POST WAR and EDUCATION

For Germany the first two years after the war were dominated by the Morganthau Plan. It sought to destroy Germany's industrial capacity and return the country to a "pastoral state". It also sought to punish German POWs, governmental officials and ordinary citizens by withholding food imports, restricting heating fuels etc. This plan was intended to convince all Germans that they must take personal responiblility for Nazi war crimes, regardless of their invovlment. The plan was approved by FDR and Churchill, but this overly vindictive treatment of the German people backfired and the plan was scrapped. In 1948 Germany was shifted to the Marshall Plan, a decision that contributed to the Wirtschaftswunder, or The Economic Miracle, of the early 1950's that over time would transform Germany into a industrial powerhouse.

The winter of 1946-47 was especially harsh so the food and heat restrictions hit hard. Horst along with his mother and sister had to try to stay warm and fed while living in the bombed out shell of their house. Horst recalled these years as the most difficult of the war, with freezing temperatures, no heat and virtually no food. One of his more macabre stories was about the only well-fed man in the neighborhood, a veternarian's assistant. When Horst incquired about his girth, he replied "You can eat anything, if you cook it long enough", referring to the animals that died in the office.

Like everyone his age, the war set Horst back in his schooling. Any education he received in Poland or the SS Gymnasium was useless at best. Thus in 1946, shortly after returning to Hannover, Horst entered the Lutherschule Gymnasium, a mainstream German high school. He attended for three years, finishing in 1949 at 21, two years late.

Despite setbacks, Horst was an excellent student and was accepted to Göttingen, one of Europe's finest unviversities. We can only hope Horst's father learned of his son's acceptance before he passed.

For two years he studied Psychology, Chemistry and Biology. Although he did not finish his studies, he clearly exceled at these subjects. His Biology courses evolved into his love and mastery of Botany. His proficiency in Chemistry got him several jobs as a laboratory technician, first at Chevron in Richmond, then at Dymo Label company in Berkeley. Finally, his life-long study of Jungian Psychology no doubt has roots in his Göttingen Psychology classes.

It is hard for us to appreciate the flood of modern ideas pouring into Germany after the war, especially for Horst's' generation. The Nazis had banned everything modern, so this generation had never experienced Jazz, Modern Art, Art Films or Modern Literature. Once the war was over, 50 years of artistic achievement came pouring back into Germany, immediately becoming transformative forces in the lives of the youth. I once played a CD of Ella Fitzgerald in Berlin in 1953, and Horst recalled having attended the same concert in Hannover. He happily recalled the crazed audience getting so exicted they nearly destroyed the theater.

It was in this heady atmosphere, Horst felt his early artistic impulses returning and began taking extra-curricular drawing classes. There may have been one inspriational event, or a gradual realization, but in 1949, Horst knew he wanted to be an artist and transferred to art school: the Hochschule für Bildene Künste, Braunschweig.

While still at Göttingen, Horst had already become inspired by Surrealism, especially Di Chirico, Dali and Yves Tanguy. But in art school his horizon expanded to include the full history of Modern Art. The German art movements he would have learned about were Die Brücke, Der Bluer Retier, Neue Sachlichkeit, Magischer Realismus, the Bau Haus and, especially the German Dada of Kurt Schwitters' Merz movement. All these and more would find their way into Horst's distinctive style.

Horst mentioned three instructors that he admired: watercolorist Bruno Müller-Linow, sculptor Paul Egon Schiffers and the Marionettist Harro Siegel. These instructors had been isolated and repressed during the war, and so emerged pretty far behind the modern art movements of the 1950's. The American Abstract Expressionism would have been wildly modern, and very exciting to teachers and students alike.

After his two years at Braunschweig Horst was accepted into the prestigious Kunstacademie Düsseldorf, with the intention of becoming an art teacher. Although he would have made an excellent instructor, this did not work out, and he began a career as a professional artist in Germany. A brave choice that would soon be superceded by a much braver one, emigrating to the USA.