantz, 1978), 16–17. Excellent studies include Olaf Peters, Neue Sachlichkeit und Nationalsozialismus: Affirmation und Kritik (Berlin: Reimer, 1998); Nikola Doll, Mäzenatentum und Kunstförderung im Nationalsozialismus: Werner Peiner und Hermann Göring (Weimar: VDG, 2009); James A. van Dyke, Franz Radziwill and the Contradictions of German Art History, 1919–1945 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2010); Bernhard Fulda and Aya Soika, ‘Emil Nolde and the National Socialist Dictatorship’, in Degenerate Art: The Attack on Modern Art in Nazi Germany, 1937, ed. Olaf Peters, exh. cat. Neue Galerie, New York (New York: Prestel, 2014), 186–95 and Jonathan Petropoulos, Artists under Hitler: Collaboration and Survival in Nazi Germany (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2015). Bernhard Fulda and Aya Soika, Max Pechstein: The Rise and Fall of Expressionism (Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 2012) and van Dyke, Franz Radziwill and the Contradictions of German Art History. Michel Foucault, Power: Essential Works of Foucault, 1954–1984, eds James D. Faubion, Robert Hurley, Paul Rabinow, vol. 3, 15th edn. (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 2015). In particular, 34–55. For public opinion on Stauffenberg: Christian Staas, ‘Umkämpfte Helden. Warum der Widerstand gegen Hitler auch 75 Jahre nach dem Umsturzversuch vom 20. Juli keine Ruhe läßt’, Die Zeit – Feuilleton, 18 July 2019, 35–6 and also Johannes Tuchel, ‘Widerstand gegen den Nationalsozialismus. 75 Jahre Umsturzversuch vom 20. Juli 1944’, Der Tagesspiegel, 20 July 2019, 27–9. Important scholarship focusing primarily on exile in art history includes Erhard Frommhold and Ernst Niekisch, eds, Kunst im Widerstand: Malerei, Graphik, Plastik 1922 bis 1945 (Dresden: VEB Verlag der Kunst, 1968); Richard Hiepe et al., Widerstand statt Anpassung: Deutsche Kunst im Widerstand gegen den Faschismus 1933–1945, exh. cat. Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe (Berlin: Elefanten Press, 1980). Werner Haftmann, with Leopold Reidemeister and Berthold Roland, Verfemte Kunst: Bildende Künstler der inneren und äusseren Emigration in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus (Cologne: DuMont, 1986). Besides brief analysis of Emil Nolde and Otto Dix, the section on inner emigration focuses on more openly antifascist artists. This emphasis is unsurprising given the preface is written by the then FRG’s chancellor Helmut Kohl. After reunification: Exil: Flucht und Emigration europäischer Künstler 1933–1945, eds Stephanie Barron and Sabine Eckmann, exh. cat. Nationalgalerie, Berlin (New York: Prestel, 1997). Here, see in particular Martin Jay’s essay explaining why the exilic experience of Germans in America was an ‘easier’ focus for West Germany (‘Die Emigration deutscher Intellektueller: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte ihrer Kontroversen Rezeption’, 326–37). Keith Holz, Modern German Art for Thirties Paris, Prague, and London: Resistance and Acquiescence in a Democratic Public Sphere (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004) and more recently, a study focusing on exile and visual culture more broadly: Uwe Fleckner, Maike Steinkamp and Hendrik Ziegler, eds, Der Künstler in der Fremde: Migration – Reise – Exil (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015). Sabine Eckmann, ‘German Exile, Modern Art, and National Identity’, in Caught by Politics: Hitler Exiles and American Visual Culture, eds Sabine Eckmann and Lutz Koepnick (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 97. Eight artists had work included posthumously in the exhibition. On this bias in scholarship, see also Inventur: Art in

 Notes 189

18

19

20 21

22

23 24 25 26 27 28

Germany, 1943–1955, eds Lynette Roth with Ilka Voermann, exh. cat. Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Art Museums and Yale University Press, 2018), 444–5 and note 64. On this approach: Inner emigration as ‘emigration’: Herbert Wiesner, ‘“Innere Emigration”: Die innerdeutsche Literatur im Widerstand 1933–1945’, in Handbuch der deutschen Gegenwartsliteratur, ed. Hermann Kunisch, vol. 2, 2nd edn. (Munich: Nymphenburger Verlagshandlung, 1970), 383–408. Termed by some scholars more recently as ‘inner exile’ to reflect better these forms of distancing. For example, William J. Dodd, National Socialism and German Discourse: Unquiet Voices (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 7. Martin Broszat and Elke Fröhlich, eds, Bayern in der NS-Zeit. 6 vols. (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1977–83). For a useful overview, see the introduction by Broszat in Bayern in der NS-Zeit, vol. 1, Soziale Lage und politische Verhalten der Bevölkerung im Spiegel vertraulicher Berichte, eds Broszat, Fröhlich and Falk Wiesemann (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1977), 11–19, and also more recently, Broszat, ‘A Social and Historical Typography of the German Opposition to Hitler’, in Contending with Hitler: Varieties of German Resistance in the Third Reich, ed. David Clay Large (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 25–33. Bayern in der NS-Zeit, vol. 1, Ibid., 12. For examples of everyday dissent, see, for example, reports in ‘Lage der Arbeiterschaft’, vol. 1, 193–326. On the project’s complexities: Hans Mommsen and Klaus-Jürgen Müller, ‘Der deutsche Widerstand gegen das NS-Regime: Zur Historiographie des Widerstandes’, in Der deutsche Widerstand 1933–1945, ed. Klaus-Jürgen Müller (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh Verlag, 1986), 18–20, and more recently Ian Kershaw, The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), 229–36. For this approach, see Lothar Klünner’s essay ‘Jenseits von Schrei und Grimasse: Die Malerin Jeanne Mammen’, in Zwischen Widerstand und Anpassung: Kunst in Deutschland, 1933–1945, ed. Barbara Volkmann, exh. cat. Akademie der Künste, Berlin (Berlin: Wippermann, 1978), 32–6. Ibid. The catalogue contains an essay by Erhard Frommhold of the same name. Antony McElligott, The German Urban Experience: Modernity and Crisis, 1900–1945 (London: Florence Taylor and Francis, 2013), 4 and 13. McElligott stresses that Americanization was certainly not unique. Gustave Le Bon’s La Psychologie des foules (1895) was translated into German in 1908. McElligott, The German Urban Experience, 6. 334. Frommhold and Niekisch’s formative study Kunst im Widerstand (1968) is characteristic here. It examined the work of some 300 artists from all around Europe, of which only eleven were women. With the establishment of the AG ‘Frauen im Exil’ as part of the Gesellschaft für Exilforschung in 1991, studies have begun foregrounding the need to research the work of women émigrés; see: http://www​.exilforschung​.de​/index​.php​?p​=17. See Martin Papenbrock report on their 2000 symposium ‘Bildende Künstlerinnen und Kunsthistorikerinnen im Exil’, in Kunst im Exil, 1933–1945, Jahrbuch der GuernicaGesellschaft, ed. Jutta Held (Osnabrück, Rasch, 2001), 156–69. For incisive research in art history, see: Inge Hansen-Schaberg, Wolfgang Thöner and Adriane Feustel, eds, Entfernt: Frauen des Bauhauses während der NS-Zeit. Verfolgung und Exil (Munich: Edition Text + Kritik, 2012); Ariela Freedman, ‘Charlotte Salomon, Degenerate Art, and Modernism as Resistance’, Journal of Modern Literature 41, no. 1 (2017): 3–18;

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30

31

32 33 34

35 36

37 38

Notes

Griselda Pollock, Charlotte Salomon and the Theatre of Memory (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2018) and Maureen Ogrocki, ‘A New Life in Emigration’, in Lotte Laserstein: Face to Face, eds Alexander Eiling and Elena Schroll, exh. cat. Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main and Berlinische Galerie, Berlin (New York: Prestel, 2019), 156–65. For important research on women writers: Eva-Maria Gehler, Weibliche NS-Affinitäten Grade der Systemaffinität von Schriftstellerinnen im ‘Dritten Reich’ (Wurzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2010). The term ‘lost generation’ originates from Gertrude Stein in a letter to Ernest Hemingway regarding artists whose work was not publicly recognized. This term is used in scholarship to refer to artists whose initial careers were delayed because of National Socialism. It is sometimes also used to describe better-known artists whose careers were stunted during the 1930s and after the Second World War through division of Germany. For recent use, Rainer Zimmermann, Expressiver Realismus: Malerei der verschollenen Generation (Munich: Hirmer Verlag, 1994), 138–41. For the motion: 25 June 2019: Antrag der Fraktionen der CDU/CSU und SPD: ‘Frauen im Widerstand gegen den Nationalsozialismus würdigen’ – Ralph Brinkhaus, Alexander Dobrindt und Fraktion Dr Rolf Mützenich und Fraktion. Deutscher Bundestag: Drucksache 19/1109219. Wahlperiode available online: https://www​ .bundestag​.de​/dokumente​/textarchiv​/2019​/kw26​-de​-frauen​-widerstand​-646432. This is not to undermine persuasive existing scholarship emphasizing women involved in open acts of resistance, including Christl Wickert, ‘Frauenwiderstand und Dissens im Kriegalltag’, in Widerstand gegen den Nationalsozialismus, eds Peter Steinbach und Johannes Tuchel (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1994), 411–25 and, more recently, Shareen Blair Brysac, Resisting Hitler: Mildred Harnack and the Red Orchestra (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), who shows that there were disproportionately many women involved in this communist group. Kershaw, The Nazi Dictatorship, 235. Jonathan Petropoulos, The Faustian Bargain: The Art World in Nazi Germany (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 254–5. Jeanne Mammen to Max Delbrück, 7 December 1974, JMS. Translations are my own throughout unless otherwise indicated. Also cited and trans. in Cornelia Pastelak-Price and Ines Quitsch, ‘Jeanne Mammen – Biography. Attempt to write a “Bioschraffie”’, in Jeanne Mammen: Paris – Bruxelles – Berlin, ed. Förderverei der JMS e. V., 202. Jeanne Mammen to Hans Thiemann, 3 December 1975, JMS. Also cited in Jeanne Mammen/ Hans Thiemann, ed. Jeanne-Mammen-Gesellschaft e. V., exh. cat. Staatlichen Kunsthalle Berlin (West) (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Cantz, 1979), 39. Jeanne Mammen to Max Delbrück, 19.12.70, JMS. Cited and trans. in Jeanne Mammen und Max Delbrück: Zeugnisse einer Freundschaft, ed. Felicitas Rink (Berlin: Förderverein der Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung e.V. and Max-Delbrück-Centrum für Molekulare Medizin (MDC) Berlin-Buch, 2005), 78–9. Sabine Mainberger offers an illuminating discussion on the meaning of Mammen’s drawing, ‘Unruly Lines. A Selection of Drawings by Jeanne Mammen’, in Jeanne Mammen The Observer, eds Köhler and Lütgens, 131. ‘Actually, I always wished to be just a pair of eyes, to explore the world without being seen, only to see others.’ For a full English translation of that interview from 1974, see Hans Kinkel, ‘Encounter with Jeanne Mammen’, in Jeanne Mammen, ed. Förderverein der JMS e.V., 215.

 Notes 191 39 This idea of being an observer has usefully framed discussion on Mammen as the flâneuse during the 1920s; see, Lütgens, ‘Nur ein Paar Augen sein’ and Femme Flaneur: Erkundungen zwischen Boulevard und Sperrbezirk, eds Ute Scheub and Rita E. Täuber, exh. cat. August Macke Haus, Bonn (Bonn: Verein August Macke Haus, 2004). There is a tendency to sometimes overstate the idea in relation to the artist leading a reclusive existence, Caroline Leistenschneider, ‘Ich möchte eine Mönchskutte haben.’ Askese im symbolistischen Frühwerk von Jeanne Mammen (Stuttgart: Ibidem-Verlag, 2010). 40 Jeanne Mammen, 1890–1976. Monographie und Werkverzeichnis, ed. Jörn Merkert, catalogue raisonné by Marga Döpping and Lothar Klünner (Cologne: Wienand, 1997). The German titles of Mammen’s work are taken from here and appear in full in the image captions. English translations appear throughout the main body of the text.

Chapter 1 1 ‘Jeanne Mammen’ Galerie Fritz Gurlitt. Potsdamer Str. 113, Villa I, Oktober– November 1930. The Galerie Gurlitt exhibition brochure with an introduction by Hermann Sinsheimer lists the exhibits, including Valeska Gert (Werkverzeichnis, G.11, 200); Schachspieler (G.17, 201); Nutten (D.15. 425) and Paar in Kaschemme (Z.79, 307). Brochure in JMS. 2 Kurt Tucholsky, ‘Antwort an Jeanne Mammen’, Die Weltbühne 32 (1929): 225. 3 Almanach auf das Jahr, 1919 (Berlin: Fritz Gurlitt Verlag, 1920), 78–85, JMS; Birgit Gropp, ‘Studien zur Kunsthandlung Fritz Gurlitt’ (PhD diss., Berlin Freie Universität, 2000), 127–8. 4 Anon, Berliner Volkszeitung, Morgenausgabe, 5 November 1930, JMS. 5 Anon, Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 16 October 1930, JMS. 6 M. O., ‘Jeanne Mammen. Ausstellung bei Gurlitt’, Vossische Zeitung, Berlin Morgenausgabe, 4 November 1930, JMS. 7 Alfred Durus, ‘Wartenberg – Jeanne Mammen’, Die Rote Fahne, 26 November 1930, JMS. Durus is the pseudonym for Alfréd Kemény. 8 An approach foregrounded in Atina Grossmann’s ‘Girlkultur or Thoroughly Rationalized Female: A New Woman in Weimar Germany?’ in Women in Culture and Politics: A Century of Change, eds Judith Friedlander, et al. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986), 62–80. For compelling scholarship adopting this approach, see Marsha Meskimmon, We Weren’t Modern Enough: Women Artists and the Limits of German Modernism (London: I. B.Tauris, 1999); essays in The New Woman International: Representations in Photography and Film from the 1870s through the 1960s, eds Elizabeth Otto and Vanessa Rocco (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2012) and Dorothy Rowe, After Dada: Marta Hegemann and the Cologne Avant-Garde (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013). 9 ‘Äußerlicher Kurzbericht’, in Jeanne Mammen exh. cat. Galerie G. A. Richter, Stuttgart, 1974, unpaginated, JMS. 10 Kunstgewerbeblatt, no. 10, 27 July 1915/16, 181–90 (181). 11 Ibid. 12 Jeremy Aynsley, Graphic Design in Germany, 1890–1945 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 7. 13 Anton Kaes, Martin Jay, and Edward Dimendberg, eds, The Weimar Republic Sourcebook (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 617.

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14 Gideon Reuveni, ‘Reading, Advertising and Consumer Culture in the Weimar Period’, in Mass Media, Culture and Society in Twentieth-Century Germany, eds Karl Christian Führer and Corey Ross (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 207. 15 Mammen’s originals for the advertisements are lost (some proofs exist). For five small reproductions, see Werkverzeichnis, ed. Merkert, with Döpping and Klünner, 242–3. 16 Helen Boak, Women in the Weimar Republic (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013), 256–9. 17 For these artists’ engagement with the city: Scheub and Täuber, eds, Femme Flaneur. 18 On advertising, see Charles Rearick, Pleasures of the Belle Epoque: Entertainment and Festivity in Turn-of-the-Century France (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985) 67–8. On Mammen in Paris, see Camilla Smith, ‘From Wedding to Montmartre: Exploring Theatrical Semantics in the Work of Jeanne Mammen’, in Jeanne Mammen, ed. Förderverein der JMS e.V., 120–43. 19 Vanessa R. Schwartz, Spectacular Realities: Early Mass Culture in Fin-de-Siècle Paris (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 25. 20 Adelheid Rasche, ‘Berlin as a City of Fashion’, in Berlin Metropolis: 1918–1933, ed. Olaf Peters, exh. cat. Neue Galerie, New York (New York: Prestel, 2015), 295. 21 Mila Ganeva, Women in Weimar Fashion (Rochester: Camden House, 2008), 4. 22 For insightful discussions on professionalism, see Ute Frevert, Women in German History: From Bourgeois Emancipation to Sexual Liberation, trans. Stuart McKinnonEvans (Oxford: Berg, 1989) and Boak, Women in the Weimar Republic. 23 Adelheid Rasche, ‘Dodo – A Life in Pictures’, in Dodo: Leben und Werk, 1907–1998, Renate Krümmer et al. exh. cat. Staatliche Kunstbibliothek Berlin and Ben Uri Art Gallery (Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2012), 178. 24 For Reimann’s emphasis on being an Einheitskunstschule (literally a unity art school): Hans Maria Wingler, ed. Kunsthochschulreform 1900–1933: Handbuch zur Ausstellung Kunstschulreform 1900–1933 (Berlin: Gebr. Mann Verlag, 1977), 247. 25 Pastelak-Price and Quitsch, ‘Biography’, 178–9. 26 Adelheid Rasche, ‘Fashion in Paris and Jeanne Mammen’s Fashion Illustrations of the 1920s’, in Jeanne Mammen, ed. Förderverein der JMS e.V., 22–31. 27 Rainer Stamm, ‘Jeanne Mammen – “The Formative Years” in Paris’, in Jeanne Mammen, ed. Förderverein der JMS e.V., 14. 28 Delaunay’s works were first shown in Germany at the Erster Deutscher Herbstsalon (First German Autumn Salon), held at Der Sturm gallery in Berlin in 1913. Elizabeth Morano, Sonia Delaunay: Art into Fashion, with a foreword by Diana Vreeland (New York: G. Braziller, 1986). For similarities with Mammen: 76–7, 83, 89, 92 and 96. A page of seven black-and-white photographs of models wearing Delaunay’s bold geometric dresses and shawls appear in the same edition as Mammen’s work see, Die Schöne Frau, no. 4, 1926, 31. 29 Morano, Delauna: Art into Fashion, 14. 30 Dodo Renate Krümmer et al. as before and Burcu Dogramaci, ‘Frauen die ihr Geld selbst verdienen’. Lieselotte Friedlaender, der ‘“Moden-Spiegel” und das Bild der großstädtischen Frau’, in Garçonnes à la mode im Berlin und Paris der zwanziger Jahre, eds Stephanie Bung and Margarete Zimmermann (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2008), 47–67. 31 Ute Frevert, ‘Europeanizing Germany’s Twentieth Century’, History and Memory 17, Spring/Summer (2005): 87. 32 Octave Uzanne, Études de sociologie féminine: Parisiennes de ce temps et leurs divers milieux, états et conditions, published by Mercure de France in 1910. The first translation appeared in 1925.

 Notes 193 33 Mammen’s works appear on pages 171, 175, 185, 203, 337, 409 and as various colour plates. Mammen’s works were not made for Uzanne’s publication. 34 R. Feld, ‘Der Zauber der Pariserin’, Das Leben 9, no. 10 (1931/2), 5–9 (5). 35 The image is given the title Mittagspause (Lunch Break) and appears in Uzanne on 171. 36 On Grund: 84–110 and Elias: 198–9, both in Ganeva, Women in Weimar Fashion. 37 Ibid., 88. 38 Julie Elias, ‘Die Dame im Sommer Modeplauderei’, Styl, no. 3 (1924): 33–6. 39 Claire Goll, ‘Article de Paris’, Styl, no. 5/6 (1924): 137–40. 40 For popular weeklies: Corey Ross, Media and the Making of Modern Germany: Mass Communications, Society and Politics from the Empire to the Third Reich (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), especially, 20–33, and 142–9 and Reuveni, ‘Reading, Advertising’, 204–16. 41 For ‘springboard’, Ganeva, Women in Weimar Fashion, 56. Burcu Dogramaci emphasizes similar opportunities in, ‘Frauen die ihr Geld selbst verdienen’, 47–67. 42 Kinkel, ‘Encounter’, 214. 43 For entries ‘Mammen’ Berliner Adressbuch der Jahre 1799 bis 1943, Part I, 1877, through http://adressbuch​.zlb​.de/. 44 Kinkel, ‘Encounter’, 217. 45 On sketchbooks, Marga Döpping’s memories of Mammen cited in Pastelak-Price and Quitsch, ‘Biography’, 199 note 70. 46 Kinkel, ‘Encounter’, 214. 47 For Mammen’s drawings in the article, see Katharine Brush, ‘In der Nachtbar. Eine Geschichte für Frauen’, Uhu, 5, no. 5 (1928/29): 70–9. For analysis of Brush’s story in the context of Uhu and the new woman, see Julia Bertschik, ‘Gracious and Yet Austere’. Jeanne Mammen’s Illustrations for Uhu’, in Jeanne Mammen The Observer, eds Köhler and Lütgens, 81–8. 48 On Mammen’s text/image relations, Dorothy Price, ‘The “New Woman” in 1920s Berlin’, in Berlin Metropolis: 1918–1933, ed. Olaf Peters, 78–9. 49 Galerie Nierendorf, ‘Die Zwanziger Jahre, Berlin’, April–June 1970. Jeanne Mammen to Max Delbrück, 27 May 1970, in Max Delbrück, ed. Rink, 79. 50 Aynsley, Graphic Design in Germany, 12–13. 51 Margarete Zimmermann, ‘Jeanne Mammen’s Library – A Space of Cultural Transfer’, in Jeanne Mammen, ed. Förderverein der JMS e.V., 150. 52 Aynsley, Graphic Design in Germany, 11–12. 53 For example, Renate Bridenthal and Claudia Koonz, ‘Beyond Kinder, Küche, Kirche: Weimar Women in Politics and Work’, in When Biology Became Destiny: Women in Weimar and Nazi Germany, eds Renate Bridenthal, Atina Grossmann and Marion Kaplan (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1984), 33–65 and Frevert, Women in German History, 151–68. 54 See Andreas Huyssen’s seminal essay: ‘Mass Culture as Woman: Modernism’s Other’, in After the Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture, Postmodernism (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1986), 44–64. 55 Aynsley, Graphic Design in Germany, 112. 56 Ganeva, Women in Weimar Fashion, 66, and also Almut Todorow, ‘Frauen im Journalismus der Weimarer Republik’, Internationales Archiv für Sozialgeschichte der deutschen Literatur 16, no. 2 (1991): 84–103. 57 Annelie Lütgens, ‘“Deren Sorgen und Rothschilds Geld”: Künstlerinnen und Ihre Arbeit für Zeitschriften in der Weimarer Republik’, in Glanz und Elend in

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58 59 60

61 62

63

64

65

66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78

Notes der Weimarer Republik, ed. Ingrid Pfeiffer, exh. cat. Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt (Munich: Hirmer, 2017), 235. Sinsheimer, ‘Jeanne Mammen’ Galerie Fritz Gurlitt’ brochure, JMS. Ganeva, Women in Weimar Fashion, 58. Insightful examples of scholarship on the new woman and her representation in the mass media include Maud Lavin, ‘Ringl and Pit: The Representation of Women in German Advertising, 1929–1933’, in Clean New World: Culture, Politics, and Graphic Design (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press 2001), 50–70; Lynne Frame, ‘Gretchen, Girl, Garçonne? Weimar Science and Popular Culture in Search of the Ideal New Woman’, in Women in the Metropolis: Gender and Modernity in Weimar Germany, ed. Katharina von Ankum (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 12–40, and Katie Sutton, The Masculine Woman in Weimar Germany (Oxford and New York: Berghahn Books, 2011). Meskimmon, We Weren’t Modern Enough, 216–26. Eva Züchner, ‘Langweilige Puppen. Jeanne Mammens Großstadt-Frauen’, in Werkverzeichnis, ed. Merkert, with Döpping and Klünner, 51–6, and on malice, Annelie Lütgens, ‘Boulevard and Borinage: Jeanne Mammen’s Paris and Brussels Sketchbooks from 1910 to 1919’, in Jeanne Mammen, ed. Förderverein der JMS e.V., 49. Gustave Le Bon as discussed in Stefan Jonsson, ‘Neither Masses nor Individuals: Representations of the Collective in Interwar German Culture’, in Weimar Publics/ Weimar Subjects: Rethinking the Political Culture of Germany in the 1920s, eds Kathleen Canning, Kerstin Barndt and Kristin McGuire (New York: Berghahn Books, 2010), 294. Baum, ‘Leute von Heute’, in Die Dame, (27 November 1927), 17–32, reproduced and trans. in The Weimar Republic Sourcebook, eds Kaes, Jay and Dimendberg, 664–6, and Siegfried Kracauer, ‘The Mass Ornament’, in The Mass Ornament: Weimar Essays, trans. and ed. Thomas Levin (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 75–98. On positioning: Donna Haraway, ‘Situation Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective’, in the Feminist Standpoint Theory Reader: Intellectual and Political Controversies, ed. Sandra Harding (New York: Routledge 2004), 81–102. On the multi-dimensional, see also Bertschik, ‘Gracious and Yet Austere’, 82. Sinsheimer, ‘Jeanne Mammen Galerie Fritz Gurlitt’, brochure, JMS. Kinkel, ‘Encounter’, 214. ‘Vor Geld krochen sie, wer keines hatte, war “n’ Dreck”’. Mammen to Hans Thiemann 20 June 1971 in Jeanne Mammen/ Hans Thiemann, ed. JMG e. V., 30. George Grosz, A Small Yes and a Big No, trans. Arnold J. Pomerans (Feltham: Zenith, 1983), 74. Kurt Münzer, ‘Licht und Schatten’, Die Woche 29, no. 22 (1927): 629–32. Münzer’s novels on the urban poor include Der weisse Knabe (1921), Mich Hungert (1929) and Menschen am Schlesischen Bahnhof (1930). Lütgens, ‘Boulevard and Borinage’, 32–55. Münzer, ‘Licht und Schatten’, 631. Atina Grossmann, Reforming Sex: The German Movement for Birth Control and Abortion Reform, 1920–1950 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 78–106. Ibid., 75–7. Alfred Durus, ‘Wartenberg – Jeanne Mammen’, Die Rote Fahne, 26 November 1930, JMS. For similar readings of proletarian mothers in the press, Patrice Petro, Joyless Streets: Women and Melodramatic Representation in Weimar Germany (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989), 110–39.

