Hugo Simon (art collector)

Hugo Simon (born 1 September 1880 in Usch, Posen Province, died 1 July 1950 in São Paulo, Brazil) was a German Jewish banker, politician and art collector who was persecuted by the Nazis. He was a former owner of Edvard Munch's famous painting, The Scream.^[1] After the November Revolution of 1918, he was briefly Minister of Finance in the Prussian Council of People's Representatives^[2] as a member of the USPD. Alfred Döblin dealt with this short time as a politician in his novel November 1918.

Hugo Simon
Occupation(s)	banker, art collector
Known for	owned Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream’ before rise of Nazis, minister of Finance, patron of the arts

Early life

Hugo Simon came from a Jewish family. His father was the teacher Victor Simon, his mother was Sophie Simon nee Jablonski. He grew up on his father's farm in Kahlstädt in the Kolmar district (Posen province) and completed an agricultural training course and an apprenticeship in a bank in Marburg. After his father's death and the sale of the property, Simon lived with his wife Gertrud and their daughters Anette and Ursula in Berlin-Zehlendorf. In 1911 Simon founded the private bank Carsch Simon & Co. together with Otto Carsch.^[3] In 1922 the partners separated and Simon founded the successor company Bett Simon & Co. together with Kasimir Bett and Kurt Gutmacher.

Hugo Simon was chairman of the supervisory board of Allgemeine Häuserbau-AG^[4] from 1872 - Adolf Sommerfeld (Berlin), deputy chairman of the supervisory board of Cröllwitzer Actien-Papierfabrik (Halle ad Saale), member of the supervisory board of G. Feibisch AG (Berlin), steam brickworks Bergenhorst AG (Berlin), the Deutsche Grundkreditbank AG (Gotha-Berlin), R. Frister AG (Berlin-Oberschöneweide), Multiplex-Gasfernünder GmbH (Berlin), Terrain-AG Botanischer Garten - Zehlendorf West (Berlin), Thüringische Landeshypothekenbank AG (Weimar) and the Wurzen art mills and biscuit factories vorm. F. Krietsch (Wurzen) (all as of 1931).^[5]

Hugo Simon was a well-known art lover, collector and patron. He was a member of the purchasing committee of the Nationalgalerie Berlin.^[6] He was a member of the supervisory board of S. Fischer Verlag and Ullstein Verlag and banker of the publisher Paul Cassirer. Politicians, artists, scientists and scholars met every week in his house.^[7] These included Bertolt Brecht, Erich Maria Remarque, Alfred Döblin, Arnold Zweig, Heinrich Mann, Stefan Zweig^[8] and Carl Zuckmayer, also visual artists such as Max Pechstein, Oskar Kokoschka and George Grosz, also the actress Tilla Durieux, the publishers Samuel Fischer, Ernst Rowohlt and the Ullstein brothers and politicians like the Prussian Prime Minister Otto Braun. In addition, Hugo Simon was friends among others. with Albert Einstein,^[9] Karl Kautsky and Thomas Mann.^[10] The poet Else Lasker-Schüler dedicated her poem Gott hör ... to “Hugo Simon dem Boas” in 1920.^[11]

In 1921 Hugo Simon bought the former “Schweizerhaus” restaurant in Seelow (Brandenburg) and built a model farm here with cattle, poultry, fruit and vegetable cultivation.^[12] In 1923/24 he had a replica of Goethe's garden house built on the site in Weimar. The builder was the architect Ernst Rossius-Rhyn. There was also a small park with aviaries for different species of parakeets and pheasants and a bird fountain designed by the ceramicist Emil Pottner. He was a member of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society and worked among other things. together with Erwin Baur, director at the institute for breeding run by the Kaiser Wilhelm Society ungsforschung in Müncheberg.

