Across the border. Ties of architects and urban planners between East and West Germany: the case of Egon Hartmann, 1954–1976

ABSTRACT

Egon Hartmann (1919–2009) was a prominent East German planner and a rising star of the architectural scene in the early years of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). A graduate from the College for Architecture and Fine Arts, he became Chief Architect of Thuringia in 1951 and built such remarkable architectures like the government high-rise in Erfurt. Nevertheless, he left the GDR in 1954, settled in West Germany where he first worked in Mainz and then moved to Munich and thereby became a ‘crosser’, one of the few planners who successfully worked on both sides of the Iron Curtain. This paper traces Egon Hartmann’s private–professional ties based on the letters sent to/ from him across the inner-German border that have been archived in his estate. It aims to show that integrating a personal dimension and very specific patterns of communication into the analysis of transnational connections, transfers, exchanges, and cooperation of planners reveals rather informal ties that created unexpected relations across the Iron Curtain. Nevertheless, those were a crucial resource for the planners’ career and private life, when formal bonds were destabilized due to large-scale political tensions and the division of the two worlds.

KEYWORDS:

• Egon Hartmann
• GDR
• transnational
• letter correspondence
• knowledge transfer
• networks of architects

Acknowledgements

I want to express my gratitude to my colleagues from the Department for Historical Research and the Scientific Collections at the IRS in Erkner for their continuous support during the research process and their comments on the draft paper. Many thanks also to the anonymous referees for their thorough and helpful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Annika Levels was employed as a Research Assistant at the IRS Erkner until March 2016, where she conducted her research on Egon Hartmann and his networks. Priory, she has been a PhD fellow in the International Graduate Research Program ‘The World in the City: Metropolitanism and Globalization from the 19th Century to the Present’ at the Center for Metropolitan Studies, TU Berlin. Her PhD thesis is titled ‘Rethinking the Street!? – Walking, Cycling and the Politics of Streets in New York and Berlin’ and analyses planning processes that have spurred the current transformation of metropolitan streets in favour of cyclists and pedestrians. Her research interests cover historical and contemporary urban planning and development, politics and use of public space, and questions of sustainable mobility and urban space. Ms Levels holds a degree in Landscape Planning from TU Berlin.

ORCID

Annika Levels http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5373-7589

Notes

1 Großbölting and Schmidt, Gedachte Stadt, XVff.; Durth, Düwel, and Gutschow, Aufbau, 39–40; Flierl, “In neuem Licht,” 8.

2 Durth, Düwel, and Gutschow, Aufbau, 37ff.

3 Beyme et al., “Leitbilder des Wiederaufbaus in Deutschland.”

4 Butter, “Ost und West am Fennpfuhl”; Stanek, “Introduction.”

5 Fürst, Vom Baukünstler zum Komplexprojektanten; Hartmann, “Stufen am Wege.”

6 Korrek, “Neubeginn”; Korrek, “Für den Aufbau der Städte und Dörfer.”

7 Butter, Neues Leben, neues Bauen, 385; Leißling, “Anspruch und Wirklichkeit,” 63–76.

8 Deiters, Butter, and Hartung, “Begegnung mit der Architektur der Stalinallee,” 61.

9 Deiters, Butter, and Hartung, “Begegnung mit der Architektur der Stalinallee”; Nicolaus and Obeth, Die Stalinallee.

10 Flierl, Gebaute DDR, 52ff.

11 Hartmann, “Stufen am Wege,” 22–60; Metzendorf, “Egon Hartmann und das neue Mainz”; and Topfstedt, “Vom Baukünstler zum Komplexprojektanten.”

12 Korrek, “Neubeginn,” 21–34.

13 IRS Erkner, Scientific Collections (hereafter IRS), C_35-19.1, Hartmann to Liebknecht, 14.08.1954, all quotes from Hartmann’s letter sources in this article have been translated by the author.