 Notes 195 79 On writing: Kirsten Leng, Sexual Politics and Feminist Science: Women Sexologists in Germany, 1900–1933 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2018) and on film: Jill Suzanne Smith, Berlin Coquette: Prostitution and the New German Woman, 1890– 1933 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2013). 80 Curt Moreck, Kultur-und Sittengeschichte der Neuesten Zeit, 3 vols (Dresden: P. Aretz, 1928–9). 81 Article 118 of Germany’s new constitution protected against censorship. However, retention of paragraphs from the Imperial Criminal Code meant that the authorities often intervened post publication. For concise discussion: Peter Jelavich, ‘Der demokratische Giftschrank: Zensur und Indizierung in der Weimarer Republik und Bundesrepublik’, in Der Giftschrank: Erotik, Sexualwissenschaft, Politik und Literatur – REMOTA: Die weggesperrten Bücher der Bayrischen Staatsbibliothek, ed. Stephan Kellner (Munich: Bayrische Staatsbibliothek, 2002), 57–8. 82 For example, Two Women Dancing had already featured in Jugend, 9, no. 33, 134. Moreck, in fact, did own original artwork by Mammen, see Camilla Smith, ‘Challenging Baedeker Through the Art of Sexual Science: An Exploration of Gay and Lesbian Subcultures in Curt Moreck’s Guide to ‘Depraved’ Berlin’, Oxford Art Journal 36, no. 2 (2013): 254, note 109. 83 On transvestism, Moreck cites Hirschfeld’s ideas extensively, including emphasis on the erotic compulsion to cross-dress and that it is often closely linked to homosexuality. Moreck, Kultur-und Sittengeschichte, vol. 3, Das Genussleben des modernen Menschen, 247–8. 84 On types: Lydia Böhmert, ‘The Dark Sides of Berlin During the Late Weimar Republic: A Comparison of Jeanne Mammen’s Artwork with Literary Impressions of French Visitors in Berlin’, Jeanne Mammen, ed. Förderverein der JMS e.V., 110–11. 85 On bars, see ‘Homosexualität in Berlin’, in Großstadt-Dokumente, ed. Hans Ostwald, vol. 3, Berlins drittes Geschlecht by Magnus Hirschfeld (Berlin: Hermann Seemann, 1904), 37–9. 86 Moreck, Kultur-und Sittengeschichte, vol. 3, 309. 87 Elena Mancini, Magnus Hirschfeld and the Quest for Sexual Freedom: A History of the First International Sexual Freedom Movement (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 109. 88 For a reprint of Roellig’s guidebook Berlins Lesbische Frauen (1928), see Lila Nächte: Die Damenklubs im Berlin der Zwanziger Jahre, ed. Adele Meyer (Berlin: Edition Literatur, 1994), 13–14. 89 Curt Moreck, Führer durch das ‘lasterhafte’ Berlin (Leipzig: Verlag moderner Stadtführer (H. Haessel), 1931). For in-depth analysis: Smith, ‘Challenging Baedeker Through the Art of Sexual Science’. 90 Magnus Hirschfeld, Sittengeschichte der Nachkriegszeit (Leipzig: Verlag für Sexualwissenschaft, 1931), with four Mammen illustrations and Bilderlexikon der Erotik (Universallexikon der Sittengeschichte und Sexualwissenschaft), ed. Institut für Sexualforschung in Vienna (Vienna: Verlag für Kulturforschung, 1928–31), with ten Mammen illustrations. 91 See for example, Janet Sayers, Biological Politics: Feminist and Anti-Feminist Perspectives (London: Tavistock, 1982). 92 Stephanie D’Alessandro, ‘A Lustful Passion for Clarification: Bildung, Aufklärung, and the Sight of Sexual Imagery’, in Studies in Twentieth Century Literature 22, no. 1 (1998): 105. The pronounced fear of women and children being

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93 94 95 96 97

98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106

107 108 109 110 111 112 113

114

Notes corrupted has a long history in relation to German censorship. For persuasive discussion: Sarah L. Leonard, Fragile Minds and Vulnerable Souls: The Matter of Obscenity in Nineteenth Century Germany (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015). Leng, Sexual Politics and Feminist Science, 133. For a rich discussion of artists exploiting sexological literature: Frederic J. Schwartz, ‘Politics and “Perversion”: The Cases of Rudolf Schlichter’, in The Culture of the Case: Madness, Crime, and Justice in Modern German Art (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2023). Grosz, A Small Yes, 76. For example: Weininger’s ideas were praised in J. Löbel, ‘Die Verstandene Frau’, Die Dame 8 (1 January 1927): 12. Harald Tooby, ‘Wir sind Freunde’, Jugend 38, no. 35 (September 1930): 597–8. Other works by Mammen that appear in Jugend likewise show women as active participants in sexual discourses. See Im Aufklärungsfilm (The Sexual Hygiene Film) (c. 1929) in Jugend 23, no. 34 (June 1929): 370. On the empowering capacity of this image, Smith, Berlin Coquette, 115–30. Ágnes Gräfin Eszterházy, Das Lasterhafte Weib. Schriften zur weiblichen Sexualität (Frankfurt a.M.: Ullstein, [1930], 1989). Mammen’s images: 79, 149, between 208 and 209, between 224 and 225, and 227. Ruth Margarete Roellig in Ibid., 68. Ibid., 67–79. Janina Nentwig, Aktdarstellung in der Neuen Sachlichkeit (Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang, 2009), 172–3. On Schlichter, Schwartz, ‘Politics and “Perversion”’. Leng, Sexual Politics and Feminist Science, 116. Joan E. DeJean, Fictions of Sappho, 1546–1937 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 276–7. Pierre Louÿs, The Collected Works, trans. Mitchell S. Buck (New York: Liveright, 1932), 265. In 1997 when Mammen’s catalogue raisonné was published, only seven lithographs were known about and documented: Werkverzeichnis, ed. Merkert, with Döpping and Klünner, 426–7. In 2013 two new lithographs (here Colour Plates 9 and 10) appeared on the market for the first time. Mammen had created etchings before. For example, Werkverzeichnis, ed. Merkert, with Döpping and Klünner, 423–4. For these preparatory studies: Hildegard Reinhardt, ‘The Songs of Bilitis (1930–1932) – Jeanne Mammen’s Artistic Interpretations of Les Chansons de Bilitis (1894) by Pierre Louÿs’, in Jeanne Mammen, ed. Förderverein der JMS e.V., 87–9. Camilla Smith, ‘Sex Sells! Wolfgang Gurlitt, Erotic Print Culture and Women Artists in the Weimar Republic’, in Art History 42, no. 4 (2019): 780–2. Reinhardt, ‘Bilitis’, 86. Louÿs, Collected Works, 289. Jeanne Mammen to G. A. Richter, 1974, no exact date. JMS. Patrick Kearney asserts this model in A History of Erotic Literature (London: Macmillan, 1982), 101–46, and Lynn Hunt argues that the production of erotic literature in Germany lagged far behind France. ‘Introduction’ in Hunt, ed. The Invention of Pornography, 1500–1800: Obscenity and the Origins of Modernity (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996), 23. The artist did not title the work herself. It is unknown whether this is a ‘real’ scene from the Paris of her youth, but more likely it is a gay/transvestite bar in Berlin.

 Notes 197 115 Published by ‘G. Grimm’ in Budapest and translated by Franz Wagenhoff. 116 See Louÿs, Collected, 301. ‘G. Heim’ is a pun on the German word ‘Geheim’ (secret). My thanks go to Abbey Rees-Hales for this insight. 117 DeJean, Fictions of Sappho, 200. 118 Zimmermann, ‘Jeanne Mammen’s Library’, 144–57. 119 Hugo Kubsch, ‘Jeanne Mammen. Ausstellung bei Gurlitt’, Deutsche Tageszeitung, 5 November 1930, JMS. 120 Curt Glaser, ‘Jeanne Mammen bei Gurlitt’, Börsen Courier, 15 October 1930, JMS. 121 Annelie Lütgens, ‘Nur Ein paar Augen sein’, 70–5 and Johanna Maria Eder, ‘Die Darstellung von Homoerotik im Werk Jeanne Mammen’ (diploma diss., University of Vienna, 2013), 51–9. 122 Magnus Hirschfeld, Sappho und Sokrates (Leipzig: M. Spohr, 1896). Hirschfeld also cites Louÿs’ Bilitis poems in his 1914 text, The Homosexuality of Men and Women, trans. Michael A. Lombardi-Nash (Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 2000), 1139. 123 Eszterházy, Das Lasterhafte Weib, 68. 124 Die Freundin 5, no. 15 (August 1929), SMU. 125 For example, Die Freundin 3, no. 15 (August 1927) and Die Freundin 3, no. 21 (October 1927), SMU. 126 Mammen states that she had, in fact, accomplished the printing process together with the printer ‘Herr Selig’, at the Berliner Hochschule. See Mammen to G. A. Richter, JMS, as before. 127 For recent discussion on the ‘backlash thesis’, see Laurie Marhoefer, Sex and the Weimar Republic: German Homosexual Emancipation and the Rise of the Nazis (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2015), 176–7 and 201. 128 Jill Stephenson, Women in Nazi Germany (Harlow: Longman, 2001), 41. 129 The Deutsches Historisches Museum in Berlin has an anti-Semitic campaign poster from 1932 printed by Plakatkunstdruck Eckert, Berlin-Schöneberg, with the title ‘Wir wählen Hindenburg! Wie wählen Hitler! Schau Dir diese Köpfe an, und Du Weißt, wohin Du gehörst!’ which features Magnus Hirschfeld. 130 Rainer Herrn, ‘Magnus Hirschfeld, Institut für Sexualwissenschaft und die Bücherverbrennung’, in Verfemt und Verboten. Vorgeschichte und Folgen der Bücherverbrennungen, 1933, eds Julius H. Schoeps und Werner Treß (Hildesheim/ Zürich/New York: Olms, 2010), 113–68. 131 Sutton, The Masculine Woman, 60–2. Petro, Joyless Streets: Women, 121–4 and Jochen Hung, ‘The Modernized Gretchen: Transformations of the “New Woman” in the late Weimar Republic’, in German History 33, no. 1 (2015): 52–79. This did not mean, however, that modern or modernist styles disappeared from clothing entirely under the National Socialists. 132 German law for lesbians remained unchanged under the National Socialists. Florence Tamagne, A History of Homosexuality in Europe, Berlin, London, Paris 1919–1939, 2 vols (New York: Algora, 2007), Appendix 3, 420–3. 133 It should be noted that during some of these months, only two or three days were worked. Unpublished accounting notes, JMS. Mammen used this trolley as bookshelves in her studio apartment, where it still stands today. 134 On Gurlitt in the 1930s, see Wolfgang Schuster, ‘Facetten des NS – “Kunsthandels” am Beispiel Wolfgang Gurlitt’, in NS-Kunstraub in Österreich und die Folgen, eds Gabriele Anderl and Alexandra Caruso (Innsbruck: Studien Verlag, 2005), 212–26 and Elisabeth Nowak-Thaller, ‘Leben und Wirken Wolfgang Gurlitts. Versuch einer Rekonstruktion’, in Wolfgang Gurlitt

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Notes Zauberprinz Kunsthändler – Sammler, ed. Elisabeth Nowak-Thaller, exh. cat. Lentos Kunstmuseum, Linz and Museum im Kulturspeicher Würzburg (Munich: Hirmer Verlag, 2019), 33–61.

Chapter 2 1 She owned, Oskar Schürer, Pablo Picasso (Leipzig: Verlag von Klinkhardt & Biermann, 1927) and, later, William S. Lieberman, Pablo Picasso: Blue and Rose Periods (London: Thames and Hudson, 1954). 2 For a reproduction, Werkverzeichnis, ed. Merkert, with Döpping and Klünner (G.75), 207. 3 Hans Kinkel, ‘Mutter Courage malt’, in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 21 November 1975, 21. JMS. A stint is a waterside bird. 4 American zone: Berlin-Kreuzberg, Neukölln, Tempelhof, Schöneberg, Steglitz and Zehlendorf. The British zone: Berlin-Wilmersdorf, Charlottenburg, Tiergarten, Spandau. 5 Stephanie Barron and Sabine Eckmann, eds, Art of Two Germanys: Cold War Cultures, exh. cat. Los Angeles County Museum of Art (New York: Abrams, 2009). 6 Mammen to Max Delbrück, 26 July 1946, cited in Pastelak-Price and Quitsch, ‘Biography’, 192. 7 For a useful overview: Reinhard Rürup and Pamela Eve Selwyn, Berlin 1945: A Documentation, exh. cat. Staatliche Kunsthalle, Berlin (Berlin: Wilmuth Arenhövel, 1995), 142–55 and Mary Fulbrook, The Divided Nation: A History of Germany, 1918–1990. 2nd edn. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002), 116–23. For cultural responses to Allied attempts, see Chapter 6 in this book. 8 For an excellent overview: Maike Steinkamp, Das unerwünschte Erbe: Die Rezeption ‘entarteter’ Kunst in Kunstkritik, Ausstellungen und Museen der Sowjetischen Besatzungszone und der frühen DDR (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2008), 85–113. 9 For a useful discussion of these structures: Reiner Pommerin, ed., German Culture in the Federal Republic of Germany 1945–1995 (Oxford: Berg, 1996) 1–18. Persuasive zone-specific studies include Dorothea Schöne, Freie Künstler in einer freien Stadt. Die amerikanische Förderung der Berliner Nachkriegsmoderne (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016) and Martin Schieder, Expansion – Integration die Kunstausstellung der französischen Besatzung im Nachkriegsdeutschland (Munich: Dt. Kunstverlag, 2004). 10 On exhibitions also, Schöne, Freie Künstler, 35–46. 11 Mammen’s membership card is dated 2 April 1946, JMS. 12 Mammen and Uhlmann appear not to have remained in contact during the war. For a discussion of their friendship during the 1930s, see Chapter 3. 13 Schöne, Freie Künstler, 30. 14 For reproduction: Werkverzeichnis, ed. Merkert, with Döpping and Klünner (G.112), 211. It is unclear to which painting, ‘Head’, refers. Mammen created several paintings of portrait heads in a Cubist style, see Werkverzeichnis, 211–12. 15 Mammen to Hans Gaffron, 24 September 1946, JMS. 16 Eberhard Roters et al., Stationen der Moderne: Die bedeutenden Kunstausstellungen des 20. Jahrhunderts in Deutschland (Berlin: Berlinische Galerie, 1988), 353, and 355–9. 17 Carl Linfert, ‘Erinnerungen an die Dresdener Ausstellung’, Bildende Kunst Zeitschrift für Malerei, Graphik, Plastik und Architektur 1/1947, 12 quoted in Steinkamp, Das unerwünschte Erbe, 106.

 Notes 199 18 Lotte Wege, ‘Kunst durchschaut die Natur. Zur Allgemeinen Deutschen Kunstausstellung in Dresden’, Der Kurier, 10 September 1946. See also, Gert H. Theunisse, ‘Akzente der Werte: Bilder aus der ersten Allgemeinen Deutschen Kunstausstellung Dresden’, Tägliche Rundschau, 15 September 1946, and P. Mons, ‘Schau und Weg in die Zukunft. Zur Allgemeinen Deutschen Kunstausstellung in Dresden’, 1946, unspecified paper, no exact date. All JMS. 19 Anon, ‘Kunstausstellung in Dresden’, Der Kurier, 28 August 1946, notes the different styles. 20 For Rosen history: Markus Krause, Galerie Gerd Rosen. Die Avantgarde in Berlin, 1945–1950 (Berlin: Ars Nicolai, 1995). 21 Gerd Rosen, ‘Die deutschen Teufel’ eine Neujahrsausgabe des Wertheim-Antiquariats’ (1935), SMB. 22 Werner Heldt to fellow artist Werner Gilles, 13 June 1946, cited in Lucius Grisebach, ed., Werner Heldt, exh. cat. Kunsthalle Nürnberg (Berlin: Nicolai, 1990), 49. 23 Letter dated 1 October 1946, quoted in Steinkamp, Das unerwünschte Erbe, 107–8. 24 For a concise overview of this criticism, see Krause, Gerd Rosen. 25 For other works on celluloid sheets: Werkverzeichnis, ed. Merkert, with Döpping and Klünner (A.434), 278. 26 Mammen to Steffie Schaefer-Nathan, 5 March 1947, JMS. 27 Her report from Berlin 1–7 May 1947, is available at the Fontaine Archive online: https://fontaine​.org​/archive​-new​/reports/. 28 Carl Linfert, ‘Gesehen und Verzaubert’, Der Kurier, 8 March 1947, JMS. 29 Linfert’s article on Max Beckmann from Die Neue Rundschau in 1935 demonstrates his ability to camouflage his Nazi criticism. For the full article followed by insightful analysis, see Heidrun Ehrke-Rotermund and Erwin Rotermund, Zwischenreiche und Gegenwelten. Texte und Vorstudien zur ‘Verdeckten Schreibweise’ im ‘Dritten Reich’ (Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1999), 413–38. 30 Dr Roland Schacht, ‘Temperamentvoller Zugriff ’, Der Abend Berlin, 12 February 1947, JMS. 31 For Nazi attacks on Redslob, see Kirsten Baumann, Wortgefechte: Völkische und Nationalsozialistische Kunstkritik, 1927–1939 (Weimar: VDG, 2002), 263–4. 32 Author, ‘D’ [Edwin Redslob?], ‘Kunst und Musik’, Der Tagesspiegel, 6 March 1947. Annelie Lütgens also draws attention to such absences in the review. ‘Nur Ein paar Augen sein’, 136. 33 F. D. ‘Die “Madame Picasso”’, Stadt-Telegraf, 27 February 1947, JMS. 34 Dr C. A. Werner, ‘Die Freude zu leben. Jeanne Mammen stellt aus’, 1946. Date and newspaper unknown, JMS. 35 Cubism’s trajectory to abstraction is reinforced by contemporaries Christian Zervos and Alfred Barr in 1930 and 1936, respectively. Zervos, ‘De L’importance de L’objet dans la peinture d’aujourd’hui, Cahiers d’Art, 1930 over four issues, no. 3, 113; no. 5, 225; no. 6, 281; no. 7, 343, and Alfred Hamilton Barr, Cubism and Abstract Art (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1936). 36 Erich Vogt, ‘Die Drei Phasen des Kubismus. Zu der Ausstellung Jeanne Mammen in der Galerie Rosen’, Neues Deutschland, 26 February 1947, unpaginated, JMS. Vogt cites Régine Raufast’s article ‘Der Kubismus und die Gegenwart’, Wort und Tat 2, September 1946, 33–40. 37 Ibid. 38 Other articles by Vogt also appeared in the journal Kunst und Gesellschaft in which he adopted a similar position. See, for example, no. 12, 1948, 43.

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39 Erich Link, ‘Malerei um Effekt’, Vorwärts, 11 March 1947, 3, JMS. Vorwärts was the name given to the Monday edition of Neues Deutschland. 40 Ibid. 41 For a brief discussion of these styles as potential forms of national German art during the 1930s, see Chapter 3. For a critical analysis of Lukács’ essay, see Emily Braun, ‘Expressionism as Fascist Aesthetic’, in Journal of Contemporary History 31, no. 2 (1996), 273–92. 42 Lukács’s article was countered by responses from Ernst Bloch, Herwarth Walden and Klaus Berger, among others. The debate continued into the late 1930s. 43 Picasso’s reception in post-war Germany has been the focus of persuasive scholarship. In particular, see Angela Schneider, ‘Picasso in uns selbst’, in Deutschlandbilder. Kunst aus einem geteilten Land, eds Eckhart Gillen and Eberhard Roters, exh. cat. MartinGropius-Bau (Cologne: DuMont,1997), 539–44; Michael F. Zimmermann, ‘Pablo Picasso’s “Guernica” in der deutschen Rezeption’, in Jenseits der Grenzen: französische und deutsche Kunst vom Ancien Régime bis zur Gegenwart, eds Uwe Fleckner, Martin Schieder and Michael Zimmermann (Cologne: DuMont, 2000), 137–65 and Martin Schieder, Isabelle Ewig and Thomas W. Gaehtgens, eds, In die Freiheit geworfen: Positionen zur deutschfranzösischen Kunstgeschichte nach 1945 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2006). 44 Tägliche Rundschau, 19 and 24 November 1948. This quotation appears in the second article from 24 November. 45 Nicolai van der Meulen, ‘Der Drang zum Wesen, der Zwang zur Freiheit. Zur Kubismusrezeption in Deutschland zwischen, 1945 und 1960’, in Freiheit, eds Schieder, Ewig and Gaehtgens, 183–204. 46 Useful on the Formalism Debate: Eckhart Gillen, Feindliche Brüder? Der Kalte Krieg und die deutsche Kunst, 1945–1990 (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2001), 20–5. On Soviet art policy, see Steinkamp, Das unerwünschte Erbe, 179–90. 47 Wilhelm Girnus, Neues Deutschland, 18 February 1951, JMS. 48 In the West, abstraction remained a topic of great debate that culminated in a series of symposia – the Darmstädter Gespräche, which took place in 1950 and invited prominent critics, artists, sociologists and academics to discuss the value and meaning of abstract art. See Hans Belting, ‘Das “Abendland” als Ausweg’, in Die Deutschen und ihre Kunst. Ein schwieriges Erbe (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1992), 49–55. 49 Beate Marks-Hanßen, Innere Emigration? Verfemte Künstlerinnen und Künstler in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus (Berlin: Winter Industries Verlag, 2006), 3. For a concise history of the term, see John Klapper, Nonconformist Writing in Nazi Germany: The Literature of Inner Emigration (Rochester, New York: Camden House, 2015), 4 and 32–9. 50 Von Molo sent an open letter to Thomas Mann in which he begged German writers in exile to come back to Germany, published on 3 August 1945. The response came first from Frank Thiess, ‘Die innere Emigration’, Münchner Zeitung, 18 August 1945, and, later, Thomas Mann, ‘Warum ich nicht zurückkehre’, Münchner Zeitung, 12 Oktober 1945. For a useful overview of the debate, see Marks-Hanßen, Innere Emigration?, 8–10, and Reinhold Grimm, ‘Innere Emigration als Lebensform’, in Exil und innere Emigration, eds Reinhold Grimm and Jost Hermand (Frankfurt a.M.: AthenäumVerlag, 1972), 35–41. 51 Michael Philipp, ‘Distanz und Anpassung: Sozialgeschichtliche Aspekte der Inneren Emigration’, in Aspekte der künstlerischen Inneren Emigration, 1933–1945, eds Claus-Dieter Krohn, Erwin Rotermund and Lutz Winkler (Munich: Text und Kritik, 1994), 13.

 Notes 201 52 On writers, Klapper, Nonconformist Writing in Nazi Germany as before and also Ralf Schnell, ‘Literarische Innere Emigration’, in Schnell, Dichtung in finsteren Zeiten. Deutsche Literatur und Faschismus (Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1998), 120–60. 53 Karl Hofer to Gerhard Marcks, letter dated 17 January 1947, reproduced in Karl Hofer, Karl Hofer, Malerei hat eine Zukunft: Briefe, Aufsätze, Reden, ed. Andreas Hüneke (Weimar: Kiepenheuer, 1991), 276. Hofer was involved with artists at the Berliner Hochschule who became active in the resistance. Insightful here: Christine Fischer-Defoy, Kunst – im Aufbau ein Stein – Die Westberliner Kunst und Musikhochschulen im Spannungsfeld der Nachkriegszeit (Berlin: Hochschule der Künste Berlin, 1991), 175–97. 54 See Placzek’s contribution to exhibitions from 1939 until 1943 online on the Große Deutsche Kunstausstellung database: http://www​.gdk​-research​.de. 55 In 1948 the truth about Placzek’s Nazi Party membership was revealed. Schöne, Freie Künstler, 30. 56 David Elliott, ‘Absent Guests – art, truth and paradox in the art of the German Democratic Republic’, in The Divided Heritage: Themes and Problems in German Modernism, ed. Irit Rogoff (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 31–2. 57 Klaus Sator, ‘Der deutsche Widerstand gegen den Nationalsozialismus’, in Exil und Widerstand, ed. Claus-Dieter Krohn (Munich: Text und Kritik, 1997), 150–61. 58 For useful discussions foregrounding agitational/political art and style during the 1930s, Harald Olbrich, ‘Kunst und Antifaschistischer Widerstand – Gegensätze, Verschiedenheiten und Einheit’, in Hiepe et al., Widerstand statt Anpassung, 90–6. 59 Klaus Herding, ‘Arbeit am Bild als Widerstandsleistung’, in Die Ästhetik des Widerstandes, ed. Alexander Stephan (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1984), 246–84. Herding’s essay explores the use of artwork throughout Peter Weiss’s trilogy The Aesthetics of Resistance (1975–81, Suhrkamp), for whom artworks that inspire political action (throughout history) are mostly figurative. 60 The exhibition ‘Abstrakte Maler der inneren Emigration’ held at the Landesmuseum Mainz in 1985 and its catalogue by Max Ackermann and Berthold Roland foregrounded the work of artists such as Ernst Wilhelm Nay, Otto Ritschl, Theodor Werner and Fritz Winter, but made little attempt at discussing the dissenting potential of the work. This approach is also not perhaps surprising given the place and publisher/sponsor of the exhibition (Bonn: Bundeskanzleramt, 1984). However, the more recent, Rainer Zimmermann, Expressiver Realismus: Malerei der verschollenen Generation (Munich: Hirmer Verlag, 1994), adopts a similar approach. 61 Roh, ‘Entartete’ Kunst: Kunstbarbarei im Dritten Reich (Hannover: FackelträgerVerlag, 1962), 63–5 and 120. 62 Roth ed. with Voermann, Inventur, 34. 63 ‘Cryptic’, see Elliott, ‘Absent Guests’, 31–2. 64 On the agitational potential of Heartfield (and George Grosz): Walter Benjamin, ‘Pariser Briefe II’, in Gesammelte Schriften 3: Abhandlungen, ed. Rolf Tiedemann (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, [1935] 1980), 495–507. More recently, Harald Olbrich, ‘John Heartfield und Max Lingner: zwei Modelle antifaschistischer Kunst’, in Der Spanische Bürgerkrieg und die bildenden Künste, ed. Jutta Held (Hamburg: Argument, 1989), 152–64. See also discussion on Heartfield in Hiepe et al., Widerstand statt Anpassung, 21–5 and 114–19. The reiterative power of Heartfield’s work to signal successful forms of resistance is demonstrated by his work on the front cover of Deborah Ascher Barnstone and Elizabeth Otto’s edited collection, Art and Resistance in Germany (London, Oxford and New York: Bloomsbury, 2019).

