Artist Ernst Barlach, 150 years after his birth

Born on January 2, 1870 in the northern German town of Wedel, Ernst Barlach proved at an early age to be a gifted playwright, novelist, sculptor and graphic artist. When he was 36, he spent some time in Russia. It was to have a lasting effect, in particular on his sculptural work.

Works like the "Russian Beggar Woman II" of 1907 placed marginal figures of society at the center of Barlach's art. To him, they symbolized the material greed and blind belief in progress prevalent in his era. His memorials for the soldiers of the First World War do not glorify war but express suffering and death. That did not sit well with Nazi ideology.

As a memorial to the victims of World War I, Barlach created "Hovering Angel" in 1927. In 1937 the Nazis removed the bronze sculpture and melted it down, using the material for weapons. In 1939, friends of the artist had a copy made that today hangs in the Antoniter Church in Cologne. Two other copies exist.

The hovering figure's face bears a resemblance to Käthe Kollwitz — unintentionally, Barlach said. "The face of Käthe Kollwitz became part of the angel without my intending it to. Had I tried something like this, I probably would have failed," he said. Kollwitz was a close friend, and both belonged to the "Berlin Secession" artists' group.

Unlike Kollwitz, Barlach never explicitly opposed Nazi ideology. He once said of himself that all he wanted was "to be, for better or for worse, an artist." In 1934 he signed an "appeal by workers in the culture sector" in support of Adolf Hitler, but it did not save his career.

In 1937, the Nazis removed 381 Barlach works from museums and public spaces, declaring them "degenerate art." The artist was on the Nazis' blacklist both as a sculptor and as a poet. Now considered one of the most important German sculptors, Ernst Barlach spent the last years of his life in artistic isolation and died in Rostock in 1938.