Letters

Dear Mr. Heckel,

We were very pleased to hear from you, as we now know that you and your wife have managed to survive. The same can be said for us.

You wrote that you have been receiving the worst news from everywhere. I am experiencing the same, and unfortunately, I can only report the same. First, my apartment along with the studio rooms there was engulfed in flames. Since the danger was very great, I distributed all valuables, including the paintings. To the ground-floor rooms of the house on Bleibtreustra., at Dr. Möhring’s on the first floor at Kantstr. near the Memorial Church. On the estate of the von Brockhusens in the Mark and in the ground-floor apartment of my son-in-law in Friedenau. During an attack, Dr. Möhring’s house was completely destroyed. Shortly before the end of hostilities, the house on Bleibtreustra. was also destroyed down to the basement.

The manor house of the Brockhusens was completely looted, and Mrs. von Brockhusen was so tortured that she took her own life with her siblings. My son-in-law’s apartment survived, but shortly before the English took possession of Friedenau, it was looted by the Russians, and whatever remained was taken into ‘custody’ by the Berlin ‘Recovery Office’.

Here we were looted twice by the French, except for the wedding ring on my wife’s finger.

I forgot to mention that my studio in Grunewald was destroyed, a few items that remained were stolen. Even my models in the cellar are gone.

In Mainz, my brothers’ business was destroyed, and two of my siblings and my brother-in-law are dead.

Here, I had to vacate the little studio house I had rented without notice, and I was placed under police supervision by the Gestapo and arrested by them (I was denounced).

Dear Heckel, let’s draw a line and try to forget. Perhaps we will move near Munich. I have received the permit to relocate, and since I have an official certificate regarding my loss of residence and arrest, I can obtain an apartment more easily. I also met the art dealer Franke in Seeshaupt near Munich; he had been arrested by the Americans: he sat for four weeks for nothing. Also, Dr. Niehaus and Dr. Nemitz, with whom I am friends. – What are your plans? Do you want to return to Berlin? You would have to take over the leadership of an academy. But oh God, in a destroyed city!

I regret that you currently cannot create conditions for painting. I might be able to help you. In any case, I will soon be going to the Black Forest, Zell Wiesental. I have a friend there who owns several factories and can do a lot and does as well.

With heartfelt greetings to you and your wife

Your Philipp Harth
also from my wife

P.S. from Ida Harth:

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Heckel: How unhappy we are about all these losses, I can hardly express, we thought the paintings would be best preserved in the ground-floor room on Bleibtreustra., it would have been so if the madness of defense had not taken place and on April 27th of this year the whole house and cellar burned down. Mrs. Hentzen wrote that Charlottenb. is an oasis. My piano, sheet music, paintings, drawings, models, everything is gone, we don’t even have a bed left. But we were hit hardest by the arrest; we could hardly recover from these upheavals. Please write to us again soon, my husband is slowly starting to carve wood again.

With warmest
greetings, your Ida Harth

P.P.S. from Ida Harth:

Mrs. Hentzen wrote a long letter yesterday. She still has her apartment and is waiting for her husband. Do you know anything about Tormählen?