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65 On print and resistance: Karl-Ludwig Hofmann, ‘Exilland Tschechoslowakei ein Zentrum der antifaschistischen Satire, 1933–1939’, in Hiepe et al., Widerstand statt Anpassung, 99–125. 66 Klapper, Nonconformist Writing in Nazi Germany, 40. 67 On this reluctance: Martin Schieder, Im Blick des Anderen: Die deutsch-französischen Kunstbeziehungen, 1945–1959 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2005), 334 and 354. 68 Schöne, Freie Künstler, 3 and 32. 69 Wolfgang Weyrauch, Ulenspiegel, 3, no. 2, February 1947, unpaginated. 70 In 1949 Ulenspiegel switched to a Soviet licence. Sandberg was interned at the KZ Buchenwald and Weisenborn in Zuchthaus Luckau. For a moving account, see Günter Weisenborn and Joy Weisenborn, Wenn wir endlich frei sind. Briefe, Lieder, Kassiber, 1942–1943 (Zürich: Arche, 1984). 71 Ulenspiegel, 4, no. 3, February 1948, 2. 72 The importance of Ulenspiegel in this respect is discussed briefly by Judith Elisabeth Weiss in ‘Surrealismus zwischen Subversion und Ordnung. Deutsche Nachkriegsmoderne und Ausstellungspraxis nach 1945’, in ‘Der Surrealismus in Deutschland (?)’: Interdisziplinäre Studien, eds Isabel Fischer and Karina Schuller (Münster: Münsterscher Verlag für Wissenschaft, 2017), 177–95. 73 Roters et al., Stationen der Moderne, 358. 74 Franz Roh, ‘Picasso oder die Individuationsbreite des Menschen’, Prisma 1, no. 3 (1947): 15–19 (16). 75 Ulenspiegel, 5, no. 3, March 1948, 7. 76 ‘Bilder können Menschen krank machen sie in Raserei versetzen, ja sogar töten! Vielleicht sind geistige Bakterien und Virusse drauf, die voller Lust warten sich in des Opfers Hirn zu bohren. Wir erleben ähnliches alle Tage auf unseren Ausstellungen wo Plastiken zertöppert, Bilder bekritzelt verschmiert und mit heimlichen Dolchstössen verwundet werden. Welch ein Leben blüht in diesen Ruinen!’ Mammen to Max Delbrück, 6 October 1946, JMS. 77 Mammen to Max Delbrück, 26 July 1946, JMS. 78 Mammen to Steffie Schaefer-Nathan, 5 March 1947, JMS. 79 Mammen to Max Delbrück, 27 March 1947, JMS. 80 Mammen to Max Delbrück, 6 October 1946, JMS. 81 ‘[ein] Kikeriki-Monstrum Trompete blasend, Säbel haltend, Pferd sitzend. Pferd steckt Zunge raus und hat sehr viel Zähne, es gibt Leute, die behaupten, es hätte ein Klavier verschluckt und Reste der Tastatur wären noch nicht heruntergewürgt.’ Mammen to Max Delbrück, 8 December 1946, JMS. 82 Seng, Tägliche Rundschau, 1945. The exact date of the newspaper cutting is unknown, JMS. 83 Seng turned her venom on other exhibitions at Galerie Rosen, too, calling the exhibits a ‘Panopticon of absurdity’ and a ‘pathological fantasy’. Seng, ‘Moderne Kunst? Nein, aber eine Galerie der Unsinnigkeiten’, Tägliche Rundschau, 20 October 1945, reprinted in Krause, Gerd Rosen, 99.

Chapter 3 1 Mammen to Hans Thiemann, 20 June 1971, reproduced in Jeanne Mammen/Hans Thiemann, ed. JMG e.V. 30.

 Notes 203 2 John Klapper’s assessment suggests the terms are also used indiscriminately, Nonconformist Writing in Nazi Germany: The Literature of Inner Emigration (Rochester, New York: Camden House, 2015), 3. 3 Ibid., 4. 4 I use ‘inner emigration’ as a descriptive not an evaluative term. It is not my intention to undermine exilic experiences (forced or otherwise) in this study. 5 I deliberately do not use terms such as ‘resistance’, which could imply forms of public and, in some cases, organized activity against a regime, or indeed, could be confused with ‘the Resistance’. As James A. van Dyke has emphasized, the term ‘resistance’ is used in art history to over-determine artists’ motivations and interpret artworks. ‘On the Possibility of Resistance in Two Silverpoints by Otto Dix’, in Art and Resistance, eds Ascher Barnstone and Otto, 151. I also avoid the phrase ‘inner resistance’ (inneren Widerstand leisten), sometimes used to describe the actions of inner émigrés, as this could imply forms of interiority. I follow Ian Kershaw’s use of ‘dissent’, as a broader term, which encompasses more indirect as well as direct oppositional forms. Kershaw, The Nazi Dictatorship, 240. 6 Ross, Media and the Making of Modern Germany, 54. 7 Goebbels had also set his initial hopes on the style of New Objectivity. For excellent overviews: ‘Otto Schreiber and the Pro-Expressionist Students’, in Petropoulos, Artists under Hitler, 28–48 and Hildegard Brenner, ‘Art in the Political Power Struggle of 1933 and 1934’, in Republic to Reich: The Making of the Nazi Revolution, ed. Hajo Holborn (New York: Vintage Books, 1972), 395–434. 8 For example, see articles by Eckart von Sydow, Werner Peiner and Gustav Barthel published in Die Weltkunst between 1931 and 1932. For extracts and analysis, Baumann, Wortgefechte, 241–3. 9 For example, Feistel-Rohmeder, ‘Neue Sachlichkeit’, Deutsche Kunstkorrespondenz, 6 November 1927, 25–6, cited in Baumann, Wortgefechte, 249. 10 Martin Papenbrock and Gabriele Saure’s inventory of some 400 National Socialist exhibitions and their exhibitors between 1933 and 1945 is an indispensable source in showing the extent to which modernist art was still on display during the 1930s. Kunst des frühen 20. Jahrhunderts in deutschen Ausstellungen. Teil 1: Ausstellungen deutscher Gegenwartskunst in der NS-Zeit (Weimar: VDG, 2000). On the problematic of modernist art and fascism, see also Mark Antliff, ‘Fascism, Modernism, and Modernity’, Art Bulletin 84, no. 1 (2002): 148–69 and, more recently, Michael Tymkiw, Nazi Exhibition Design and Modernism (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2018). 11 The exhibition took place in the Atelierhaus am Schöneberger Ufer 38 in Berlin and was held from 12 March to 3 April 1933. 12 F. B. ‘Zwei Austellungen’, Völkischer Beobachter Sonnabend, 18 March 1933, JMS. 13 L. B. ‘Frühling bei den Künstlerinnen’, Berliner Zeitung, 21 March 1933, JMS. 14 On this point, Olaf Peters: https://www​.kulturstiftung​.de​/kuenstler​-im​-dritten​-reich/. 15 On this type of ‘Emigration nach Berlin’, Rainer Zimmermann, Expressiver Realismus, 142. 16 Olaf Peters, ‘Intransigent Realism: Otto Dix between the World Wars’, in Otto Dix, ed. Olaf Peters, exh. cat. Neue Galerie, New York (New York: Prestel, 2010), 13–32. For Dix and potential forms of resistance more recently, van Dyke, ‘On the Possibility of Resistance’, 151–72. 17 The Expressionist Emil Nolde is a case in point. See Fulda and Soika, ‘Emil Nolde’, 186–95.

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18 Grimm Reinhold, ‘Innere Emigration als Lebensform’, in Exil und innere Emigration, eds Reinhold Grimm and Jost Hermand (Frankfurt a.M.: Athenäum-Verlag, 1972), 48–9. 19 For an interesting discussion of artists’ post hoc revisions and self-stylization, see Petropoulos, Artists under Hitler, 303–30. See also Fulda and Soika, Pechstein, in which the authors suggest the artist tried to shape his public persona after the war. 20 Carmela Thiele, ed., with Christophe Brockhaus and Jörn Merkert, Hans Uhlmann, 1900–1975: Die Aquarelle und Zeichnungen: mit dem Werkverzeichnis exh. cat. Wilhelm-Lehmbruck-Museum, Duisburg (Duisburg: Wilhelm-Lehmbruck-Museum, 1990), 27. 21 Carmela Thiele, ‘Jeanne Mammen and Hans Uhlmann: An Artists’ Friendship in Berlin during the Nazi and Postwar Years’, in Jeanne Mammen The Observer, eds Köhler and Lütgens, 170. 22 Deutsche Zentral-Zeitung was published by the Zentralorgan des ZK der KP(D)SU ‘PRAWDA’ in Moscow. 23 The article specifically describes a fracas in Berlin-Moabit between the proletariat and the SA. 24 Kinkel, ‘Mutter Courage malt’, FAZ, 21, JMS. 25 On this point, see Ross, Media and the Making of Modern Germany, 323–6. 26 Dietrich Grünwald, ‘Die Einfalt des “Einfältigsten” der Simplicissimus von 1933– 1945’, in Zwischen Widerstand und Anpassung, ed. Volkmann, 41–50, and Ross, Media and the Making of Modern Germany, 324–5. 27 For compelling discussions of political violence in Berlin, see Pamela E. Swett, Neighbours and Enemies: The Culture of Radicalism in Berlin, 1929–1933 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). 28 Bernhard Fulda, Press and Politics in the Weimar Republic (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 221. 29 Martin Broszat, Hitler and the Collapse of Weimar Germany (Oxford: Berg, 1987), 32–6. 30 Karl-Heinz Metzger and Ulrich Dunker, Der Kurfürstendamm: Leben und Mythos des Boulevards in 100 Jahren deutscher Geschichte (Berlin: Konopka 1986), 155–6. 31 Mary Fulbrook, The Divided Nation: A History of Germany, 1918–1990. 2nd edn. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002), 62, and Klapper, Nonconformist Writing, 19. 32 Hans-Ernst Mittig, ‘Art and Oppression in Fascist Germany’, in The Divided Heritage, ed. Rogoff, 191. 33 Picasso’s statement dated 24 March 1945 cited in Michael Klepsch, Picasso und der Nationalsozialismus (Düsseldorf: Patmos, 2007), 203. 34 Kinkel, ‘Encounter’, 217. 35 Briony Fer, Abstract Art (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997), 21. 36 Mammen may have travelled to Paris upon more occasions than this. Information in her passport shows she went to Belgium and France in 1926 and 1929, respectively. There is no specific documentation in her passport relating to her 1937 trip to Paris discussed in Chapter 4 of this book. 37 ‘Zirkus’, in Picassos Welt: Ein Lexikon, vol. 2, ed. Johannes M. Fox (Halle: ProjekteVerlag Cornelius, 2010), 1351–3. 38 Thomas Kellein, Pierrot Melancholie und Maske exh. cat. Haus der Kunst, Munich (New York: Prestel, 1995), 10. 39 Mammen to Hans Thiemann, 20 June 1971, reproduced in Jeanne Mammen, 1890–1976, eds JMG e.V., 30.

 Notes 205 40 Mammen to Hans Thiemann, 12 April 1973 in Jeanne Mammen/ Hans Thiemann, eds JMG e.V., 35. 41 ‘Ende meiner “realistischen” Periode, Übergang zu einer den Gegenstand aufbrechenden aggressiven Malweise (als Kontrast zum offiziellen Kunstbetrieb)’. Mammen, ‘Äußerlicher Kurzbericht’, unpaginated, JMS. 42 On this point, see Jutta Held, ‘Faschismus und Krieg. Positionen der Avantgarde in den dreißiger Jahren’, in Der Spanische Bürgerkrieg, ed. Held, 53–75. For the wider context, see Vernon L. Lidtke, ‘Abstract Art and Left-Wing Politics in the Weimar Republic’, Central European History 37, no.1 (2004): 49–90. 43 Klepsch, Picasso, 45–6. 44 The three images were labelled simply ‘Details from image of the “modern” school’. The paintings are, in fact, Picasso’s Cubist work Friendship (1908) oil; Seated Nude Drying her Feet (1921) pastel; and Nude with Drapery (c. 1922), oil. 45 Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, trans. Ralph Manheim (London: Pimlico [1969] 1998), 234–5. 46 ‘Weltanschauung und Kommunalpolitik’, NSDAP-Versammlung in München, 29 November 1929, in Adolf Hitler, Hitler. Reden, Schriften, Anordnungen: Februar 1925 bis Januar 1933, vol. 3, Zwischen den Reichstagswahlen: Juli 1928 – September 1930. Part II: März 1929 – Dezember 1929, commentary and ed. Klaus A. Lankheit (Munich: Sauer, 1994), 488. 47 Harrison, ‘Abstraction’, in Charles Harrison, Francis Frascina and Gillian Perry, Primitivism, Cubism, Abstraction: The Early Twentieth Century (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), 185. 48 Klepsch, Picasso, 103–4. 49 Also Harlekin (c. 1930–4) (G.22) and Choclet Kiddy (c. 1935–40) (G.58), tempera and collage on cardboard in Werkverzeichnis, ed. Merkert, with Döpping and Klünner, 201 and 205. 50 Kellein, Pierrot, 53–4. 51 James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990), 162–3. 52 Barbara Correll, The End of Conduct: Grobianus and the Renaissance Text of the Subject (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996), 58. 53 Mammen’s volumes: Ein kurzweilig Lesen von Till Eulenspiegel: vollständige Textausgabe des Volksbuches von 1515 und 1519, ed. Günter Jäckel (Leipzig: Reclam, undated); Die Streiche des Pfaffen Amis, ed. Karl Pannier (Leipzig: Reclam, 1930); François Rabelais, Œuvres (Paris: Ernest Flammarion, 1933–5); and Sebastian Brant, Narrenschiff, ed. H. A. Junghans (Leipzig: Reclam, 1964). 54 For a useful summary of devices, Klapper, Nonconformist Writing, 5–6 and 82–95. 55 The essay is reproduced in Sternberger, Figuren der Fabel: Essays (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1950), 25–42. For a useful analysis, see also, Ehrke-Rotermund and Rotermund, Zwischenreiche, 209–10. 56 It was Bertolt Brecht in his document titled, ‘Fünf Schwierigkeiten beim Schreiben der Wahrheit’ (Five Difficulties in Writing the Truth) written in Danish exile in 1935, which explained how to camouflage your writing. See Klapper, Nonconformist Writing, 84–6. 57 Ehrke-Rotermund is also one of the few scholars to use the concept of ‘camouflage’ in relation to artists. ‘Camoufliertes Malen im “Dritten Reich”. Otto Dix zwischen Widerstand und Innerer Emigration’, in Aspekte der künstlerischen Inneren Emigration, eds Krohn, Rotermund and Winkler, 126–55. For an incisive

206

58 59 60

61 62 63 64 65 66

67 68 69 70 71 72

73

74

Notes discussion on allegorical works in art history, see also, Maike Steinkamp, ‘Propheten des Unheils – allegorische und symbolische Kunst in Deutschland zwischen 1930 und 1939’, in Historische Konzeptionen von Körperlichkeit. Interdisziplinäre Zugänge zu Transformationsprozessen in der Geschichte, ed. Stephan Theilig (Berlin: Franke & Timme Verlag für Wissenschaftliche Literatur, 2011), 137–56. Peters, ‘Intransigent Realism’, 27. Maggie M. Cao, ‘Abbott Thayer and the Invention of Camouflage’, Art History 39, no. 3 (2016): 487. Rare examples of work by Karl Weinmair (1906–44) and Magnus Zeller (1888–1972) do exist. Karl Weinmair, Skizzenbuch aus dem 100jährigen Reich, ed. Richard Hiepe (Munich: Verlag Neue Münchner Galerie, 1973) and Dominik Bartmann, ‘Der Hitlerstaat – Zeller im Nationalsozialismus’, in Magnus Zeller: Entrückung und Aufruhr, eds Bartmann and Horst-Jörg Ludwig, exh. cat., Stadtmuseum Berlin, Ephraim-Palais (Berlin: G&H Verlag, 2002), 111–19. Ascher Barnstone and Otto, eds, Art and Resistance, 7. Kuby was subsequently demoted. His attitude towards the Nazis is discussed in detail in the following chapter. Mammen to Erich Kuby, 28 January 1943, JMS, also published in Erich Kuby, Mein Krieg, Aufzeichnungen 1939–1944 (Munich: Knesebeck & Schuler, 1989). Desiderius Erasmus, In Praise of Folly, trans. Clarence H. Miller (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1979), 98. On Kuby’s life: Susanne Böhme-Kuby and Benedikt Kuby, Erich Kuby zum 100: Aufzeichnungen 1939–1945, exh. cat. Monacensia Literaturarchiv Berlin (Hamburg: Hyperzine Verlag, 2010). In Mammen’s library: Leo M. Tolstoi, Krieg und Frieden, trans. Ernst Strenge, vol. 1 (Leipzig: Reclam, undated) [dedication: ‘für JM von Erich [Kuby], 21.11.40’] and Leo M. Tolstoi: Krieg und Frieden, trans. Ernst Strenge, vol. 2 (Leipzig: Reclam, undated) [with dedication: ‘für JM von Erich [Kuby], 21.11.40’]. Hannelore Gärtner, ‘Das tausendjährige Reich von Hans Grundig’, in Der Spanische Bürgerkrieg, ed. Held, 167. Gründig in 1962 cited in Ibid., 172. Kröhnke spent part of his artist’s training between 1927 and 1932 in Paris. Anka Kröhnke, Uwe Haupenthal, and Wilfried Schröder, Verbrannte Bilder von Walter Kröhnke und Louise Rösler (Hamburg: Konkret Literatur, 2014), 7. Ibid., 180. Eighteen works arrived in London. Their whereabouts are unfortunately still unknown. Author’s email correspondence with Anka Kröhnke. See also: https://www. museum-atelierhaus-roesler-kroehnke.de/. Entry dated 1 July 1934, in Thiele, ‘Jeanne Mammen and Hans Uhlmann’, 172. Her prison visiting permit is preserved in the Mammen archive. Books in Mammen’s library also contain dedications from Uhlmann, including a 1930 edition of Alfred Döblin’s Berlin Alexanderplatz. In Mammen’s library: Œuvres de Arthur Rimbaud: vers et proses, preface Paul Claudel (Paris: Mercure de France, 1929) and Arthur Rimbaud, Illuminations, introduction, and notes, H. de Bouillane de Lacoste (Paris: Mercure de France, 1949). From now on referred to as Season. It remains unknown exactly when she began translating, but it was probably sometime during her period of inner emigration.

 Notes 207

75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96

Annelie Lütgens, ‘An Enduring Commitment between Poetry and Abstraction: The Late Work of Jeanne Mammen’, in Jeanne Mammen The Observer, eds Köhler and Lütgens, 219. Mammen’s manuscript is missing ‘First Delirium’ from Rimbaud’s original poem. Enid Starkie, Arthur Rimbaud: Life and Work (London: Faber and Faber, 1961), 31–2. Arthur Rimbaud, A Season in Hell / The Illuminations, trans. and intro. Enid Rhodes Peschel (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973), 228. Kate Sturge, ‘The Alien Within’: Translation into German During the Nazi Regime (Munich: Iudicium, 2004), 41. Daniela Rauthe, ‘Ich ist ein anderer’. Die deutschsprachige Rezeption Arthur Rimbauds (Weimar: VDG Verlag, 2002), 125 notes 1 and 2 and 31–82, respectively. Rimbaud, Complete Works – Season, trans. and intro. Paul Schmidt (New York: Harper Perennial, 2008), 219. German translation from Jeanne Mammen, Rimbaud, eds Glasmeier and Lütgens, 55. Rimbaud, Complete Works, 223 and Mammen, Rimbaud, 61. For a comprehensive lists of words and expressions associated with National Socialist language, see C. J. Wells, German: A Linguistic History to 1945 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), 407–20. For more on language and denazification, see Chapter 6 in this book. On Mammen’s translation process for Rimbaud’s Illuminations, see Johannes Thun, ‘“Tu as bien fait de partir”. Jeanne Mammen, René Char and Arthur Rimbaud’, in Jeanne Mammen, ed. Förderverein der JMS e.V., 158–77, and Chapter 6 of this book. Harrison, ‘Abstraction’, 197–8. Raymond Williams, ‘Language and the avant garde’, in The Politics of Modernism: Against the New Conformists, 7th ed. (London and New York: Verso, [1989] 1997), 65–80. Rimbaud, Complete Works, 232. In her library, Mammen also owned publications by Stéphane Mallarmé, Guillaume Apollinaire and Alfred Jarry, whose writings were also interested in language autonomy. Kinkel, ‘Encounter’, 217. Alfred H. Barr Jr., Picasso: Fifty Years of His Art, exh. cat. Museum of Modern Art, New York (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1946), 273. Mammen’s handwritten translation in pencil is held in the artist’s archive and is taken from Christian Zervos, ‘Conversation avec Picasso’, Cahiers d’Art 10, no. 10 (1935): 173–8. For an English translation of the original interview, see Barr, Picasso. Kate Sturge’s account provides a useful analysis of ten case-study translations of foreign literature during this period, ‘The Alien Within’ as before. See Sturge’s account of patterns in the publication of translation in Chapter 2, which includes useful graphics charting the types of translations produced and their dates. Ibid. Season was never published during the artist’s lifetime although a letter indicates that she had intended to do so. Mammen to Johannes Hübner, 20 June 1961, JMS. On Martin Broszat and the problematic concept of Resistenz, see the introduction to this book and also, William J. Dodd’s chapter, ‘Voices at Home (III): The Case of the Frankfurter Zeitung’, in National Socialism, 187–225. Joseph Roth, ‘The Death of German Literature’, Le Mois (Paris) August 1933 reproduced in Roth, On the End of the World, trans. Will Stone (London: Hesperus Press, 2013), 9–11. The Chamber of Fine Arts included different professional groups (Fachgruppe) for architects, interior designers, sculptors, painters and graphic designers, commercial

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graphic designers (Gebrauchsgraphiker) as well as art dealers and art printers. For a useful overview: Nina Kubowitsch, ‘Die Reichskammer der bildenden Künste. Grenzsetzungen in der künstlerischen Freiheit’, in Künstler im Nationalsozialismus: Die ‘Deutsche Kunst’, die Kunstpolitik und die Berliner Kunsthochschule, ed. Wolfgang Ruppert (Cologne: Böhlau Verlag, 2015), 74–96. 97 Johanna Jeanne Mammen LAB: A Rep. 243-04 – 5578. The form is date stamped 14 January 1936. There is no documentation on record to confirm her guarantors. 98 Other scholars persuasively explore this paradox. See van Dyke, Franz Radziwill and Petropoulos, Artists under Hitler. 99 Hans Mommsen began arguing for the polycratic structures of the Nazi regime as a regime of competing agencies during the 1960s in his seminal work Beamtentum im Dritten Reich (1966). For recent works adopting Mommsen’s emphasis on the question of ‘totalitarianism’, see for example, Dodd’s discussion of hegemony and language in ‘The National Socialist Discourse “Community”: Norms and Contradictions’, in National Socialism, 45–69 (particularly 46–9). 100 Kubowitsch, ‘Reichskammer’, 81. 101 Notable examples are the artists Renée Sintenis and Max Pechstein. Britta E. Buhlmann, Renée Sintenis: Werkmonographie der Skulpturen (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1987), 29, and Fulda and Soika, Pechstein, 312 and 336. 102 Maria Derenda, ‘Käthe Kollwitz und die Zäsur von 1933: Eine Darstellung anhand ihrer Selbstzeugnisse’, in Künstler im Nationalsozialismus, ed. Ruppert, 245–60. 103 The Mammen archive owns stamped examples of her benefit cards from 27 February to 7 March 1933. Mammen confirms this in her ‘Äußerlicher Kurzbericht’, unpaginated, JMS. 104 Van Dyke, Franz Radziwill, 17. 105 On complexities of resistance, Broszat, Fröhlich and Wiesemann, eds, Bayern in der NS-Zeit, vol. 1, 12. 106 See, for example, many of the experiences of the artists’ inner émigré case studies in North Rhine-Westphalia, explored in Klaus Kösters, Anpassung, Überleben, Widerstand. Künstler im Nationalsozialismus (Münster: Aschendorff Verlag 2012). 107 Kershaw, The Nazi Dictatorship, 224. 108 Kinkel, ‘Mutter Courage malt’, FAZ, 21, JMS. 109 On this point: Hitler, ‘Die Aufgabe der nationalsozialistischen Frauenbewegung im Dienst an Familie und Staat’, ‘Rede auf der Zweiten Tagung der Gaufrauenschaftsleiterinnen der NSDAP in München’, in Adolf Hitler, Reden, vol. 5, Von der Reichspräsidentenwahl bis zur Machtergreifung. Part II, April 1932 – January 1933, commentary and eds Klaus A. Lankheit and Christian Hartmann (Munich: Sauer, 1998), 5. 110 Koonz, Mothers in the Fatherland. Women, the Family and Nazi Politics (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987). 111 ‘Betreff: Sondertagung für Organisationsfragen’ – Nüremberg, 20 August 1927, in Adolf Hitler, Reden, vol. 2, Vom Weimarer Parteitag bis zur Reichstagswahl Juli 1926 – Mai 1928. Part II: 2 August 1927 – Mai 1928, commentary and ed. Bärber Dusik (Munich: Sauer, 1992), 480. 112 Frevert, Women in German History, 218. 113 Ibid., particularly 217–39, 240–1 and 250. 114 Stephenson, Women, 51–2. 115 Baumann, Wortgefechte, 263, note 36. 116 Papenbrock and Saure, Kunst, 252–3.

