Koller Auctions Zurich, 2012.
Julius Ferdinand and Johanna Sophie Wollf were part of Dresden’s cultural landscape for 25 years. With the National Socialists‚ 'seizure of power', they were increasingly marginalised. Today, there are hardly any traces of the couple in their adopted home of Dresden.
Childhood on the Rhine
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Julius Wollf was born in Koblenz on 22 May 1871. His father, Ferdinand Wollf, ran the wine merchants A. Wollf und Com. with his brother Adolph. His mother, Marianne, née Kleineibst, hailed from Braunfels an der Lahn. The family practised their Jewish faith; Julius's grandfather Martin was cantor of the Jewish community in Koblenz. He lived with his parents and siblings Rosalie, Klara, Frieda Emma and Max at Friedrichstraße 30 in Koblenz.
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
In June 1881, Ferdinand Wollf dies in the Andernach Sanatorium and Care Facility. Together with his mother and younger brother Max, Julius moves to Mannheim. The three sisters remain in Koblenz. His uncle Julius already lives in Mannheim. It is presumed that he adopts the surname „Ferdinand“ there due to this duplication of names.
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
In Mannheim, Julius Ferdinand meets his future wife, Johanna Sophie, née Gutmann. Johanna Sophie was born in Mannheim on 18th October 1877. Little is known about her childhood and family, and no images of her are known. They marry in 1898.
After studying philosophy, history, economics, art and literature, Wollf became a dramatist at the court theatre in Karlsruhe. His cousin Karl Wollf, son of Uncle Julius, with whom he had grown up in Mannheim, was also employed there.
The start of a journalistic career
Photographer unknown, via altesdresden.de
In 1899, Wollf began his journalistic career in Munich with the „Münchner Zeitung“. This was published by August Huck, who only a few years later appointed Julius Ferdinand Wollf as managing director of the publishing house Neueste Nachrichten, Wollf & Co., which publishes the „Dresdner Neuesten Nachrichten“.
In Dresden, the couple initially rented a flat at Anton-Graff-Straße 21 in Dresden-Striesen. In 1916, they moved into a prestigious villa on the south side of the Großer Garten. There, they found themselves in close proximity to some of Dresden's most well-known residents.
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
As a theatre critic and editor-in-chief of the DNN, Wollf was to exert a decisive influence on Dresden's cultural life over the following 30 years. His commitment was dedicated to various topics, to which he devoted comprehensive reports in his newspaper. In 1922, he also co-organised the Gerhart Hauptmann Festival Days at the Dresden Playhouse in the presence of the writer, was a member of the Dresden Rotary Club, and co-founder of the Dresden Schopenhauer Society, which organised a major international congress in Dresden in 1927.
Wollf is very committed to his profession and, from October 1921, held the role of second deputy chairman of the Association of German Newspaper Publishers (VDZV), founded in 1894.
Dedicated to medical education
German Hygiene Museum Dresden
Furthermore, Wollf is involved in medical education both in his writings and privately. Among publishers in 1927, he advocated that only medical professionals should write newspaper articles on medical topics. Through his close friendship with Karl August Lingner, a Dresden entrepreneur and the founder of Odol, he was involved in the establishment of the German Hygiene Museum in Dresden, both in the lead-up and then as a board member.
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Wollf also actively participates in the exhibition life of the Saxon state capital. As early as 1911, he was involved in the first International Hygiene Exhibition in Dresden. In 1927, Wollf and the Deutsche Verlegerschaft (German Publishers„ Association) participated in the fifth “Jahresschau Deutscher Arbeit" (Annual Review of German Labour) titled "Das Papier" (Paper). Shortly thereafter, in 1931, he took on a role in the presidium for the Second International Hygiene Exhibition.
The Fascination of Art
Private ownership, Israel
However, art is also among the interests of the cosmopolitan couple. Few traces of their own collection remain. In a 1956 memoir, Emmy Mraczek, a friend of the couple, recounts the art treasures at Franz-Liszt-Straße 6:
Julius Wollf's house was probably one of the most valuable in Dresden; one could say that every single item represented significant value. It was likely filled with artistic treasures.
Unknown photographer, German Fotothek
The Wollfs' collecting interests span various areas. From the mid-1920s, they began collecting East Asian art, including porcelain, carvings, and bronzes. In addition, the couple also owns precious furniture and carpets, as well as a collection of rare clocks and silverware. Julius Ferdinand Wolff also amassed a library containing many valuable volumes.
