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375-402 Levy:145-000 Paviot 25.04.11 11:32 Seite 375 Evonne Levy The German Art Historians of World War I: Grautoff, Wichert, Weisbach and Brinckmann and the activities of the Zentralstelle für Auslandsdienst »Diese Tätigkeit, die mich über mein Fach hinaus experience of war shaped the discipline and its zu einem Umblick auf weitere Gebiete nötigte – protagonists will be difficult to reconstruct to the und zu einer Zeit, die einen an äussere Ereignisse extent that it is a personal story.2 fesselte und wissenschaftlicher Konzentration Yet the Great War also saw the participation of nicht günstig war –, habe ich niemals bereut.« art historians in a variety of official capacities whose impact was of a more public and measur - – Werner Weisbach about his work for the able nature. Patriotic German museum directors Zentralstelle für Auslandsdienst during World War I1 and curators, university faculty and the legions of newly minted Ph.D.s headed for work in publishing or journalism applied scholarly skills Introduction and tools in the first total war effort to the pro- World War I was the first international conflict tection of art (Kunstschutz) or in the new propa- that took place after the consolidation of art his - ganda offices that sprang up in neutral and oc - tory as a discipline in Germany. It saw countless cupied territories. Even reluctant pacifists like students and young faculty endure battle and lose Heinrich Wölfflin participated by giving lectures their lives. While in the battlefield some soldiers in war zones3 and providing much succour to read the specialized publications on art written students in the field by corresponding devotedly for them, or carried in their pockets the guides to with them. (The letters written to Wölfflin alone the monuments and museums of occupied cities by his many students who fought in the war written to accompany them on their furloughs. could easily give shape to this untold story.) Today we are just beginning to ap praise the posi- Some well-informed art historians like Georg tions taken by art historians towards the war and Dehio and Werner Weisbach also wrote about their reactions to the loss of life and damage to the political situation and became active either precious monuments. The extent to which the for or against the war (mostly for). The initial archival research for this essay, conducted in 1 Werner Weisbach, Geist und Gewalt, Vienna/Munich 2008 in libraries and archives in Cologne, Berlin, Frank- 1956, 147. furt am Main, Munich, and Mannheim was funded by 2 Heinrich Dilly, Septembre 1914, in: Revue germanique the DAAD. I wish to thank colleagues at the University internationale 13, 1994, 223–237; Martin Warnke, On of Cologne for their extraordinary hospitality: Susanne Heinrich Wölfflin, in: Representations 27, 1989, 172– Wittekind, Stefan Grohé, Ursula Frohne and especially 187; Wilhelm Schlink and Alexander Markschies, Les Norbert Nussbaum. Further research in Basel and other archives Wilhelm Vöge de Fribourg-en-Brisgau, in: Re - libraries was supported by the Social Sciences and vue de l’art 146, 2004, 85–88. Helga Grebing, Die Humanities Research Council of Canada. I would like to Worringers: Bildungsbügerlichkeit als Lebenssinn – thank Andrew Robison for asking the question that led Wil helm und Marta Worringer (1881–1965), Berlin me to sit down and write this essay while Samuel H. 2004, especially 37–51, and the war correspondence Kress senior fellow at CASVA, National Gallery of Art and diaries of Fritz Burger in Rolf M. Hauk, Fritz Bur- in Washington D.C. Thanks also to Jürgen Wilke for ger (1877–1916): Kunsthistoriker und Wegbereiter der sending much needed materials, to the loans office of the Moderne am Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts, Ph.D. diss., National Gallery of Art Library for the constant supply University of Munich, 2005, 208–21. For an excellent of books, to the director of CASVA, Elizabeth Cropper, account of the reaction of the academy, with particular for everything, to Colin Nelson-Dusek for research as - reference to archaeologists and Kulturpolitik in World sis tance, as well as to Peter Parshall, Albert Narath, War I, see Suzanne L. Marchand, Down from Olym- Joseph Imorde and Janna Israel for stimulating discus - pus: Archaeology and Philhellenism in Germany, 1750 – sion throughout the writing. 1970, Princeton 1996, chapt. 7. Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 74. Band/2011 375 375-402 Levy:145-000 Paviot 25.04.11 11:32 Seite 376 Although Germany is thought to have failed in rians were most intensely deployed (the Kultur- its efforts to counter what was widely regarded politik in the Orient conducted by archaeologists as the successful English and French »Kultur - is a separate though related subject7). Following politik« and propaganda during World War I, it the German bombardment of Reims Cathedral was not for a lack of effort. It is only relatively (fig. 1) and the burning of the Louvain Library recently that the office founded after the out- the French launched a successful and enduring break of the war to coordinate propaganda, the propaganda campaign against the Germans as Zentralstelle für Auslandsdienst (ZfA), has been cultural barbarians, an image reinforced by the the subject of study.4 It is towards a reconstruc- widely distributed pictures of ruins that littered tion of the role specifically played by art histo- the French and Belgian war zones.8 It has been rians in this institutional history, far better argued that German propaganda response and known for World War II than for World War I, agencies formed around these events and this that this essay is dedicated. For as scholars are image of the Germans although Franco-German beginning to realize, it is in the first world war enmity had a long history that fuelled this epi - that practices first took shape which endured sode and sustained its themes long after hostili- through the second conflict.5 Key here was the ties ceased.9 establishment in 1914 of the ZfA within the Aus- Starting in August 1914 Wilhelm von Bode, wärtiges Amt and its offices in neutral countries director of the Königlichen Museen of Berlin, – in The Hague, Bern, Stockholm – which were urged the establishment of military Kunstschutz responsible for cultural propaganda.6 The dis - in Belgium and in August 1915 an »Art Commis- covery of the documenta tion about an episode of sion« was established by the Reichsamt des In - art historical propaganda generated by that office nern to see to the protection of monuments and has occasioned this essay. The point is to bring the restitution of objects whose seizure stretched into a view a level of political coordination of art back to the Napoleonic wars. Von Bode, Otto historians that has not been known and to assess von Falke (director of the Berlin Kunstgewerbe- its aftermath. museum) and Paul Clemen (professor at the Uni- While cultural politics and propaganda were versity of Bonn and head of the Rhineland Denk- diffused in all areas of conflict, it was in or malrat), amongst others, served in this ca pacity around the monuments of France and occupied over the vast geography of the war.10 The goals of Belgium that Germany’s post-classical art histo- this commission would be carried out through a 3 Warnke (as note 2) and Dilly (as note 2), 224. He had ist.« Gantner (as above), 297. Wölfflin, however, was lectured previously in France. Heinrich Wölfflin wrote not traumatized by the trip, on the contrary, he wrote to August Grisebach (im Felde), on 19 December 1915, to his sister at the end of June 1916: »Die Reise war that he is relieved to have finished the proofs for the strapaziös, aber reich an Eindrücken, freilich nicht aus- Kunstgeschichtliche Grundbegriffe as now »ich mich gesprochen kriegerischer Art. In Brussels sprach im bereit halten muss, dem ersten Ruf ins Feldlager zu fol- Hörsal […],« Gantner (as above), 298. gen, nicht als Soldat, sondern als Redner. Südwestlich 4 Jürgen Wilke, Deutsche Auslandspropaganda im Ers - von Lille ist ein Erholungsheim, wo man Appetit auf ten Weltkrieg: die Zentralstelle für Auslandsdienst, in: Kunstgeschichte zu haben scheint […].« Joseph Gant- Siegfried Quandt, ed., Der Erste Weltkrieg als Kommu- ner, Heinrich Wölfflin, 1864–1945, Autobiographie, nikationsereignis, Giessen 1993, 96. Tage bücher und Briefe, 2nd enlarged ed., Basel 1984, 5 This point is made in Christoph Roolf, Die Forschun- 294. He wrote again to Grisebach (im Felde), 18 April gen des Kunsthistorikers Ernst Steinmann zum Napo- 1916: »Was über Verhandlungen wegen Brüsseler Vor- leonischen Kunstraub zwischen Kulturgeschichts- trägen in Ihrer Zeitung stand, greift den Tatsachen vor. schreibung, Auslandspropaganda und Kulturgutraub Für den nächsten Bedarf ist aber wohl überhaupt durch im Ersten Weltkrieg, in: Yvonne Dohna, ed., Ernst Harnack und Wilamowitz genügend gesorgt. Ich geste- Stein mann, Der Kunstraub Napoleons, Rome 2007, he, dass ich mir’s nicht besonders angenehm vorstelle, 434 – 435. im Schutz der deutschen Bayonette in Brüssel aufzu- 6 On the Zentralstelle für Auslandsdienst see Jürgen treten. Etwas anderes ist es, wenn man selber Bayonett Wilke (as note 4), 95–157; Stefan Kestler, Die deutsche 376 Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 74. Band/2011 375-402 Levy:145-000 Paviot 25.04.11 11:32 Seite 377 1. Reims Cathedral before and after German bombardment, in: Paul Clemen, Der Zustand der Kunstdenk- mäler auf dem westlichen Kriegsschauplatz, Leip zig 1916, 28, fig. 49 Auslandsaufklärung und das Bild der Ententemächte 9 Claude Digeon, La crise allemande de la pensée fran- im Spiegel zeitgenössischer Propagandaveröffentlichun- caise (1870–1914), Paris 1959. gen während des Ersten Weltkrieges, Frankfurt 1994, 10 On von Bode’s wartime activities see Manfred Ohl- 54– 66; Jürgen von Ungern-Sternberg and Wolfgang sen, Wilhelm von Bode. Zwischen Kaisermacht und von Ungern-Sternberg, Der Aufruf ›An die Kultur- Kunsttempel.