Leo Haas: an artist between horror, talent, and ideology, was born 125 years ago
One hundred and twenty-five years ago, Leo Haas was born in Opava—a painter and caricaturist whose life story stands as a striking reflection of 20th-century Central Europe. He survived Nazi concentration camps, later became a propagandist for the communist regime, and eventually settled in East Berlin. Today, his drawings serve both as testimony to the horrors of Nazism and as a reminder of how easily talent can be co-opted by power.
Leo Haas was born in 1901 in Opava, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. From an early age, he showed remarkable artistic talent, which led him to study at the academy in Karlsruhe and later in Berlin. There, he trained under the prominent graphic artist Emil Orlik and quickly became part of a vibrant artistic milieu.
In the 1920s, he also worked in Vienna, producing caricatures for newspapers. After returning to Opava, he opened his own studio and married the portrait painter Sophie Herrmann. His work at the time aligned with expressionism, in the vein of artists such as Max Liebermann and Käthe Kollwitz.
The rise of Nazism and the label of “degenerate art”
After 1933, the situation of Jewish artists in Germany and the Czech lands deteriorated rapidly. Haas’s works were branded “degenerate” by the Nazis, and he himself was accused of “cultural Bolshevism.” Following anti-Jewish pogroms, he moved to Ostrava, but repression soon reached him there as well.
In 1939, he was deported to a labor camp in Nisko, where he secretly documented the lives of prisoners through drawings. These works are now among the most valuable visual records of the camp’s existence.
Theresienstadt, Auschwitz, and the forgery workshop
In 1942, Haas was arrested and deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto. Thanks to his artistic skill, he worked in the technical graphics department, where he was able to continue drawing and even teach art classes to children. His Theresienstadt drawings capture the daily life of prisoners with extraordinary sensitivity.
In 1944, he was accused of “spreading terror” and sent to Auschwitz. There, he produced technical drawings for the physician Josef Mengele. He was later transferred to Sachsenhausen, where he became part of a group of prisoners forced to forge British banknotes for the Nazi operation Bernhard. He was liberated in May 1945. Haas later recalled: “Most often at night, we drew starving prisoners, children’s transports, hangings.”
Postwar faith in Communism and the role of a propagandist
After the war, Haas returned to Theresienstadt, where he recovered hidden drawings but also learned that most of his family had perished. In the atmosphere of postwar radicalization, he joined the Communist Party, which he saw as the only force capable of preventing a return of fascism.
He became one of the most prominent illustrators of communist propaganda. His caricatures in Rudé právo and the satirical magazine Dikobraz depicted the West as aggressive, racist, and corrupt. His style was unmistakable—and the regime made full use of it. Ironically, as a Jew, he again found himself under suspicion during the Stalinist purges.
Departure for Berlin and the last return to Opava
After the death of his second wife in 1955, Haas moved to East Berlin, where he worked for the newspaper Neues Deutschland, the satirical magazine Eulenspiegel, and television. His works were exhibited across Europe, as well as in the United States and Israel.
In 1981, he returned to his native Opava for the last time. He concluded an exhibition of his work with a gesture that speaks volumes—he donated his drawings to the city. Leo Haas died in Berlin in 1983.
Related
-
-
Painter Mikuláš Medek, born 95 years ago
The communists banned him from staging exhibitions. Today, he is considered among the most important Czech painters of late 20th Century, and his works sell for millions.
