Henri Hinrichsen (5 February 1868 – 17 September 1942) was a German music publisher and patron of music in
Leipzig
Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...
. He directed the music publishing house
C. F. Peters
Edition Peters is a classical music publisher founded in Leipzig, Germany in 1800.
History
The company came into being on 1 December 1800 when the Viennese composer Franz Anton Hoffmeister (1754–1812) and the local organist Ambrosius Kühne ...
, succeeding his uncle. He helped found the Hochschule für Frauen zu Leipzig, the first academy for women in Germany, and financed the acquisition of a collection of musical instruments by the
University of Leipzig
Leipzig University (german: Universität Leipzig), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 Decemb ...
. He was murdered at the
Auschwitz concentration camp
Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...
.
Career
![RestitutionssteinMaxAbrahamHenriHinrichsen](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/RestitutionssteinMaxAbrahamHenriHinrichsen.JPG)
Born in
Hamburg
(male), (female) en, Hamburger(s),
Hamburgian(s)
, timezone1 = Central (CET)
, utc_offset1 = +1
, timezone1_DST = Central (CEST)
, utc_offset1_DST = +2
, postal ...
, Hinrichsen trained to be a music seller and publisher in
Leipzig
Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...
,
Basel
, french: link=no, Bâlois(e), it, Basilese
, neighboring_municipalities= Allschwil (BL), Hégenheim (FR-68), Binningen (BL), Birsfelden (BL), Bottmingen (BL), Huningue (FR-68), Münchenstein (BL), Muttenz (BL), Reinach (BL), Riehen (BS ...
, Brussels and London.
He married Martha (''née'' Bendix, 1879–1941) in 1898. The couple had two daughters and five sons.
Hinrichsen worked from 15 May 1891 for the music publisher
C. F. Peters
Edition Peters is a classical music publisher founded in Leipzig, Germany in 1800.
History
The company came into being on 1 December 1800 when the Viennese composer Franz Anton Hoffmeister (1754–1812) and the local organist Ambrosius Kühne ...
, which belonged to his uncle
Max Abraham
Max Abraham (; 26 March 1875 – 16 November 1922) was a German physicist known for his work on electromagnetism and his opposition to the theory of relativity.
Biography
Abraham was born in Danzig, Imperial Germany (now Gdańsk in Poland) t ...
. On 1 January 1894, he became a part owner
and after the suicide of his uncle in 1900 was the sole director of the publishing house.
He published works by his contemporaries, such as
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms (; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, pianist, and conductor of the mid- Romantic period. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, he spent much of his professional life in Vienna. He is sometimes grouped wit ...
and
Edvard Grieg
Edvard Hagerup Grieg ( , ; 15 June 18434 September 1907) was a Norwegian composer and pianist. He is widely considered one of the foremost Romantic era composers, and his music is part of the standard classical repertoire worldwide. His use of ...
, who was his friend and had a room on the upper floor of the building which housed both the business and the family. He was the first to add works by
Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler (; 7 July 1860 – 18 May 1911) was an Austro-Bohemian Romantic composer, and one of the leading conductors of his generation. As a composer he acted as a bridge between the 19th-century Austro-German tradition and the modernism ...
,
Hans Pfitzner
Hans Erich Pfitzner (5 May 1869 – 22 May 1949) was a German composer, conductor and polemicist who was a self-described anti-modernist. His best known work is the post-Romantic opera ''Palestrina'' (1917), loosely based on the life of the s ...
,
Max Reger
Johann Baptist Joseph Maximilian Reger (19 March 187311 May 1916) was a German composer, pianist, organist, conductor, and academic teacher. He worked as a concert pianist, as a musical director at the Paulinerkirche, Leipzig, Leipzig University ...
,
Arnold Schönberg
Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (, ; ; 13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian-American composer, music theorist, teacher, writer, and painter. He is widely considered one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. He was as ...
and
Hugo Wolf
Hugo Philipp Jacob Wolf (13 March 1860 – 22 February 1903) was an Austrian composer of Slovene origin, particularly noted for his art songs, or Lieder. He brought to this form a concentrated expressive intensity which was unique in late Ro ...
to the house's products, and in 1932, he acquired the rights to seven early
tone poem
A symphonic poem or tone poem is a piece of orchestral music, usually in a single continuous movement, which illustrates or evokes the content of a poem, short story, novel, painting, landscape, or other (non-musical) source. The German term ''T ...
s by
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss (; 11 June 1864 – 8 September 1949) was a German composer, conductor, pianist, and violinist. Considered a leading composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras, he has been described as a successor of Richard Wag ...