Nazi persecution

Immediately after the National Socialists came to power in 1933, Hugo Simon and his wife fled to Paris via Switzerland. He founded a bank again, supported refugee aid and got involved politically, among other things. as a founding member of the pacifist organization Bund Neues Vaterland (German League for Human Rights). . Shortly before the occupation of Paris by the Wehrmacht, he and his wife managed to escape to Marseille in June 1940. Finally, in February 1941, both were able to travel to Brazil via Spain and Portugal with Czech passports under the code names "Hubert Studenic" and "Garina Studenic".^[13]

The couple initially lived in Rio de Janeiro, then moved to Barbacena, where Hugo Simon devoted himself to raising silkworms.^[14][15] He died in São Paulo in 1950.

Art collection

Simon's extensive art collection was one of the most important in Berlin.^[16] Gathered between 1910 and 1933 it contained about 150 artworks.^[17] Nazi plunder, duress sales and flight as a refugee dispersed the collection. Artworks remaining in Germany were seized by the Nazis on 9 October 1933, with Simon's other property.^[18] Some of Simon's collection ended up in Switzerland in the Kunsthaus Zürich^[19] and the Kunstmuseum Basel.^[20] Edvard Munch's famous The Scream ended up in Norway in the Henie Onstad Kunstsenter^[21][22][23]

Schweizerhaus

The Schweizerhaus was opened on 5 October 1933 by an order of the District President in Frankfurt a. d. Or (Rapporteur: Government Councilor Möbius) drafted. Nazis justified the confiscation claiming that Simon was finance minister of the “Marxist Prussian government” and a member of the USPD “ -The Schweizerhaus was taken over in 1936 by the state experimental institute in Landsberg / Warthe and continued as the “Staatliches Versuchsgut Oderbruch”. After the Second World War, the estate was first occupied by the Soviet Red Army and then, in 1950, taken over by the Association of Nationally Owned Enterprises and operated as VEB Gartenbau.

After 1990 a community of heirs applied for restitution. In 2010 the city of Seelow bought the area and the Heimatverein “Schweizerhaus Seelow” e.V. renovated the building.

Nazi-looted art

Hugo Simon submitted restitution claims for art plundered by the Nazis starting in 1947.^[24] After his death, his heirs continued the process of trying to locate and recover artworks from his collection, notably Munch's The Scream which Simon consigned to a Swiss gallery in 1937^[25] as he fled the Nazis.^[26][27]

Autobiography

• Hugo Simon: Seidenraupen. (unveröffentlicht).

Literature

• Robert Volz: Reichshandbuch der deutschen Gesellschaft. Das Handbuch der Persönlichkeiten in Wort und Bild. Band 2: L–Z. Deutscher Wirtschaftsverlag, Berlin 1931, DNB-IDN 453960294, S. 1787.
• Dok. 118. Der Regierungspräsident in Frankfurt (Oder) rechtfertigt gegenüber dem preußischen Finanzminister am 26. Mai 1934 die Einziehung des Gutes von Hugo Simon. In: Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der europäischen Juden durch das nationalsozialistische Deutschland 1933–1945. Band 1: 1933–1937. Oldenbourg-Wissenschaftsverlag, 2007, S. 339–341 (Leseprobe, books.google.de) – zur Enteignung des Schweizerhauses.
• Marlen Eckl: „Das Paradies ist überall verloren“. Das Brasilienbild von Flüchtlingen des Nationalsozialismus. Vervuert, Frankfurt am Main 2010, ISBN 978-3-86527-579-0.
• Felix Escher (2010), "Simon, Hugo", Neue Deutsche Biographie (in German), vol. 24, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 435–436; (full text online)
• Izabela Maria Furtado Kestler: Die Exilliteratur und das Exil der deutschsprachigen Schriftsteller und Publizisten in Brasilien. Frankfurt am Main 1992.
• Edita Koch: Hugo Simon/Hubert Studenic. In: Exil. [Frankfurt, M.], Band 3, 1983, 1, S. 50 f. ISSN 0721-6742.
• Frithjof Trapp: Die Autobiographie des Bankiers und Politikers Hugo Simon: politische Reflexion im Medium des deutschen Realismus. In: Exil. [Frankfurt am Main], Bd. 6 (1986), 2, S. 30–38, ISSN 0721-6742.
• Unabhängige Expertenkommission Schweiz – Zweiter Weltkrieg (Hrsg.): Fluchtgut – Raubgut. Der Transfer von Kulturgütern in und über die Schweiz 1933–1945 und die Frage der Restitution. Zürich 2001.
• Anna-Dorothea Ludewig, Rafael Cardoso (Hrsg.): Hugo Simon in Berlin. Handlungsorte und Denkräume. Hentrich & Hentrich, Berlin / Leipzig 2018, ISBN 978-3-95565-274-6.
• Nina Senger, Jan Maruhn: Hugo Simon. Bankier, Sammler, Sozialist. (Biographie) Mit einem Vorwort von Rafael Cardoso. Nimbus, Berlin 2020, ISBN 978-3-03850-057-5.
• Privatfilm für Hugo Simon (1924), Regie und Produktion: Gertrud David.

