In line? The Hamburger Kunsthalle under National Socialism, during the Occupation and the Bonn Republic (1933-69)

• Applicants: Dr. Ute Haug; Professorin Dr. Iris Wenderholm
• Subject Area: Art History
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 514721469

The project examines the connection between university and museum treatment of art in order to better understand which cultural and socio-political tasks were attributed to the Kunsthalle and its directors during the Nazi period, the occupation and the Bonn Republic, and how this was reflected in the respective museum's collection, exhibition, research and mediation work. The aim is to gain insights into the possibilities of political instrumentation of art historical knowledge stocks across different political systems and to reveal overarching mechanisms of cultural-political appropriation of art museums. In four sub-projects, the project is dedicated to researching the institutional, network and discourse history of the Kunsthalle and the department of art history that is spatially affiliated to it. Through its foundation as a collection of citizens for a cross-class audience, the Hamburger Kunsthalle assumed a special identity-forming position and socio-political function within the urban fabric. For this reason, it seems particularly informative to take a look for the first time at the museum's work in opposing state and social systems: Beginning with the National Socialist takeover (subproject A), through the period of occupation, to the establishment of the Bonn Republic in the 1960s under the directorships of Carl Georg Heise and Alfred Hentzen (subproject B, C), the project faces a challenging task of analysis when it asks about the cultural and socio-political role of the museum between 1933 and 1969. Of great relevance here is the question of at what point in time and in what forms the ideas of the social role of art found their way into museum work and how the conception of the museum shifted in each case. In order to be able to assess how the appropriation of the Kunsthalle and its holdings differed in the various political contexts, it is necessary to examine the extent to which this was also conditioned or shaped by the Department of Art History at the University of Hamburg and what significance was attached to individual key personnel positions, especially with regard to female staff (sub-project D). The fact that the institute was housed in the museum rooms from 1926 to 1969 is a special feature compared to other German art museums. This is important in that both art museums and universities develop collective knowledge with social and political relevance. This mutual influence of academic and museum art history research, which has received too little attention in research to date, can be examined here as an example for the Nazi period and the period after 1945.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants