Timeline
This is an annotated timeline of Martin's life. His passion was art and art education, with a special emphasis on contemporary movements. For much of his life, it was dangerous to be involved in politics, but he was interested, in a cynical kind of way. I've included personal, art movement, and political notes. As regards the politics, I have often wondered if the enduring horrors of the Nazi years have made us, in hindsight, see things that were not especially important. People are anti-Semitic today, but do we really think there will be another Shoah? The Germans taught us a new level of genocide, but the world of my grandfather included, more vividly until the actual war years, Brahms and Franz Marc. Is it useful to include politics in his timeline?
The answer must be yes. My grandfather's family was closely connected with the Kaiser's household. My grandmother's family, being Prussian aristocracy, were intimately involved with Nazis (Leonie herself was vehemently anti-Nazi, as was Martin, but see this link). This was family. Furthermore, whatever my grandfather experienced as important back then, we now see a particular set of events as important. I include some of them.
As regards the category of "art," the Nazi years were devastating. There's plenty of reference to art and artists before the 1930's. Afterwards, not so much. I read that all artists were required to join the Nazi art guild, Reichskammer der bildenden Kuenste, and ordered not to do degenerate art. Martin would not have done this. He was passionately anti-Nazi and, with the support of his wife, lived his principles. He painted a lot of still lifes and landscapes, and may have gotten around the guild requirement by being an art teacher rather than an artist. After the war, I imagine it was hard to find art supplies like paint and canvas. Germany's rich artistic tradition was crippled.
1893 Personal: Martin was born in Berlin on December 8. In those days, prosperous families had their babies at home with an attending physician. Only the very poor went to hospitals. Martin was probably born at home. Mother Johanna Emilie Riemer, Father Paul Alfred Adolf Ideler. He had three siblings: Hans, a judge during the Nazi years, Kurt who was a medical student but lost part of his brain during WWI and died of starvation in a Veteran's asylum during WWII, and Margarete who married Erik Hokkansen (later the mayor of, I think, the harbor town of Göteborg), moved to Sweden, and lived to her 80's.
Art: At that time, Brahms and Humperdink were still composing.
Politics: Germany was still composed of kingdoms (Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, Württemburg), grand duchies, principalities, and duchies, under the general rule of the Prussian Kaiser Wilhelm II. There were also colonies in Africa, notably in Kenya, where one or more of Martin's relatives settled. Anti-Semitic activities in Germany were notable, and the Jews formed a Self-Defense league in this year.
1898 Art: The art movement Berlin Secession was founded. One of the founding members, Lowis Corinth, was Martin's mentor.
1899 Art: The Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin (Near Eastern Museum) was founded. Martin would have visited this often.
1900: Politics: The Boer War in South Africa and the Boxer Rebellion in China were going on. Kaiser Wilhelm delivered an inflammatory speech about the Chinese, including the lines, "Wie vor tausend Jahren die Hunnen unter ihrem König Etzel sich einen Namen gemacht, der sie noch jetzt in Überlieferung und Märchen gewaltig erscheinen läßt, so möge der Name Deutscher in China auf 1000 Jahre durch euch in einer Weise bestätigt werden, daß es niemals wieder ein Chinese wagt, einen Deutschen scheel anzusehen!" Basically, this means, "In the same way that the Huns under King Attilla's built a reputation that is still repeated in tradition and fairy tales, so should the name of Germans be established for the next 1000 years in China, so that never again will a Chinese look askance on a German." To me, this sounds very similar to Hitler's puerile "We don't want to be bullied" speeches ... but 40 years earlier. Creepy! Martin was deeply interested in Chinese and Japanese art.
1901 Art: Bruno Cassirer, member of Berlin Secession, founded a publishing house. Among other things, inexpensive pocket editions of famous artists and movements were churned out. Martin owned dozens of these little books.
1911: Art: The Blaue Reiter group is formed, including Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc. Martin did some paintings in this vigorous style as a young man. He studied at Lovis Corinth's studio until 1914, when he was drafted. He met his future wife, Leonie von Wiese, at Corinth's atelier.
1913 Personal: Martin is now 20. Painting trip to Denmark with his teacher Mewes. I can't find any information on this man. At this time, Europe was cosmopolitan and open. According to my mother, no passports were needed to travel to Denmark. You could sleep in barns, or at the homes of the many people who respected the arts and artists and who corresponded with artists.