 Notes 209 117 Paul Schultze-Naumburg, Kunst und Rasse (Munich: J. F. Lehmanns [1928] 1935), 92. Schultze-Naumburg’s comment could also be construed as relating specifically to women artists’ achievements in relation to nude painting. 118 Representations of women by artists such as Emilie von Hallavanya (see exhibition in 1938), Erich Erler (1938), Alfred Zschorsch (1941) and Hans Plangger (1941) shown at the Great German Art Exhibitions exemplify representations of the ideal woman in some of her officially sanctioned incarnations: http://www​.gdk​-research​.de for reproductions. 119 Eva-Maria Gehler comes to a similar conclusion regarding the careers of professional women writers during this period, with the exception of a few women authors used for propaganda purposes by the party. Gehler, Weibliche NS-Affinitäten, 38. 120 Henry Picker, Hitlers Tischgespräche im Führerhauptquartier (Stuttgart: Seewald Verlag, 1977), 117. 121 Figures in Papenbrock and Saure, Kunst, 43. 122 Reviewing the number of contributions by women artists from two exhibitions from the beginning and end of the Nazi regime (in Berlin) as a comparison gives an indication as to just how few women artists were included in official exhibitions. The 1934 Academy ‘Frühjahrs-Ausstellung’ included approximately eleven women artists as opposed to 210 male exhibitors. Although there were fewer exhibitions during the war, ten years later in 1943, still only thirteen women were included and approximately 139 men. Papenbrock and Saure, Kunst, 61 and 98–9. 123 Ibid., 87 and 94. 124 Ibid., 60–99. The Great German Art Exhibitions held annually at the House of German Art tell a similar story. Of the approximately 560 artists to exhibit in 1937, only 33 were women. Of the approximately 760 artists overall in 1943, only 80 were women. Exhibition numbers are based on the lists of artists documented on the Great German Art Exhibitions’ database: http://www​.gdk​-research​.de For Cauer’s and Steger’s positional responses to National Socialism: Nina Lübbren, ‘Authority and Ambiguity: Three Sculptors in National Socialist Germany’, in Art and Resistance, eds Ascher Barnstone and Otto, 55–74. 125 The notable increase in the number of women artists taking part in the Great German Art Exhibitions – highest in 1943 with 80 women exhibitors – might be explained by the idea that women increasingly took up roles as artists when men were on the front. On this point: Papenbrock and Saure, 36. 126 Frevert, Women in German History, 210. 127 There is no lack of persuasive scholarship that demonstrates the complex positionality of women to National Socialism – as perpetrators, victims, bystanders and resisters. Claudia Koonz’s work on motherhood in Nazi Germany remains formative in this respect, Mothers in the Fatherland. More recently, Christina Herkommer’s Frauen im Nationalsozialismus – Opfer oder Täterinnen? offers a detailed historiography of binary victim/perpetrator approaches to women’s involvement in Nazi Germany, exploring debates from the 1970s through to the present. She concludes, however, that these binaries continue to dominate approaches to narratives of this period (Munich: Martin Meidenbauer Verlag, 2005), 76–9. 128 Ibid., 251. 129 Johanna Jeanne Mammen LAB: A Rep. 243-04 – 5578. This second application form is almost identical to the first and date stamped 21 January 1936. 130 Annelie Lütgens suggests something similar, ‘Nur Ein paar Augen sein’, 236, note 72.

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131 Johanna Jeanne Mammen LAB: A Rep. 243-04 – 5578. To complete an application, artists received a document outlining required information that they should present to the chamber, which included examples of their work and passportsized photographs. Mammen’s personal file contains five extra copies of passport photographs of the artist. 132 On the importance of anonymity as a way of conquering fear under oppression: Scott, Domination, 140–52. 133 Annemarie Jaeggi and Margot Schmidt, Elsa Thiemann: Fotografin, exh. cat. Bauhaus Archiv and Berlinische Galerie, Berlin (Berlin: Kupfergraben-Verlag, 2004), 10. The personal files of Elsa Franke LAB: A Rep. 243-04 – 2156, do not contain her original application. Extant documentation relating to her membership fees confirms registration as a ‘Gebrauchsgraphiker’ with membership number G3297. 134 Schmidt, Elsa Thiemann, 11. 135 Vivid essays include Hans Jürgen Meinik, ‘Die Ateliergemeinschaft Klosterstraße innerhalb der nationalsozialistischen Kunst- und Kulturpolitik’, in Ateliergemeinschaft Klosterstraße 1933–1945 Berlin Künstler in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus, ed. Angela Lammert, exh. cat. Käthe Kollwitz Museum, Cologne & Akademie der Künste (Berlin: Edition Hentrich, 1994), 12–39 and Angela Lammert, ‘Ateliergemeinschaft Klosterstrasse. Neulektüre eines Ausstellungsprojektes’, in Künstler im Nationalsozialismus, ed. Ruppert, 325–50. 136 Darius Cierpialkowski and Carina Keil, ‘Der Verein der Berliner Künstlerinnen in der Zeit zwischen, 1933 und 1945’, in Profession ohne Tradition. 125 Jahre Verein der Berliner Künstlerinnen, ed. Dietmar Fuhrmann (Berlin: Kupfergraben, 1992), 391–2. 137 Ibid. 392. In her study of inner émigré women writers, Eva-Maria Gehler traces a similar pattern. Women wrote not ‘as women’ but ‘as mother’ in the first instance, to produce what might actually have been critical texts. See Gehler, Weibliche NS-Affinitäten. 138 Beate Schmeichel-Falkenberg citing Gabriele Kreis in the introduction in Frauen im Exil, eds Siglinde Bolbecher, Beate Schmeichel-Falkenberg (Klangenfurt: Drava, 2007), 16. Similar points are raised by Charmian Brinson and Andrea Hammel, eds, Exile and Gender I: Literature and the Press (Leiden: Brill Rudolpi, 2016) and Gehler, Weibliche NS-Affinitäten in their respective introductions. 139 Berger, ‘Avantgarde – Abschied vom 20. Jahrhundert’, in Da-da zwischen Reden, Zu Hannah Höch, eds Jula Dech and Ellen Maurer (Berlin: Orlanda-Frauenverlag, 1991), 204. Eva Züchner suggests a similar reading of the experience of exile in ‘Frauenfreunde und Kunstfreundinnen Zwei Porträt-Ausstellungen am Ende der zwanziger Jahre’, in Profession ohne Tradition, ed. Fuhrmann, 269. 140 For the range of her graphic work: H. K. Frenzel, Gebrauchsgraphik – International Advertising Art Catalogue. March (Berlin: Phönix Illustrationensdruck Verlag, 1929), 36–41. 141 John Buck, ed., Albert Schaefer-Ast: Letters from East Germany: 1946–1951, trans. Amanda Price (Abbots Langley: Rochart, 2008), 7–9. 142 Brief accounts of the hardship Schaefer-Nathan and her daughter encountered are also found in Irene Matthews’ memoir. Matthews (née David), who was the granddaughter of Berlin banker Carl Levy (1856–1938), became a close friend of Schaefer-Nathan’s daughter, Susanne; they both went to school together in Berlin and were reunited as émigrés in London. Matthews, Out of Nazi Germany and Trying to Find my Way (London: Minerva Press, 2000), 88–90. 143 Mammen to Steffie Schaefer-Nathan, 15 August 1946, JMS.

 Notes 211 144 Mammen to Steffie Schaefer-Nathan, 5 March 1947, JMS. 145 Gaffron was an expert on photosynthesis and bio-chemical processes of plant metabolism: Reinhard Rürup and Michael Schüring, Schicksale und Karrieren. Gedenkbuch für die von den Nationalsozialisten aus der Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft vertriebenen Forscherinnen und Forscher (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2008), 199–201. 146 Böhme-Kuby and Kuby, Erich Kuby zum 100, 92. 147 Delbrück was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1969 for his work on genetic structures and viruses. Rink, ed., Max Delbrück, 143. 148 Rürup and Schüring, Schicksale, 200. 149 Ibid. 150 For vivid accounts of their family life: Emmi Bonhoeffer, Essay, Gespräch, Erinnerung (Berlin: Lukas Verlag, 2005), 43–67. 151 The group attracted support from many different quarters, including a network of artists associated with Berlin’s Kunst Hochschule, see Fischer-Defoy, Kunst, im Aufbau, 175–97 and brief discussion of Karl Hofer in Chapter 2 of this book. 152 Sunday evenings were reserved for the gathering of the Delbrück and Harnack families. Adolf von Harnack was a Professor of Theology and married Max Delbrück’s aunt. Their son, Ernst von Harnack, was the cousin of Red Orchestra leader Arvid Harnack. Bonhoeffer, Essay, 66. 153 Rürup and Schüring, Schicksale, 170. Both Arvid Harnack and Klaus Bonhoeffer were executed in 1945. 154 Hans Delbrück’s problematic reception in Germany is summarized in Christopher Bassford, Clausewitz in English: The Reception of Clausewitz in Britain and America, 1815–1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994) 177–9. 155 Ernst Peter Fischer and Carlo Lipson, Thinking about Science: Max Delbrück and the Origins of Molecular Biology (New York and London: Norton and Company, 1988), 72–4, and Rürup and Schüring Schicksale, 34 and 44. 156 Mammen to Max Delbrück, 17 September 1967 reproduced in Jeanne Mammen, 1890–1976, JMG eds, 1978, 137. 157 Scott, Domination, 200. 158 Rink, ed., Max Delbrück, 64. 159 Scott, Domination, 188 and 200, and in particular ‘The Infrapolitics of Subordinate Groups’, 183–201. 160 Mittig, ‘Art and Oppression in Fascist Germany’, 203–4. 161 Werner Haftmann highlights the importance of private collectors for inner émigré artists. Haftmann, Verfemte Kunst, 28. Also, Peter Chametzky’s compelling discussions on the private sharing of subversive anti-Nazi postcards: ‘From Anti-Nazi Postcards to Anti-Trump Social Media: Laughter as Resistance, Opposition or Cold Comfort?’ in Art and Resistance, eds Ascher Barnstone and Otto, 193–216. 162 Hanna Bekker von Rath, for example, organized exhibitions of prohibited artists’ work in her Berlin flat. Dieter Scholz and Maria Obenaus, eds Die schwarzen Jahre: Geschichten einer Sammlung, 1933–1945, exh. cat, Nationalgalerie Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Berlin: Verbrecher Verlag, 2015), 228. On the importance of private residences, see also Kösters, Anpassung, Überleben, Widerstand, 28. 163 Lammert, ed., Ateliergemeinschaft Klosterstraße, 182. However, the studio was not entirely unknown to the Nazis. 164 Kröhnke, Verbrannte Bilder, 187.

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165 Kuby in Jeanne Mammen, 1890–1976, eds JMG e.V., 115–16. 166 On collecting and ‘personhood’ more broadly during the 1930s and 1940s, see Inventur, ed. Roth with Voermann, 28–30. 167 Delbrück to Mammen, 1 May 1938, in Max Delbrück, ed. Rink, 66–7. 168 Hans Kinkel, ‘Mutter Courage Malt’, FAZ, 21, JMS. 169 On civil courage, Broszat, ‘A Social and Historical Typography of the German Opposition’, 33.

Chapter 4 1 Mammen, ‘Äußerlicher Kurzbericht’, unpaginated, JMS. 2 Kuby, Mein Krieg, 199. 3 On the problematic of evaluating Nazi art: Achim Preiß, ‘Vorwort’, in Kunst auf Befehl?: Dreiunddreißig bis Fünfundvierzig, eds Bazon Brock and Achim Preiß (Munich: Klinkhardt and Biermann, 1990), 7–8 and Belting, ‘Das “Abendland” als Ausweg’. 4 Ross, Media and the Making of Modern Germany, 343. 5 On women on the home front and shortages, Stephenson, Women, 96–100. 6 Rürup and Selwyn, Berlin 1945, 12–13. 7 Kinkel, ‘Encounter’, 215. 8 To get hold of cardboard, you needed ration coupons. On this point: Ilse-Margret Vogel, Bad Times, Good Friends (New York: The Sheep Meadow Press, Riverdale-onHudson, 2001), 52–3. 9 It is unclear exactly how much work. The artist herself confirmed that some of her lithographic prints from Bilitis were damaged. See Chapter 1. 10 ‘Im Krieg hat man mir oben, im Kabuff, furchtbar viel geklaut. Also: gut aufgeräumt’. For a slightly different translation, see Kinkel, ‘Encounter’, 215. 11 Mammen’s archive holds a stamped and signed certificate issued by the Reichsluftschutzbund, dated 30 July 1938, that confirms that she was trained with a ‘Fachausbildung als Hausfeuerwehr’. 12 Kinkel, ‘Encounter’, 215. 13 Pastelak-Price and Quitsch, ‘Biography’, 191. 14 Ibid., 192. 15 Kuby, Mein Krieg, 11 September 1939, 24, and 8/9 November 1939, 27, note 25. 16 Mammen to Erich Kuby, 26 April 1942, reproduced in Ibid., 172–3. 17 On diary writing as dissent in the private sphere, Dodd, National Socialism and German Discourse, 113–54. 18 Mammen to Kuby, 26 April 1942, reproduced in Kuby, Mein Krieg, 172–3, and Mammen to Kuby, 28 January 1943, 226–8. 19 Mammen to Edith Kuby-Schumacher, 26 December 1942, Ibid., 214. 20 Mammen to Kuby, 26 April 1942, Ibid., 172–3. 21 For this creative model, see Polish psychologist Kazimierz Dabrowski, explored in Robert J. Sternberg and Todd I. Lubart, Defying the Crowd: Cultivating Creativity in a Culture of Conformity (New York: The Free Press, 1995), 251–82. 22 Ross, Media and the Making of Modern Germany, 346. 23 6 December 1942, Kuby, Mein Krieg, 292. 24 Karl von Clausewitz, Grundgedanken über Krieg und Kriegsführung, ed. Arthur Schurig (Leipzig: Insel Verlag, 1915), 16.

 Notes 213 25 On the endurance of Clausewitzian thinking, Paul Fox, The Image of the Soldier in German Culture, 1871–1933 (London: Bloomsbury, 2018), 23–8. 26 Peter M. Baldwin, ‘Clausewitz in Nazi Germany’, Journal of Contemporary History 16, no. 1 (1981): 5–6. 27 Mammen to Kuby, 28 January 1943, reproduced in Kuby, Mein Krieg, 228. 28 Pastelak-Price and Quitsch, ‘Biography’, 191–2. 29 Kinkel, ‘Encounter’, 215. 30 Ibid. 31 Letter from Mammen to Hans Thiemann, 14 April 1972, JMS. 32 Mammen to Kuby, 28 January 1943, Kuby, Mein Krieg, 227. 33 On ‘normalizing’ air raids, Jennifer V. Evans, Life among the Ruins: Cityscape and Sexuality in Cold War Berlin (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 21–7. 34 The business lasted until at least 1944. Kuby describes acquiring wood for shoe production, in diary entries dating from 2 January 1942. Kuby, Mein Krieg, 153. 35 Mammen to Edith Kuby-Schumacher, 26 December 1942, Ibid., 214. 36 Annelie Lütgens suggests this in: ‘Nur Ein paar Augen sein’, 98; note 35, 232. 37 Mammen to Hans Gaffron, 9 July 1941, JMS. 38 Adolf Reichwein, Harro Siegel Handpuppen und Marionetten leaflet issued by the Reichsinstitut für Puppenspiel (Berlin: Ulrich Riemerschmidt Verlag, 1940), 26–7. 39 Reichwein was executed for his involvement with the Kreisau Circle in October 1944. Ullrich Amlung, ‘Die Abteilung Schule und Museum am Staatlichen Museen für Deutsche Volkskunde in Berlin and ihr Leiter Adolf Reichwein, 1939–1944’, in Zwischen Politik und Kunst die Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus, eds Jörn Grabowski and Petra Winter (Cologne: Böhlau Verlag, 2013), 424–6. 40 Frevert, Women in German History, 223–5. Stephenson, Women, 55–8. 41 Stephenson, Women, 53. 42 Mammen to Erich Kuby, 26 April 1942, in Kuby, Mein Krieg, 172–3. 43 ‘Johanna Jeanne Mammen’ LAB: A Rep. 243-04–5578. Mammen’s letter is dated 10 February 1945. A copy of the certificate dated 1 December 1944 is also included and lists how puppets were useful in the war effort. 44 Annelie Lütgens, ‘Künstlerische Selbstbehauptung im Faschismus. Stilwandel bei Jeanne Mammen’, in Blick-Wechsel: Konstruktionen von Männlichkeit und Weiblichkeit in Kunst und Kunstgeschichte, eds Ines Lindner, Sigrid Schade, Silke Wenk and Gabriele Werner (Berlin: Dietrich Reimer, 1989), 89–90. 45 Roters, ‘Jeanne Mammen – Leben und Werk’, 63. 46 On the idea of ‘escaping’ through art: Elizabeth Otto, ‘“Der Berg ruft”: Landschaften des Exils in Marianne Brandts Malerei und Fotografie in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus’, in Entfernt: Frauen des Bauhauses, eds Hansen-Schaberg, Thöner and Feustel, 175–96. 47 On dividing lines, Gehler, Weibliche NS-Affinitäten, 33–4, and also George L. Mosse, Nationalism and Sexuality: Middle-Class Morality and Sexual Norms in Modern Europe (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988), 17–26, which specifically explores the idea of masculinity as affirmative of active/passive and public/private spheres. 48 ‘Deutsche Kriegsmedaillen, 1914–1918’, at the Münzkabinett, Berlin, 1934; ‘Der deutsche Stahlhelm’, at the Zeughaus, Berlin, 1935, and ‘Die Generäle der Tannenbergschlacht’, at the Zeughaus, 1935. For a full list of exhibitions between 1933 and 1943, see Grabowski and Winter, eds, Zwischen Politik und Kunst, 429–46.

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49 Wolfgang Schmidt, ‘Die Mobilisierung der Künste für den Krieg: Maler in Uniform’, in Kunst und Propaganda im Streit der Nationen 1930–1945, eds Hans-Jörg Czech and Nikola Doll, exh. cat. Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin (Dresden: Sandstein, 2006), 286. 50 Held between 25 January and 25 February 1940, brochure, SMB. 51 I am thinking here of Ernst Jünger’s memoir of his time as a soldier on the Western Front during the First World War – Storm of Steel (In Stahlgewittern) (1920), which remained popular during the 1930s. For more on Jünger, see Chapter 6 of this book. 52 Wilhelm Westecker, Krieg und Kunst Das Weltkriegserlebnis in der deutschen Kunst (Vienna: Luser, 1940), 16. The steel helmet can be seen in numerous other representations of combat from this period, including Rudolf Hengstenberg’s Durch die burgundische Pforte (1940) and Rudolf Lipus’ Kämpfer (1943). 53 Wilhelm Westecker, ‘Symbol im Relief ’, Die Kunst im Dritten Reich, December 1938, 320–7 (322). 54 Nine works by Eichhorst were shown in the 1939 exhibition, six of which were specifically related to the Polish invasion; for images: http://www​.gdk​-research​.de. 55 8 August 1939, Kuby, Mein Krieg, 16–17. 56 Mammen to G. A. Richter, 1974, no exact date, JMS. 57 Mammen to Delbrück, 29 September 1948, reproduced in Jeanne Mammen, 1890– 1976, eds, JMG e.V., 127. 58 Papenbrock and Saure, Kunst, 43. 59 Katharina Wippermann, ‘“Eine heitere Luft der Entspannung.” Die Ausstellung “Grosse Deutsche in Bildnissen ihrer Zeit” Anlässlich der XI Olympischen Spiele 1936 in Berlin’, in Zwischen Politik und Kunst, eds Grabowski and Winter, 171–84. 60 ‘Große Deutsche in Bildnissen ihrer Zeit’. Ausstellungskatalog Staatliche Museen, National-Galerie, aus Anlaß der XI. Olympischen Spiele, August–September 1936, Berlin, im ehemaligen Kronprinzenpalais, unpaginated, JMS. 61 With ‘images’ Bloch does not simply mean visual representations. Mobilizing narratives and visions both from, and of the past, acted as a crucial means of ‘empty diversion’ (for the masses – specifically those exploited by the conditions of capitalism) from the realities of National Socialism. Ernst Bloch, Heritage of Our Times, trans. Neville and Stephen Plaice (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991), especially 53–4, and for the quotations 57 and 112. 62 The work of only two women artists – Henriette Protzen-Kundmüller and Hanna Nagel – was exhibited. 63 Gertrud Stein, Picasso (London: B. T. Batsford, 1938), 11. 64 Theo Schwarzmüller, Zwischen Kaiser und ‘Führer’ Generalfeldmarschall August von Mackensen: Eine politische Biographie (Munich: Schöningh, 1996), 173. For Mackensen’s Nazi enthusiasm, also 273–4 and 365–7. 65 For photographs of Mackensen in uniform during the 1930s, see Ibid. 66 Bloch suggests how representations of past military leaders stir up national myths. Heritage of our Times, 53–4. 67 Navy strength was limited to 13,000 non-commissioned officers. 68 Charles S. Thomas, The German Navy in the Nazi Era (London: Unwin Hyman, 1990), 2, 10 and 262–3. 69 12 December 1943, reproduced in Böhme-Kuby and Kuby, Erich Kuby zum 100, 27. 70 For discussions on toys, masculinity and the First World War, see Ernst Friedrich’s anti-war text Krieg dem Kriege: War against War! (London: Journeyman Press [1924] 1987).

 Notes 215 71 As an example, reports in ‘Stimmung and Verhalten der Bevölkerung unter den Bedingungen des Krieges’ reveal the extent to which the Bavarian populus were not convinced by war propaganda. Broszat, Fröhlich and Wiesemann, eds, Bayern in der NS-Zeit, vol. 1, 571–688. Broszat notes this change also in relation to different resistant action: Broszat, ‘A Social and Historical Typography of the German Opposition’, 30. 72 Roth ed. with Voermann, Inventur, 34 and note 26. 73 Ian Kershaw, The ‘Hitler Myth’: Image and Reality in the Third Reich (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), 257–8. 74 Persuasive discussion in Nicholas Mirzoeff, ‘The Body Politic’, in Art, Modernity and the Ideal Figure (London: Routledge, 1995), 53–88. 75 For Hitler on Schäferhunde see Picker, Tischgespräche, 92. 76 Cited in Rudolf Herz, Hoffmann und Hitler: Fotografie als Medium des Führer-Mythos, exh. cat. Münchner Stadtmuseum, Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin (Munich: Klinkhardt & Biermann Verlag, 1994), 247. 77 Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility, and Other Writings on Media, eds Michael W. Jennings, Brigid Doherty and Thomas Y. Levin (Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 2008), 42. 78 For a fascinating discussion of the Nazi’s ‘Kampf gegen den Kitsch’, James A. van Dyke, ‘Über die Beziehung zwischen Kunst, Propaganda und Kitsch in Deutschland 1933 bis 1945’, in Kunst und Propaganda, eds Czech and Doll, 250–7. 79 Annalisa Zox-Weaver, Women Modernists and Fascism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 2–3 and 5. Ariela Freedman interprets parts of the German Jewish artist Charlotte Salomon’s Künstlerroman Life? Or Theater? along similar lines. ‘Charlotte Salomon, Degenerate Art, and Modernism as Resistance’, 3–18. 80 On war, Kurt Haug, ‘Hans Thiemann – Bildnis eines vornehmen Herrn’, in Kunst über dem Realen. Hans Thiemann und die Berliner Fantasten, eds Markus Krause and Peter Hahn, exh. cat. Bauhaus Archiv, Museum für Gestaltung, Berlin (Berlin: Kupfergraben, 2000), 45. 81 Letter dated 7 May 1944, cited in Ibid., 118. 82 Thiemann to Jeanne Mammen, 8 June 1968, in Jeanne Mammen/ Hans Thiemann, eds JMG e.V., 24. 83 ‘Hitler collected valuable stamps and distinguished them from more ‘common’ articles such as money and coins, upon which he prohibited his face.’ Picker, Tischgespräche, 221. 84 Paul Gilroy, Against Race: Imagining Political Culture Beyond the Color Line (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2001), 150. 85 Letters between Thiemann and Kandinsky exist from between 1934 and 1939. An unpublished transcript of twelve of these letters JMS. Letter from Kandinsky, 14 March 1938. 86 The understanding of the title as a play on such opportunism is also reinforced by the context of a later adaptation of Thiemann’s 4er-maler featured in Ulenspiegel after the war with the text byline, ‘A painter can neither forego the fees nor the business cycle.’ The images show ‘Kunstmaler Peinerlich’ (a play on official Nazi painter Werner Peiner), as former painter of Hitler stamps, now recommending himself as official painter to the Allies. See Ulenspiegel, 16, no. 3, August 1948, 4. 87 Wolfgang Virmond, ed., Guernica: Kunst und Politik am Beispiel Guernica: Picasso und der Spanische Bürgerkrieg, exh. cat. Neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst (Berlin: NGBK, 1975), 30.

