Henri Hinrichsen (5 February 1868 – 17 September 1942) was a German music publisher and patron of music in Leipzig. He directed the music publishing house Edition Peters, succeeding his uncle. He helped found the Hochschule für Frauen zu Leipzig, the first academy for women in Germany, and financed the acquisition of a collection of musical instruments by the University of Leipzig. He was murdered at the Auschwitz concentration camp.
Career
Born in
Hamburg, Hinrichsen trained to be a music seller and publisher in
Leipzig,
Basel, Brussels and London.
He married Martha (
née Bendix, 1879–1941) in 1898. The couple had two daughters and five sons.
Hinrichsen worked from 15 May 1891 for the music publisher Edition Peters, which belonged to his uncle Max Abraham. On 1 January 1894, he became a part owner
Hinrichsen was a Geheimer Kommerzienrat, Handelsrichter and Stadtverordneter in Leipzig.
In 1911, Hinrichsen was a patron of the , the first academy for women in Germany,
Hinrichsen was a patriotic German who had been recognized by Wilhelm II, the German emperor.
Nazi persecution and murder 1933-1942
When the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, he was persecuted as a Jew. In 1938, his publishing house was
Aryanization, that is transferred to a non-Jewish owner.
[Zeraschi, Helmut: Geschichte des Museums, in: Schriftenreihe des Musikinstrumenten-Museums der Karl-Marx-Universität, Vol. 2. Leipzig: Musikinstrumenten-Museum der Karl-Marx-Universität 1977.] In 1940, he travelled to Brussels and applied for visas to try to get to Britain and the United States. On January 11, 1940, he was forced to relinquish to Hitler's art dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt his Pissarro painting,
Sower And Ploughman, however he still did not receive a visa.
His wife died in Brussels on 7 October 1941, because as a Jew she could not get insulin to treat her
diabetes.
Hinrichsen was deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp, where he was murdered on 17 September 1942.
Family
His son Max Hinrichsen (1901–1965) emigrated in the 1930s and founded the
Peters Edition in London.
His other son, Walter Hinrichsen (1907–1969), left Germany in 1936 and founded the
C.F. Peters Corporation in New York City.
Awards and honors
On 29 May 1929, Hinrichsen received an honorary doctorate from the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Leipzig.
In 1949, Arnold Schoenberg dedicated a revised version of his
Fünf Orchesterstücke, Op. 16, to his memory: "This new edition is dedicated to the memory of Henri Hinrichsen, a music publisher who was a great seigneur."
After the grave monument of the Abraham/Hinrichsen family in the Südfriedhof was razed in the 1980s, a statue recalling the former location was erected in 1992.
A bust of Hinrichsen is displayed in a staircase of the
Grassi Museum in Leipzig. In 2001, a street in Leipzig's Waldstraßenviertel was named after him.
Claim for Nazi-looted art
In 2013, drawing that had belonged to Hinrichsen, "
Klavierspiel" (Playing the Piano) by
Carl Spitzweg, was discovered in the stash of artworks hoarded by the son of Hitler's art dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt in Munich in 2013.
It was restituted to Hinrichsen's heirs by the Museum of Fine Arts in Bern, that had received part of the Gurlitt collection after his death.
Nazi plunder by Nazis from Hinrichsen, including artworks, are being searched for.
Literature
-
Irene Lawford-Hinrichsen: Music Publishing and Patronage - C. F. Peters: 1800 to the Holocaust. London: Edition Press 2000
-
Sophie Fetthauer: Musikverlage im "Dritten Reich" und im Exil. (Musik im "Dritten Reich" und im Exil, vol. 10) Von Bockel Verlag Hamburg 2004
-
Irene Lawford-Hinrichsen; Norbert Molkenbur: C. F. Peters - ein deutscher Musikverlag im Leipziger Kulturleben. Zum Wirken von Max Abraham und Henri Hinrichsen. In: Ephraim-Carlebach-Stiftung (ed.): Judaica Lipsiensia: Zur Geschichte der Juden in Leipzig. Leipzig: Edition Leipzig, 1994. pp. 92–109
-
Irene Lawford-Hinrichsen: Five Hundred Years to Auschwitz : A Family Odyssey from the Inquisition to the Present. Bertrams 2008. .
-
Annerose Kemp; Eberhard Ulm: Henriette-Goldschmidt-Schule 1911–2011. Leipzig 2011.
See also
External links