References

1. . Los Angeles Times. 2020-02-08. Archived from the original on 2020-02-08. Retrieved 2021-04-15.
2. "Property of Hugo Simon, Banker, is Confiscated". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. 1933-10-11. Retrieved 2021-04-15.
3. "Simon, Hugo - Die Räume des Hugo Simon - Die Geschichte Berlins - Verein für die Geschichte Berlins e.V. - gegr. 1865". www.diegeschichteberlins.de. Retrieved 2021-04-15.
4. "Hugo Simon in Berlin Online PDF". www.kauf-gebrauchtes.de (in German). Retrieved 2021-04-15.
5. rkeuper (2017-05-03). "Hugo Simon: Ein Bankier auf der Flucht vor den Nazis". Bankstil (in German). Retrieved 2021-04-15.
6. "Simon, Hugo - Die Räume des Hugo Simon - Die Geschichte Berlins - Verein für die Geschichte Berlins e.V. - gegr. 1865". www.diegeschichteberlins.de. Retrieved 2021-04-15. Besondere Verdienste erwarb sich Hugo Simon als Mäzen und Sammler; als Mitglied der einflussreichen Ankaufskommission der Neuen Abteilung der Nationalgalerie (Eröffnung 1919) unter Ludwig Justi war er entscheidend am Aufbau von Berlins innovativstem Museum beteiligt; 1920 machte er mit Karl Schmidt-Rottluffs Ruhender Frau (1912) der Nationalgalerie ein persönliches Geschenk. Als Kunde der Galerien Ferdinand Möller, Paul Cassirer, Herwarth Walden und Alfred Flechtheim war Hugo Simon mit verschiedenen Kunsthändlern verbunden, wobei das Verhältnis zu Paul Cassirer besonders eng war: Er beauftragte ihn mit dem Umbau seiner neuen Villa in Berlin-Tiergarten, die durch seine Sammelleidenschaft und Cassirers Expertise zu einem Tempel der Kunst wurde: Gemälde von Camille Pissarro und Claude Monet schmückten das Esszimmer, im Wintergarten schuf Max Slevogt ein Wandgemälde, mit dem er das in den 1920er Jahren beliebte Papageien-Motiv aufnahm. Im Außenbereich stand ein Brunnen mit einer Plastik des Bildhauers Georg Kolbe. Hugo Simon führte ein offenes Haus; er brachte Menschen zusammen, bei ihm verkehrten u.a. Albert Einstein, Max Liebermann, Harry Graf Kessler und Renée Sintenes, knüpfte Verbindungen und verlor dabei das karitative Engagement nicht aus den Augen: Beispielsweise las im Dezember 1929 Thomas Mann im Rahmen eines Dinners in seinem Haus aus dem Joseph-Manuskript, und der Gastgeber sammelte Spenden für die Jüdische Altenhilfe.
7. www.webdecker.de, webdecker-www webdecker de, webdecker-. Hugo Simon in Berlin, Rafael Cardoso (Hg.), Anna-Dorothea Ludewig (Hg.) (in German). Der Bankier und Mäzen Hugo Simon (1880–1950), heute fast vergessen, war eine der Schlüsselfiguren des Berliner Lebens in der Zwischenkriegszeit. Die Vielfalt seiner kulturellen, politischen und wirtschaftlichen Interessen und des damit verbundenen Engagements ließen Hugo Simon zum Mittelpunkt eines einzigartigen Netzwerks werden. Deutlich wird das an seinen beiden Häusern: der (im Krieg zerstörten) Villa in Berlin-Tiergarten und dem Gut in Seelow im Oderbruch. Beide Orte waren nicht nur private Refugien, sondern soziale Treffpunkte, die Menschen zusammenbrachten; Ausstellungsflächen, die moderner und ‚klassischer' Kunst Raum boten; Experimentierfelder für innovative landwirtschaftliche Methoden (Seelow); Bühnen für ‚halböffentliche' Kulturveranstaltungen und (politische) Diskussionsforen. Vor diesem Hintergrund soll Hugo Simons Leben und Werk wieder sichtbar gemacht werden.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
8. "s26". casastefanzweig.org.br. Retrieved 2021-04-15. Banker, social-democrat activist, pacifist, Maecenas, founder of a silkworm farm.His and Stefan Zweig's paths crossed five times: in the group around the businessman-philosopher-statesman Walther Rathenau; after the Great War in the Weimar Republic; in Paris, in the circle of German émigrés after the Nazis came to power; in 1940, in Brazil, when they stayed in the same hotel on Flamengo beach; and in early 1942 in Barbacena, during a meeting with another refugee writer, the Frenchman George Bernanos.