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88 Left-wing critics such as Carl Einstein and Herbert Read began revising interpretations of Picasso’s earlier oeuvre during the 1930s, emphasizing the political relevance of Cubism. See David Quigley, ‘Cubist Communities: Carl Einstein’s Georges Braque’, in Carl Einstein and the European Avant-Garde, eds Moritz Bassler, Werner Frick and Monika Schmitz-Emans (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012), 255–64. 89 Robert Volz, ‘In Berlin Neue Wandmalerie. Zu den Fresken von Franz Eichhorst im Rathaus zu Berlin-Schöneberg’, Die Kunst im Dritten Reich, November 1938, 341–9. 90 Ibid., 341. 91 Rosi Huhn, ‘“Guernica” contra Versöhnungsstrategien der Internationalen Ausstellung “Kunst und Technik im modernen Leben” (Paris 1937),’ in Der Spanische Bürgerkrieg, ed. Held, 96. 92 Held, ‘Faschismus und Krieg’, 60. 93 The painting also bears the subtitle Antonius and the Angel, inviting further comparisons with iconic works such as Martin Schongauer’s The Temptation of St Anthony. This second title also highlights the ambiguities of the angel as a force of both good and evil – the bringer of life and death. On this, see Lütgens, ‘Nur Ein paar Augen sein’, 149. 94 Some scholars interpret the bull as ‘totemic’ animal of Spain, symbolizing the Spanish people, and the horse as the ‘faithful friend’. Others understand the animals as camouflaged ciphers of fascist aggression. Carla Gottlied, ‘The Meaning of Bull and Horse in Guernica’, Art Journal 24, no. 2 (1964/65): 102–12 and Peter K. Klein, ‘Von der Bildagitation zum autonomen Kunstwerk: Picassos Traum und Lüge Francos’, in Der Spanische Bürgerkrieg, ed. Held, 120–51. 95 Held, ‘Faschismus und Krieg’, 68. 96 Klapper, Nonconformist Writing, 4 and 322. 97 Dolf Sternberger, ‘Figuren der Fabel’, Frankfurter Zeitung und Handelsblatt 86, no. 658 (1941), reproduced in full in Sternberger, Figuren der Fabel, 7–24. For an insightful analysis, Ehrke-Rotermund and Rotermund, Zwischenreiche, 194–202. 98 Sternberger, Figuren der Fabel, 19. 99 Ibid., 8–14. 100 See William Dodd’s excellent ‘Voices at Home (III): The Case of the Frankfurter Zeitung’, which unpacks the cat-and-mouse relationship between the Frankfurter Zeitung and the Propaganda Ministry. Dodd, National Socialism, 187–225. 101 Leipzig: Köhler & Amelang, 1943. 102 The story, like many of Aesop’s fables, first appeared in Gualterus Anglicus’ manuscript of sixty-two fables, created sometime between the tenth and sixth centuries. The crane is sometimes substituted with other large birds such as herons or storks. Blankenburg, Heilige und dämonische Tiere, 262. 103 Ibid., 261–2. 104 Further examples: Hell Dog (Höllenhund, G.84); Biting Dogs (Sich beißende Hunde, G.81), 208, and preparatory work (A.489) 283; Wolf in Fur Collar (Wolf mit Pelzkragen, G.132), 213, all in Werkverzeichnis, ed. Merkert, with Döpping and Klünner. 105 For example, Werner Rittich, ‘Tierplastiken’, in Kunst im Dritten Reich, December 1928, 381–9. 106 Annelie Lütgens is the first scholar to draw comparisons between Mammen’s and Scharl’s works, ‘Nur Ein paar Augen sein’, 105. 107 Sigrid Zielke-Hengstenberg, ‘Verfemt – Vergessen – Wiederentdeckt’, in Josef Scharl. Maler und Grafiker des Expressionismus. exh. cat. Haus Opherdicke, Holzwickede, ed. Zielke-Hengstenberg (Dortmund: Kettler Verlag, 2017), 11.

 Notes 217 108 See, for example, Scharl’s paintings, Uniform (1931) (no. 200), Gala-Uniform (1935) (no. 288) and Hierarchie (1937) (no. 323), all in Andrea Firmenich, ed., Josef Scharl: Monographie und Werkverzeichnis, with a catalogue raisonné of graphic art by Peter Bonner (Cologne: Wienand, 1999). 109 Ibid., 167. 110 Stephan Weber and Erhard Frommhold, Hans Grundig, Schaffen im Verborgenen (Dresden: Verlag der Kunst, 2001), 48–59. On reprinting, 60–1 and also Hofmann, ‘Antifaschistische Kunst in Deutschland . . .’, 54–7. 111 Ehrke-Rotermund and Rotermund, Zwischenreiche und Gegenwelten, 217. 112 Dodd, ‘Voices at Home (III)’, in National Socialism, 187–225. 113 Cited in Petropoulos, Artists under Hitler, 118. 114 Author unknown, Berlin am Morgen, 26 February 1947. 115 For more recent scholarship exploring the use of humour as political criticism and/or resistance regarding the Nazis, see Andreas Huyssen’s discussion of Anselm Kiefer’s photographs of himself mocking the Heil Hitler salute in Twilight Memories: Marking Time in a Culture of Amnesia (New York: Routledge, 1995), 214–15. 116 The church was built by architect Engelbert Seibertz during the late nineteenth century. 117 Werkverzeichnis, ed. Merkert, with Döpping and Klünner (Z.891), 387. 118 Julia Schubert’s description of the painting in Jeanne Mammen The Observer, eds Köhler and Lütgens, 142–3. 119 Gunter Lewy, The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany (Boulder: Da Capo Press, 2000), 89–93.

Chapter 5 1 Hermann Glaser, Lutz von Pufendorf and Michael Schöneich draw attention to this paradox in their fascinating study, So viel Anfang war nie: Deutsche Städte, 1945–1949 (Munich: Siedler Verlag, 1989), 20. 2 Wolfgang Frankenstein quoted in Elisabeth Lenk, ed., Die Badewanne. Ein Künstlerkabarett der frühen Nachkriegszeit (Berlin: Hentrich, 1991), 20. 3 Carl Linfert, ‘Einleitung’, in Prolog, Zeichnungen und Graphik lebender deutscher Künstler, ausgewählt von einer Gruppe von Deutschen und Amerikanern in Berlin, Berlin 1947, brochure, unpaginated, cited in Schöne, Freie Künstler, 57–8. 4 Theodor W. Adorno, ‘Auferstehung der Kultur in Deutschland?’ Frankfurter Hefte. Zeitschrift für Kultur und Politik 4 (April 1950): 469–77 (470 and 473). This approach has been reinforced in more recent scholarship. For example, Jost Hermand in New German Critique claimed that 85 per cent of the art of the Western Allied zones was ‘electic quasi-modernism’. In ‘Modernism Restored: West German Painting in the 1950s’, New German Critique spring/summer, no. 32 (1984): 23. 5 Antje von Graeventiz, ‘Bildfuge und Bildhaftigkeit. Zwischenzonen in der Kunst um 1945’, in InterZonale 1945. Konferenz der Bilder, eds Hans-Werner Schmidt and Justus Jonas-Edel, exh. cat. Kunsthalle Kiel (Kiel: Kunsthalle zu Kiel, 1995), 23–31, and Roth ed. with Voermann, Inventur, as before. Richard Langston’s Visions of Violence: German Avant-Gardes After Fascism (Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 2008) adopts a persuasive approach towards the recalibration of the avant-gardes – through focus on literature – after the war.

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6 Dorothea Schöne, ‘In the Age of “Collective Legacies”: Jeanne Mammen’s Postwar Oeuvre in the Western European Context’, in Jeanne Mammen The Observer, eds Köhler and Lütgens, 194. 7 For statistics and the impact on living, Willi Görgen, ‘Die Siedlung aus Trümmerbeton’, Athena, no. 1 (1946): 17. 8 The Tiergarten became a potato field and was described as ‘the land of allotments’. Gerhard Kreische, ‘Berliner Baedeker zu unseren Bilderbogen’, Athena, no. 2 (1946): 16–20. 9 Mammen to Steffie Schaefer-Nathan, 5 March 1947, JMS. 10 Mammen to Hans Gaffron, 22 August 1946, JMS. 11 Charlotte Schallié, ‘Fashion Disappears from Germany’, in Broken Threads: The Destruction of the Jewish Fashion Industry in Germany and Austria, ed. Roberta S. Kremer (Oxford: Berg, 2007), 100. 12 Mammen to Max Delbrück, 6 October 1946, reproduced in Jeanne Mammen, 1890–1976, eds JMG e.V., 124. 13 Mammen to Steffie Schaefer-Nathan, 10 January 1947, JMS. 14 Mammen to Hans and Clara Gaffron, 10 January 1947, JMS. 15 Letter to Max Delbrück, 17 September 1967, reproduced in Jeanne Mammen, 1890–1976, eds JMG e.V., 137. 16 Market: Fulbrook, Divided Nation, 125. 17 The words of Max Delbrück describing the hurdles Mammen faced, Rink, ed., Max Delbrück, 70–1. 18 Mammen to Max Delbrück, 5 July 1949, cited in Jeanne Mammen, ed. Förderverein der JMS e.V., 193. 19 Mammmen to Delbrück, 17 September 1967, reproduced in Jeanne Mammen 1890–1976, eds JMG e.V., 137. 20 Markus Krause in Krause and Hahn, Kunst über dem Realen, 25, and Schöne, ‘Collective Legacies’, 198. 21 Reports regularly featured in the press about how to reuse objects, for example: Eduard Ludwig, ‘Montage-Möbel’, Athena, no. 9 (1946/47): 78–81. For a fascinating essay on Ersatzkultur after the First World War and artistic engagement, see Maria Makela, ‘Making Lemonade out of Lemons: Merz and Material Poverty’, Art History 42, no. 4 (2019): 652–77. 22 Karl Gutbrod, ed., Lieber Freund: Künstler schreiben an Will Grohmann (Cologne: DuMont, 1968), 186. 23 Erich Kuby, ‘Jeanne, die Freundin’, in Jeanne Mammen, 1890–1976, eds JMG e.V., 115–18. 24 Roth ed. with Voermann, Inventur, 28–32. Drawing on initial discussions by Yule Heibel, Roth emphasizes how works are no less politically and socially engaged by exploring (seemingly mundane) everyday scenarios or objects in artworks. See also, Heibel, Reconstructing the Subject: Modernist Painting in Western Germany, 1945– 1950 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), 45–6. 25 On exhibitions, see Carola Jüllig, ‘Zwischen Ruinen und Wiederaufbau. Zur künstlerischen Verarbeitung des Stadtbildes nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg’, in Stadtbilder: Berlin in der Malerei vom 17. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart, eds Rolf Bothe and Dominik Bartmann, exh. cat. Berlin Museum (Berlin: Fröhlich und Kaufmann, 1987), 368–9. 26 Evans, Life Among the Ruins, 2. 27 Mammen to Hans Gaffron, 29 December 1946, JMS.

 Notes 219 28 Mammen to Max Delbrück, 6 October 1946, JMS. 29 Andreas Huyssen, ‘Authentic Ruins: Products of Modernity’, in Ruins of Modernity, eds Julia Hell and Andreas Schönle (Durham: Duke University Press, 2010), 22. 30 Jüllig, ‘Zwischen Ruinen’, 366. 31 For a concise discussion on Surrealism during the post-war period, see Weiss, ‘Surrealismus’. 32 For the term: J. A. Schmoll, ‘Mac Zimmermann und der deutsche Beitrag zum Surrealismus’, in Mac Zimmermann: Retrospective zum 80. Geburtstag, eds Zimmermann and Werner Zinkand, exh. cat. Bavarian Academy of Arts (Munich: Bavarian Academy of Arts, 1992), 33. 33 Exhibition leaflet signed ‘H. H’ [Albert Buesche] ‘Fantasten-Ausstellung’ Galerie Gerd Rosen, 1946, unpaginated, JMS. 34 Mammen to Max Delbrück, 26 July 1946, reproduced in Jeanne Mammen, 1890– 1976, eds JMG e.V., 123. 35 For a slightly different translation, Kinkel, ‘Encounter’, 216. 36 Mammen’s edition of Apollonaire’s Éditions de L’esprit Nouveau et les Poétes contains a dedication by Kubicêk. JMS. On their closeness: Mammen to Delbrück, 16 January 1974, in Jeanne Mammen, 1890–1976, eds JMG e.V., 146. 37 For Kubicêk’s life: Niklas Becker, ‘Juro Kubicek. Metamorphosen der Linie’ (PhD diss., Freie Universität Berlin, 2007). 38 ‘. . . alles muffige, altväterliche, spießige.’ Almanach Galerie Gerd Rosen 1947, 17, JMS. 39 Zimmermann and Zinkand, eds, Mac Zimmermann, 11–12. For a photograph of part of Zimmermann’s collection in his studio in 1943 before it was destroyed, see 48. 40 For reports on the ‘finery’ of post-war Kufürstendamm, see Paul Rosié, ‘Lied eines Gentlemans’, Ulenspiegel 12, no. 1 (June 1946): 7 and Gerhard Kreische, ‘Berliner Baedeker zu unseren Bilderbogen’, Athena, no. 2 (1946); 16–20. 41 Evans, Life Among the Ruins, 54–5 and 69. 42 Frevert, Women in German History, 263. 43 Mammen to Gaffron, 24 September 1946, JMS. 44 For other works on a similar subject: Werner Heldt’s Tür (c. 1946), which is, in fact, a painting on the surface of a real door and Heinz Trökes’ paintings, Mit der offenen Tür (1943) and Zwischen den Blöcken (1946–7). 45 Antje von Graevenitz, ‘Die “Geworfenheit” des Menschen. Zur Frage des Existentialismus für deutsche Künstler nach 1945’, in Freiheit, eds Schieder, Ewig and Gaehtgens, 239. Mammen, like many of her other colleagues and friends, was not a great admirer of Sartre. Chapter 6 explores responses to existentialism in more detail. 46 Thiemann to Mammen, 1 October 1970, reproduced in Jeanne Mammen/ Hans Thiemann, eds JMG e.V., 29–30. 47 Mammen to Hans Thiemann, April 1967, Ibid., 23. 48 ‘Beim Aufwachen denkt man, Hallo! noch ein Tag, how funny! [ . . .] Einen kleinen Knax haben wir alle weg, die meisten quaseln [sic] Selbstgespräche auf der Strasse, . . . .’ Mammen to Steffie Schaefer-Nathan, 5 March 1947 JMS. 49 Newspaper examples in Krause, Gerd Rosen, 185–93. 50 G. Pommeranz-Liedtke, ‘Berliner Ausstellungen’, Bildende Kunst 10, no. 2 (1948): 43 reprinted in Eckhart Gillen and Diether Schmidt, eds, Zone 5. Kunst in der Viersektorenstadt, 1945–1951 (Berlin: Nishen, 1989), 202–3. 51 McElligott, German Urban, 2–3.

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52 Vidler, ‘Air War and Architecture’, in Ruins, eds Hell and Schönle, 29. 53 It has been suggested that he acquired works from one of Hitler’s most important art dealers, Karl Buchholz. Carl-Ernst Kohlhauer, ‘Gerd Rosen (1903–1961) Antiquar, Galerist und Auktionator in Berlin’, Aus dem Antiquariat. Zeitschrift für Antiquare und Büchersammler 9, no. 5 (2011): 199–218. 54 Will Grohmann, ‘Zone 5’ Galerie Franz, 1948 exhibition brochure, unpaginated, JMS. 55 Only twenty-two sculptures by the artist (including reliefs and one corrugated cardboard sculpture) are known to exist. Some sculptures were recast posthumously by the Jeanne-Mammen-Gesellschaft e.V., and several have been displayed in exhibitions since 1979. 56 Rürup and Selwyn, Berlin 1945, 183. This was partly due to the dismantling and removal of some electrical plants by the Allies. 57 Mammen to Max Delbrück, 6 October 1946, JMS. 58 Schallié, ‘Fashion Disappears from Germany’, 101. 59 Mann mit Baskenmütze, rechtswangig see, Werkverzeichnis, ed. Merkert, with Döpping and Klünner (G.95), 209. 60 Of Mammen’s twenty-two sculptures that survive, only two do not focus on the head form: Trompete (c. 1940) clay, and Kämpfende Hähne (c. 1945–9) plaster. See Werkverzeichnis (P.6 and P.12), 429–30. 61 For Uhlmann’s works on paper exploring these themes, Thiele ed. with Brockhaus and Merkert, Hans Uhlmann, 172–84. 62 For the painting, see Werkverzeichnis, ed. Merkert, with Döpping and Klünner (G.134) Zwiegespräch (c. 1946–7), 214. 63 Markus Krause and Karl Hartung, Karl Hartung, 1908–1967: Metamorphosen von Mensch und Natur. Monographie und Werkverzeichnis exh. cat. Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nürnberg (New York: Prestel, 1998), 9–17, and also Josephine Gabler, ‘Für Brötchen gemacht’ – ‘Karl Hartung in der inneren Emigration’, in Karl Hartung Werke und Dokumente, ed. Irmtraud Frfr. von Andrian-Werburg, exh. cat Archiv für Bildende Kunst im Germanischen Nationalmuseum Nürnberg (Nürnberg: Verlag des Germanischen Nationalmuseums, 1998), 66–89. 64 In Rosen’s ‘Rückblick und Vorschau’ catalogue, the sculpture is simply called ‘Plastik I, Gips’. JMS. 65 Gabler, ‘Für Brötchen gemacht’, 89. 66 Albert Camus, ‘Part Four: Rebellion and Art’, in The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt, trans. Anthony Bower (New York: Vintage Books, [1956] 1991), 255. 67 Cited by ‘H. H.’ in ‘Karl Hartung’, Galerie Rosen exhibition brochure 1946, annual review, unpaginated, JMS. 68 For example, ‘Brücke Patenschaften für Flüchtlingskinder’, Athena, no. 3 (1946/47): 11. 69 For examples of others, Jaeggi and Schmidt, Elsa Thiemann, 50–1 and 53–4. 70 Further works: (Z.1213) Krankes Kind (c. 1946–7), 416 and (G.130) Mädchen mit Brotlaib (c. 1945), 213, in Werkverzeichnis, ed. Merkert, with Döpping and Klünner. 71 Grohmann, ‘Zone 5’ exhibition brochure, unpaginated, JMS. Linfert, ‘Jeanne Mammen’ 1947 Galerie Gerd Rosen brochure unpaginated, JMS. 72 Susanne Leeb, Die Kunst der Anderen. Anthropologische und biologische Begründungsfiguren in Kunstgeschichte und Kunsttheorie, 1850–1950 (Frankfurt: Frankfurt/Oder 2007), 244–59. 73 Einstein’s detailed discussions of ethnographic objects in relation to Cubism also appear in Afrikanische Plastik from 1922 and in his 1934 monograph on Braque. Manuel Maldonado Alemán, ‘Die Konstruktion des Anderen. Carl Einstein und der

 Notes 221

74

75 76

77

78 79 80

81 82 83

84

85 86 87 88 89 90

Primitivismus-Diskurs der Europäischen Avantgarden’, in Carl Einstein, eds Bassler, Frick and Schmitz-Emans, 170–85. The Nazis drew a distinction between Western Primitivism and real ethnographic objects, which they admired. Paul Schultze-Naumburg, Kunst und Rasse, 120. They also granted the Museum für Völkerkunde scientific status, see Markus Schindlbeck, ‘Das Berliner Museum für Völkerkunde und seine Mitarbeiter, 1933–1945’, in Zwischen Politik und Kunst, eds Grabowski and Winter, 369–85. MOMA, New York in 1936 – ‘Cubism and Abstract Art’ and ICA, Boston in 1948/49 – ‘40,000 Years of Modern Art: A Comparison of Primitive and Modern’. Barbara Wucherer-Staar, ‘ABC des Sehens Weltkunst auf dem Weg zur Abstraktion’, in Befreite Moderne Kunst in Deutschland 1945 bis 1949, ed. Beate Reese, exh. cat. Kunstmuseum Mühlheim an der Ruhr and Stadtmuseum Hofheim am Taunus (Berlin: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2015), 116–23, and Schöne, ‘Collective Legacies’, 193–9. Wilhelm Worringer, Formprobleme der Gotik (Munich: R. Piper & Co. Verlag, 1912), in which he argued that European Medieval art revealed the psychological need of the maker to represent objects in a more spiritual manner, which countered logocentrism and rationality. Willi Baumeister, Das Unbekannte in der Kunst (Stuttgart: Verlagsgesellschaft Curt E. Schwab, 1947). Dorothea Schöne draws attention to Mammen’s ownership of this publication, ‘Collective Legacies’, 195. Wucherer-Staar, ‘ABC des Sehens Weltkunst’, 117. Susanne Leeb, ‘Gibt es eine Kunst des Posthistoire? Zu einem Deutungsschema der Nachkriegszeit’, in Die Stadt von Morgen. Beiträge zu einer Archäologie des Hansaviertels Berlin, eds Annette Maechtel and Kathrin Peters (Cologne: Walther König, 2008), 112–13. Leeb’s essay also usefully points towards the problems with Baumeister’s treatise. For this cult and Einstein’s discussion, see his text in the exhibition brochure from Galerie Flechtheim ‘Südsee-Plastiken’ in 1926, 5. On the importance of ornament and colour on masks, Einstein, Afrikanische Plastik (Berlin: Verlag Ernst Wasmuth, 1922), 25. On Hildebrand and National Socialism, Susanne Deicher, Dirk Luchow and Michael Schulz, ‘Künstler ohne Staatsaufträge’, in Skulptur und Macht: Figurative Plastik in Deutschland der 30er und 40er Jahre, eds Susanne Deicher et al., exh. cat. Akademie der Künste, Berlin, and Städtische Kunsthalle, Düsseldorf (Berlin: Fröhlich und Kaufmann, 1983), 95–115. Mittig, ‘Art and Oppression in Fascist Germany’, 200–1. Also Josephine Gabler’s illuminating discussion on the term ‘monumental’, in ‘“Das Monumentale [hat] nicht erst von bestimmten Größenmaßen an Geltung” – Großplastik im Nationalsozialismus’, in Künstler im Nationalsozialismus, ed. Ruppert, 231–43. Magdalena Bushart, ‘Arno Breker, Kunstproduzent im Dienst der Macht’, in Skulptur und Macht, eds Deicher et al., 156. Splitting, Papenbrock, and Saure, Kunst, 27. Will Grohmann, ‘Nachsommer der Berliner Galerien’, Neue Zeitung, 2 October 1948, reprinted in Gillen and Schmidt, eds, Zone 5, 201–2. Rebe, ‘Der Probierstein Europas’, Athena, no. 4 (1947/48): 15–21. The exhibition took place between 4 September and 20 October 1948. Zimmermann’s letter is dated 26 July 1948. Translated and cited in Schöne, ‘Collective Legacies’, 194. Kurt Wohl to Max Delbrück, 26 May 1952, reproduced in Jeanne Mammen, 1890– 1976, eds JMG e.V., 129.

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91 Will Grohmann, ‘Nachsommer der Berliner Galerien’, Neue Zeitung, 2 October 1948, reprinted in Gillen and Schmidt, eds, Zone 5, 202. 92 Grohmann, ‘Zone 5’, exhibition brochure, unpaginated, JMS. 93 Grohmann, ‘Nachsommer der Berliner Galerien’, Neue Zeitung, 2 October 1948, reprinted in Gillen and Schmidt, eds, Zone 5, 202. 94 Grohmann, Neue Zeitung, 1 July 1949. 95 C. A. Werner, ‘Die Freude zu leben. Jeanne Mammen stellt aus’. Newspaper and exact date unknown; E. S. ‘Jeanne Mammen stellt aus’, Nacht-Express Berlin, 20 February 1947, 110, and ‘D’ [Edwin Redslob?], ‘Kunst und Musik’, Der Tagesspiegel, 6 March 1947, all JMS. 96 F. D. ‘Die “Madame Picasso”’, Stadt-Telegraf, 27 February 1947, JMS. 97 Between 20 October and 11 November 1945 Überlingen, brochure, JMS. 98 Martin Schieder’s compelling studies of the post-war reception of Picasso make this clear. Schieder, Im Blick des Anderen, 333–63. See also Graevenitz, who suggests that alongside Picasso, it was the work of Klee and Kandinsky, who became stylistic role models. ‘Die “Geworfenheit”’, 237. 99 See ‘Juro Kubicêk’ (Der Künstlerkreis der Galerie Gerd Rosen) solo exhibition brochure Galerie Rosen, 1947/8, unpaginated, JMS. For Zimmermann, Almanach Galerie Gerd Rosen 1947, 36–7. JMS. Kurt Leonhard, ‘Picasso’, Das Kunstwerk: Zeitschrift für Moderne Kunst 8/9, no. 1 (1946/7): 18–29. 100 The dictionary entry, which contains no more than a few sentences on the artist, also states incorrectly that she was born in 1896. Ibid., 60. 101 It could well be Edith Kuby-Schumacher, who moved with her and Erich’s son to Überlingen at Lake Constance during the war. 102 Höch also wrote the exhibition blurb in the catalogue, see ‘Fantastische Kunst’ February 1946, Galerie Rosen brochure, unpaginated. 103 ‘DADA’ Berliner Zeitung, 20 December 1949 cited in Karoline Hille, ‘Entdeckungsreisen in ein wundersames Neuland. Hannah Höchs Collagen nach 1945’, in Hannah Höch Revolutionärin der Kunst. Das Werk nach 1945, eds Inge Herold and Karoline Hille, exh. cat. Kunsthalle Mannheim (Berlin: Braus, 2016), 178. 104 Schöne, Freie Künstler, particularly, 143–5. 105 ‘Frauen haben mehr Stolz. Wie Berliner Künstlerinnen leben’, Der Tagesspiegel, 24 June 1951, JMS. 106 Sintenis was married to the painter, graphic artist and poet Emil Rudolf Weiß (1875–1942). 107 For example, Rürup and Selwyn, Berlin 1945, 131. Leonie Treber and Elizabeth Heineman emphasize that emancipation came with limitations. Heineman, ‘The Hour of the Woman: Memories of Germany’s “Crisis Years” and West German National Identity’, in The Miracle Years: A Cultural History of West Germany, 1949–1968, ed. Hannah Schissler (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), 22, and Leonie Treber, Mythos Trümmerfrauen. Von der Trümmerbeseitigung in der Kriegs- und Nachkriegszeit und der Entstehung eines deutschen Erinnerungsortes (Essen: Ruhr Klartext, 2016), 11–26. Treber demonstrates the longevity of this myth through troubling articles in the media including ‘Stunde der Trümmergirls’ in the Frankfurter Rundschau (24 May 2012), which implied women would help resolve the political chaos in Germany (led by men). 108 Heineman, ‘The Hour of the Woman’, 33. 109 Annette Kuhn, ‘Power and Powerlessness: Women after 1945, or the Continuity of the Ideology of Femininity’, German History 7, no. 1 (1989): 35–6. 110 Heineman, ‘The Hour of the Woman’, 34.

