You can explain a political issue through a long article. Or get to the point briefly — with a caricature. One person who managed that for six decades is Horst Haitzinger. He is one of the best in his field. His works made it onto the cover of Der Spiegel, it could also be found in the Bunte, but especially in southern German daily newspapers. But readers of the state newspaper also smiled at the cartoonist’s biting humor. The then LZ editor-in-chief Christoph Steiner worked with “dem Horst”, and Haitzinger’s world views were part of the LZ for more than a quarter of a century. Now a large part of the political daily news finds a home in the art archive of the Sparkassen-Stiftung Lüneburg. Of course Steiner made the connection.
The Munich-based Haitzinger began his career as a political cartoonist at Simplicissimus in 1958. With a sharp pen and hearty style, the now 86-year-old accompanied the ups and downs, the woes and ahs of the Federal Republic. He later became particularly interested in environmental issues. “There are around 17,000 caricatures in total, plus oil paintings,” says Christoph Steiner, who has been friends with Haitzinger for many years. The two of them were concerned with the questions: Where is such a huge legacy, where does contemporary history find a good place?
Lüneburg is a good option, even if there are a few hundred kilometers to Munich in between. The Sparkasse Foundation with its archive has long since become a storage facility for some artists. The long-time managing director, Carsten Junge, Steiner and Haitzinger came to an agreement: Haitzinger will leave a large part of his work to the foundation, and the Bavarian State Library will also receive 10,000 of the artist’s works.
Recently in Munich everything was also contractually wrapped up. The foundation describes the donation as follows: “In the presence of long-time LZ editor-in-chief Christoph Steiner, Haitzinger and his wife Ilse presented the head of the art archive, Jeanine Passgang, with around 500 hand-drawn works – including all the caricatures that Haitzinger has created over the course of his career on the topics of the environment and nature conservation.”
But there are more to come. Steiner says that a big Haitzinger fan and collector was also present at the meeting: The Swiss entrepreneur Hans von Mandach has digitized around 17,000 caricatures, “he gave us a USB stick with the works.”
Steiner, who was born in Munich, and Haitzinger, who lives in Munich by choice, made daily phone calls during LZ times about the cartoons, which then came by fax. “Sometimes I moved him on a topic, for example about Castor’s time,” remembers Steiner. So the nuclear waste transports to Wendland, where thousands upon thousands demonstrated and thousands of police officers came to accompany the transports to the interim storage facility in Gorleben.
For the 50th anniversary of the LZ in 1996, Haitzinger traveled to the Kulturforum Wienebüttel with an exhibition. The music for the opening was provided by cabaret artist Gerhard Polt “with two hearty samples of his skills,” as the LZ noted at the time. Steiner reports on a long evening that followed with lots of wheat beer in what was then Café Glockenhof.
The Lüneburg Art Archive wants to digitize the works and make them available to interested art galleries, art associations, museums and municipalities for exhibitions. A collaboration with the Bavarian State Library and Haitzinger friend von Mandach is planned. Carlo Eggeling
The photo shows the head of the art archive, Jeanine Passgang, Horst Haitzinger and Christoph Steiner.
© Photos: Sparkasse Foundation
There have been no comments on this article yet.