9. "ALBERT EINSTEIN (1879-1955)". www.christies.com. Retrieved 2021-04-15. ALBERT EINSTEIN (1879-1955) Two t.l.s. to Hugo Simon [? in Berlin], both dated The Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey, 3 June 1946, ½ page 4to. The first letter, in German, remarks on the condition of Berlin: 'Eine solche Zukunft hätten wir uns doch damals in Berlin nicht in den düstersten Träumen ausgemalt.' Einstein is happy that Hugo and his wife are in safety, and adds that he will enclose a letter to rectify the problem of his assumed identity ('Es muss curios sein, als ein Fremder in der eigenen Haut herumzulaufen und ich will gerne im beiliegunden Schreiben dazu beitragen, dass dieser Zustand rectifiziert wird'). The second letter [the promised enclosure] reads: '...you have told me that you have had to assume another name to save your life from the hands of the Gestapo and that now you have to prove to the authorities that your real name is Hugo Simon. I am gladly willing to testify before every government agency that I have known you and your family well...also...that you have always been a reliable citizen, both personally and politically....' (2)
10. value, active. "S. Fischer Verlage Das Vermächtnis der Seidenraupen Geschichte einer Familie". S. Fischer Verlage (in German). Retrieved 2021-04-15.
11. "NEWSLETTER January 2021 – N°8" (PDF). www.civs.gouv.fr. CIVS. Hugo Simon (1880–1950) was a multifaceted character: banker, politician, patron and art collector, he was one of the key figures in Berlin's life during the Weimar Republic. In his villa in Berlin Tiergarten, he regularly welcomed prominent personalities such as Max Liebermann, Thomas Mann, Bertolt Brecht and Stefan Zweig, and on his walls works by Monet and Pissarro were hung side-by-side with those of the German Expressionists such as Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Erich Heckel and Max Pechstein. Like most German intellectuals, many of whom were Jewish, Hugo Simon had to flee the Nazi regime in 1933. He and his wife Gertrude left Germany in March and managed to take a large part of their art collection with them. They arrived in Paris in April 1933. A few months later, in October, all their belongings in Germany were seized. They remained in Paris from March 1937 to June 1940, staying in various hotels and then renting an apartment at 102, rue de Grenelle in the 7th arrondissement. In June 1940, they were forced to leave Paris for Marseille and later to abandon war-torn Europe altogether and go into exile in Brazil, where they arrived in March 1941. A large part of Simon's collection was looted by the ERR (Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg).
12. "Wer war Hugo Simon?". Heimatverein "Schweizerhaus-Seelow" e.V. (in German). Retrieved 2021-04-15.
13. "Banker, social-democrat activist, pacifist, Maecenas, founder of a silkworm farm". casastefanzweig.org.br. Retrieved 2021-04-15.
14. Almeida, Paulo Roberto De (25 February 2017). "Diplomatizzando: Casa Stefan Zweig, Retratos do passado: Hubert Studenic/Hugo Simon". Diplomatizzando. Retrieved 2021-04-15.
15. "Schwierige Rückkehr. Erzählungen und Reflexionen über das Zurückkehren im Kontext von Exil und Vertreibung" (PDF).
16. "German Lost Art Foundation - Project finder - Reconstruction of the art collection of the Jewish Berlin banker Hugo Simon (1880-1950)". www.kulturgutverluste.de. Retrieved 2021-04-15.