 Notes 223 111 Frevert, Women in German History, 261. For an illuminating discussion by women on their dissatisfaction, see ‘Drei Frauen über Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunft’, Athena, no. 1 (1946): 4–9. 112 Evans, Life Among the Ruins, 69. 113 Heineman, ‘The Hour of the Woman’, 37. 114 Meike Steinkamp’s study on post-war art also notes such emphasis, Das unerwünschte Erbe, 131, and again, 171. 115 Grisebach, ed., Werner Heldt, 50. To a degree this emphasis is still upheld. For example, the opening essay in the catalogue from the exhibition, ‘Befreite Moderne Kunst in Deutschland 1945 bis 1949’, organized by the Kunstmuseum Mühlheim an der Ruhr and Stadtmuseum Hofheim am Taunus in 2015, deals with the work of Karl Hofer in Berlin and Willi Baumeister in Stuttgart. 116 Adolf Jannasch introduction, ‘Max Pechstein’ Staatsoper (Admiralspalast) February– March 1946, 4, cited in Steinkamp, Das unerwünschte Erbe, 131. 117 On her original application form for the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts, Mammen wrote in response to which public and private collections held her work: ‘Lipperheider Museum. Modezeichnungen u. Titelblätter’ (fashion illustrations and illustrations for magazine covers). LAB: ‘Johanna Jeanne Mammen’ A Rep. 243-04 – 5578. 118 For a rich and nuanced reading of Pechstein’s experience, Fulda and Soika, Pechstein, 292–362. 119 Both comments from ‘Heinz Trökes über die Galerie Rosen’ from a 1965 interview reproduced in Gillen and Schmidt, eds, Zone 5, 162–3. 120 Heldt to Werner Gilles, 13 June 1946 in Grisebach, ed., Werner Heldt, 50. 121 Heineman, ‘The Hour of the Woman’, 38–41. 122 For example: photographs featured in the official 1947 Rosen Almanac, and the photograph of the Rosen window reproduced in Gillen and Schmidt, eds, Zone 5, 161. 123 Wirnitzer set up a gallery in Baden-Baden under her name, where Mammen also exhibited in a group exhibition in 1972. Gallery correspondence is held at the Zentralarchiv für deutsche und internationale Kunstmarktforschung at the University of Cologne. 124 Markus Krause suggests that his important book on Rosen history was written with the help of Trökes and Vogel. Yet, Vogel is barely mentioned in it. Gerd Rosen, 13. Carl-Ernst Kohlhauer’s account likewise says little about her. However, Kohlhauer worked for Rosen after Vogel had already emigrated to the United States. ‘Rosen’, in Aus dem Antiquariat, 199–218. 125 The reports can be found online in The Fontaine Archive: https://fontaine​.org​/archive​ -new​/reports/. 126 Vogel, Bad Times, 65. 127 Ibid., for frames 128–9; Hitler portrait, 130–3. 128 Details in Pastelak-Price and Quitsch, ‘Biography’, 194. 129 Letter, Thiemann to Hübner, 20 February 1972, cited in Lothar Klünner, ed., Im Spiegel. Johannes Hübner zum Gedenken (Berlin: Jeanne-Mammen-Gesellschaft, e.V., 1983), 116–17. 130 The exhibition brochure does not list the women authors included; it simply states ‘Die Liste der Bucherscheinungen weiblicher Autoren ist an der Kasse einzusehen’. JMS. 131 Exhibition brochure, ‘Vorwort’, anon, unpaginated, JMS. 132 Examples of all-women groups established during this period include the ‘Frauenring der britischen Zone’ and ‘Süddeutsche Frauenarbeitskreis’. Angela Delille, Perlonzeit (Berlin: Elefanten Press, 1988), 72.

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133 The original lecture cards are held in Höch’s archive at the Berlinische Galerie, under BG-HHC J 149/79 and BG-HHE III 48.83. ‘Die Frau und die Kunst’, Berlin, 24 November 1948. 134 Ibid. 135 Ursula Blak-Ulbrich, ‘Das Kunstamt. Ein Ausstellungsort definiert sich. Karl Ludwig Skutsch’, in 68 Jahre Haus am Waldsee. Internationale Kunst in Berlin. Geschichte einer Institution, ed. Katja Blomberg (Cologne: Walther König, 2013), 34–49. For Picasso’s exhibition brochure, see EX 49/3 Picasso Graphik von 1945–7, 11 September–16 October 1949.

Chapter 6 1 F. B. ‘Es rauscht in der “Badewanne” Berliner Bohème in der Nürnberger Straße – Ekstase und Besinnlichkeit – Auch Werner Fink “zwitscherte”’, Montags-Zeitung, 18 July 1949, unpaginated. BG-Ar 13/89, 31. 2 Glaser, von Pufendorf and Schöneich, So viel Anfang war nie, 11. 3 For their involvement, see Krause’s exhibition chronology, Gerd Rosen, 153–62. 4 Walter Lennig, ‘Das Publikum Lacht Falsch. Marginalien zum Kabarett von Heute’, Athena, no. 2 (1947/8): 34–7 (37). 5 The Badewanne is not discussed in detail by important cabaret histories, including Rudolf Hösch, Kabarett von Gestern und Heute, nach zeitgenössischen Berichten, Kritiken und Erinnerungen, Texten und Erinnerungen, vol. 2, 1933–70 (Berlin (East): Henschel, 1972); Georg Zivier, Hellmut Kotschenreuther, Volker Ludwig and Arnold Harttung, Kabarett mit K – Siebzig Jahre große Kleinkunst (Berlin: A. Spitz, 1989). The most important sources on the cabaret remain Eckhart Gillen, ‘Das Maler-Kabarett in der “Badewanne”. Eine Collage’, in Zone 5, eds Gillen and Schmidt (1989); Elisabeth Lenk, ed., Die Badewanne. Ein Künstlerkabarett der frühen Nachkriegszeit (1991) and, more recently, Alexander Camaro et al., eds, Berlin Surreal. Camaro und das Künstler-Kabarett Die Badewanne exh. cat. Camaro Stiftung, Berlin (Berlin: Nicolai Verlag, 2014). 6 Why exactly the original Badewanne split remains unclear. According to Katja Meirowsky, it was partly down to disagreements with the management of the Femina-Palast, Lenk, ed., Badewanne, 27. 7 For more on Galerie Bremer see the insightful monograph by Markus Krause, Galerie Bremer: Die frühen Jahre 1946–1952 (Berlin: Kupfergraben, 1996). 8 The cabaret is rarely discussed in literature exploring Dadaist or Surrealist legacies. For example, it does not feature in David Hopkins, ed., A Companion to Dada and Surrealism (2016), nor in Dada and Beyond: Dada and its Legacies, vol. 2, eds Elza Adamowicz and Eric Robertson (2012). The Badewanne is mentioned briefly in this context by Isabel Fischer, ‘(An)Verwandlungen. Surrealistische Spurensuche im Künstlerkabarett Die Badewanne (1949–1950) und der Zeitschrift META, 1949– 1954’, in ‘Der Surrealismus’, eds Fischer and Schuller, 196–218. 9 Karl-Heinz Bohrer denies the romantic lineage of Surrealism in Germany that other scholars have sought to foreground. Karl-Heinz Bohrer, ‘Deutscher Surrealismus?’, in Surrealismus in der deutschsprachigen Literatur, eds Friederike Reents and Anita Meier (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2009), 242–8. 10 Thun, ‘Der Kreis um das Jahrbuch Speichen als Vermittler des Surrealismus in Deutschland’, in ‘Der Surrealismus’, eds Fischer and Schuller, 219–22.

 Notes 225 11 ‘Karneval bei Gerd Rosen’, 10–28 February 1948. Krause’s exhibition chronology lists Mammen as taking part. Rosen Galerie, 158. There is no conclusive evidence to show she did so. 12 Karl Meirowsky to Marga Döpping, 21 December 1978, BG-Ar 13/89, 53. 13 Werkverzeichnis, ed. Merkert, with Döpping and Klünner (A.537–44), 287–8. 14 Kinkel, ‘Encounter’, 216–17. 15 Mammen’s drawings featured in C. R., ‘Gebrannte Kinder vor dem neuen Feuer’, Der Kurier, 26 February 1946, 4. For reproductions, see Werkverzeichnis, ed. Merkert, with Döpping and Klünner (Z.1183, Z.1185 and Z.1186), 414. 16 Klünner and Hübner knew each other before the cabaret and met when they studied theology for a short time between 1940 and 1941, before they enlisted. Klünner, ed., Im Spiegel, 323–4. 17 For short biographies, Thun, ‘Der Kreis um das Jahrbuch Speichen’, 226–8. Examples of their poems are featured in Aus zerstäubten Steinen. Texte deutscher Surrealisten. Eine Anthologie, ed. Bernhard Albers (Aachen: Rimbaud Verlag, 1995). 18 René Char, Poésies – Dichtungen, vol. 2, trans. Paul Celan, Johannes Hübner, Lothar Klünner and Jean-Pierre Wilhelm (Frankfurt a.M.: S. Fischer, 1959). 19 Only twenty-one editions of Athena were ever published between October 1946 and June 1948. 20 Where possible, the chapter uses English translations of literary sources that feature in the cabaret. 21 D. Gareth Walters, Canciones and the Early Poems of Lorca: A Study in Critical Methodology and Poetic Maturity (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2002), 242–3. 22 On Lorca and Dali, Helen Oppenheimer, Lorca: The Drawings and Their Relation to the Poet’s Life and Work (New York: Franklin Watts, 1987), 46–50. 23 Paul Binding, Lorca: The Gay Imagination (London: GMP, 1985), 82–3 and Oppenheimer, Ibid, 54–5. 24 Her library contained four volumes of Lorca’s work, including Doña Rosita la soltera (1944) and Romancero gitano (1953). 25 Oppenheimer, Lorca, 129 and 132. 26 For the term, Johannes Hübner in Klünner, ed., Im Spiegel, 79. 27 Rauthe, ‘Ich ist ein anderer’, 113. 28 Johannes Hübner cited in Klünner, ed., Im Spiegel, 31 and 49. 29 Daniela Rauthe notes that between 1946 and 1948, eight different German editions of his works appeared, Ibid., 126, note 4. 30 Emphasis as in original. Translated and reproduced in Mary Ann Caws, The Yale Anthology of Twentieth-Century French Poetry (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004), 136–7. The cabaret’s original German translation no longer survives. 31 For a rich discussion, Ulrich Lehmann, Tiersprung: Fashion in Modernity (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000), 348–50. 32 Lisa Appignanesi, The Cabaret (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, [1975] 2004), 161. Peter Jelavich offers a similar emphasis in his reading of cabaret after the Great Depression. Berlin Cabaret (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996), 187–227. 33 Mammen to Max Delbrück, 10 February 1950, in Rink, ed., Max Delbrück, 71. 34 A single surviving sculpture – the head of a devil – made from corrugated cardboard may have been intended for one of the cabaret’s performances. Werkverzeichnis, ed. Merkert, with Döpping and Klünner (P.20), 103. 35 Mammen to Max Delbrück, 2 May 1950, JMS.

226

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36 See, for example, the notes for sketches ‘Kaiserquartett’ and ‘Dame ohne Unterleib’, which list props and clothing. BG-Ar 13/89: 8 and 16. 37 Jean Gebser’s spirited biography of him that Mammen also owned portrays him in such a manner. Lorca; oder, Das Reich der Mütter; Erinnerungen an Federico García (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, [1949] 1978), 13 and 16. 38 Binding, Lorca, 12. 39 William Dodd’s discussions of the coordinated discourse environment of the Third Reich provide a vivid account of the almost hegemonic discourse of National Socialism – as well as its contradictions and paradoxes. National Socialism, 13–44. 40 Manfred Malzahn, Germany, 1945–1949: A Sourcebook (London: Routledge, 1991), 210 and Aynsley, Graphic Design, 18–19. 41 Michael Benedikt and George E. Wellwarth, eds, Post-War German Theatre: An Anthology of Plays (London: Macmillan, 1968), 10–11 and 24. 42 Klemperer, ‘Sprache des 3. Reiches’ (1935) and finally as ‘LTI’ (Lingua Tertii Imperii) in 1941, and later published under that name in 1947. 43 Victor Klemperer, The Language of the Third Reich: LTI Lingua Tertii Imperii: A Philologist’s Notebook, trans. Martin Brady (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013), 15. 44 See Johannes Lederer’s photographs of the different Raumbilder performed: BG-Ar 13/89, 34, 35 and 45. 45 In many cases, a reproduction of the artwork was clipped to the back of the stage directions. See the Chagall Raumbild in the third programme, BG-Ar 13/89, 35. 46 See also a Kreidezeichnung auf schwarzem Papier after Klee BG-AR 13/89, 12. 47 For a concise biography, see Lenk, ed., Badewanne, 209. 48 For details and images, see Ibid., 47–8 and 50–1, and BG-Ar 13/89, 46 and 47. 49 Camaro draws attention to the importance of Wigman in his own life in Almanach Galerie Gerd Rosen 1947, 8–9. 50 For an extensive study of Camaro’s dance background, Alexander Camaro et al., eds, Berlin Surreal. 51 For more on this connection: Annabelle Melzer, Dada and Surrealist Performance (Baltimore: John Hopkins Press, 1994), 87–104, and Jill Fell, ‘Zurich Dada Dance Performance and the Role of Sophie Taeuber’, in Dada and Beyond, eds Adamowicz and Robertson, 17–33. 52 Fell, ‘Zurich Dada Dance’, 24. 53 Lopi Klünner quoted in Lenk, ed., Badewanne, 190. 54 For the full poem: Klünner, ed., Im Spiegel, 69. 55 Klünner, ‘An den blauen Mond’, Athena, no. 9 (1947/8): 45. 56 Susan Laton, ‘White Shadows: Photograms around 1922’, in Inventing Abstraction, 1910–1925: How A Radical Idea Changed Modern Art, ed. Leah Dickerman, exh. cat. Museum of Modern Art, New York (London: Thames and Hudson, 2013), 332. 57 Franz Roh, László Moholy-Nagy (Berlin: Klinkhardt & Biermann, 1930). 58 On rehearsals: JMG e.V., eds, Jeanne Mammen, 1890–1976, 36–7. A number of these drawings were printed in two separate editions of Athena, no. 6, 1946/47 and Athena, no. 8, 1946/47, as well as in Der Kurier, no. 235, 13, 1946, and Anon, ‘Skizzen und Phantasmen. In der “Komödie” und in der Galerie Rosen’, Berliner Zeitung, 8 September 1946, 8, JMS. 59 Mammen to Hans Gaffron, 29 April 1947, trans. Pastelak-Price and Quitsch, ‘Biography’, 196. 60 Gert Westphal, Der Kurier (date unknown) and K. M., Der Abend, 15 April 1950, both cited in Lenk, ed., Badewanne, 189–90.

 Notes 227 61 A handmade Christmas card for Mammen stating inside, ‘Merry Christmas! Norris’, still exists in Mammen’s archive. Photographs of her studio apartment show that for a time, it also hung on her wall. The Norris Embry Estate owns a watercolour by Embry titled, Hommage à Jeanne Mammen, produced in circa 1976, the year of the artist’s death. My thanks to Lucy Williams Morin at the Norris Embry Estate. 62 Klünner cited in, Gillen and Schmidt, eds, Zone 5, 227. 63 ‘Embry’s behaviour was utterly wild and outrageous, and he was always ready for anything during his early years’. Author’s correspondence with Warren Wilmot Williams at the Norris Embry Estate. 64 Dorothea Schöne’s research demonstrates the extent to which the American Allies promoted modern German art back home. Schöne, Freie Künstler. It is not inconceivable, therefore, that Embry became familiar with the idea of travelling to Berlin through such early promotion. 65 Fulbrook, The Divided Nation, 115–20 and 145, and Rürup and Selwyn, Berlin 1945, for the Allies’ questionnaire, 142–55. 66 Jeffrey Herf sees the period as a missed opportunity for the West in that a fundamental restructuring of Germany never happened. Divided Memory: The Nazi Past in the Two Germanys (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), 7, and for a detailed analysis, 209–25. For different emphasis: Fulbrook, Divided Nation, 151–2. 67 Herf, Divided Memory, 8. 68 The Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD) won 49 per cent of the votes and the newly formed Communist Party – the Socialist Union Party (SED), won only 22 per cent. 69 Mammen to Max Delbrück, 6 October 1946, JMS. 70 For examples of other satirical interpretations of the denazification process: Krupps selling weapons ‘for peace’, Ulenspiegel, 12, no. 3, July 1948, 10, and C. W. Caro, ‘Wir bleiben doch die Alten!’ 19, no. 2 (May 1947): 98. 71 Stephen Wilmer, ‘National Socialism and Concepts of Nationalism’, in A History of German Theatre, eds Simon Williams and Maik Hamburger (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 234, and Gerwin Strobl, The Swastika and the Stage: German Theatre and Society, 1933–1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 43 and 85–7. On cabaret: Joseph Goebbels trans. in Jelavich, Berlin Cabaret, 230. 72 Jelavich, Berlin Cabaret, 242. 73 On political cabarets, see Jürgen Pelzer, ‘Positiv dagegen. Politisches Kabarett bis zur Währungsreform’, in So viel Anfang war nie, eds Glaser, Pufendorf and Schöneich, 236–43, and briefly, Jelavich, Berlin Cabaret, 198–200. 74 B. F., ‘Es rauscht in der “Badewanne”’, BG-Ar 13/89, 31. 75 Hübner to Dominique Fourcade, April 1970, reproduced in Klünner, ed., Im Spiegel, 35. 76 Mammen to Max Delbrück, 1 August 1975, trans. Pastelak-Price and Quitsch, ‘Biography’, 197. 77 For the script listing the costumes and props: BG-Ar 13/89, 38. 78 For the script: Gillen and Schmidt, eds, Zone 5, 230–1. 79 Gerhard Lohse, ‘Zwei Antigone-Aufführungen des Jahres 1940 in Berlin und Wien’, in Die griechische Tragödie und ihre Aktualisierung in der Moderne, eds Gerhard Lohse und Solveig Malatrait (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2006), 151–86. 80 For an excellent summary of George’s nationalist views: A Poet’s Reich Politics and Culture in the George Circle, eds Melissa S. Lane and Martin A. Ruehl (Rochester, New York, 2011), 1–24.

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81 Sophocles, Antigone, trans. Georg Thudichum (Leipzig: Reclam, 1943) and Jean Anouilh, Antigone (Paris: La Table Ronde, 1946). 82 On ‘Urtext’, see James I. Porter, ‘Philology in Exile: Adorno, Auerbach, and Klemperer’, in Brill’s Companion to the Classics, Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, eds Helen Roche and Kyriakos N. Dēmētriou (Leiden: Bosten Brill, 2018), 108. 83 Bayreuth was reopened in 1951, shortly after the Quallenpeitsche disbanded. It had been saved from financial ruin in 1944. Wilmer, ‘National Socialism’, 241. 84 Stuckenschmidt, Die Neue Zeitung, 26 February 1950, quoted in Lenk, ed., Badewanne, 99. 85 Porter, ‘Philology in Exile’, 109. 86 ‘Ego’, Ibid., 114. Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, trans. John Cumming (London: Verso, 1997), 61. 87 Adorno and Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 35. 88 Johannes Hübner claimed in his diaries how studying Communard France encouraged him to engage with the next generation of dialectical thinkers – the Frankfurt School, Benjamin and Bataille. Klünner, ed., Im Spiegel, 42. 89 For both plays in a wider context: Benedikt and Wellwarth, eds, Post-War German Theatre, X–XI introduction and 51–115. 90 See Malzahn, Germany, 1945–1949, 200–1 and Michael Paterson, ‘Bewältigung der Vergangenheit or Überwältigung der Befangenheit: Nazism and the War in Post-war German Theatre’, Modern Drama 33, no. 1 (1990): 120–8. 91 V. H. ‘Der Geist sitzt im Keller’, Uhl, 15, undated, BG-Ar 13/89, 54a. 92 Ernst Jünger, Heliopolis. Rückblick auf eine Stadt (Tübingen: Heliopolis Verlag, 1949). The colophon page states he began writing it in January 1947 and completed it in March 1949. 93 Erich Kuby, ‘Ernst Jüngers Strahlungen’, Frankfurter Hefte. Zeitschrift für Kultur und Politik, no. 2, February 1950, 209. 94 Karl Holtz, ‘Das Intellektuelle Raubtier Ernst Jünger’, Ulenspiegel 15, no. 1 (July 1946): 5. 95 Michael Großheim, ‘Kampf /Krieg’, in Ernst Jünger-Handbuch: Leben-Werk-Wirkung, ed. Matthias Schöning (Stuttgart: Metzler, 2014), 328–9. 96 For Jünger and National Socialism: Michael Ansel, ‘Der verfemte und der unbehelligte Solitär. Gottfried Benns und Ernst Jüngers literarische Karrieren vor und nach 1933’, in Ernst Jünger Politik-Mythos-Kunst, ed. Lutz Hagestedt (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012), 1–13, and Klapper, Nonconformist Writing, 279–314. 97 For a pithy synopsis of the novel and analysis: Hans Krah, ‘Die Apokalypse als literarische Technik. Ernst Jüngers “Heliopolis” (1949) im Schnittpunkt denk- und diskursgeschichtlicher Paradigmen’, in Jünger Politik, ed. Hagestedt, 225–52. 98 For descriptions of the city and castle where De Geer lives: Jünger, Heliopolis, 197–8. 99 For the description of De Geer’s private, ‘scientific’ quarters and his musings over biology, Ibid., 102–5. 100 For the ‘phonophor’, Jünger, Heliopolis, 336–7. For the sketch, Gillen and Schmidt, eds, Zone 5, 134–5. 101 On this technique specifically, Jean Arp et al., Dada: Die Geburt des Dada: Dichtung und Chronik der Gründer (Zürich: Arche, 1957), 116–18. 102 Neaman, A Dubious Past: Ernst Jünger and the Politics of Literature after Nazism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 171–2. See, for example, Heliopolis, 98–9; 184–5; and 214–15.

 Notes 229 103 De Geer is described as wearing a brown ‘soldatische Gewerkschaftstracht’ (soldier’s union costume) with a silver embroidered eagle on the left breast, in the novel. Heliopolis, 181. In their sketch, the cabaret have replaced this with insignia more obviously reminiscent of the Prussian Iron Cross. 104 Trans. in Michael White, Generation Dada: The Berlin Avant-garde and the First World War (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013), 299, and for an image, 265. 105 Jaspers’ lectures were published in 1946 as Die Schuldfrage and translated in 1947 as ‘The Question of German Guilt’. 106 Sartre, ‘What is Literature?’ and Other Essays, trans. Bernard Frechtman (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988), 171. 107 Antje von Graevenitz suggests that Sartre’s work must have particularly resonated with inner émigrés and exile artists, ‘Die “Geworfenheit”’, 233. 108 For example: ‘Man hört so wenig von Sartre’, Ulenspiegel 12, no. 3 (June 1948): 2; ‘Umrisse eines Friedens’, Athena, no. 5 (1946/47): 1–3. Paul Strecker’s letter in Athena, no. 4, 1947/48, 42–5. For a selection of articles in other journals, see: Graevenitz, in Ibid, 250 note 10. 109 Existentialism is a Humanism (1946) reproduced in Sartre, Jean-Paul Sartre: Basic Writings, ed. Stephen Priest (London: Routledge, 2001), 25–46 (30). 110 BG-Ar 13/89, 31. 111 For a black-and-white photograph of the stage in which the head of Sartre is visible: BG-Ar 14/2009, 19. 112 Sartre criticized Surrealism’s claims to revolution and affiliations with the Communist Party, concluding that their ideas ultimately remained within the framework of bourgeois intellectualism. ‘The Work of Art’, in Jean-Paul Sartre, ed. Priest, 289–99, and also Sartre, ‘What is Literature?’ trans. Frechtman, 151–64. 113 Mammen to Max Delbrück, 25 October 1950 and on Giraudoux, Mammen to Max Delbrück, 18 January 1949, both JMS, both partially cited in Lütgens, ‘Nur ein Paar Augen sein’, 153 and 151. 114 Valéry’s mock titles are perhaps a play on Rabelais’ ridicule of sixteenth-century scholarly and monastic libraries in Gargantua and Pantagruel, a work Mammen also undoubtedly knew – see Chapter 3 of this book. 115 Paul Valéry, Collected Works, ed. Jackson Mathews, vol. 14, ‘Analects’, trans. Stuart Gilbert (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1970), 263–326. 116 ‘Fräulein No: Ach, die vielen Worte! Die Frauen sind dem Geist feind, ob sie sich der Liebe ergeben oder verweigern. /Ti: Sag niemals “Liebe mich”, das nützt gar nichts. / Frau Ti: Und doch, Gott sagt so!’ Klünner, ed., Im Spiegel, 84. 117 Analecta no. XIX, in Valéry, Collected Works, 280–1. 118 ‘A cruel mistress’, in Valéry, Collected Works, 189–90. Analects contains various passages critiquing philosophy and science, such as the ‘Recipe for Demolishing Philosophers’, 143, and ‘Rhetorician and Sophist’, 188. 119 Walter Benjamin, ‘Paul Valéry on His Sixtieth Birthday’ (Die literarische Welt, October, 1931), in Selected Writings, vol. 2, 1927–34, trans. Rodney Livingstone and eds Michael W. Jennings, Howard Eiland and Gary Smith (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 534. 120 ‘The Books of Wisdom’, in ‘Bad Thoughts and Not so Bad’, Valéry, Collected Works, 458–60. 121 The artist owned several editions of Valéry’s work in her library, with publications dating from 1942 to 1946. 122 Benjamin, ‘Paul Valéry’, 533.

