Otto Nebel: brief biography
Otto Nebel: brief biography
Ich schicke Ihnen als Beilage im Doppel eine neue Lebensbeschreibung, von Herrn Nebel unterzeichnet und von der Deutschen Botschaft beglaubigt, ferner die verschiedenen Antragsformulare für Herrn und Frau Nebel. […] Meine Klienten haben den allergrössten Teil der Wohnungseinrichtung verloren, die sie nicht in die Schweiz mitnehmen konnten und die sie einfach zurücklassen mussten. […] Das Wichtigste aber ist der Verlust der Bilder und Blätter meines Klienten. Obschon sie heute viel mehr Wert haben, haben wir einen Durchschnitt von RM. 50.- angenommen, was einem Total von RM. 25.000 entspricht. […] Die Einkommenszahlen können unsere Klienten nach so vielen Jahren nur noch aus der Erinnerung approximativ schöpfen. Das Wichtigste ist, dass ohne diese Störung ein rapider Anstieg des Ansehens des damals in Deutschland sehr geachteten und geschätzten Maler-Dichters Nebel erfolgt wäre.
[Enclosed I am sending you a new biography in duplicate, signed by Mr. Nebel and certified by the German Embassy, along with the various application forms for Mr. and Mrs. Nebel. […] My clients have lost the vast majority of their furniture and effects, since they were unable to take them to Switzerland and had to leave them behind. […] Most important, however, is the loss of my client’s pictures and papers. Although they are now worth much more, we have set an average value of RM 50.00, which means the total amount is RM 25,000. […] After so many years, our clients can only quote an approximate income from memory. The most important fact is that without this disruption, Nebel’s reputation as a painter and poet would have risen rapidly, since he was already greatly respected and esteemed in Germany. (trans. ed.)]
Swiss lawyer Emil Raas in a letter to his colleague Arthur Prinz in Berlin, 1959
Poet Otto Nebel who remained in Switzerland after the end of World War II and became a Swiss citizen in 1952, attempted to claim reparation from the Federal Republic of Germany once the war was over and in 1957 wrote a “brief biography” for this purpose. This was preceded by a somewhat longer version with the title “Brief outline of the lives of husband and wife Otto and Hildegard Nebel”. Nebel discloses his reasons for fleeing from Germany in just a small space, describing them firstly as “political” and “ideological”, and secondly as largely related to his position as an abstract painter and Expressionist poet in a society which ostracised his art for being “degenerate”. Nebel's legal dispute with the German federal government was to drag on until 1964. In addition to a monthly pension granted retroactively from 1953, the reparation office in Berlin awarded the Nebels DM 12,000 in property compensation, a sum which was very modest when measured against the actual loss of household goods, artworks and books. This was merely a fraction of the DM 50,000 DM sought by Berlin lawyer Arthur Prinz and Bernese advocate Emil Raas, who had lobbied the Swiss authorities on behalf of Else Lasker-Schüler back in the 1930s. Nebel was awarded Germany’s Federal Cross of Merit in 1965.
Further reading:
Braun, Bettina: „Gefrorene Zeit“. Das Exil und Exilwerk. In: Otto Nebel. Maler und Dichter. Hrsg. Von Therese Bhattacharya-Stettler, Steffan Biffiger und Bettina Braun. Werner: Bielefeld/Berlin: Kerber Verlag 2012, S. 216.
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