The Bauhaus, the Nazis and German Post War Nation Building Processes

Gunta Stölzl. Anni Albers. Das sind die heute prominentesten Namen, wenn man an Akteur*innen der Textilwerkstatt am Bauhaus denkt. Beide waren seit Weimarer Zeiten engagiert in der Textilwerkstatt, prägten sie durch ihre Auffassung vom Textilen, lehrten dort. Otti Berger stieß erst zu Dessauer Zeiten zur Werkstatt. Stölzl und Albers gelang 1931–1932 der Weggang aus Deutschland. Und es gelang ihnen, als Textilgestalterinnen und Künstlerinnen dauerhaft weiterzuarbeiten, eine spezifische Arbeitspraxis zu entwickeln und ein umfangreiches Werk aufzubauen. Bedingt gelang dies zunächst auch Berger, wenn auch unter erschwerten Bedingungen.

Hannes Meyer arrived in the USSR just a couple of months after being dismissed from his position as Bauhaus director in October 1930. These months were filled with attempts by Meyer and his supporters to protest this decision through all possible means: media campaigns, open letters, student demonstration and court trials. After arriving in Moscow, Meyer carried on the fight against his unfair dismissal.

This article examines the correspondence between a teacher (Hannes Meyer) and his former student (Tibor Weiner), who met at the Bauhaus in Dessau, going on to live for a period in the Soviet Union. Each migrated to Latin America shortly before the outbreak of World War Two, and returned to Europe in the late 1940s. The surviving letters between Meyer and Weiner, preserved in the DAM Archive in Frankfurt am Main, are not only a testimony of comradeship but also a window into some key moments in the first half of the twentieth century.