Fresco at the agricultural school - the painter worked on behalf of the SS
Created: 07/04/2022Updated: 07/04/2022 11:26 am
By: Ulrike Osman
The painting at the agricultural school "No pain, no gain" © Peter Weber
The painter and graphic artist Karl Sonner is a controversial figure.
During the Second World War he shot a young American pilot in Olching – allegedly in self-defense.
Now his name is appearing in public discussion because of the planned demolition of the old agricultural school.
There is a fresco by Sonner on the outside wall.
Fürstenfeldbruck/Olching
– The wall paintings on the palace chapel in Esting are by Karl Sonner, as is the fresco on the old agricultural school in Brucker Bismarckstraße.
With the demolition, the painter's fresco would also be destroyed.
It shows a farmer sharpening his scythe and a woman tying a sheaf of grain.
Underneath is the lettering "No pain, no gain".
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FDP district councilor Klaus Wollenberg had already demanded in March in the district council that the work of art should at least be documented photographically as a testimony to the time – or that it be removed and preserved.
On Monday, July 4th, the culture committee of the district council will deal with the topic.
As reported by the district office in response to a request from the daily newspaper, the technical possibilities for accepting the fresco have now been examined.
The size makes it impossible to lose weight
Susanne Poller, district home caretaker for the area of monument protection, was on site several times.
"Ultimately, she came to the conclusion that the mural, despite its undeniable quality, works above all in the context of the architecture," according to the press office of the district office.
"The sheer size makes it technically difficult to remove it, but above all it makes it difficult to build a new one." Instead, a photo documentation of the mural should be created.
Karl Sonner painted the fresco in his native style.
Born in Munich in April 1889 as the son of a shoemaker, he trained as a lithographer, received a scholarship for the School of Applied Arts and attended the Munich Art Academy for a few semesters.
In 1910 he became self-employed as a painter and graphic artist, and in 1913 he settled at Dachauer Straße 73 in Graßlfing.
The wall paintings on the castle chapel in Esting, created in 1925, are considered to be his most personal work. In the pilgrimage cycle on the outside wall, the then 36-year-old immortalized himself as a participant in the procession in a self-portrait as an old man with glasses and a walking stick.
In 1927 he opened a painting school.
Sonner joined the NSDAP in 1933
The historian Susanne Meinl has dealt with Sonner's role in the Third Reich and the fatal shot at the US pilot John Louis Posson.
According to her, the artist himself admitted in his Spruchkammer proceedings after the end of the war that he had enthusiastically joined the NSDAP in 1933.
Since his style of painting corresponded to the blood and soil ideology of the Nazis, he is said to have artistically decorated the casino buildings in the Dachau and Oranienburg concentration camps on behalf of the SS.
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In 1940, Sonner had to close his painting school due to the war.
As a veteran of the First World War, the Nazi state used him as an auxiliary police officer in Maisach.
Here, one of his tasks was to "monitor the countless forced labourers, investigate violations of the wartime economic system and investigate denunciations," writes Meinl in her essay "Self-defense or murder?", which appeared in the yearbook of the Historical Association of Fürstenfeldbruck (HVF) in 2020.
On the day of July 19, 1944, Sonner was off duty.
Nevertheless, he got on his bike and followed the path of a descending parachute.
The 22-year-old Posson, who had managed to escape from his plane, which had been hit by anti-aircraft guns, was hanging on it.
He landed near today's Olchinger golf course and hid in a small wood.
A US military tribunal acquitted the painter
Sonner asked the US soldiers to surrender.
He came out of the grove with his hands raised, but Sonner thought he saw a pistol in his right hand and fired a fatal shot at the young American.
It later turned out that the alleged pistol had been the clasp on his parachute.
Sonner was tried and acquitted before a US military tribunal after the war.
Despite conflicting witness statements and some obvious untruths, the court believed his self-defense version.
Susanne Meinl writes that Sonner seemed harmless, "slightly daft or as a tragic figure, the Upper Bavarian air painter with poor eyesight and visible remorse".
The painter resumed his previous work until a stroke paralyzed his right hand.
He died in 1970 in a nursing home in Schönbrunn near Dachau.
The HVF is trying to erect a memorial for the killed US soldier - but has not yet received permission to do so.
You can find more current news from the district of Fürstenfeldbruck at Merkur.de/Fürstenfeldbruck.
