Hans Adalbert von Stockhausen

Dr. phil. habil. Hans Adalbert von Stockhausen as a special officer (Militärverwaltungsbeamter) of the OKH (Oberkommando des Heeres)

Hans Adalbert "Albert" Eugen August Theodor Karl Friedrich von Stockhausen (sometimes also Hans-Adalbert; b. 18 May 1909 in Altona near Hamburg; ⚔ 15 August 1942 near Oserny/Oserna north of Shisdra/Shistra, Eastern Front) was a German art historian and art (Kunstschutz) as well as cultural assets (Kulturgutschutz) protection officer of the Wehrmacht (Militärverwaltungsbeamter with the rank as Hauptmann) and later NCO of the infantry in WWII.

Life

Franz Prinz von Sayn-Wittgenstein (left) und Hans Adalbert von Stockhausen (right), Kathedrale Saint-Julien in Le Mans (Le Mans Cathedral)

War grave, later desecrated and leveled by the Russians, his body was never found (reported by the German War Graves Commission as of 2023).

Dr. Marline von Stockhausen, post-WWII in 1946 (standing right) and in 1948 during the "First German Art History Day" (center) in Brühl

After graduating from the humanistic high school (later Realgymnasium) in Hofgeismar with Abitur, he decided to study history and classical archaeology and art history at the Philipps University in Marburg, the second oldest Protestant university in the country. The art history seminar of the Prussian Research Institute and onwards 1929 also focusing on photo documentation and specializing in the the study of German and French art of the Middle Ages was directed by Professor Richard Hamann (1879–1961). Together with him taught at the seminar for the professors Carl Horst (1875–1934) and Otto Homburg (1885–1964), the lecturers Richard Krautheimer (1897–1994), Herman Deckert (1899–1955) and Friedrich Wachsmuth (1883–1975).

In addition to his study duties, von Stockhausen has apparently also enjoyed the student life in the small University town to the fullest. He was admitted He was hitting in the Corps Rhenania Straßburg with compulsory mensur and carried his fencing scare on the left cheek with great pride. In his academic curriculum vitae von Stockhausen also named as his teachers the archaeologist Paul Jackobstahl (1880–1957) as well as the historians Rudolf Häpke (1844–1930) and Edmund Ernst Stengel (1879–1968).

In the fall of 1929, von Stockhausen went to Berlin for three semesters at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität. There he heard, among other things, the lectures of well-known Art historians such as Heinrich Wölfflin (1864–1945), Adolph Goldschmidt (1863–1944), Wilhelm Waetzold (1880–1945) or Albert Brinkmann (1881–1958). At that time he started his doctoral thesis, which deals with the sculptural decoration of the Romanesque cloisters in Provence. He did so consciously, thus following in the footsteps of his teacher Richard Hamann, embark in order to build on his research work and possibly some of Hamann's hypotheses regarding the so-called Southern French Proto-Renaissance check over. He defended the thesis on 4 May 1932 and received his doctorate (Dr. phil.) in Marburg. He then went to Prague for two semesters at the Czech and at the German university.

In June 1933, von Stockhausen learned that in the fall he was going to work as an extraordinary assistant in the Marbuger art history seminar. Professor Richard Hamann suggested him for this position, for which von Stockhausen was very grateful. Membership in the faculty was mandatory for all assistants and everyone who wanted to qualify as a professor from October 1933 on had to do one defense training course at the SA sports school in the city of Borna near Leipzig. In November 1934, Hans Adalbert von Stockhausen also stayed there and demonstrated a good shooting performance. In 1933, he was part of the Aufnahmekampagne in Poland (e.g. Krakau with Richard Hamann) and in 1935 in The Hague (also photographing modern architecture).

On 9 June 1937, he applied for membership of the NSDAP. Before the war broke out, von Stockhausen became a lecturer in art history in Marburg on 13 July 1938. Before the Habilitation colloquium, on which he spoke on the subject "Contemporary taste and historical judgment in Winckelmann" spoke and after a trial lecture about the German medieval goldsmith's art, he also had to have a monthly stay at the Jagdschlösschen Tännich in Thuringia, where he and other aspiring University teachers had to have their ideological attitudes analyzed. He passed the course with no problems.

During the war, Hamann's art historical Institute with its employees was involved in photo campaigns of the “Art Protection” division. This special division of the German Imperial Army was erected during the First World War in 1916 on the initiative of curator and art historian Paul Clemens (1866–1947). It should protect against plunder and destruction and document significant monuments in the occupied territories. Richard Hamann was entrusted with the military photo documentation of monuments in Belgium and northern France in the last years of World War I. He continued to work on documentation in the interwar period and so with the help of students and colleagues from the Marburg seminary one of the largest image archives of European architecture and art was established.

In 1939 and 1940, they photographed Art monuments in Austria and in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (in the Protectorate, the art historian Otto Kletzl and the sculptor Karl Albiker photographed for the institute), the following year in the Baltics and especially in occupied France. Von Stockhausen headed one of the groups of four photographers deployed in France between 1 October 1940 and 30 September 1941. Using modern photo technology, he systematically, together with his colleagues from Marburg, photographed Versailles, the Basilica in Saint Denis, the Cathedral of Chartres and a multitude of other art monuments in Normandy and southern and southwestern France.

Front duty

As a result of the setbacks of the German Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front, the reality of war caught up with him. Back from France, he was released from the special staff of the OKH (Entlassung eines Militärverwaltungsbeamten zwecks Verwendung bei der Truppe) on 3 February 1942 and was transferred into the infantry on 16 March 1942, which was his wish, as letters show.

Death

As an Unteroffizier (NCO) of the 5. Kompanie/Infanterie-Regiment 163/52. Infanterie-Division, Hans Adalbert von Stockhausen was killed in action as his group attacked an enemy bunker near Oserny/Oserna on 15 August 1942 and the Red Army hit them with a round from an anti-tank gun.

Family

Lineage

Hans Adalbert von Stockhausen was the son of Generalmajor Theodor Hans-Adalbert von Stockhausen. All five brothers (Gebrüder von Stockhausen) served in the Wehrmacht during WWII.

Marriage

On 5 November 1941, in the Trendelburg parish church, he married his longtime colleague, the art historian Dr. phil. Marline Anne Maud Kerlen (b. 4 December 1909), daughter of lord of the manor (Gutsbesitzer) Kurt Karl Albrecht Kerlen. Marline was a scientific assistant of the OKH photo team in France.

She also worked for the "Marburg Central Collecting Point". This was set up by the US military government in order to collect the works of art evacuated from museums, libraries, archives, castles, etc. before and during the Second World War and to return them to their rightful owners. The collection point, which acted as a model for others in Wiesbaden and Munich, existed between 8 May 1945 and mid-August 1946. From November 1945, selected masterpieces were presented to the astonished local public in exhibitions in the Marburg University Museum and in the State Archives. The Central Collecting Point in Marburg was dissolved as early as autumn 1946 and the remaining works of art that had not been restituted were transferred to Wiesbaden. The art objects were catalogued, restored if necessary and photographed, above all, in cooperation with the staff of the Art History Institute and the Foto Marburg photo archive under the direction of Prof. Richard Hamann.

Dr. Marline von Stockhausen, who never married again (and always wore her wedding ring, as post-war photographs show), stayed with the art history institute of the University of Marburg, together with Dr. Frieda Dettweiler (1900–1996), Dr. Johanna Müller (b. 1900) etc., until she retired in the 1970s.

Gallery

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Writings (excerpt)

• Die Romanischen Kreuzgänge der Provence:
  • I. Teil: Die Architektur, in: Marburger Jahrbuch für Kunstwissenschaft, 7. Bd. (1933), p. 135–190.
  • II. Teil: Die Plastik, in: ibidem, 8.–9. Bd. (1936), p. 89–171.
• Eine böhmische Malerschule der zweiten Hälfte des 14. Jahrhunderts. Die Wandgemälde im Kreuzgang des Emausklosters in Prag, ihre Stilherkunft und künstlerische Nachfolge (Habilitationsschrift), 370 pp, Marburg 1938
• Das romanische Scheibenreliquiar in Fritzlar, Burg–Magdeburg 1939