. He introduced
critical edition
Textual criticism is a branch of textual scholarship, philology, and of literary criticism that is concerned with the identification of textual variants, or different versions, of either manuscripts or of printed books. Such texts may range in da ...
s called ''Urtext''.
Hinrichsen was a ''Geheimer Kommerzienrat'', ''Handelsrichter'' and ''Stadtverordneter'' in Leipzig.
He was awarded an honorary doctorate by the
University of Leipzig
Leipzig University (german: Universität Leipzig), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 Decemb ...
in 1929.
In 1911, Hinrichsen was a patron of the , the first academy for women in Germany,
founded by
Henriette Goldschmidt
Henriette Goldschmidt (1825–1920) was a History of the Jews in Germany, German Jewish Feminism in Germany, feminist, pedagogist and social worker. She was one of the founders of the German Association of Female Citizens, German Women's Associati ...
(1825–1920), whose work he supported.
In 1921, it was continued as the Sozialpädagisches Frauenseminar by the city of Leipzig but still financially sponsored by Hinrichsen.
In 1926, he donated 200,000
Reichsmark
The (; sign: ℛℳ; abbreviation: RM) was the currency of Germany from 1924 until 20 June 1948 in West Germany, where it was replaced with the , and until 23 June 1948 in East Germany, where it was replaced by the East German mark. The Reich ...
s to the University of Leipzig to enable it to acquire a collection of musical instruments (Musikinstrumenten-Sammlung Wilhelm Heyer) from
Cologne
Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western States of Germany, state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 m ...
.
It became the foundation of today's
Museum of Musical Instruments of Leipzig University
The Museum of Musical Instruments of the University of Leipzig (german: Musikinstrumentenmuseum der Universität Leipzig) is a museum in Leipzig, Germany. It is located on Johannisplatz, near the city centre. The museum belongs to the University o ...
.
Hinrichsen was a patriotic German who had been recognized by
Wilhelm II
Wilhelm II (Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albert; 27 January 18594 June 1941) was the last German Emperor (german: Kaiser) and King of Prussia, reigning from 15 June 1888 until his abdication on 9 November 1918. Despite strengthening the German Empir ...
, the German emperor.
Nazi persecution and murder 1933-1942
When the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, he was persecuted as a Jew. In 1938, his publishing house was
Aryanized
Aryanization (german: Arisierung) was the Nazi term for the seizure of property from Jews and its transfer to non-Jews, and the forced expulsion of Jews from economic life in Nazi Germany, Axis-aligned states, and their occupied territories. I ...
, that is transferred to a non-Jewish owner.
In 1940, he travelled to Brussels and applied for visas to try to get to Britain and the United States. On January 11, 1940, he was forced to relinquish to Hitler's art dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt his Pissarro painting, ''Sower And Ploughman,'' however he still did not receive a visa. His wife died in Brussels on 7 October 1941, because as a Jew she could not get insulin to treat her
diabetes
Diabetes, also known as diabetes mellitus, is a group of metabolic disorders characterized by a high blood sugar level ( hyperglycemia) over a prolonged period of time. Symptoms often include frequent urination, increased thirst and increased ap ...
.
Hinrichsen was deported to the
Auschwitz concentration camp
Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...
, where he was murdered on 17 September 1942.
Family
His son Max Hinrichsen (1901–1965) emigrated in the 1930s and founded the ''Peters Edition'' in London.
His other son, Walter Hinrichsen (1907–1969), left Germany in 1936 and founded the ''C.F. Peters Corporation'' in New York City.
Awards and honors
On 29 May 1929, Hinrichsen received an honorary doctorate from the Philosophical Faculty of the
University of Leipzig
Leipzig University (german: Universität Leipzig), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 Decemb ...
.
In 1949,
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (, ; ; 13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian-American composer, music theorist, teacher, writer, and painter. He is widely considered one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. He was as ...
dedicated a revised version of his ''Fünf Orchesterstücke'', Op. 16, to his memory: "This new edition is dedicated to the memory of Henri Hinrichsen, a music publisher who was a great seigneur."
