Calendar

>>> Coverage of the exhibition:

Kreuzer Leipzig, 6. Juni 2025
Von Apfelsinen, Blumen und Hakenkreuzen

Leipziger Volkszeitung, 3 June 2025
Academy in Nazi times: Leipzig's HGB opens its archive in new exhibition

Deutschlandfunk Kultur today, 3 June 2025
Julia Blume on the Nazi history of the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig

MDR Kultur, 3 June 2025
How the HGB allowed itself to be appropriated by the Nazis

Mephisto, radio for headphones, 3 June 2025
From approx. min. 24:30

Sachsenfernsehen, 4 June 2025
From min. 1:49

The exhibition "1933-1945HGB" attempts to provide an insight into the history of the HGB Leipzig (then the Academy of Graphic Arts and Book Trade) during the National Socialist era.

Research into the history of the HGB has been met with incomplete records. An archive of the university was not kept continuously. Particularly in times of political upheaval, documents were arbitrarily and deliberately destroyed and carelessly handled. The documents from the period between 1933 and 1945 are particularly fragmentary, so numerous secondary sources must be used to reconstruct the events. Research in the archives and library of the HGB, the state archives in Leipzig and Dresden, the digital collection of the Leo Baeck Institute in New York and a review of current thematic literature form the basis for the material in the exhibition. Excerpts and reproductions from documents, archive holdings and journals will provide an insight into this chapter of the institution's history in chronological order.

Important information can also be gleaned from biographical accounts of former teachers at the university: The illustrator Hugo Steiner-Prag, artistic director of the Propyläen publishing house, president of the International Book Exhibition (1919-1927) had held a professorship at the academy since 1910. He was immediately dismissed in 1933 due to his Jewish origins. The painter and graphic artist Willi Geiger also lost his teaching position at the academy in 1933. In 1934, the Dresden ministry appointed Walter Gasch, an active NSDAP member, as deputy director. In 1937, Hans-Alexander Müller, teacher of the woodcut class, and the graphic artist and illustrator Dr Hellmuth Weissenborn were forced to leave the academy. Both were married to Jewish women. An important source for the period between 1940 and 1944 is the magazine "Wächterstraße 11", published by the Nazi Students' Association, which contains letters from soldiers and reports from everyday life at the academy. The only new foundation at that time was the Institute for Colour Photography in 1940, whose director was involved with female students in the recording of monuments as part of the "Führerauftrag Monumentalmalerei". With the current state of knowledge, it is not possible to provide a complete account of the events, but the exhibition will highlight gaps. The exhibition also presents projects and publications from the university that have recently dealt with National Socialism and its effects. The presentation aims to invite further joint research.

The film essay "Dürer's Heirs" by Lutz Dammbeck from 1996 forms a bridge to the early GDR period and the connection between art and ideology in the exhibition on the upper floor of the HGB Gallery.

In autumn 2025, HGB Magazine #3 will be published as a result of the HGB seminar on right-wing continuities from 2021 to 2023. The seminar was organised by Julia Blume, Nanne Buurman and Julia Kurz, who also formed the editorial team for this themed magazine.