Julius and Johanna also buy paintings by important artists, including works by Auguste Renoir, Oskar Kokoschka, Oskar Moll and Jules Pascin – possibly also a painting by Paul Cézanne. For the 3rd anniversary exhibition of the Saxon Art Association, they lend two works by Moll and Pascin to make them accessible to the public in this context.
A brutal caesura
Public domain, Federal Archives
A day later, the literary scholar and politician Victor Klemperer writes in his diary: „Yesterday, a pitiful statement by the Dresden N. N. [Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten] ‚on its own behalf‘. They are 92.5 per cent owned by Aryan capital; Mr Wollf, owner of the remaining 7.5 per cent, has resigned as editor-in-chief; one Jewish editor has been suspended (poor Fentl!), the other ten are Aryans. Appalling! A children’s ball bearing a swastika in a toy shop.“
Casually, Klemperer, a friend of the Wollf family, writes about the political developments in Germany. In the statement by the Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten, about which Klemperer reports, it is also pointed out that Wollf is „of Jewish descent“, but has belonged to the Christian faith for about thirty years.
However, this reference to the conversion already carried out in 1902 does not protect the couple for long. In the racial policies of the National Socialists, they continue to be considered Jewish and are excluded from social life in Dresden. Julius Ferdinand Wollf also loses all honorary positions, including his place on the board of the German Hygiene Museum Dresden.
Estate of Herbert Eulenberg, Heinrich Heine Institute, Rhineland State Archives, Düsseldorf
With a growing number of regulations restricting all Jewish citizens, the lives of the Wollf couple are also becoming more confined. In a letter written in 1938 to his friend Herbert Eulenberg, Julius Ferdinand Wollf poignantly describes the experiences the couple is having in Nazi-controlled Dresden:
...the life we lead also slowly but noticeably wears down the body. There is nowhere we can go to recover and catch our breath. And since the environment bears down on us so heavily, we go outside our homes as little as possible. Sometimes we flee to Berlin to see a few friends and relatives, because there we don't so easily run into former acquaintances. Then we shut ourselves away again. Our lighter moments come when we lie in bed with a book and wait for the effect of the sleeping pills, which we have been consuming in large quantities for a long time.
One's own home as a Jewish house
Public domain, via altesdresden.de
In 1939, the Wolffs„ villa is designated a so-called “Jews’ house". They now share their home not only with Julius's brother Max, but with eight more Jewish men and women who are forced by the National Socialists to leave their apartments. Thus, they now live in close quarters with strangers. The sanctuary of their own home disappears.
In January 1942, the Wollfs' assets were confiscated. They were subjected to daily house searches and physical abuse by SS members. Every evening, according to the music editor of the Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten, these men threatened the elderly couple with death.
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The situation is hopeless for Julius Ferdinand and Johanna Sophie. On 27 February 1942, one day before they are to be deported, they take their own lives together.
Max Wollf had already committed suicide in January, and in July 1942 and March 1944, his sisters also took their own lives. The entire family was wiped out by Nazi terror.
State Art Collections Dresden, Archive
In their will, the childless couple stipulate that two-thirds of their possessions shall go to their adopted daughter Katharina Salten, the daughter of their friend Felix Salten, the author of the world-famous story „Bambi“. The remaining third they bequeath to Johanna Sophie's sister. However, in August 1942, the Dresden Museum of Applied Arts already took possession of some works from the Wollf collection. Due to the antisemitic provisions of Nazi legislation, the will was definitively declared invalid in December of that year. The beneficiaries named within it received nothing.
The house at Franz-Liszt-Straße 6, along with its remaining furnishings, is to be sold to Cologne's chamber singer Mathieu Ahlersmeyer. In 1944, Joseph Goebbels included the singer on the "Gottbegnadeten-Liste" (God's Gift List) of the most important artists. This list contained individuals who were particularly loyal to the Nazi regime and were therefore specially protected by it.
Reconstruction of a collection
Koller Auctions Zurich, 2012.
The reconstruction of the collection by provenance researchers at the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden is proving difficult due to the state of the documentation. Many archival documents that would have provided insight into the couple's holdings were lost in the war. The executor's office in Ferdinandstraße was destroyed during the bombing of Dresden on the night of 13th to 14th February.
The only surviving documents are the inventory list of the Museum of Decorative Arts and probate files in the Saxon State Archives, which were severely damaged in the 2002 flood. Nevertheless, provenance researchers at the Dresden State Art Collections have succeeded in identifying artworks from the collection of the Wollf couple. Restitutions to the rightful heirs were possible in 2008 and 2015.
Dresden State Art Collections, Museum of Decorative Arts
There is still no trace of the majority of the collection. It's possible that valuable furniture and art objects are still to this day unrecognised in museums or private collections.
