Karl Kollwitz – physician and social politician

With his unshake­able belief in their common bond and the time­less signi­ficance of her work, Karl helped the artist, who suffered from mood swings and self-doubt, to over­come many a creative crisis. Käthe appreciated his stead­­fast­­ness and political clarity. While her world view ab­sorbed various in­fluences and was subject to change, Karl remained a pragma­tist, social democrat and un­wavering pacifist through­out his life.

His influence on the character of Kollwitz’ work should also not be under­esti­mated. The fact that she did not become the maudlin “depictor of misery” that she was often labelled as is also thanks to the insights she gained into her husband’s medical practice and the living conditions of his patients. This medical practice also secured the financial foundation for the family for many years.

And yet Karl Kollwitz was much more than just the man at Käthe’s side. The physician and committed social politician, who worked to the point of exhaustion, was already a Berlin legend during his lifetime and was even dubbed the “Christ of Senefelder Platz” by one newspaper.

Combining being a doctor with political action was considered a taboo at the time, but for Karl Kollwitz it was a necessity. As co-founder of the “Social Democratic Doctors’ Association” and author of numerous essays, he fought for the doctor-patient relationship to be viewed holistically and not exclusively from an economic perspective. The debates he initiated seem astonishingly topical and are still going on today.

Sonya and Yury Winterberg use unpublished documents to honour the life and work of an impressive and unjustly almost forgotten personality.