A few weeks ago, the Sachsenhausen Memorial’s collection received two exceptional works of art as a donation. These are two watercolours by the painter Fritz Schaefler. Both are portraits of the anarchist author, artist and activist Erich Mühsam; one of them is a double portrait of Erich Mühsam and his wife Kreszentia.
Fritz Schaefler (1888–1954) was an Expressionist painter. His experiences on the front line and a head injury sustained during the First World War influenced his artistic work, as did the political events of the post-war period. During the Munich Revolution of 1918–19, he was an active member of the ‘Action Committee of Revolutionary Artists’. As well as creating illustrations for revolutionary journals, he painted portraits of leading figures of the “Münchner Räterepublik” – such as Erich Mühsam.
In 1918, Erich Mühsam was among the supporters of the “Münchner Räterepublik”, which envisaged a socialist transformation of Bavaria. Following the violent suppression of the Soviet Republic by Freikorps units and government troops, Mühsam was also arrested and sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment. After his release in 1924, he continued to fight against militarism, authoritarianism and the rise of National Socialism.
As a well-known anarchist artist and intellectual, Mühsam was arrested in Berlin on the very night following the Reichstag fire in late February 1933. After being held in several detention centres, he arrived at the Oranienburg concentration camp in January 1934. Here, on 10 July 1934, following the SS’s takeover of the camp, he was murdered by Bavarian SS men.
Both watercolours were previously exhibited at the Oranienburg Memorial in the early 1990s as part of exhibitions on the Oranienburg concentration camp. The donor of the works, an art lover, was keen for them to be brought to Oranienburg – the place so tragically linked to the life of Erich Mühsam.
