Lithographic Stones Speak

The Story of the Gerson Brothers and the Paul Pittius Print Shop

Stiftung Deutsches Technikmuseum Berlin

Lithographic Stones Speak

In 2017, the Deutsches Technikmuseum in Berlin acquired a historic lithographic workshop with a printing press, a wide variety of working materials, and nearly one hundred lithographic stones. Some of these stones have a very special history. They originally belonged to the "Paul Pittius Lithography Print Shop and Luxury Card Plant" in Berlin, whose owners, Martin and Julius Gerson, were persecuted and murdered as Jews under National Socialism. The exhibition tracks the path of the stones back in time, tells the story of the print shop and recalls the fate of the two brothers. It is the result of provenance research at the Deutsches Technikmuseum and was created in conjunction with the families of the former owners.

01

Provenance Research at the Deutsches Technikmuseum

What is provenance research?

Provenance research is concerned with the origin of objects in the museum and the history of their former owners. The aim is to identify cultural items looted under National Socialism and to find a fair and just resolution together with the relevant heirs.

In the past, provenance research focused mainly on paintings and art collections. However, the Nazi regime robbed or otherwise deprived the mostly Jewish persecutees of much more than just works of art: radios, typewriters, bicycles, cameras as well as entire companies and their machinery were forfeited as well. The aim of this digital exhibition is to show that such objects are also found in museums today and that research into their origins is possible and necessary.

What are provenance markings?

Provenance markings are certain traces that previous owners left on an object that can be utilized to find out who owned it before it came to the museum. Objects in the Deutsches Technikmuseum's collection, most of which were mass-produced, also have such markings. Classic indicators of provenance include stamps, old signatures and bookplates, which are labels pasted into books that display the owner's name. Technical objects can also have serial numbers, which can be compared with old shipping and receiving logs to find out who the first buyer was. In the case of the museum's lithographic stones, the determinant clue was found in the print motif.

Collection number

The case containing an 18th century proportional compass has an old label on it that identifies it as "Property of Jos. v. Zallinger". It is likely that the handwritten numbers on it reference an old collection numbering system. The compass originally belonged to the Tyrolean naturalist Joseph Peter von Zallinger (1730 -1805). In 1986, the collection was auctioned by Christie's auction house. In 1993, the Deutsches Technikmuseum purchased this object as part of a private collection of measuring instruments. The owner of the compass before it was auctioned must be established by further research.

Exlibris

The guest book on display, which is now stored in the Deutsches Technikmuseum's archive, belonged to Heinrich Hirschberg. A sticker on the inside of the cover makes that clear. Such bookplates are often ornately designed and identify the owner of a book. Heinrich Hirschberg, born in Berlin in 1876, was the Director of the Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft (AEG) and a member of the Board until 1933. He and his wife Rosa were persecuted as Jews after 1933 and had to flee Germany in 1938. By way of Nice and Lisbon they finally reached New York, where Heinrich Hirschberg died in 1946.

Stamps

Published in 1920, the book "Le fond de la mer (The Bottom of the Sea)" by French marine zoologist Louis Joubin describes the seas, their inhabitants and their usefulness. The stamps on the title page provide information about the history of the book. The red stamp imprint with two swastikas was used by the Institute and Museum of Oceanography in Berlin as of 1936. The blue stamp pertains to the book's original owner, a girls' school in France, from where it was looted by German occupation forces in 1941 and brought to Berlin. In 2021, the Deutsches Technikmuseum returned the book to the school, which is now the Collège le Prieuré & Lycée Catholique de Pontlevoy.

02

Three Lithographic Stones with a Story

"...you have to send 'Pittius' greeting cards!"

This lithographic stone, on which an advertising slogan of the Berlin-based Paul Pittius Print Shop can be seen, is displayed in the Deutsches Technikmuseum's permanent exhibition Printing Technology. The intertwined "PP" is the logo of the company. Two other lithographic stones with similar markings are now in the museum's storage facility.

The text says: "If you want to please your friends during the holidays, you have to send 'Pittius' greeting cards!"

The name "Pittius" can clearly be seen on this lithographic stone from the museum's storage facility. What was originally written on it can no longer be reconstructed.

Excerpt from an interview with the lithographer and offset printer Dietmar Liebsch, minute 33:23-34:27

"Not much time left to salvage anything else."

The lithographic stones were acquired by the museum as part of its purchase of Dietmar Liebsch's lithography workshop in 2017. He had diligently set up his shop in the GDR and had jointly run it with his wife, the lithographer Helga Liebsch, since 1972. Standing in front of the former location of the Paul Pittius company at Köpenicker Strasse 110 in Berlin-Mitte, he tells how he was able to procure the basics of his workshop. In 1964, the Pittius Print Shop was to be closed and the building demolished. Helga Liebsch worked at Pittius and learned that the machines, working materials and stones were also to be discarded. Dietmar Liebsch then bought some of that equipment from the bankruptcy trustee for 50 "eastern marks" and put it all in storage. Thus began the history of his workshop and ended the history of the once important Paul Pittius Print Shop.