After the grave monument of the Abraham/Hinrichsen family in the
Südfriedhof was razed in the 1980s, a statue recalling the former location was erected in 1992.
A bust of Hinrichsen is displayed in a staircase of the
Grassi Museum
The Grassi Museum is a building complex in Leipzig, home to three museums: the Ethnography Museum, Musical Instruments Museum, and Applied Arts Museum.
It is sometimes known as the "Museums in the Grassi", or as the "New" Grassi Museum (to di ...
in Leipzig. In 2001, a street in Leipzig's
Waldstraßenviertel was named after him.
Claim for Nazi-looted art
In 2013, drawing that had belonged to Hinrichsen, "''Klavierspiel''" (Playing the Piano) by
Carl Spitzweg
Carl Spitzweg (February 5, 1808 – September 23, 1885) was a German romanticist painter, especially of genre subjects. He is considered to be one of the most important artists of the Biedermeier era.
Life and career
Spitzweg was born in U ...
, was discovered in the stash of artworks hoarded by the son of Hitler's art dealer
Hildebrand Gurlitt
Hildebrand Gurlitt (15 September 1895 – 9 November 1956) was a German art historian, art gallery director who dealt in Nazi-looted art as one of Hitler's and Goering's four authorized dealers for "degenerate art".
A Nazi-associated art dealer ...
in Munich in 2013. It was restituted to the Hinrichsen's heirs by of
Museum of Fine Arts in Bern, to receive part of the
Gurlitt collection
The Gurlitt Collection (alternatively known as the "Gurlitt Trove", "Gurlitt Hoard", "Munich Art Hoard", "Schwabing Art Trove", "Schwabing Art Find", etc.) was a collection of around 1,500 art works assembled by Cornelius Gurlitt, the son of one ...
after his death.
Property looted by Nazis from Hinrichsen, including artworks, are being searched for.
Literature
* Irene Lawford-Hinrichsen: ''Music Publishing and Patronage - C. F. Peters: 1800 to the Holocaust.'' London: Edition Press 2000
* Sophie Fetthauer: ''Musikverlage im "Dritten Reich" und im Exil.'' (Musik im "Dritten Reich" und im Exil, vol. 10) Von Bockel Verlag Hamburg 2004
* Irene Lawford-Hinrichsen; Norbert Molkenbur: ''C. F. Peters - ein deutscher Musikverlag im Leipziger Kulturleben. Zum Wirken von Max Abraham und Henri Hinrichsen.'' In: Ephraim-Carlebach-Stiftung (ed.): Judaica Lipsiensia: Zur Geschichte der Juden in Leipzig. Leipzig:
Edition Leipzig
Edition Leipzig was a publisher in the German Democratic Republic (GDR/DDR), which, for the most part, placed books on Western markets as an export publisher. This was intended to serve representative purposes as well as to procure foreign curr ...
, 1994. pp. 92–109
* Irene Lawford-Hinrichsen: ''Five Hundred Years to Auschwitz : A Family Odyssey from the Inquisition to the Present''. Bertrams 2008. .
* Annerose Kemp; Eberhard Ulm: ''Henriette-Goldschmidt-Schule 1911–2011.'' Leipzig 2011.
See also
*
Aryanization
Aryanization (german: Arisierung) was the Nazi term for the seizure of property from Jews and its transfer to non-Jews, and the forced expulsion of Jews from economic life in Nazi Germany, Axis-aligned states, and their occupied territories. I ...
*
List of claims for restitution
*
The Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
References
External links
*
Henri Hinrichsen(in German) Leipzig-Lexikon
Stanton Family Collectionat the
Leo Baeck Institute New York
The Leo Baeck Institute New York (LBI) is a research institute in New York City dedicated to the study of German-Jewish history and culture, founded in 1955. It is one of three independent research centers founded by a group of German-speaking ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hinrichsen, Henri
1868 births
1942 deaths
Jewish art collectors
Stolen works of art
People from Hamburg executed in Nazi concentration camps
German people who died in Auschwitz concentration camp
German music publishers (people)
Geheimrat
German Jews who died in the Holocaust
Art and cultural repatriation after World War II
Subjects of Nazi art appropriations