An intuitive collector
Hanna Strzoda
Almost every drawing receives a stamp. Carl Heumann stamped newly acquired works to identify them as part of his collection. He devoted a lot of time and effort to his art collection, kept a meticulous inventory, and was always on the lookout for new acquisitions.
Carol Heumann Snider, Carl’s granddaughter
From the Heumann collection:
Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz/PUNCTUM/Bertram Kober 🔍 Move the mouse over the image to zoom in
Landscape with Trees), 1815-1821. 🔍 Move the mouse over the image to zoom in
Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus. Public domain🔍 Move the mouse over the image to zoom in
He amassed a significant art collection. It contained German and Austrian drawings, watercolors, and prints from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
He was above all as a connoisseur of the drawings produced by the German Romans (Deutschrömer) and the Nazarenes, two important artistic movements at the time.
Quote from Erhard Göpel: Abseits der Heerstraße. Die Sammlung Konsul Heumann unter dem Hammer, in: Nationale Zeitung, Basel, 18. November 1957
“Anyone involved with Nazarene art in the 1920s would have come across the collector Consul Heumann sooner or later (…)”
Art historian Erhard Göpel, 1957
Dresdner Nachrichten, available at chemnitz-gestern-heute.de 🔍 Move mouse over image to zoom in
A friend and patron of museums
Carl Heumann’s collection was also well known in the museum world. Institutions including Berlin’s Nationalgalerie (National Gallery) repeatedly asked him to loan works for their exhibitions. On a number of occasions, he furnished entire exhibitions with items from his collection.
Heumann had a special association with Chemnitz, where he settled and started a family. By 1934 he had donated 90 works on paper to the Chemnitzer Kunstsammlungen (Chemnitz Art Collections).
Life in the Kaßberg district of Chemnitz
Family collection
Born in Cologne
Carl Heumann was born in 1886 in Cologne. He was the oldest of four brothers. The family was Jewish, but in 1917 Carl Heumann converted to Protestantism at the age of 31.
Aus: Chemnitz in Wort und Bild. Festschrift zur Einweihung des Neuen Rathauses, Chemnitz 1911, S. 294
Ebd.
Archiv chemnitz-gestern-heute.de
Employed in Chemnitz
In 1908 Carl Heumann moved to Chemnitz, where he worked at the Bayer & Heinze bank in 3 Innere Johannisstraße in the city center.
In 1920 Heumann became joint owner of the bank.
All photos: family collection
A happy family
In 1919 Carl Heumann married Irmgard Buddecke, who was Protestant. The couple went on to have three children: Rainer (born in 1923), Thomas (born in 1928), and Ulrike (born in 1932).
Family collection
The Heumanns gained wealth and prestige.
1925 the family moved into a villa at 10 Reichsstraße in the well-heeled neighborhood of Kaßberg.
Family collection
Family collection
Some of Carl Heumann’s artworks were displayed on the walls. However, he kept most of the light-sensitive sheets in folders and drawing cabinets to protect them from sunlight.
Dresdner Nachrichten, available at chemnitz-gestern-heute.de
In 1929 Carl Heumann was appointed vice- consul of Portugal. A vice consulate was set up specially for him in Chemnitz.
Progressively deprived of rights
Bundesarchiv, Plak 003-001-009🔍 Move the mouse over the image to zoom in
Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-E03468
Under a dangerous misapprehension
The situation escalated. Carl’s younger brothers Edgar and Wilhelm Heumann emigrated to the USA in 1938. They tried to persuade Carl to come with them, but he considered himself to be safe in Germany.
Carl Heumann, as quoted by his son Thomas
Family collection
However, Heumann was gradually forced out of the bank he co-owned. On December 31, 1939 he had to vacate his position.
From now on he was only allowed access to his safe deposit box with authorization and in the presence of a customs official.
Heumann’s bank accounts were frozen. As he was in a ‘privileged mixed marriage’ (that is, married to a non-Jew), he was able to access 3,000 Reichsmarks per month for living expenses.
addition, Heumann had to disclose his assets and pay a ‘levy on Jewish assets’ in the amount of 55,000 Reichsmarks.
During this period Carl Heumann was also stripped of his position as consul. The Portuguese vice-consulate established specially for him was closed down and Hermann’s post terminated with effect from September 1, 1939. He was allowed to retain the title ‘consul’.
Under Cover of Darkness
After all the harassment Carl Heumann became a complete recluse. He barely left the house and he limited his contact with the outside world.
However, also during the war years he used intermediaries to continue to buy and sell art and to refine his collection.
Irmgard Heumann to her mother, Adele, February 25, 1940. Family collection
“The collection is his ‘spiritual child’ ; he created it, shapes it, and he finds satisfaction in it. He must find satisfaction in it."