03

The Paul Pittius Lithography Print Shop and Luxury Card Plant

The façade of the Paul Pittius Lithography Print Shop factory building, which was newly built in 1907.

In the Lithography Print Shop

Paul Pittius Lithography Print Shop and Luxury Card Plant was founded in Berlin in 1899. As of 1907 its headquarters were at Köpenicker Strasse 110 in Berlin-Mitte in a purpose-built factory building. It was one of Berlin's leading lithographic printers before the Second World War. Its workforce consisted of around 500 employees.
What everyday life was like in the company at the end of the 1930s is shown in an album celebrating forty years of service. Having been purchased by the Deutsches Technikmuseum in 1997 independently of the lithographic stones, the album contains photos of the employees at work. Another folder from the same period with photos of the stages in the production of postcards has survived in private hands. The family of its last owner had taken it with them to the USA along with other mementos when they had emigrated in the early 1950s.

On the left is one of the many graphic artists who worked for the company and designed the motifs. The middle picture shows how the stone was polished and prepared for the lithographer. This then transferred a reverse image of the motif. For multi-color motifs, a separate stone had to be prepared for each color, since only one color could be used in each printing procedure.

Lithography, also called stone printing, is the oldest form of planographic printing. The printable and non-printable areas are on the same plane. Before printing, the stone is wetted with water so that the ink adheres only to the greased print motif. The ink is mixed (left) and applied evenly with a roller. For high print runs, a layer of pine resin, called rosin, is applied to protect the motif from rapid wear.

The printer first sets up the printing press (left). No photo of the printing process itself is included in the collection. After being printed, the sheet is removed. On the right is a room with printing presses at Paul Pittius. As far as can be discerned, these are lithographic presses manufactured by the Erasmus Sutter company of Berlin. A printing press of the same type is on display at the Deutsches Technikmuseum.

Several rows of postcards could be produced at the same time by using large stones. The process required additional sheet feeders and sheet catchers working at the machine. Such jobs were mostly done by women. Pictured on the right are the finished sheets being stored to dry.

The sheets were cut until all the individual postcards were separated (left). The embossing workshop did the work of embellishing postcards and business cards – even in gold embossing upon request. The Paul Pittius company made its own embossing stamps, as can be seen in the picture on the right.

Postcards and business and greeting cards were often also folded, decorated and put into envelopes. After that, the products went to the shipping department, where women at long rows of tables did most of the work.

The Paul Pittius Product Range

The company mainly produced postcards and greeting cards. But other paper goods, such as business and invitation cards, Advent calendars, bookplates or glossy pictures - more on this later - were also produced using the lithographic process.

2 pages from the Paul Pittius company samples book "Visiting Cards and Family Announcements" 1928

Exlibris from the samples book "Besuchskarten und Familien-Anzeigen", around 1928.

Glossy picture (doll)

The Advent calendar depicts the Nuremberg Christmas Market.

04

The Owners of the Paul Pittius Company: Julius and Martin Gerson

Paul Otto Hermann Pittius and Albert Wolff founded the Paul Pittius company in 1899. Paul Pittius left the business in 1904, but the company kept its name. At the same time, the brothers Julius and Martin Gerson took over operations in the form of a general partnership beginning in 1919 - Julius as commercial manager, Martin as technical manager. Julius Gerson was born in Frankfurt/Oder in 1868 as the son of a grain merchant; his younger brother Martin was born there in 1871. They both moved to Berlin around 1900 where prior to taking over the Paul Pittius company they had first founded a wholesale grain business with their brother Georg.

Both Julius and Martin Gerson were politically active. Julius became a member of the SPD in 1898 and then joined the USPD and the Spartacus League in 1917. Both brothers belonged to the "Bund Neues Vaterland", which was founded in 1914 as the most important pacifist association during World War I and was eventually banned in 1916. During that time, their two residences in Berlin-Dahlem became a meeting place for social democrats and socialists in Berlin: Rosa Luxemburg, Clara Zetkin, Franz Mehring and Hugo Haase were among their circle of friends. They are also likely to have financed and probably organized the printing of pacifist pamphlets and thereby came into the sights of the political police. In 1918 Julius was indicted for these activities, but ultimately acquitted.
As members of the aforementioned pacifist league, which has since been renamed the "German League for Human Rights," the two brothers remained true to their convictions even after the First World War. They were thus exposed to particular danger as both Jews and political opponents of National Socialism when the Nazis came to power on January 30, 1933.