230

Notes

123 Tom Rockmore, On Heidegger’s Nazism and Philosophy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 94–100, and Neaman, A Dubious Past, 192–3. 124 How and why she went to the event is unknown, but it was presumably initiated through the Kubys. Elisabeth Schumacher, the sister of Edith Kuby-Schumacher, was married to Werner Heisenberg and the event took place when Mammen was on a two-month trip to Bavaria and stayed with Edith in Weilheim. 125 Mammen to Max Delbrück, 2 August 1953, JMS. 126 Heidegger later altered his stance somewhat, admiring the work of Braque, Klee and Le Corbusier. But he remained equivocal about Picasso, which perhaps annoyed Mammen. Julian Young, Heidegger’s Philosophy of Art (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), on Picasso, 164. 127 Hübner to Dominique Fourcade, April 1970, reproduced in Klünner, ed., Im Spiegel, 36. 128 Thiemann to Johannes Hübner, 22 October 1975, Ibid., 121. 129 Neaman, A Dubious Past, 167. Neaman’s reading is similar to Henning Rischbieter’s, who argues that theatres began to close and numbers declined after the currency reform. See Rischbieter, ‘Theater’, in Die Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, vol. 4: Kultur, ed. Wolfgang Benz (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1989), 92–3. 130 V. H. ‘Der Geist sitzt im Keller’, original printed source unclear: BG-Ar 13/89, 54a. 131 Anon, Der Spiegel, no. 50, 3 December 1949. 132 Johann Thun, ‘Tu as bien fait de partir’, 158–77. 133 Ibid., 159. Thun draws attention to the fact that few editions of the Char German translation credit her. Thun, ‘Der Kreis um das Jahrbuch Speichen’, 227. For Mammen’s role in translation, see also Klünner, ed., Im Spiegel, 317. 134 The Dupin translations by Klünner are published in his Surrealist annual Speichen, Jahrbuch für Dichtung: 2 (Berlin: Henssel Verlag, 1969). 135 Mammen met with Dupin on a trip to Paris in 1962, Thun, ‘Tu as bien fait de partir’, 168–9. 136 See letters between Thiemann and Hübner in Klünner, ed., Im Spiegel, 99–121. 137 Stonard, Fault Lines, 46–7. 138 Mammen to Hans Thiemann, 20 June 1971, in Jeanne Mammen, 1890–1976, eds JMG e.V., 144.

Epilogue 1 Roth ed. with Voermann, Inventur, 68–70. 2 For reproduction (G.275) Werkverzeichnis, ed. Merkert, with Döpping and Klünner, 228. 3 Lütgens first draws this connection to the press. ‘Nur ein Paar Augen sein’, 48. 4 ‘Jeanne Mammen – Aquarelle. Paris, Brüssel vor 1915. Berlin 20er Jahre’. Galerie Brockstedt, Hamburg April–May 1971. Wolfgang Gurlitt’s gallery in Berlin was destroyed during the Second World War. Mammen’s Brockstedt exhibition travelled to his new gallery in Munich. 5 Leading in this respect: Des Moines Art Center in Iowa (thirteen watercolours) and the Busch Reisinger Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA (ten watercolours). For details: Pastelak-Price and Quitsch, ‘Biography’, 201, note 76.

 Notes 231 6 Wieland Schmidt, Neue Sachlichkeit und Magischer Realismus in Deutschland, 1918–1933 (Hannover: Fackelträger-Verlag Schmidt-Küster GmbH, 1969); Uwe M. Schneede: Realismus zwischen Revolution und Machtergreifung, 1919–1933 (Stuttgart: Cantz, 1971). 7 Lütgens, ‘Deren Sorgen und Rothschilds Geld’, 233. 8 On this connection: Sascha Bru, Benedikt Hjartarson, Peter Nicholls, Tania Ørum, Hubert van den Berg and Laurence Nuijs, eds, Regarding the Popular: Modernism, Avant-Garde and High and Low Culture (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2012), 3–13. 9 Charlotte Berend-Corinth, Ilse Wagler and Renate Green are cited. Die Frau als Künstlerin (Berlin: Mosse, 1928). 10 On the roots, Fritz Schmalenbach, ‘The Term Neue Sachlichkeit’, The Art Bulletin 22, no. 3 (1940): 161–5. 11 For Salomon, Daniel Magilow, Photography of Crisis: The Photo Essays of Weimar Germany (University Park PA: Penn State University Press, 2015) and the exhibitions, ‘Master of Beauty. Karl Schenkers mondäne Bildwelten’: Museum Ludwig, Cologne, 2016/17 and ‘Erna Schmidt-Caroll’: Kallmann-Museum Ismaning, 2017. 12 ‘Magic Realism: Art in Weimar Germany, 1919–33’, July 2018–July 2019. The display comprised works from The George Economou Collection. See Jonathan Jones, ‘Magic Realism: Art in Weimar Germany, 1919–33 Review – Sex, Death and Decadence’, 30 July 2018, https://www​.theguardian​.com​/artanddesign​/2018​/jul​/30​/magic​ -realism​-art​-weimar​-germany​-1919​-33​-review​-tate​-modern​-otto​-dix​-george​-grosz. Before that, Mammen’s work had appeared in only four exhibitions in the UK: in 1977 shortly after her death, ‘German Realists, 1918–1933’: Piccadilly Gallery London; ‘Berlin a Critical View. Ugly Realism 20s–70s’: Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, 1978–9; ‘Mammen’: Fischer Fine Art, London, 1980; and in Tate Britain’s ‘Art in the Wake of World War One’, in 2018. Nine works appeared more recently in the exhibition ‘Into the Night: Cabaret and Clubs in Modern Art’, shown at the Barbican Art Gallery, London, in 2019 and the Belvedere, Vienna, in 2020. 13 Jeanne Mammen The Observer, eds Köhler and Lütgens, 161–8.

Appendices 1 For the full script in German: Lenk, Die Badewanne, 96–7. 2 English translation taken from ‘The Books of Wisdom’ in Paul Valéry, Collected Works, selected by James R. Lawler, ed. Jackson Mathews, vol. 14, ‘Analects’, trans. W. H. Auden (London and New York: Routledge, 1970), 458–60. For Mammen’s original German translation and adaptation for the stage, Klünner, Im Spiegel, 83–4.

Bibliography Unpublished material Anon, unpublished accounting notes, JMS. Hannah Höch, ‘Die Frau und die Kunst’ Berlin 24 November 1948, BG-HHC J 149/79 and BG-HHE III 48.83 Jeanne Mammen, handwritten draft translation into German of ‘Conversation avec Picasso,’ in Cahiers d’Art 10, no. 10, 1935, 173–78, JMS. Jeanne Mammen, handwritten drafts of a short letter to the gallery owner G. A. Richter, 1974, no exact date, JMS. Jeanne Mammen, handwritten draft translation and typescript of Arthur Rimbaud’s A Season in Hell, JMS. Reich Chamber of Culture Artist Records LAB: A Rep. 243-04 – 5578. Reich Chamber of Culture Artist Records LAB: A Rep. 243-04 – 2156.

Correspondence between Hans Thiemann and Wassily Kandinsky, unpublished transcript of twelve letters, JMS. Jeanne Mammen and Erich Kuby, JMS. Jeanne Mammen and Hans and Elsa Thiemann, JMS. Jeanne Mammen and Hans Gaffron, JMS. Jeanne Mammen and Steffie Schaefer-Nathan, JMS. Jeanne Mammen and Max Delbrück, JMS.

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Online databases AG ‘Frauen im Exil’: http://www​.exilforschung​.de. Berliner Adressbuch der Jahre 1799 bis 1943: http://adressbuch​.zlb​.de/. For the motion: 25 June 2019: Antrag der Fraktionen der CDU/CSU und SPD: ‘Frauen im Widerstand gegen den Nationalsozialismus würdigen’ – Ralph Brinkhaus, Alexander Dobrindt und Fraktion Dr. Rolf Mützenich und Fraktion. Deutscher Bundestag: Drucksache 19/1109219. Wahlperiode available online: https://www​.bundestag​.de​/ dokumente​/textarchiv​/2019​/kw26​-de​-frauen​-widerstand​-646432. Große Deutsche Kunstausstellung 1937-1944 database: http://www​.gdk​-research​.de. The Virginia and Paul Fontaine Archive online: https://fontaine​.org​/archive​-new​/reports/.

Index Italic numbers are used for illustrations. Abstract Expressionism  179 abstraction and language  78–80 links to Cubism  71–2 and photography  164 reception after 1945  40, 44, 45, 48–50, 53–5, 59, 62, 132, 143–4, 179–80 as resistance  53–5 urge to. See Worringer, Wilhelm Abstraction, création, art non-figuratif  54 Académie Julian, Paris  17, 23, 70 Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts, Brussels  71 Academy of Arts, Berlin (Akademie der Künste zu Berlin)  83–5, 105 Adenauer, Konrad  152, 166, 176 Adorno, Theodor  121, 169–70 Air raids. See Berlin air raid shelters Akzente  162 Albert-Lasard, Lou  11, 30 Allgemeine Deutsche Kunstausstellung, Dresden (General German Art Exhibition)  44–5, 58, 131 Allied Control Authority (AlliiertenKontrollrat)  42, 46 Allied powers  42. See also Soviet zone; Western Allied zone Alvin, Marianne  31 America  17, 21, 56, 139, 142, 145, 147, 165–6 America, anti-communism  46 America, CARE packages  123, 125, 177 American art collectors  47, 90–1, 124, 139, 147–8, 180 Americanization  7, 52. See also Allied powers; Western Allied zone Anders, Richard  155, 178 Anouilh, Jean  155, 167 Anpassung. See conformity

anti-fascism  42–4, 52–6, 64, 69, 89, 115, 118–19, 162. See also Picasso, Guernica; popular front; Soviet zone anti-Nazi  44, 53–4, 67–9, 71, 73–4, 89, 91, 97, 114, 116–17, 119, 146. See also Broszat, Martin; dissent; resistance Apollinaire, Guillaume  17, 154–5 Aragon, Louis  156 Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung (AIZ) (Workers’ Illustrated Newspaper)  55 Ariernachweis  80 Artaud, Antonin  163 Artist Cooperative Klosterstraße  85, 90 Ascher Barnstone, Deborah  74 Association of Revolutionary Visual Artists (Assoziation revolutionärer bildender Künstler (ASSO))  76 Ateliergemeinschaft Klosterstraße. See (Artist Cooperative Klosterstraße) Athena  155, 156, 164–5, 173, 218 nn.7– 8, 218 n.21, 219 n.40, 221 n.88, 223 n.111, 224 n.4, 226 n.55 Avenarius, Ellen  155 Axis  54 Badewanne. See cabaret – Bathtub Balden, Theo  146 Barlach, Ernst  45, 52, 54, 86 Bauhaus  1, 8, 85, 113, 164, 180 Baum, Vicki  20, 25 Baumeister, Willi  43, 45 Das Unbekannte in der Kunst (The Unknown in Art)  140, 144 Bayreuth  167 Beckmann, Max  65, 187 n.3, 199 n.29 Belling, Rudolf  65

 Index 257 Benjamin, Walter  109–10, 175, 228 n.88 Berend-Corinth, Charlotte  30, 83, 231 n.9 Berger, Renate  86 Berken, Lo (Liselore Bergmann)  153, 162–3 Berlin, bombing of  1, 41–2, 60, 93–4, 98–100, 112, 125, 127, 130, 212 n.11. See also ruins Berlin air raid shelters  99–100 Berlin Blockade  124, 160 Berliner Volkszeitung  13 Berliner Zeitung  66 Berlinische Galerie  2, 120, 160, 179, 181 Berlin poverty  26–7, 122–4 Berlin Secession  12, 45 Berlin Surrealism  59, 122, 128, 154–5, 176–7 Berlin Women Artists Association (Verein der Berliner Künstlerinnen (VdBK))  12, 65, 85–6, 149 Berolina  37, 38, 43, 136 Blankenburg, Wera von  117 Bloch, Ernst  106–7, 200 n.42 Bloot, Jenny de  148 Bonhoeffer, Klaus  89 Borchert, Wolfgang  170 Bosch, Hieronymus  75, 117 Bote, Hermann  73 Brant, Sebastian  73 Braque, Georges  144, 150, 216 n.88, 220 n.73, 230 n.126 Bré, Ruth  30 Brecht, Bertolt  57, 163, 167, 205 n.56 Breker, Arno  53, 84, 141 Bremer, Anja. See Galerie Bremer Breton, André  154, 156, 176 Brockstedt, Hans. See Galerie Brockstedt Broszat, Martin  6, 8, 80, 82, 212 n.169, 215 n.71 Brush, Katharine  21 Buesche, Albert  128, 145, 148 Bund deutscher Gebrauchsgraphiker. See League of German Commercial Artists cabaret  155, 166–7. See also Dada, cabaret cabaret, comedy  152, 167, 176–7

cabaret, dance  162–5, 163, 167, 170, 178 cabaret, operatic sketches  167–70, 168, 169, 183–4 cabaret and literature. See also Jünger, Ernst epic poetry  167–70, 183–4 Greek tragedy  167 influences  155–8 poème illustré  158–9, 177 cabaret – Bathtub (Badewanne)  150–2, 153, 154–6, 158, 160, 162–4, 167, 171, 173, 175–6, 178 cabaret costumes  150, 155, 160, 162, 165, 168, 174 cabaret – Jellyfish Whip (Quallenpeitsche)  150, 154–6, 157, 158, 161–2, 167, 168, 170–1, 173, 175–6 cabaret – The Studio (Das Atelier)  154 Cahiers d’Art. See Zervos, Christian Camaro, Alexander  151, 162–3, 173 camouflage definition  74 in hunting  110, 140 Mammen’s use of the term  82 techniques by artists  64, 72–7, 82, 91, 94, 106, 113, 115–20 techniques by writers  48, 73–5, 80, 115–17, 161 Camus, Albert  138, 155 Cao, Maggie M. 74 Carnival  72–4, 75, 76, 118 Cassirer, Paul and Bruno  12 Cauer, Hanna  84 Cayrol, Jean  155 Chamber of Artists (Kammer der Kunstschaffenden)  42 Char, René  155, 177 Children  26, 27, 43, 70, 73, 80, 91, 101, 109, 195 n.92 children as victims of war  86–7, 94, 113, 127, 128, 133–4, 135, 138–9, 150 Chirico, Giorgio de  58, 59, 144, 162 Cierpialkowski, Darius  85 cinema. See film Clausewitz, Carl von  96–8 clown  39, 40, 71–4, 76, 91, 119, 167, 177, 179–80

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collage  58, 59, 62, 70, 93, 112, 113, 129, 134, 144, 158, 161, 165 as Ersatzkultur  124–6 papier-collé  41 collective guilt  5, 52–3, 57, 172–6 communism  52, 114, 166 Communist Party  51, 55, 67, 68, 89, 229 n.112. See also Socialist Union Party complicity. See collective guilt concentration camps  57, 69, 128 conformity  7, 52, 64, 69, 77, 80, 82, 106, 113, 122. See also nonconformity constructivism  44, 48, 180 Corinth, Lovis  12, 37 Correll, Barbara  72 Cubism  2, 4, 7, 17, 39–41, 46, 49–51, 55, 61, 70–2, 76, 78–9, 93, 99, 101, 106, 109, 113–14, 119, 139, 143–4, 150, 164 Cultural Association for the Democratic renewal of Germany (Kulturbund zur demokratischen Erneuerung Deutschlands)  42, 44 Dada  45, 48–9, 71, 77, 144, 154, 172, 180 Dada, cabaret  4, 150, 152, 158–9, 163–4, 172, 176 Dalí, Salvador  144, 157 Das Kunstwerk: Zeitschrift für Moderne Kunst  144 Das Reich  48 Degenerate Art  5, 49, 54, 71–2, 91, 96, 104–5, 114–15, 118, 146, 164, 179 Degenerate literature  37, 77–8 degeneration  66, 71, 221 n.74 Delaunay, Sonia  17 Delbrück, Emilie  89 Delbrück, Hans  89, 211 n.154 Delbrück, Justus  89 Delbrück, Max correspondence with Mammen  9, 22, 42, 60, 89, 104, 123–4, 127–9, 135, 143, 160, 166–7, 173, 175 and dissent  88–9, 95, 171

emigration to the States  90–1 demilitarization  42 denazification  42, 53, 56, 152, 161–2, 165–7. See also Heidegger, Martin; Jünger, Ernst Der Abend  47–8, 165 Der Kurier  47, 165, 199 nn.18–19, 225 n.15, 226 n.58 Der Querschnitt  19, 21, 109–10, 111 Der Spiegel  176 Der Tagesspiegel  48, 145, 152 Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung  191 n.5 Deutsche Zentral-Zeitung  67, 68 Die Badewanne. See cabaret – Bathtub Die Freundin  29, 36 Die Kunst im Dritten Reich  114, 214 n.53, 216 n.105 Die Neue Rundschau  73, 199 n.29 Die Rote Fahne  13, 51, 69, 89 Die Woche  26, 27 dissent/dissenting. See also nonconformity in art  54–6 (see also camouflage) in correspondence and diaries  74–5, 95–6 definition of  6, 67, 203 n.5 in the private sphere  64, 80, 88–90, 141 Dix, Otto  3, 8, 13, 36, 57, 65, 67, 74, 181, 187 n.6, 187 n.11, 188 n.16, 231 n.12 Döblin, Alfred  57, 206 n.72 documenta  179 Dodd, William  80, 118, 189 n.18, 207 n.94, 208 n.99 Dodo (Dörte Clara Wolff)  18, 25 Dolchstoss  103 Döpping, Marga  10, 193 n.45, 225 n.12 drawing  3, 9, 10, 24, 34, 38, 39, 45, 57, 58, 67, 68, 93, 102, 116, 117, 120, 122, 123, 127, 129, 137, 154, 156, 157, 160, 165, 168. See also fashion illustrator (Modeillustratorin) drawing, sketchbooks  14, 15, 17, 21, 27, 71, 106 drawing classes, Mammen’s  97–9, 104 Dupin, Jacques  177 Dürer, Albrecht  52, 106 Durus, Alfred  13, 27, 51

 Index 259 Dyke, James A. van  82, 188 n.12, 203 n.5, 208 n.98, 215 n.78 Dymschitz, Alexander  51 East Germany. See German Democratic Republic (GDR) Eckmann, Sabine  5, 188 n.16 education Allied policy of re-education  42–3 (see also denazification) schooling of Mammen  3, 11, 15, 24, 71, 80 Ehmsen, Heinrich  43, 86 Eichhorst, Franz  103, 104, 114 Einstein, Carl  139–40, 216 n.88 Elias, Julie  19 Éluard, Paul  156 Embry, Norris  164–5 emigration  7–9 Entartete Kunstausstellungen. See Degenerate Art Entnazifizierung. See denazification Erasmus, Desiderius  74–5 Ernst, Max  118, 150 Ersatzkultur  125 Eszterházy, Ágnes Gräfin  31–2, 36 ethnographic art  139–42 exile  5, 8, 38, 52–7, 72–3, 77, 80, 86, 133, 170 existentialism. See Sartre, Jean-Paul Expressionism  2, 46, 49, 50, 54, 59, 65–6 fascism  79, 113–14, 128, 169–70, 203 n.10 fashion. See also Delaunay, Sonia Parisienne  18–19 fashion illustrator (Modeillustratorin)  16, 18–19​ fashion journalism  19, 20 fashion salons/retailers  16, 21 Federal Republic of Germany (FRG)  7, 152, 165–6, 177, 179–80, 188 n.16, 201 n.60 Feistel-Rohmeder, Bettina  65 Femina-Palast  151, 153, 154, 163, 176 film  14

First World War  3, 11, 18, 66–7, 71, 94, 97, 107, 121, 125, 170, 214 n.70. See also Delbrück, Hans; Dolchstoss; Jünger, Ernst Flanner, Janet  111 Flaubert, Gustave  24 Flechtheim, Alfred  12, 45, 65–6, 221 n.81 Flemming, Hanns Theodor  144 Flemming, Max Leon  44 Fontaine, Virginia  47, 147 fool on the cabaret stage  162, 163 as mode of dissent  72–4 Förderverein der Jeanne-MammenStiftung e. V. 181 Formalism Debate (Formulismus Debatte)  51–2, 154, 162 Foucault, Michel  5 France. See also Allied powers; fashion; studio apartment library; translation; translation of Rimbaud; Western Allied zone German enthusiasm for  18–19, 35, 62 ‘Maison du Livre français’, Berlin  80 theatre  73 Franco, Francisco  114, 216 n.94 Franke, Elsa. See Thiemann, Elsa Frankenstein, Wolfgang  121, 146, 153, 163 Frankfurter Hefte  121, 228 n.93 Frankfurter Zeitung  19, 48, 116–18 Frankfurt School  170. See also Benjamin, Walter; Kracauer, Siegfried Freud, Sigmund  30 Frevert, Ute  84 Friedlaender, Lieselotte  18, 25 Frontline Legion of Fine Artists (Frontkämpferbund bildender Künstler)  84 Fuchs, Günter Bruno  178 Funke, Helene  30 Gaffron, Hans and Clara  44, 88, 89–90, 100, 123–4, 131, 165, 198 n.15, 218 n.27

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Index

Galerie Bremer  154 Galerie Brockstedt  180 Galerie Feldhäusser und Fritze  76 Galerie Gerd Rosen Almanac  2, 8, 9, 129, 222 n.99, 223 n.122, 226 n.49 Mammen’s solo exhibition  41, 44–52, 46, 47, 56, 62, 115, 164–5 provenance of works  133, 142 running of  7, 147–8 types of modern art displayed  3–4, 8, 38–9, 42, 60, 122, 126, 128–9, 131–2, 137, 138, 139, 144, 146, 150, 151, 154, 156, 177 Galerie Gurlitt. See Gurlitt, Wolfgang Galerie Nierendorf  22, 38, 117 Ganeva, Mila  19, 24, 25 Gebrauchsgraphik  14, 24–5, 38, 80, 81, 180, 208 n.96, 210 n.133 General German Art Exhibition (in Dresden). See Allgemeine Deutsche Kunstausstellung George, Stefan  167 Gerhardi, Ida  15, 83 German Bundestag  8 German Democratic Republic (GDR)  41, 44, 51, 54, 121, 179 Gert, Valeska  11 Gilles, Werner  147, 199 n.22 Gilroy, Paul  113 Giraudoux, Jean  173 Gleichschaltung. See National Socialist press Goebbels, Joseph  80, 85, 101, 118, 166. See also Reich Chamber of Culture; Völkischer Beobachter Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von  106 Goetsch, Hans  128 Goldberg, Theo  162, 164, 168, 183–4 Goll, Claire  19, 20 Gonzáles, Julio  113 Götz, Karl Otto  125, 155 Goya, Francisco  73, 75, 117 Graevenitz, Antje von  122, 219 n.45, 222 n.98 Great German Art Exhibitions. See House of German Art Grohmann, Will  125, 133, 139, 142–3

Grosz, George  3, 8, 13, 26, 30, 36, 181, 187 n.11, 201 n.64 Grundig, Hans  43, 54, 65, 75, 76, 117–18 Gsovsky, Tatjana  7, 165 Gurlitt, Fritz  35, 37 Gurlitt, Wolfgang  11–13, 34–5, 37, 180 Hahm, Lotte  29 harlequin. See clown Harnack, Arvid  89 Harnack, Ernst von  95, 211 n.152 Harrison, Charles  72 Hartmann, Karl-Heinz  156, 157 Hartung, Karl  122, 133, 137, 138, 139, 142–3, 150 Haus am Waldsee  148, 149, 150 Heartfield, John  54, 55, 119–20, 172 Heckel, Erich  43, 65 Heidegger, Martin  175–6 Heineman, Elizabeth  147, 222 nn.107–8, 222 n.110, 223 n.113, 223 n.121 Heisenberg, Werner  175 Held, Jutta  114–15 Heldt, Werner  45, 143, 146–7, 162, 219 n.44 Hellwag, Fritz  14, 23, 155 Herding, Klaus  54 Herf, Jeffrey  166, 227 n.66 Hessel, Helen  19 Hildebrand, Adolf von  140–1 Hildebrandt, Hans  180 Hindenburg, Paul von  107, 109, 197 n.129 Hirschfeld, Magnus  29–30, 36–7, 69 Hitler, Adolf  5, 53, 55, 63, 69, 75, 83, 94, 105, 108–9, 110, 112, 113, 117, 148 Höch, Hannah  8, 45, 90, 143–5, 148–50 Hoepffner, Marta  144 Hofer, Karl  43, 53, 57, 65, 86, 128, 143, 146, 150, 211 n.151 Hoffmann, E. T. A. 14, 24 Hoffmann, Heinrich  109, 110, 111 Höllerer, Walter  162 Holtz, Karl  170 Homer  167–9, 183–4 Horkheimer, Max  169–70 House of German Art (Haus der Deutschen Kunst)  65, 209 n.124

 Index 261 Hübner, Johannes  148, 151, 153, 155–6, 157, 158, 164, 167, 170, 173, 176–7, 178, 185–6, 207 n.93 Huhn, Rosi  114 humour. See also cabaret, comedy; Ulenspiegel: Literatur, Kunst, Satire Mammen’s  10, 13, 98 as political dissent  120 serious play  125, 132 Inner emigration, Allied reception  54–9 Inner emigration as mental position  54 Inner emigration definitions  5–6, 63–4, 66–7, 82, 86, 119 Inner emigration/inner émigré  52–3, 70–2, 77, 102, 106, 108, 122, 125, 128, 144, 146, 148, 171 Jannasch, Adolf  146 Jay, Martin  8, 188 n.16 Jeanne-Mammen-Gesellschaft e.V. 179, 181, 220 n.55 Jones, Jonathan  181 Jugend  30, 31, 32, 195 n.82, 196 n.97 Jünger, Ernst  170–2, 214 n.51 Kahlschlagliteratur. See National Socialist language Kaiser Wilhelm Church  128 Kaiser Wilhelm Institute  88–9 Kandinsky, Wassily  113, 222 n.98 Kästner, Erich  57 Kaus, Max  150 Keil, Carina  86 Kemény, Alfréd. See Durus, Alfred Kershaw, Ian  82, 109, 189 n.21, 203 n.5 Kinkel, Hans  20, 82, 154 Kirsch, Manuel  181 Klapper, John  55, 200 n.49, 203 n.2, 204 n.55, 228 n.96 Klee, Paul  58, 59, 144, 154, 162, 163, 222 n.98, 230 n.126 Klemperer, Victor  162 Klinger, Max  83 Klünner, Joachim  167, 168, 183–4

Klünner, Lothar  10, 155, 157, 167, 185–6, 189 n.22 Kollwitz, Käthe  15, 30, 54, 82–3, 85–6, 90 Koonz, Claudia  83, 193 n.53, 208 n.110, 209 n.127 Kracauer, Siegfried  7, 25 Kreisau Circle (Kreisauer Kreis)  101 Kröhnke, Walter  6, 76, 90 Kubicêk, Juro  45, 90, 122, 128, 129, 144, 146 Kubowitsch, Nina  81, 207 n.96 Kuby, Erich  2, 74, 88, 93, 95, 96, 98–101, 103, 108, 141, 170, 213 n.42, 214 n.69, 218 n.23 Kuby-Schumacher, Edith  100, 212 n.19, 222 n.101, 230 n.124 Kuczynski, Jürgen  89 Kunstgewerbeblatt  14, 24 Kunsthandlung Fritz Gurlitt. See Gurlitt, Wolfgang Kurfürstendamm  1, 21, 26, 37–8, 45, 69, 71, 130, 179, 181 Laabs, Hans  98, 153, 163, 171, 173 Laban, Rudolf  163–4 Lachnit, Wilhelm  128 Langston, Richard  122 Laserstein, Lotte  8, 13, 21 League for German Culture (Kampfbund für Deutsche Kunst)  65 League of German Commercial Artists (Bund deutscher Gebrauchsgraphiker)  14 Lebensraum  94 Le Bon, Gustave  7, 25 Leeb, Susanne  139, 221 n.80 Lehmbruck, Wilhelm  104 Leibl, Wilhelm  83 Le Journal  14 Le Mois  80 Leng, Kirsten  33, 195 n.79 Leonhard, Kurt  144 lesbianism  29–30, 32–7, 197 n.132 Liebermann, Max  38 Linfert, Carl  44, 47, 48, 55, 121, 139 Lingner, Max  54 Link, Erich  49–51 Lipchitz, Jacques  118

262

Index

Lorca, Federico García  156, 157, 160, 162, 176 Louÿs, Pierre  34–7 Ludendorff, Erich  107 Lukács, Georg  50–1 Lütgens, Annelie  4, 102, 180, 191 n.39, 194 n.62, 199 n.32, 206 n.74, 209 n.130, 216 n.93, 216 n.106, 230 n.3 McElligott, Anthony  7, 189 n.24, 219 n.51 Mackensen, August von  101–2, 106, 107, 109 Magic Realism  66, 181 Malraux, André  141 Mammen, Adeline Marie Luise (Mimi)  11, 14, 21, 22, 33, 90, 141 Mammen, Ernestine Louise (Loulou)  11, 95 Mammen, Gustav Oskar  17 Mann, Thomas  52, 57 masculinity and war  102–3, 104, 106–7, 108, 111–12, 146–7, 214 n.70 mass media  7, 12, 13, 19–27. See also National Socialist press Masson, André  118 Mein Kampf  71 Meirowsky, Karl  154, 225 n.12 Meirowsky, Katja  143, 151, 153, 154, 162, 171, 173, 224 n.6 Meller, Willy  141 META  155 Meulen, Nicolaj van der  51 Micheaux, Henri  154 military uniform. See masculinity and war Miller, Lee  111 Miró, Joan  58, 59, 113, 150, 154, 162 Mittig, Hans-Ernst  69, 90, 221 n.84 Modersohn-Becker, Paula  15, 56, 143 Moholy-Nagy, László  164 Moll, Margarethe (Marg)  85–6 Moll, Oskar  43, 86, 150 Möller, Ferdinand  45 Molo, Walter von  52–3 Montags-Zeitung  151–2 Moreck, Curt  29–30, 35 Mosse, Rudolf  19, 25, 180

Münzer, Kurt  26–7 Mussolini, Benito  109, 111 Nacht-Express  47–9 Naeff, Paul Matthias  112 Narr. See fool Nationalgalerie, Berlin  84 National Socialism, art  64–6, 71–2, 83–4, 93, 103–6, 114, 140–1. See also Die Kunst im Dritten Reich; Frontline Legion of Fine Artists; Reich Chamber of Culture National Socialism, the church  120 National Socialism, war. See Second World War National Socialism, women  83–5, 101 National Socialist German Students’ League (Nationalsozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund)  65 National Socialist language  78, 118, 161–2 National Socialist press  65, 68–9, 78, 109, 115, 116, 161–2. See also Das Reich; Die Kunst im Dritten Reich Nay, Ernst Wilhelm  43, 45, 86, 201 n.60 Neaman, Elliot Y. 172, 176, 230 n.123 Nerlinger, Oskar  43, 57, 59 Neue Frau. See new woman Neues Deutschland  49, 52, 56 New Objectivity  2, 7–8, 13, 25, 46, 50, 65, 180–1, 187 n.6, 203 n.7 new woman  7, 13, 16, 19, 25–6, 28, 30, 33, 35, 37–8, 63, 130, 179 Nietzsche, Friedrich  170 Nolde, Emil  53, 188 n.12, 188 n.16, 203 n.17 nonconformity  3, 6, 45, 49, 62–4, 69, 72–4, 77, 80, 82, 84–5, 90, 112, 114, 117–18, 137, 140–1, 161 November Group (Novembergruppe)  67, 146 occupation. See Allied powers; Soviet zone; Western Allied zone Orphism  17 Osborne, Max  11

 Index 263 Otto, Elizabeth  74, 191 n.8, 201 n.64, 213 n.46 Paris World Fair. See Picasso, Guernica Pascin, Jules  26 Pechstein, Max  5, 8, 38, 43, 65, 82, 146, 150, 204 n.19, 208 n.101 Peiner, Werner  82, 188 n.12, 203 n.8, 215 n.86 Peterhans, Walter  1 Petropoulos, Jonathan  188 n.12, 203 n.7, 204 n.19, 208 n.98, 217 n.113 Picasso, Guernica  48, 94, 113–15, 117–18 Picasso, Pablo. See also Dymschitz, Alexander; Zervos, Christian and clowns  39, 40, 41, 71, 75–6 Pickelhaube  107 Picture Post  55 pierrot. See clown Piranesi, Giovanni Battista  128 Pittura Metafisica  130 Placzek, Otto  53, 62 Ploß, Hermann Heinrich  30 Poland  94, 103, 105, 171 popular front  54, 114 Primitivism  122, 139. See also ethnographic art Prolog Gruppe (Prolog Group)  145 puppets  100, 101 Quallenpeitsche. See cabaret – Jellyfish Whip Queneau, Raymond  155 Rabelais, François  73, 229 n.114 Radziwill, Franz  53, 66, 82, 188 n.12, 208 n.98 Raeder, Erich  107 Raufast, Régine  49 Raumbilder. See cabaret, dance Rebe, Ludwig  142 Red Orchestra (Rote Kapelle)  89, 171, 190 n.31 Redslob, Edwin  48, 55, 222 n.95 Reich Chamber of Culture (Reichskulturkammer (RKK))  68, 77, 80, 106, 130, 137, 166

Reich Chamber of Culture, Mammen’s registration to  64, 74, 81, 82, 84–5, 91, 101, 223 n.117 Reich Institute for Puppetry (Reichsinstitut für Puppenspiel). See puppets Reichwein, Adolf  101, 213 n.38 Reimann School for Art and Design (Reimann-Schule für Kunst und Kunstgewerbe)  17, 24 Reinhardt, Hildegardt  35, 196 n.108 Reinholm, Gert  165 Remarque, Erich Maria  167 Reschke, Ethel  155 resistance open acts of  5–6, 69 resistance groups. See Kreisau Circle (Kreisauer Kreis); Red Orchestra (Rote Kapelle) Resistenz. See Broszat, Martin reunification  181, 188 n.16 Riess, Frieda  21 Rimbaud, Arthur Eine Jahreszeit in der Hölle (A Season in Hell)  4, 77–80, 207 n.93 Illuminations  77, 155, 158, 159, 162, 175, 177 Robbe-Grillet, Alain  155 Roellig, Ruth Margarete  29, 32, 36 Roh, Franz  54, 58, 164 Romanisches Café  20, 45 Rosen, Gerd. See Galerie Gerd Rosen Rosenberg, Alfred  65, 103 Rosié, Rosie  151, 152, 153, 162, 219 n.40 Ross, Corey  64, 192 n.14, 193 n.40, 204 n.25, 212 n.4, 212 n.22 Rote Kapelle. See Red Orchestra (Rote Kapelle) Roters, Eberhard  102, 179, 187 n.11, 198 n.16, 202 n.73 Roth, Joseph  80 Roth, Lynette  108, 122, 125, 188 n.17, 201 n.62, 212 n.166, 230 n.1 Rousseau, Henri  160, 165 ruins art made of  124, 125, 126 homes  94–5, 122–3, 125–6, 127, 129 management. See Trümmerfrauen

264

Index

uncanny  126, 129, 137, 138 Rüling, Anna  30 Russia  42, 45, 67, 71, 75, 108, 141, 147. See also Soviet zone, art Salomon, Charlotte  8, 189 n.28, 215 n.79 Salomon, Erich  181 Sandberg, Herbert  56 Sandmann, Gertrude  11 Sappho  34–8 Sartre, Jean-Paul  138, 155, 172–6, 219 n.45 Schacht, Roland  48 Schad, Christian  11, 32 Schaefer-Ast, Albert  37, 86 Schaefer-Nathan, Steffie (Stephanie)  7, 11, 86 correspondence with Mammen  46– 7, 60, 87, 89, 122 Scharl, Josef  117, 118, 119 Schenker, Karl  21, 181 Scherl, August  19, 25, 26, 88, 180 Schidrowitz, Leo  30 Schirach, Baldur von  109, 110 Schlichter, Rudolf  32, 33, 172, 181, 187 n.11, 196 n.94, 196 n.102 Schmalenbach, Fritz  231 n.10 Schmidt-Caroll, Erna  181 Schmidt-Rottluff, Karl  45, 143, 146 Schmied, Wieland  180 Schoenberner, Franz  25 Scholz, Georg  32 Schöne, Dorothea  56, 198 n.9, 218 n.6, 221 n.78, 227 n.64 Schreiber, Otto Andreas  65 Schubert, Julia  120 Schultze-Naumburg, Paul  71, 83, 221 n.74 Schulze-Boysen, Harro  89 Scott, James C. 72, 89–90, 210 n.132 Scuola Libera del Nudo – Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma  24 Second World War  74, 93–4, 95, 98, 101–3, 107, 109, 171. See also Berlin, bombing of; Berlin air raid shelters; masculinity and war; ruins; Total War, Wehrmacht

Sert, José Luis  113 sex reform gay, lesbian and transvestite nightclubs  28, 29–30, 33 sex and gender equality  13, 27, 30 sexual science (sexology)  29–30, 31, 37, 69 Siegel, Harro  100–1, 155 Simmel, Georg  7 Simplicissimus  19, 21, 25, 68, 180 Sinsheimer, Hermann  11, 25, 26 Sintenis, Renée  12, 30, 43, 143–6, 148, 208 n.101 Sittengeschichten  29–30, 35 Slevogt, Max  38 Social Democratic Party (SPD)  8, 166 Socialist Realism. See Soviet zone, art Socialist Union Party (SED)  49, 166 Society of Berlin Artists (Verein Berliner Künstler (VBK))  84 Society of Independent Artists (Société des Artistes Indépendants)  11 Sombart, Werner  7 Sophocles  167 Soviet zone, art  42, 44, 49–52, 54 Speer, Albert  113 Speichen  177, 230 n.134 Stahl, Hermine  31 Stauffenberg, Claus Schenk Graf von  5, 8 Stekel, Wilhelm  30 Steger, Milly  65, 84 Steinlen, Théophile Alexandre  19, 27 Stephenson, Jill  101 Sternberger, Dolf  73, 116–18 Stiftung Stadtmuseum, Berlin  181 Stöcker, Helene  30 Stomps, Louise  143, 147 Stonard, Jean-Paul  3, 230 n.137 Strecker, Paul  150, 229 n.108 Stuckenschmidt, Hans Heinz  168 studio apartment (Mammen’s)  1, 2, 10, 14, 21, 22, 42, 45, 60, 70, 94–5, 96, 100, 119, 123, 125, 128, 136, 141, 158, 178, 181, 197 n.113, 227 n.61 studio apartment library  1, 21, 22, 30, 36, 73, 77, 96, 117, 137–40, 155, 164, 167, 173, 181, 206 n.66,

 Index 265 206 n.72, 207 n.87, 225 n.24, 229 n.121 Stunde Null. See Zero Hour Sturge, Kate  77, 207 n.91 Styl. Blätter für Mode und die angenehmen Dinge des Lebens  16, 19, 20 Surrealism  49, 113, 155, 158. See also Berlin Surrealism Symbolism  2, 7, 155 Tägliche Rundschau  51, 61, 199 n.18, 202 n.83 Tannhauser, Heinrich  12 theatre  19, 72, 95, 150, 155, 166, 173, 230 n.129 Thiemann, Elsa  1, 2, 7–8, 85, 126, 127, 143, 147, 164, 178 Thiemann, Hans  58, 59, 62, 85, 112, 113, 122, 128, 131, 132, 133, 148, 152, 162, 176, 178 correspondence with Mammen  71, 98, 177, 190 n.35, 194 n.69, 202 n.1, 204 n.39 Thiess, Frank  52–3 Thorak, Josef  141 Thun, Johann  154, 207 n.82 Tolstoy, Leo  75 Tönnis, Ferdinand  7 Total War  97, 101 Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri de  19, 35–6 translation  79, 155, 177 translation of Rimbaud  3, 64, 77–8, 80, 155, 158, 177 Trökes, Heinz  44–5, 56, 128, 133, 142–3, 146, 150, 162, 219 n.44, 223 n.124 Trümmerfrauen  133, 145 Tucholsky, Kurt  11 Tzara, Tristan  159, 164 Uhlmann, Hans  45, 46, 48, 76, 90, 122, 133, 142–3, 147, 150. See also Berolina imprisonment  67–70, 74, 77 ‘Nach 12 Jahren’  43–4, 53, 62 sculpture  136, 137–9 Ulenspiegel: Literatur, Kunst, Satire (Ulenspiegel: Literature, Art, Satire)  56–60, 57, 58, 62, 166,

170, 173, 215 n.86, 219 n.40, 227 n.70, 229 n.108 Ulk  19, 25, 180 Ullstein  19–21, 25, 180–1 Uzanne, Octave  18–19 Valentin, Karl  45 Valéry, Paul  173, 174, 175, 185–6 Verein der Berliner Künstlerinnen (VdBK). See Berlin Women Artists Association Verlaine, Paul  74, 155 Versailles Treaty  89, 94, 107 Vogel, Ilse-Margret  7, 44–5, 46, 48, 147–8, 212 n.8 Vogt, Erich  49–51 Völkischer Beobachter  65–6 Volz, Robert  114 Vossische Zeitung  56 Wagner, Richard  106, 167 Wamper, Adolf  141 Warburg, Aby  141 Wehrmacht  93, 103, 104, 108, 114, 136 Weimar Republic  1, 3–5, 11, 29, 48, 102, 107, 119, 167, 176, 180–1 Weininger, Otto  30, 32 Weisenborn, Günter  56 Werner, Theodor  45, 146, 201 n.60 Werner, Woty  143, 147 Westecker, Wilhelm  103 Western Allied zone  41–2, 46, 131, 217 n.4, 166 West Germany. See Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) Westheim, Paul  74 Westphal, Gert  165 Weyrauch, Wolfgang  56–7 Widerstand. See resistance Wigman, Mary  163–4 Wilde, Oscar  24 Wirnitzer, Elfriede  147 Wittkopf, Rudolf  155 Wohl, Kurt and Grete  88, 89–90, 143 Wolff, Dörte Clara. See Dodo women. See also Berlin Women Artists Association; National Socialism, women; new woman; sex reform

266 erotica for  28, 36 post-war collectives  148–9 and war  94, 101–2, 111, 122, 126, 127, 130, 131, 133, 145–8 world art. See ethnographic art Worringer, Wilhelm  140 Zero Hour  121

Index Zervos, Christian  78–9, 199 n.35 Ziegler, Adolf  106 Zimmermann, Mac  45, 90, 122, 128, 130, 131, 133, 142–4, 146–7, 150–1, 162 ‘Zone 5’  133, 137, 141, 142, 154 Zox-Weaver, Annalisa  111–12 Zuckmayer, Carl  170

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Plate 1  Jeanne Mammen, Das Martyrium (Pola Negri) (Martyrdom (Pola Negri)), undated, c. 1922, mixed media (graphite, charcoal, watercolour, opaque paint and black ink) on paper, 68 × 92  centimetres. Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin; Inv.-Nr.: SM 2019-03544. Photo: © Oliver Ziebe, Berlin.

Plate 2 Jeanne Mammen, untitled (Teekleid von Kuhnen (Goldfische)) (Tea-dress from Kuhnen (Goldfish)), undated, c. 1923, watercolour and ink on paper, original size and whereabouts unknown, in Styl, no. 3, 1923, plate 3. Photo: © Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin.

Plate 3  Jeanne Mammen, Bullier, undated, c. 1913–4, watercolour and pencil on paper, 17 × 10.5  centimetres, whereabouts unknown. Photo: © Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin.

Plate 4  Jeanne Mammen, untitled (Teegespräch im Affenkäfig) (Tea Party in the Monkey Enclosure), undated, c. 1929, watercolour and pencil on paper, 42 × 31.5  centimetres. Collection of Ömer Koç. Photo: © Sotheby’s.

Plate 5  Jeanne Mammen, untitled (Aschinger), undated, c. 1926, watercolour and pencil on paper, 44.3 × 32.6 centimetres. Private owner. Photo: © Papierrestaurierung Ratingen.

Plate 6  Jeanne Mammen, Zwei Frauen tanzend (Two Women Dancing), 1928, watercolour and pencil on paper, 48 × 36 centimetres. Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin. Photo: © Volker-H. Schneider, Berlin.

Plate 7  Jeanne Mammen, Siesta, undated, c. 1930–2, colour lithograph, 57 × 40.5 centimetres. Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin; Inv.-Nr.: SM 201900452. Photo: © Mathias Schormann, Berlin.

Plate 8  Jeanne Mammen, Damenbar (Ladies’ Bar), undated, c. 1930–2, colour lithograph, 62 × 43  centimetres. JeanneMammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin; Inv.-Nr.: SM 2019-00449. Photo: © Mathias Schormann, Berlin.

Plate 9 Jeanne Mammen, untitled (Frau und Mädchen) (Woman and Girl), undated, c. 1930–2, colour lithograph, 54.3 × 42  centimetres. Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin; Inv.-Nr.: SM 2019-00454. Photo: © Mathias Schormann, Berlin.

Plate 10  Jeanne Mammen, untitled (Bordellszene) (Scene in a Brothel), undated, c. 1930–2, colour lithograph, 53 × 41.5 centimetres. Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin; Inv.-Nr.: SM 201900445. Photo: © Mathias Schormann, Berlin.

Plate 11 Jeanne Mammen, Kirche am Winterfeldtplatz (Church on Winterfeldtplatz), undated, c. 1940, oil, paper, cloth and doilies on cardboard, 101 × 72 centimetres. Berlinische Galerie Landesmuseum für Moderne Kunst, Fotografie und Architektur BG-M 0183/76. Photo: © Kai-Annett Becker.

Plate 12  Jeanne Mammen, Jongleur (Juggler), undated, c. 1935–40, tempera on cardboard, 101 × 73  centimetres. Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin; Inv.-Nr.: SM 2018-09231. Photo: © Mathias Schormann, Berlin.

Plate 13  Jeanne Mammen, Mutter Clown mit Kind (Columbine) (Mother Clown with Child (Columbine)), undated, c. 1935–40, tempera on cardboard, 100 × 70 centimetres. JeanneMammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin; Inv.-Nr.: SM 2018-01396. Reproduction: © Oliver Ziebe, Berlin.

Plate 14 Jeanne Mammen, Clown, undated, c. 1935–40, tempera on cardboard, 72 × 50  centimetres. Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin; Inv.-Nr.: SM 201801346. Photo: © Mathias Schormann, Berlin.

Plate 15  Jeanne Mammen, Atelierbild (Studio Interior), undated, c. 1929, oil on canvas, 99 × 90 centimetres. Private owner. Photo: © Michael Lüder, Potsdam.

Plate 16  Jeanne Mammen, Admiral, undated, c. 1942, tempera and collage (tinfoil and paper doilies) on cardboard, 70 × 50  centimetres. Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin; Inv.-Nr.: SM 2018-01326. Photo: © Oliver Ziebe, Berlin.

Plate 17  Jeanne Mammen, Mackensen, undated, c. 1939–42, tempera on cardboard, 100 × 70 centimetres. Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin; Inv.-Nr.: SM 201809218. Photo: © Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin.

Plate 18  Jeanne Mammen, General, undated c. 1939–42, tempera on cardboard, 100 × 70 centimetres. Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association, Berlin-Buch. Photo: © Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin.

Plate 19 Jeanne Mammen, Der Jäger (Sonntagsjäger) (The Hunter (Sunday Hunter)), undated, c. 1939–42, tempera on cardboard, 100 × 70  centimetres. Jeanne-MammenStiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin; Inv.-Nr.: SM 2018-01391. Photo: © Mathias Schormann, Berlin.

Plate 20  Jeanne Mammen, Der Würgeengel (The Strangling Angel), undated, c. 1939–42, tempera on cardboard, 150 × 75 centimetres. Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association, Berlin-Buch. Photo: © Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin.

Plate 21 Jeanne Mammen, Wolf, undated c. 1939–42, tempera on cardboard, 91 × 70  centimetres. Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin; Inv.-Nr.: SM 201809224. Photo: © Mathias Schormann, Berlin.

Plate 22  Jeanne Mammen, Profile (Profiles), undated, c. 1945–6, mixed media (oil, wire, cardboard), 50 × 45  centimetres. Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin; Inv.-Nr.: SM 2018-01300. Photo: © Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin.

Plate 23  Jeanne Mammen, Brennendes Haus (Burning House), undated, c. 1944, mixed media and collage on cardboard, 49 × 35  centimetres. Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin; Inv.-Nr.: SM 2018-01294. Photo: © Oliver Ziebe, Berlin.

Plate 24  Jeanne Mammen, Mutter und Kind (Mother and Child), undated, c. 1946, oil on canvas, 81.5 × 86.5  centimetres. Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin; Inv.-Nr.: SM 2018-09230. Photo: © Oliver Ziebe, Berlin.

Plate 25  Set design by Jeanne Mammen for the Quallenpeitsche sketch of Federico García Lorca’s poem, Zwei Matrosen am Ufer (Two Sailors on the Shore), c. 1950, pencil and oil chalk on paper, 25.1 × 20.3 centimetres. Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin; Inv.-Nr.: SM 2020-00918. Photo: © Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin.

Plate 26  Jeanne Mammen, untitled (Ballet), undated, c. 1935–8, mixed media (chalk and collage on blue, pink and purple paper), 45.5 × 59 centimetres. Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin; Inv.-Nr.: SM 2020-01115. Photo: © Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin.

Plate 27 Jeanne Mammen, cover of Ulenspiegel, 21, no. 1, October 1946. Headline ‘Der Nichtwähler wählt auch’ (The non-voter also votes) and byline ‘Die Gestrigen: “Komm’ nur, wir wickeln Dich schon ein!”’ (The Diehards: Come on, We Will Dupe You!), untitled and undated, c. 1946, watercolour and pencil on paper, 47.5 × 36 centimetres. Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin; Inv.-Nr.: GR/0175/HZ. Photo: © Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung im Stadtmuseum Berlin.