14 Hartmann, “Stufen am Wege,” 288.

15 IRS, C_35-19.1, Hartmann to Liebknecht, 14.08.1954.

16 IRS, “Neues aus den Wissenschaftlichen Sammlungen.”

17 Etzemüller, Biographien, 64–5.

18 IRS, C_35-19.1, Letter of Resignation, 24.06.1954.

19 Ibid.

20 IRS, C_35-19.1, Hartmann to Liebknecht, 14.08.1954.

21 Ibid.

22 Ibid.

23 IRS, C_35-19.1, Hartmann to Pisternik, undated.

24 IRS, C_35-19.1, Hartmann to Liebknecht, 14.08.1954.

25 Ibid.

26 Ibid.

27 Ibid.

28 IRS, C_35-20.4, Hartmann to Wohlmann, 12.05.1956.

29 Hartmann, “Stufen am Wege,” 306.

30 Ibid.

31 IRS, C_35-20.4, Hartmann to Wohlmann, 12.05.1956.

32 Koellmann, “Ideenwettbewerb.”

33 IRS, C_35-20.4, Hartmann to Wohlmann, 12.05.1956.

34 IRS, C_35-20.4, Wohlmann to Hartmann, 29.05.1956.

35 Ibid.

36 IRS, C_35-20.4, Wohlmann to Hartmann, 17.06.1956.

37 IRS, C_35-20.4, Wohlmann to Hartmann, 20.04.1957.

38 IRS, C_35-20.4, Wohlmann to Hartmann, 16.06.1957.

39 Geisert, Haneberg, and Hein, Hauptstadt Berlin, 54.

40 IRS, C_35-20.4, Nickerl to Hartmann, 19.02.1957.

41 IRS, C_35/K1-14.2, Worf to Hartmann, 06.09.1957.

42 IRS, C_35/K1-7.2, Worf to Hartmann, 31.01.1959.

43 IRS, B2-1802, Karteibogen Karl Worf.

44 Headline on the Cover of the Spiegel Magazine 39/1964.

45 IRS, C_35-20.4, Hartmann to Hassenpflug, 08.05.1956.

46 IRS, C_35/K1-7.3, Hartmann to Weiß, 19.11.1960.

47 See Schädlich, “Der Neubeginn an der Staatlichen Hochschule für Baukunst und bildende Künste”; Korrek, “Neubeginn”; and Korrek, “Für den Aufbau der Städte und Dörfer.”

48 IRS, C_35/K1-7.1, Eva and Horst Dittrich to the Weimar Alumni, June 1966.

49 IRS, C_35/K1-7.2, Traude Hartmann on behalf of her husband to Weiß, 02.06.1961.

50 IRS, C_35/K1-7.2, Weiß to Hartmann, 31.05.1961.

51 IRS, C_35/K1-7.2, Traude Hartmann on behalf of her husband to Weiß, 02.06.1961.

52 IRS, C_35/K1-3.1, Weiß to Hartmann, 23.11.1966.

53 IRS, C_35/K1-3.1, Stedtler to Hartmann, 06.12.1966.

54 IRS, C_35-20.4, Nickerl to Hartmann, 19.02.1957.

55 IRS, C_35-20.4, Wilk to Hartmann, 24.12.1957.

56 IRS, C_35/K1-7.3, Wilk to Hartmann, 07.01.1960.

57 IRS, C_35/K1-7.3, Hartmann to Nickerl, 11.09.1960; IRS, C_35/K1-7.3, Hartmann to Wilk, 10.09.1960.

58 IRS, C_35/K1-3.1, Henselmann to Hartmann, 22.06.1966.

59 IRS, C_35/K1-3.1, Hartmann to Henselmann, 15.07.1966.

60 SLUB Dresden, Mscr. Dresd. App. 2817, 2120 (1), Hartmann to Henselmann, 19.12.1969.

61 Flierl, Gebaute DDR, 52ff.

62 Beyme et al., Leitbilder des Wiederaufbaus in Deutschland, 11ff.