05

The Fate of the Gersons and Their Company After 1933

The "Aryanization" of the Paul Pittius Lithography Print Shop

At the beginning of National Socialist rule, Julius and Martin Gerson were each half owners of the lithography print shop and thus also of the printing stones that are now in the Deutsches Technikmuseum. To protect the company, they converted it into a stock corporation as early as July 1933. The brothers then resigned from management and transferred the corporation to their long-time employees and confidants, Erich Wolberg and Philipp Kühnlein, who continued running the company in their behalf. With this ploy, however, they lost their main source of income. By 1936, the Gersons had sold all their stock interests to their two confidants. Their goal was no longer to save the company, but rather to emigrate from Germany. With the sale of their shares under the pressure of Nazi persecution, Julius and Martin no longer had a stake in the Paul Pittius Print Shop. The company had been "Aryanized".

"The Gerson brothers explicitly told me that they were only selling because of the persecution of Jews. I was good friends with the brothers. We spoke often about the situation. There was clearly only one way out: sell and leave Germany."

Testimony of Mary Gerold-Tucholsky in compensation proceedings regarding Martin and Julius Gerson in 1959. She was the long-time authorized signatory of the Paul Pittius company and later publisher of the works of her husband Kurt Tucholsky.

The Outcome for the Company

In 1943, a bomb destroyed most of the Paul Pittius Lithography Print Shop, including probably more than two-thirds of the stones and almost all of the printing presses. Production did, however, continue on a much smaller scale with machines salvaged from the rubble. From 1953 onwards, the company, which at that time only had two lithographic presses, was under GDR forced administration because the owner, the widow of Philipp Kühnlein, who had died in 1951, lived in West Berlin. Ten years later, the print shop was closed and the stones made their way to the Deutsches Technikmuseum via the lithographer and offset printer Dietmar Liebsch.

Martin Gerson

For Julius and Martin Gerson, there was no longer any future in Germany. At the end of 1938, Julius Gerson and his brother's wife Rosa fled via Brussels to Nice. Martin stayed behind in Berlin, presumably to sell remaining property. The Gersons' two homes had to be sold under the pressure of persecution. Martin moved into a one-room apartment at Hohenzollerndamm 35a in Berlin-Wilmersdorf in October 1938. On September 25, 1942, he was deported with the "67th old-age transport" to the Theresienstadt ghetto, where he was put to death on April 04, 1943. Before being transported he had to first fill out a property declaration, listing every item in his room. After his deportation, everything was confiscated for the benefit of the Reich and sold or given to government agencies.

Martin Gerson

Born on January 30, 1871 in Frankfurt/Oder.
Deported to Theresienstadt on September 25, 1942 and subsequently executed on April 04, 1943.

Julius Gerson

After fleeing Germany, Julius Gerson lived in Nice in the initially unoccupied part of France. After the occupation of the area by German troops, he was arrested in December 1943 and deported to Germany. A death certificate with the address of a remand prison in Karlsruhe gives his death as March 22, 1944. Presumably he was a victim of the so-called "Nacht-und-Nebel-Aktion" (cloak-and-dagger operation), which was directed against political opponents in the occupied territories and was to be carried out without leaving any traces. His gravestone can be found in the Jewish cemetery in Karlsruhe - it has not yet been possible to find out who had it erected.

Julius Gerson

Julius Gerson, born on July 28, 1868 in Frankfurt/Oder.
Arrested in Nice and deported on December 16, 1943.
Murdered in Karlsruhe prison on March 22, 1944.

No photo of Julius Gerson has survived.

06

Nazi-Looted Goods in the Museum

More Lithographic Stones with a Past

The Deutsches Technikmuseum initially assumed there were only three printing stones originating from the Paul Pittius Lithography Print Shop. Company advertising slogans etched on the stones made that attribution unequivocal. However, further research uncovered previously unknown products from the company such as glossy pictures and greeting cards and these helped identify more Paul Pittius stones in the museum's storage facility. How that was possible is shown in the next subpages.

The glossy picture on the left was produced and distributed by the Paul Pittius Lithography Print Shop. It has survived in private ownership. The corresponding lithographic stone can be found today in the Deutsches Technikmuseum. For better comparability, it is depicted here as a mirror image. The stone is a so-called transfer stone. It was used to transfer individual colors onto other stones.

In order to print a multicolored motif it had to be broken down into its individual colors and each one of those had to be printed with a separate stone. The stone on the right printed only the blue areas; i.e. only the skirt and bow. Without the matching glossy picture, it could not have been attributed to the Paul Pittius company. For better comparability, it is depicted here as a mirror image.

This postcard, which was preserved in the Saarland School Museum, enabled this transfer stone to be identified as belonging to the Paul Pittius company.