1914-17 (?) Personal: German Soldier in WWI, France. Martin was drafted as an officer in an emergency battalion which was sent to the most desperate battles. According to my mother, he was one of two survivors of his cohort of 3,000 men. He bore the emotional scars for the rest of his life. As well, his egalitarian sympathies were strengthened both by the pointlessness of that war, and by his interactions with his sergeant and orderly, both of whom knew more about practical survival than he did, and who were willing to teach him.
1917 Personal: December 24 marriage to Luise Martha Leonie Anne-Marie von Wiese und Kaiserswaldau, "Lonni." Lonni was born 1895, died 1967. Lonni had written him and sent him cookies during the war because he was an acquaintance and that was what one of the things that young ladies did for soldiers.
1918: Personal: The deadly flu pandemic that killed more people than WWI struck. Martin and Lonni were afflicted, and were nursed back to health by Arnold Haase, Martin's friend and student.
1917, 18 and/or 1919 Personal: Martin participated in a program to educate and give jobs to returning veterans. He became a set painter for a movie studio. Mom says that movies in those days were very rinky-dink affairs. A king might sit on a camp chair behind a painted cardboard throne, and deliver his lines without rehearsal.
At some point, Martin returned to University to get a teaching degree and became a high-school art teacher. Ordinarily, later he would have moved "up" in his career by becoming a university professor, but because of his snarky attitude toward authority in general and Nazis in particular, his career was stalled until after World War II. He worked at the Dorotheenstätischen Realgymnasium in Berlin, an elite public high school, until 1945.
1919 Personal: Son Axel born at home in Berlin. Martin and Lonni were probably living in a flat in central Berlin at this time. Lonni had a bad experience with the home nurse.
1921 Personal: Daughter Esther born, Berlin, June 6. By this time, for economic reasons, Martin and Lonni had moved to Lonni's mother's house in Lichterfelde, which was at the time a suburb of Berlin. It was an old manor house. The grounds had been landscaped by Oma Marthe's father (or possibly her husband?), with plantings from his travels in Africa and other parts of the world. After her husband's death, Oma sold off much of the grounds, and ended up with a large house on a large city lot. She turned the upstairs over to Martin and Lonni, and they shared a dining room downstairs. Esther was born in a hospital.
1922 Personal: Daughter Suzanne born, also in a hospital, Berlin. The other 17 babies born were boys, so Suzanne was much admired! Having three children was unusual for the intellectual class of the time. When birth control was explained to the couple, they began using it and Suzanne was their last child.
The answer must be yes. My grandfather's family was closely connected with the Kaiser's household. My grandmother's family, being Prussian aristocracy, were intimately involved with Nazis (Leonie herself was vehemently anti-Nazi, as was Martin, but see this link). This was family. Furthermore, whatever my grandfather experienced as important back then, we now see a particular set of events as important. I include some of them.
As regards the category of "art," the Nazi years were devastating. There's plenty of reference to art and artists before the 1930's. Afterwards, not so much. I read that all artists were required to join the Nazi art guild, Reichskammer der bildenden Kuenste, and ordered not to do degenerate art. Martin would not have done this. He was passionately anti-Nazi and, with the support of his wife, lived his principles. He painted a lot of still lifes and landscapes, and may have gotten around the guild requirement by being an art teacher rather than an artist. After the war, I imagine it was hard to find art supplies like paint and canvas. Germany's rich artistic tradition was crippled.
1893 Personal: Martin was born in Berlin on December 8. In those days, prosperous families had their babies at home with an attending physician. Only the very poor went to hospitals. Martin was probably born at home. Mother Johanna Emilie Riemer, Father Paul Alfred Adolf Ideler. He had three siblings: Hans, a judge during the Nazi years, Kurt who was a medical student but lost part of his brain during WWI and died of starvation in a Veteran's asylum during WWII, and Margarete who married Erik Hokkansen (later the mayor of, I think, the harbor town of Göteborg), moved to Sweden, and lived to her 80's.
Art: At that time, Brahms and Humperdink were still composing.
Politics: Germany was still composed of kingdoms (Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, Württemburg), grand duchies, principalities, and duchies, under the general rule of the Prussian Kaiser Wilhelm II. There were also colonies in Africa, notably in Kenya, where one or more of Martin's relatives settled. Anti-Semitic activities in Germany were notable, and the Jews formed a Self-Defense league in this year.
1898 Art: The art movement Berlin Secession was founded. One of the founding members, Lowis Corinth, was Martin's mentor.
1899 Art: The Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin (Near Eastern Museum) was founded. Martin would have visited this often.
1900: Politics: The Boer War in South Africa and the Boxer Rebellion in China were going on. Kaiser Wilhelm delivered an inflammatory speech about the Chinese, including the lines, "Wie vor tausend Jahren die Hunnen unter ihrem König Etzel sich einen Namen gemacht, der sie noch jetzt in Überlieferung und Märchen gewaltig erscheinen läßt, so möge der Name Deutscher in China auf 1000 Jahre durch euch in einer Weise bestätigt werden, daß es niemals wieder ein Chinese wagt, einen Deutschen scheel anzusehen!" Basically, this means, "In the same way that the Huns under King Attilla's built a reputation that is still repeated in tradition and fairy tales, so should the name of Germans be established for the next 1000 years in China, so that never again will a Chinese look askance on a German." To me, this sounds very similar to Hitler's puerile "We don't want to be bullied" speeches ... but 40 years earlier. Creepy! Martin was deeply interested in Chinese and Japanese art.
1901 Art: Bruno Cassirer, member of Berlin Secession, founded a publishing house. Among other things, inexpensive pocket editions of famous artists and movements were churned out. Martin owned dozens of these little books.
1911: Art: The Blaue Reiter group is formed, including Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc. Martin did some paintings in this vigorous style as a young man. He studied at Lovis Corinth's studio until 1914, when he was drafted. He met his future wife, Leonie von Wiese, at Corinth's atelier.
1913 Personal: Martin is now 20. Painting trip to Denmark with his teacher Mewes. I can't find any information on this man. At this time, Europe was cosmopolitan and open. According to my mother, no passports were needed to travel to Denmark. You could sleep in barns, or at the homes of the many people who respected the arts and artists and who corresponded with artists.
1914-17 (?) Personal: German Soldier in WWI, France. Martin was drafted as an officer in an emergency battalion which was sent to the most desperate battles. According to my mother, he was one of two survivors of his cohort of 3,000 men. He bore the emotional scars for the rest of his life. As well, his egalitarian sympathies were strengthened both by the pointlessness of that war, and by his interactions with his sergeant and orderly, both of whom knew more about practical survival than he did, and who were willing to teach him.
1917 Personal: December 24 marriage to Luise Martha Leonie Anne-Marie von Wiese und Kaiserswaldau, "Lonni." Lonni was born 1895, died 1967. Lonni had written him and sent him cookies during the war because he was an acquaintance and that was what one of the things that young ladies did for soldiers.
1918: Personal: The deadly flu pandemic that killed more people than WWI struck. Martin and Lonni were afflicted, and were nursed back to health by Arnold Haase, Martin's friend and student.
1917, 18 and/or 1919 Personal: Martin participated in a program to educate and give jobs to returning veterans. He became a set painter for a movie studio. Mom says that movies in those days were very rinky-dink affairs. A king might sit on a camp chair behind a painted cardboard throne, and deliver his lines without rehearsal.
At some point, Martin returned to University to get a teaching degree and became a high-school art teacher. Ordinarily, later he would have moved "up" in his career by becoming a university professor, but because of his snarky attitude toward authority in general and Nazis in particular, his career was stalled until after World War II. He worked at the Dorotheenstätischen Realgymnasium in Berlin, an elite public high school, until 1945.
1919 Personal: Son Axel born at home in Berlin. Martin and Lonni were probably living in a flat in central Berlin at this time. Lonni had a bad experience with the home nurse.
1921 Personal: Daughter Esther born, Berlin, June 6. By this time, for economic reasons, Martin and Lonni had moved to Lonni's mother's house in Lichterfelde, which was at the time a suburb of Berlin. It was an old manor house. The grounds had been landscaped by Oma Marthe's father (or possibly her husband?), with plantings from his travels in Africa and other parts of the world. After her husband's death, Oma sold off much of the grounds, and ended up with a large house on a large city lot. She turned the upstairs over to Martin and Lonni, and they shared a dining room downstairs. Esther was born in a hospital.
1922 Personal: Daughter Suzanne born, also in a hospital, Berlin. The other 17 babies born were boys, so Suzanne was much admired! Having three children was unusual for the intellectual class of the time. When birth control was explained to the couple, they began using it and Suzanne was their last child.
1923 Personal: Martin is now 30.
Political: The French and Belgians invade the Ruhr because Germany wasn't paying the crushing war reparations required by the Treaty of Versailles. By November, inflation was at a trillion percent. All of Oma's savings were lost, and the three toddlers were hungry. Lonni and her mother bought a milk goat, which they installed in the basement, caught wild rabbits to butcher, and gathered roadside nettles for soup. Hitler tried and failed to take over Bavaria in the Beer Hall Putsch. The long hungry run to World War II was on.
1924 Personal: May. Trip to Paris to visit Arnold Haase, a former student at the Hochschule. Arnold was Jewish and moved to Paris to work for the German radio station there. Later, he switched to a French station. Arnold survived the war, though his parents were sent to Auschwitz and died there. Later, as a dual citizen (I'm pretty sure of this) of the US and France, he sponsored Esther's immigration to the United States.
Political: The French withdraw from the Ruhr, and the Americans and English attempt to mitigate German suffering as a result of the draconian reparations.
Art: The film, "The Last Laugh" is released by UFA. It is remotely possible that Martin worked on this one, since I think possibly the film company he was involved with was UFA. Maybe. By then, Martin was teaching so maybe not.
1925 Personal: Martin's teacher and founder of Berlin Secession movement Lovis Corinth dies.
Political: Hindenberg is elected president, Hitler gets out of jail.
1926 Personal: Trip to Meudon, France. Martin painted apple trees in bloom, trying to process his feelings about being in Meudon as an enemy soldier during WWI.
1928 Personal Summers at the Baltic Sea with Martin's family and the Stocks. Various villages on the Baltic hosted artists in summer. For many summers, the Idelers met with other artists from Berlin and elsewhere up at the Baltic, and painted.
From 1928 onwards, he was a Lecturer on art education in the German Central Institute for Education.
From 1928 - 1934, he worked on training and testing student teachers.
1929: Political: The Great Depression begins with the American stock market crash in October.
1930: Political: The Nazi party has the second-most seats in parliament. The French finally withdraw from the Rhineland.
1932: Political: There are 6 million unemployed in Germany, about 30% of the population.
Political: The French and Belgians invade the Ruhr because Germany wasn't paying the crushing war reparations required by the Treaty of Versailles. By November, inflation was at a trillion percent. All of Oma's savings were lost, and the three toddlers were hungry. Lonni and her mother bought a milk goat, which they installed in the basement, caught wild rabbits to butcher, and gathered roadside nettles for soup. Hitler tried and failed to take over Bavaria in the Beer Hall Putsch. The long hungry run to World War II was on.
1924 Personal: May. Trip to Paris to visit Arnold Haase, a former student at the Hochschule. Arnold was Jewish and moved to Paris to work for the German radio station there. Later, he switched to a French station. Arnold survived the war, though his parents were sent to Auschwitz and died there. Later, as a dual citizen (I'm pretty sure of this) of the US and France, he sponsored Esther's immigration to the United States.
Political: The French withdraw from the Ruhr, and the Americans and English attempt to mitigate German suffering as a result of the draconian reparations.
Art: The film, "The Last Laugh" is released by UFA. It is remotely possible that Martin worked on this one, since I think possibly the film company he was involved with was UFA. Maybe. By then, Martin was teaching so maybe not.
1925 Personal: Martin's teacher and founder of Berlin Secession movement Lovis Corinth dies.
Political: Hindenberg is elected president, Hitler gets out of jail.
1926 Personal: Trip to Meudon, France. Martin painted apple trees in bloom, trying to process his feelings about being in Meudon as an enemy soldier during WWI.
1928 Personal Summers at the Baltic Sea with Martin's family and the Stocks. Various villages on the Baltic hosted artists in summer. For many summers, the Idelers met with other artists from Berlin and elsewhere up at the Baltic, and painted.
From 1928 onwards, he was a Lecturer on art education in the German Central Institute for Education.
From 1928 - 1934, he worked on training and testing student teachers.
1929: Political: The Great Depression begins with the American stock market crash in October.
1930: Political: The Nazi party has the second-most seats in parliament. The French finally withdraw from the Rhineland.
1932: Political: There are 6 million unemployed in Germany, about 30% of the population.
1933: Personal: Martin is now 40.
Political: Hitler made chancellor, then dictator. Reichstag fire, Dachau built. Book burnings, eugenics laws passed, kosher slaughter forbidden.
1935: Political: Germany re-arms in defiance of the Treaty of Versailles.
1936: Political: Germany hosts the Olympic games and re-occupies the Rhineland. The Spanish Civil War, which was a lost cause that caught the imagination of artists and intellectuals in Europe and America, begins.
1937: Personal: Martin is a delegate to Paris Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne with his daughter Esther.
1938: Political: Kristallnacht. Germany invades Austria (the Anschluss). With the shameful collusion of Britain, France, and Italy, Germany annexes the Sudetenland–the German-speaking parts of Czechoslovakia.
1939: Personal: Esther visits Paris, possibly accompanied by Martin.
Political: World War II begins. Hitler and Stalin agree to divide up Eastern Europe. Germany invades Poland and the rest of Czechoslovakia. (This was when my father's family left Prague for Bolivia since my grandfather was ethnically Jewish though a converted Catholic.)
1940: Political: Germany invades Norway, the Netherlands, and France. The policy towards Jews changes from expulsion to extermination, and the death camp Auschwitz is opened in Poland. Euthanasia is also carried out on the handicapped and "mental defectives." The London Blitz. The destruction of the English city of Coventry is repaid by massive bombing of Hamburg.
Art: Paul Klee dies.
1941: Political: Germany invades Greece, Yugoslavia, Russia. Scientists, writers, and Jews are killed as their cities are invaded. Jews, homosexuals, and various ethnic groups are also killed in death camps.
1942: Political: American newspapers report in July that 1 million Jews have been exterminated.
Political: Hitler made chancellor, then dictator. Reichstag fire, Dachau built. Book burnings, eugenics laws passed, kosher slaughter forbidden.
1935: Political: Germany re-arms in defiance of the Treaty of Versailles.
1936: Political: Germany hosts the Olympic games and re-occupies the Rhineland. The Spanish Civil War, which was a lost cause that caught the imagination of artists and intellectuals in Europe and America, begins.
1937: Personal: Martin is a delegate to Paris Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne with his daughter Esther.
1938: Political: Kristallnacht. Germany invades Austria (the Anschluss). With the shameful collusion of Britain, France, and Italy, Germany annexes the Sudetenland–the German-speaking parts of Czechoslovakia.
1939: Personal: Esther visits Paris, possibly accompanied by Martin.
Political: World War II begins. Hitler and Stalin agree to divide up Eastern Europe. Germany invades Poland and the rest of Czechoslovakia. (This was when my father's family left Prague for Bolivia since my grandfather was ethnically Jewish though a converted Catholic.)
1940: Political: Germany invades Norway, the Netherlands, and France. The policy towards Jews changes from expulsion to extermination, and the death camp Auschwitz is opened in Poland. Euthanasia is also carried out on the handicapped and "mental defectives." The London Blitz. The destruction of the English city of Coventry is repaid by massive bombing of Hamburg.
Art: Paul Klee dies.
1941: Political: Germany invades Greece, Yugoslavia, Russia. Scientists, writers, and Jews are killed as their cities are invaded. Jews, homosexuals, and various ethnic groups are also killed in death camps.
1942: Political: American newspapers report in July that 1 million Jews have been exterminated.
1943: Personal: Martin is now 50.
Political: The Russians commit atrocities. The Germans commit atrocities. The Americans and British bomb the civilians in Hamburg night and day, causing a firestorm. Now gypsies are also being killed in the death camps. The new government of Italy sides with Germany.
1944: Personal: Son Axel, an army surgeon and later member of the Signal Corps, marries a medical student, Ingerose. Two weeks later, Axel's motorcycle is hit by a shell and he dies. Wife Lonni is devastated by Axel's death and takes years to recover.
Political: The tide of war turns. Various countries begin to rebel against the German occupation, in a slather of atrocities and massacres. The slaughter of Jews increases.
1945: Personal: Once transportation lines are restored, frequent visits to his daughters, who are refugees in Bad Mergentheim in Southern Germany, working for the US Occupation Army (Coincidentally, they are not far from the refugee camps that Martin's future son-in-law's parents are the medical officers for, in Augsburg. But that is another story). Martin's career had been stalled because of his refusal to join the Nazi Party, but after the war he became Head of the College of Fine Arts & Culture in Berlin and Deputy Head of the Master School for Arts and Crafts at Charlottenburg.
Political: Germany is completely crushed and surrenders. Current estimates are that 5.3 million military men were killed. Since Lonni's family was Prussian nobility, this means she lost all her menfolk except the ones who were POWs or severely injured. I'm not sure about Martin's family. The Russians advanced from the East, committing atrocities as they went, and several family friends were lost that way. Fortunately, the Ideler family home was in the American part of occupied Berlin.
1947: Personal: There is a knock on the door in the middle of the night, according to Esther. Panic! But it was Americans, whew. Members of the US Occupation told Martin that they had reason to believe the Russians wanted to kidnap him and take him to Moscow, where he would be installed as the head of Art Education in that city. The Americans proposed to move him to Hamburg instead. From 1947 - 1958, therefore, Martin was Head of the Department of Art Education at the National Art School in Hamburg.
1948: Political: The Berlin Blockade, followed by the partition of Germany into the Russian side and the Western side.
1949: Personal: Daughter Suzanne marries an American GI and moves to Los Angeles.
Political: The Russians commit atrocities. The Germans commit atrocities. The Americans and British bomb the civilians in Hamburg night and day, causing a firestorm. Now gypsies are also being killed in the death camps. The new government of Italy sides with Germany.
1944: Personal: Son Axel, an army surgeon and later member of the Signal Corps, marries a medical student, Ingerose. Two weeks later, Axel's motorcycle is hit by a shell and he dies. Wife Lonni is devastated by Axel's death and takes years to recover.
Political: The tide of war turns. Various countries begin to rebel against the German occupation, in a slather of atrocities and massacres. The slaughter of Jews increases.
1945: Personal: Once transportation lines are restored, frequent visits to his daughters, who are refugees in Bad Mergentheim in Southern Germany, working for the US Occupation Army (Coincidentally, they are not far from the refugee camps that Martin's future son-in-law's parents are the medical officers for, in Augsburg. But that is another story). Martin's career had been stalled because of his refusal to join the Nazi Party, but after the war he became Head of the College of Fine Arts & Culture in Berlin and Deputy Head of the Master School for Arts and Crafts at Charlottenburg.
Political: Germany is completely crushed and surrenders. Current estimates are that 5.3 million military men were killed. Since Lonni's family was Prussian nobility, this means she lost all her menfolk except the ones who were POWs or severely injured. I'm not sure about Martin's family. The Russians advanced from the East, committing atrocities as they went, and several family friends were lost that way. Fortunately, the Ideler family home was in the American part of occupied Berlin.
1947: Personal: There is a knock on the door in the middle of the night, according to Esther. Panic! But it was Americans, whew. Members of the US Occupation told Martin that they had reason to believe the Russians wanted to kidnap him and take him to Moscow, where he would be installed as the head of Art Education in that city. The Americans proposed to move him to Hamburg instead. From 1947 - 1958, therefore, Martin was Head of the Department of Art Education at the National Art School in Hamburg.
1948: Political: The Berlin Blockade, followed by the partition of Germany into the Russian side and the Western side.
1949: Personal: Daughter Suzanne marries an American GI and moves to Los Angeles.
1953: Personal: Martin is now 60. Daughter Esther emigrates to US and gets a job with Disney Studios.
1954: Personal: October visit to Arnold Haase and his wife in New York, then to daughters Esther and Suzanne in Los Angeles. Esther marries a Czech refugee.
1955: Political: End of Allied occupation of Germany.
1958: Personal: Martin retires as head of the art education department at the National Art School. Shortly afterwards, he emigrates to US with wife Lonni, lives in Hollywood a block away from Esther's family. Occasional visits by Arnold Haase and other dear friends and relatives from Germany. Nevertheless, Martin never learned to speak English (though he could read it quite well), and was desperately lonely. He received frequent packages from bookstores in Berlin and Hamburg.
1954: Personal: October visit to Arnold Haase and his wife in New York, then to daughters Esther and Suzanne in Los Angeles. Esther marries a Czech refugee.
1955: Political: End of Allied occupation of Germany.
1958: Personal: Martin retires as head of the art education department at the National Art School. Shortly afterwards, he emigrates to US with wife Lonni, lives in Hollywood a block away from Esther's family. Occasional visits by Arnold Haase and other dear friends and relatives from Germany. Nevertheless, Martin never learned to speak English (though he could read it quite well), and was desperately lonely. He received frequent packages from bookstores in Berlin and Hamburg.
1963: Personal: Martin is now 70.
1964 Personal: (?) Visit to Germany and possibly to France.
1966 Personal: (?) Moves from Hollywood to a room in daughter Suzanne's house in Torrance.
1967 Personal: Martin dies, and shortly afterward, Lonni dies.
1964 Personal: (?) Visit to Germany and possibly to France.
1966 Personal: (?) Moves from Hollywood to a room in daughter Suzanne's house in Torrance.
1967 Personal: Martin dies, and shortly afterward, Lonni dies.