Six: Of Books and Arts (1):
Max Schwimmer

MOPE

I resumed work at the Gebrüder Felsenstein in Leipzig toward the beginning of 1925, and, after four years during which my relationship with my father has much improved, I have been promoted to salaried partner. I think that my father has begun to appreciate whatever small talents I may possess, so long as they are directed to the fur trade. My aspiration to be a scientist means nothing to him, although my entrapment in a career I had not sought will always rankle with me.

I am sufficiently paid to have been able to move into a spacious three-room apartment on the Kaiserin Augusta Strasse. From there, I can indulge in the artistic and cultural life of the city. The most notable feature of the apartment is my library, which still reflects my former scientific pursuits, but also includes a wide-ranging collection of rare books, Judaica, and German Literature.

A black and white photograph of a light-haired man wearing a grey suit and white shirt reading a book in his study sitting at a wooden table in front of a large wooden bookshelf filled with a variety of books differing in size and colour

Fig. 26 Mope in his study; undated but early 1930s.

I have commissioned my closest friend, the artist Max Schwimmer, to design for my library a personal bookplate that will accent a Jewish theme. Schwimmer is not Jewish, and has struggled to fulfill my commission. I have other works by him, including several portraits for which I sat, though I keep these loose and unframed as they seem to me to be works in progress. To be absolutely honest, I do not find them to be particularly flattering. For all that, Schwimmer’s wit, intelligence, and sheer talent make him excellent company. We often meet for a conversational smoke at the Café Merkur on the Thomasring or at his studio which attracts many fellow artists and bohemians. Both in his art and in his conversation, Schwimmer is caustic in his dismissal of the opposition Fascist mobs whom he portrays as monsters. Their stridency pushes him to the Communist left. It is a different extreme to the Nazis and not one that I could ever espouse. However, our friendship transcends politics, and I am quite certain that Schwimmer feels the same way.

A coloured Anti-Nazi campaign poster with an image of a green crocodile with an open mouth baring its teeth wearing a white helmet with a black swastika and a red hammer with the inscription ‘social’ above it

Fig. 27 Anti-Nazi campaign poster by Max Schwimmer, 1924. “Wählt die VSPD–Vote for the V.S.P.D. [Independent Social Democratic Party]. Reproduced in Hellmut Radmacher, Masters of German Poster Art (New York: The Citadel Press, 1966, 101) and other sources.

I have often wondered–and continue to wonder–what happened to Mope’s library and his other belongings. He would often talk nostalgically about the books and works of art that he had had to leave behind in Leipzig. None of these were ever recovered.

What evidence is there today? Little survives to give a sense of the composition of Mope’s bachelor apartment. During the 1930s under Hitler, its contents were transferred more than once to other premises before they were impounded. Some post-war correspondence with family acquaintances in Leipzig who tried unsuccessfully on his behalf to reclaim Mope’s valuables, provides a basic list of an impressive apartment. Its contents included fine furniture and fixtures, a set of white Rosenthal porcelain, an Indian tea service and a similar coffee service, a silver case, miscellaneous glassware and lamps, a painting by a Dutch old master, and a bronze Buddha. Shortly after they took power, the Aryanization laws mandated by the Nazis drove him to move more than once into smaller and less secure accommodation in areas of the town where Jews were still permitted to live. His library and papers were put into storage in one of the company warehouses. The size of his collection forced him into weeding out.

MOPE

Yesterday and today, I sorted all of my old correspondence, photographs and books. Among the photographs, there were a lot of pictures of me, most of which I had completely forgotten about. Unfortunately, I did not reduce my library nearly as much as necessary. If I took out 150 books (I did not count them), that number would not be too low, and I had counted on three or five times that many. It is so difficult to part with these friends who only talk when they are asked and never say more than is contained within them, if imagination is not involved.

Among Mope’s books left in Leipzig were a number that were illustrated and inscribed to him by Max Schwimmer.1 Mope referred to him, even in later years, as his closest male friend. Schwimmer, who was four years older than Mope, had also been drafted into the army, returning to Leipzig after the war and enrolling at the university where he studied art history and philosophy. In 1926, he was appointed as a drawing master at the Leipzig School of Fine Arts, but was dismissed in May 1933 because of his left-wing political views and his so-called “degenerate art.” The following year, Mope helped fund a joint trip they made to Dalmatia, both very taken by the beauty of Ragusa (Dubrovnik). Here is a handsome photograph of Mope on the ramparts at Dubrovnik that will have been shot by Schwimmer.

A sepia-toned photograph of a light-haired man in his mid-thirties wearing a short-sleeved white shirt, neutral-toned trousers, white socks and dark shoes sitting cross-legged on a stone wall in Dubrovnik, Croatia

Fig. 28 EMF on a rampart in Ragusa [Dubrovnik], June 1934.

Unlike many—or most—Germans, Schwimmer was willing to defy Nazi injunctions against socializing with Jews, and Mope was always a welcome visitor to his studio, visits he savored as a rare escape from the ostracism that he and fellow Jews encountered everywhere else. Later, in 1936 and 1937, he would use his time there to write to Vera, Schwimmer often enhancing the letters he wrote with erotic watercolors.

MOPE

Today is October 23, 1936. I am sitting at Schwimmer’s writing. When I arrived, I apparently interrupted a tender tête-à-tête he was having with his girlfriend. Still, we soon engaged in lively conversation: art, artists, philosophy, with a few bottles of wine. The air of the studio is pregnant with smoke and the new pictures with their colors shine through the haze with great vitality. Two landscapes, in between a flower and fruit still life, decorate the walls. Max really is an exceptionally gifted artist, and it is sad that the time of patronage is over, a time in which he certainly would have had a life free from worry, at least in a material respect, and even more regrettable, given my own reduced financial circumstances, that I cannot be the patron myself.

He now says he wants to draw a sketch at the head of the letter, but I tell him I do have to hurry in order to catch the last train for mailing this letter to you.