Sächsisches Staatsarchiv, Staatsarchiv Leipzig, 20206 Oberfinanzpräsident Leipzig, no. 914/3, unpaginated
Sächsisches Staatsarchiv, Staatsarchiv Leipzig, 20206 Oberfinanzpräsident Leipzig, no. 914/3, unpaginated
To protect his art collection from the Nazis’ clutches, in October 1940 Carl signed it over to his wife, Irmgard.
Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz/Archiv
Carl Heumann received support from Waldemar Ballerstedt. During the National Socialist period, Ballerstedt held various posts in the Chemnitz cultural scene. From 1936 he was the city’s commissioner for cultural affairs and had his office in the König-Albert-Museum. He enabled Heumann to visit the Städtische Kunstsammlungen (Municipal Art Collections) in secret after dark.
Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz/Jürgen Seidel
“You’d only see him at twilight (…)”
Waldemar Ballerstedt to his friend Ina Seidel, an actress, February 12, 1960. Stadtarchiv Chemnitz, O 01 Nachlass Waldemar Ballerstedt, shelfmark 14
Program from the Städtisches Theater (Municipal Theater) Chemnitz, February 1935, available at chemnitz-gestern-heute.de
Waldemar Ballerstedt (1893–1967) was already a member of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) and the SS before Hitler came to power.
However, after the war he asserted that he had provided refuge to persecuted antifascists and protected Chemnitz’s Jews from deportation.
Ballerstedt also allegedly made efforts to assist Carl Heumann on repeated occasions. To protect Heumann from danger, Ballerstedt is said to have offered him refuge at his weekend home at the end of 1944.
From the affidavit of Emmi Mahr, 6 October 1959 (Stadtarchiv Chemnitz, O 01, Nachlass Waldemar Ballerstedt, Sign. 07)
After the war, Ballerstedt was arrested and interned by the Soviets. In 1950 he was handed over to the East German authorities and sentenced to 18 years’ imprisonment for crimes against humanity. He was granted early release after serving ten years of his sentence.
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Zentralarchiv, I/NG 964, fol. 13 🔍 Move the mouse over the image to zoom in
On January 7, 1944 Irmgard Heumann died of a brain tumor. Carl Heumann thereby lost the protection of being in a ‘privileged mixed marriage’.
After Irmgard’s Death
Photo in: Karl-Marx-Stadt – Geschichte der Stadt in Wort und Bild, Berlin 1988, available at chemnitz-gestern-heute.de
Nothing is known about Carl Heumann’s subsequent situation or why he was spared from deportation.
After the war, Ballerstedt described this period as follows: “And thus he stayed calmly in his villa, an incorrigible optimist despite everything, and continued to catalog his collections meticulously …”
Ulrike, who was 12 when her mother died, was placed in the care of her non-Jewish uncle for her own safety.
Ulrike, who was 12 when her mother died, was placed in the care of her non-Jewish uncle for her own safety.
Between February and April 1945, the Allies intensified their air raids on Chemnitz, which was an industrial city.
Family collection
The Heumanns’ villa was hit by a high-explosive bomb on March 5, 1945. Carl Heumann lost his life attempting to salvage a suitcase containing his beloved drawings from the cellar of the burning house.
Restitution
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett / Dietmar Katz. Public Domain Mark 1.0 🔍 Move mouse over the image to zoom in
Nationalgalerie acquisitions
Berlin’s Nationalgalerie acquired two artworks from the Heumann collection: in 1942 it purchased the portrait of the architect Friedrich August Stüler from the Leipzig auction house C. G. Boerner, and in 1944 the Teufelsbrücke (Devil’s Bridge) from the Munich auction house Karl & Faber.
Hanna Strzoda
Collector’s stamp to indicate provenance
Thanks to the stamp used by Carl Heumann to identify his drawings, they can be clearly attributed to his collection. The Stüler portrait has two stamps on the back. Heumann initially used the monogram “CH”; later he changed the stamp to the “blue flower of the Romantics”.
bpk / Kupferstichkabinett, SMB / Dietmar Katz 🔍 Move mouse over image to zoom in
A just and fair solution
The drawing Teufelsbrücke (Devil’s Bridge) was restituted in 2022; the Stüler-portrait remains in the Kupferstichkabinett (Museum of Prints and Drawings ) in Berlin.
This agreement was reached between the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz (Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation) and Carl Heumann’s heirs in the USA. It was made on the basis that until his death of his wife in January 1944, Heumann had had a certain degree of protection as well as access to resources enabling him to continue his collection.
The Lenbachhaus museum in Munich, the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (Dresden State Art Collections), and the Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz (Chemnitz Art Collections) also all returned works from the Heumann collection to the family.
Thomas Snider
rbb
Carol Heumann Snider, Carl Heumann’s granddaughter, has made it her task to tell her grandfather’s story. A book and a blog has been published by her.
In her words: “When his art is restituted to us, it makes me feel connected to the grandfather who I never knew because he was taken from us. It’s emotional.”
Film by rbb on Carl Heumann