17. "German Lost Art Foundation - Project finder - Reconstruction of the art collection of the Jewish Berlin banker Hugo Simon (1880-1950)". www.kulturgutverluste.de. Retrieved 2021-04-15. The project focuses on the collection of the Jewish, Berlin banker, art collector, pacifist, politician and agriculturalist Hugo Simon (1880-1950), dispersed due to persecution under the National Socialist regime. The collection, built up between 1910 and 1933, comprised at least 150 works, among paintings, works on paper and sculptures, with an emphasis on German Expressionism and French Impressionism, but also including works by Old Masters and nineteenth-century artists. There was also an extensive library, furniture, carpets and antique glass. Until Simon's flight from Germany, this art collection was considered one of the most important in Berlin. Its existence spans the period from its creation around 1910 to its forced dissolution in the period from 1933 to 1945.
18. "Property of Hugo Simon, Banker, is Confiscated". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. 1933-10-11. Retrieved 2021-04-15. The Reichsanzeiger announced yesterday that the government had confiscated the property of Hugo Simon, partner in the Banking House of Bett Simon, who was the Prussian Minister of Finance in 1919 and affiliated with the Independent Labor Party.
19. "Werkliste der Gemaelde und Skulpture Proveninenz Zurich" (PDF).
20. "Galerie des 20. Jahrhunderts". www.galerie20.smb.museum. Retrieved 2021-04-15.
21. "Heirs of owner of Nazi-looted 'The Scream' want explanation on display". St. Louis Jewish Light. Retrieved 2021-04-15.
22. "Edvard Munch's 'The Scream' goes for $119.9 million at Sotheby's". Los Angeles Times. 2012-05-02. Retrieved 2021-04-15.
23. "Is Edvard Munch's The Scream A Case For Nazi Restitution". Artlyst. Retrieved 2021-04-15.
24. Unknown (2011-04-13). "plundered art: ERR database—Untangling the Hugo Simon collection". plundered art. Retrieved 2021-04-15.
25. "Outgunned in the Search for Stolen Art". www.lootedart.com. Newsweek. Retrieved 2021-04-15. Hugo Simon, a Jewish banker and finance minister based in Berlin and a supporter of many "degenerate" artists lost many works to the Nazis. He was also the owner of what recently became the world's most expensive painting, Edvard Munch's The Scream, which he consigned to a Swiss gallery in 1937. Rafael Cardoso, Simon's great-grandson believes that Simon only let the masterpiece go because of Nazi persecution. The question is: did Simon consign the work in the normal course of business or did he have no choice? It was not clear he was paid for it. At the very least he probably saved this particular Scream (there are four versions) from destruction. Cardoso refused compensation offers from the consignor, Norwegian shipping magnate Petter Olsen, stating that his only issue was a moral one: "That the legacy of those who were wronged should be remembered and respected." The sale went ahead regardless, and The Scream was sold for a record-breaking $119.9 million to New York billionaire Leon Black, who bought it in May 2012 before loaning it to New York's Museum of Modern Art.
26. "Is Edvard Munch's The Scream A Case For Nazi Restitution". Artlyst. Retrieved 2021-04-15.
27. "Ahead of MoMA exhibit, art collector claims 'The Scream' has Nazi history". www.lootedart.com. Retrieved 2021-04-15.

Links

• Literature by and about Hugo Simon (art collector) in the German National Library catalogue
• Teilnachlass Hugo Simon im Deutschen Exilarchiv der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek