We have ended part 2 with Hannes Meyer leaving the Soviet Union to go and help build a socialist republic in Spain which was interrupted by the Franco coup and left Meyer in limbo in his home country, Switzerland. Here, he married Lena Bergner in 1937 – they already had a daughter, Lilo, back then. In 1938 to 1939 Hannes Meyer built the orphanage Mümliswil, which I have discussed more extensively at the end of part 2.

In this new episode I have invited the Mexican art-historian Raquel Franklin to talk about Meyer’s next and last emigration to Mexico between 1938 and 1949, about which she wrote her PhD thesis. What were his goals and opportunities? Was Meyer really a spy for the Soviets? What was the Black book of Nazi terror and Meyer’s role in it? And why did he leave Mexico, too, ending up again in Switzerland and not in another socialist country like the GDR?

As in parts 1 and 2 I will bring in former Berlin Senator for Culture Thomas Flierl to share his research results and expertise, too.

SHOW NOTES
Sandra Neugärtner: Die Sozialisierung des Wissens und das Streben nach Deutungsmacht – Lena Bergners Transfer der Isotype nach Mexiko, 2019

Raquel Franklin: Of Art and Politics – Hannes Meyer and the Workshop of Popular Graphics, 2019

Marion von Osten: Ein Wanderleben – von Dessau über Moskau nach Mexiko – Hannes Meyer und Lena Bergner und die Künste, 2019

Daniel Talesnik: Moving Away to the Other End of the World – Reflections on the Letters Between Tibor Weiner and Hannes Meyer from the DAM Archive, 2019

Thomas Flierl/Philipp Oswalt (eds.): Im Streit der Deutungen/Conflicting Interpretations, 2019, Spector books

COVER IMAGE
Portrait of Hannes Meyer, 1928 (photo by Lotte Beese), https://thecharnelhouse.org/2015/08/09/bauhaus-director-hannes-meyers-adventures-in-the-soviet-union-1930-1936/hannes-meyer-1928-photo-by-lotte-beese/

CHAPTER IMAGES
1/2/3 Portrait of Hannes Meyer, 1928 (photo by Lotte Beese), https://thecharnelhouse.org/2015/08/09/bauhaus-director-hannes-meyers-adventures-in-the-soviet-union-1930-1936/hannes-meyer-1928-photo-by-lotte-beese/

4 Hannes Meyer, Draft for Colonia obrera de Las Lomas de Becerra, 1942, https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:HannesMeyer,ColoniaOrbreradelasLomas,Mexico(1942).jpg

5 CAPFCE Exhibition in the Palace of Fine Arts, Bauhaus-Universität
Weimar, Archiv der Moderne, https://www.bauhaus-imaginista.org/articles/2771/of-art-and-politics

6 El libro negro del terror nazi en europa (The Black Book of Nazi Terror in Europe), Mexico City, 1943; published by Hannes Meyer at the Austrian/German exile publishing house "el libro libre" during WW2 in Mexico, https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Ellibronegrodelterrornazien_europa.jpg

7/8 Hannes Meyer in Mexico (detail), Archivo General de la Nacion de México