Fair and Just Solution

After 1933 Julius and Martin Gerson were persecuted as Jews and political opponents of National Socialism and had to sell their company under duress. For this reason, the litho stones that are now in the Deutsches Technikmuseum are to be regarded as Nazi-confiscated cultural property – Nazi-looted property, for short. In accordance with the Washington Principles formulated in 1998, Nazi-looted property should be returned to the looted persons or their heirs or another fair and just solution should be mutually agreed upon.

After the Deutsches Technikmuseum announced the discovery of the lithographic stones, relatives of the Gersons contacted the museum - initially to inquire about the completely forgotten history of the Paul Pittius company. Joint research efforts led to better information about the company and in particular about the fate of the Gerson brothers. The question of how to further deal with the litho stones was then discussed with the heiress, Julius Gerson's granddaughter. She decided that they could remain in the Deutsches Technikmuseum and that an exhibition plaque should commemorate Martin and Julius Gerson and the Paul Pittius Lithography Print Shop.

On March 23, 2023, on the initiative of the family, a Stolperstein for Julius Gerson was laid in front of the building at Im Dol 23 in Berlin-Dahlem. A Stolperstein in front of the building at Hohenzollerndamm 35a has served as a small memento to Martin Gerson since 2016.

Epilogue, or what this exhibition does not tell

This exhibition has limited itself to following the origins of the lithographic stones and recalling the history of their owners, the brothers Julius and Martin Gerson. However, many other stories have been left untold. For instance, the Gersons' eight siblings were not mentioned, including two who were deported and murdered during the Nazi era and a brother who survived in hiding.

It also does not recount the stories of their families. The Gersons' children left Germany immediately after the Nazis came to power. Martin's daughter Susi and his wife Rosa were deported to the French internment camp Gurs in 1940. After her release a few months later, Susi married the artist Alberto Magnelli, an important figure in the abstract painting movement. When the département where they resided was occupied by German troops in 1943, Susi and Rosa were hidden by acquaintances until false passports enabled them to go into hiding in Paris, where they were liberated in 1944. Julius' son Heinz first emigrated to Palestine and subsequently joined the British Army. In November 1945, he arrived in Berlin as a soldier and set about trying to find surviving family members. Through the efforts of the rescue network of the American Varian Fry, Julius' daughter Eva, who worked as a philologist after the war, was able to flee to the USA together with her husband, the writer and historian Valeriu Marcu, and their daughter.

The exhibition also did not address the role of the two longtime employees of the Paul Pittius Lithography Print Shop, who had taken over the business in 1936 and helped move the Gersons' assets safely away from the state's grasp. After 1945, Philipp Kühnlein not only financially supported the surviving family members of the Gersons, but also acted on their behalf before various restitution offices.

The exhibition organizers hope that others will pursue these till now untold stories and retell them.

Acknowledgements

First and foremost, we thank Miki Marcu, the granddaughter of Julius Gerson. Her willingness to let the lithographic stones remain in the museum gave us the opportunity to memorialize Julius and Martin Gerson with the original stones.

Our special thanks go to Angelika Lemke, who joined with us in researching the history of Julius and Martin Gerson and assisted us throughout the creation of this exhibition. She not only arranged contact with the heiress, but also contributed her own research and extensive material from family holdings.

Special thanks go to Norbert Nicking and family for the consultations about the family history and allowing us to use them in this exhibition.

Thanks go to Philip Kochman and the family of Philipp Kühnlein for all the material documenting the everyday activities at the Paul Pittius company, with the help of which more stones were able to be identified.

This exhibition was created as part of the project "Identification of Nazi-Looted Goods in the Collection of the Deutsches Technikmuseum Inventoried between 1982 and 1989" funded by the German Lost Art Foundation.

Eine virtuelle Ausstellung von

Stiftung Deutsches Technikmuseum Berlin

Team

Peter Prölß and Elisabeth Weber, provenance research at the Deutsches Technikmuseum; supported by Katja Boegner (for the English version).

Translation by Barry Fay, Berlin.

Erstellt mit :

Ein Service von:

Diese Ausstellung wurde am 27.06.2023 veröffentlicht.

Impressum

Die virtuelle Ausstellung Lithographic Stones Speak wird veröffentlicht von:

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gesetzlich vertreten durch

Director Joachim Breuninger

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Inhaltlich verantwortlich:

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Kurator*innen:

Peter Prölß, Elisabeth Weber

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Lithographic Stones Speak

The Story of the Gerson Brothers and the Paul Pittius Print Shop

Lithographic Stones Speak

01

Provenance Research at the Deutsches Technikmuseum

What is provenance research?

What are provenance markings?

Proportional compass

Voigtländer & Sohn/Brüder Voigtländer (1756-1898) [producer] Joseph Peter von Zallinger (1730-1805) [provenance], around 1780, Vienna

Aus der Sammlung von

Wie darf ich das Objekt nutzen?

Kurzbeschreibung