Queer Places:
Sonnenstein Castle, Schloßhof 2/4, 01796 Pirna, Germany
Elfriede
Lohse-Wächtler (born Anna Frieda Wächtler; 4 December 1899 – 31 July 1940) was
a German painter of the avant-garde whose works were banned as "degenerate
art", and in some cases destroyed, by the Third Reich. She was murdered in a
former psychiatric institution at Sonnenstein castle in Pirna under Action T4,
a forced euthanasia program of Nazi Germany. Since 2000, a memorial center for
the T4 program in the house commemorates her life and work in a permanent
exhibition.
The majority of women in German-speaking Europe associated with innovative
arts and literature were married or engaged in significant heterosexual
relationships, although few had children. Some lived unconventionally: Hannah Hoch was bisexual; painter
Elfriede Lohse-Wichtler
was married briefly, then lived highly unconventionally, including a period
with Gypsies and, reputedly, female partners. No well-known writer lived
openly as a lesbian. Gertrud Kolmar,
Annette Kolb,
Jeanne Mammen,
Milly
Steger, Lotte Laserstein, and
Nelly
Sachs never married.
Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler grew up in a middle-class family, but left at the
age of 16 to study at the Royal Arts School Dresden from 1915 to 1918
(fashion, then applied graphics). From 1916 to 1919, she also attended drawing
and painting courses at the Dresden Art Academy. She came into contact with
the Dresden Secession Group 1919 and became part of the circle of friends
around Otto Dix, Otto Griebel, and Conrad Felixmüller. Renting part of the
studio of the latter near the Dresden city center she made a living with
batiks, postcards and illustrations. In June 1921, she married the painter and
opera singer Kurt Lohse, following him to Görlitz in 1922 and in 1925
to Hamburg. The marriage was a difficult one and the couple separated several
times in the following years. In 1926, Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler joined
the Federation of female Hamburgian artists and art lovers; in 1928. she was
able to participate in some exhibitions of the New Objectivity. In 1929, she
suffered a nervous breakdown because of financial and partnership difficulties
and was committed to a psychiatric institution in Hamburg-Friedrichsberg.
During the two months' stay she painted the Friedrichsberg heads, a piece of
work consisting of about 60 drawings and pastels, mainly portraits of fellow
patients. After her recovery and a final separation from Kurt Lohse (in 1926),
she had a very creative phase. She painted numerous paintings of Hamburg's
harbor, scenes from the life of workers and prostitutes, and pitiless
self-portraits. But despite some exhibitions, sales, and smaller grants, she
lived in grinding poverty. Due to financial problems and increasing social
isolation, she returned to her parents' home in Dresden by midyear 1931. When
her mental state worsened her father admitted her to the state mental home
at Arnsdorf in 1932. There she was diagnosed with schizophrenia. From 1932 to
1935 she was still creatively active, drawing portraits and creating arts and
crafts. After Kurt Lohse divorced her in May 1935 she was incapacitated due to
"incurable insanity". After refusing to consent to a sterilisation, she was
denied the permission to go out of the hospital any more. In December 1935,
she underwent a forced surgical sterilisation in the Dresden-Friedrichstadt
women's hospital on the grounds of Nazi eugenicist policies. After this
traumatic event she never painted again. In 1940 she was deported to the
former psychiatric institution at Pirna-Sonnenstein (located in
the Sonnenstein castle in Pirna), where, on 31 July, she was murdered along
with the majority of the other residents as part of the Nazi "euthanasia"
program, Action T4. The official cause of death was "pneumonia with myocardial
insufficiency". In the years of 1940 and 1941, a total of 13,720 mainly
mentally ill or handicapped people were gassed by Nazis in this institution
formerly well known for its humanistic traditions.
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