Abstract

The Bauhaus not only had the period of its existence in common with the Weimar Republic, but also many of its internal social, cultural and political contradictions. These contradictions become clear through the biographies of two Bauhaus graduates, Franz Ehrlich (1907 –1984) and Fritz Ertl (1908 –1982), who both studied with Hannes Meyer at the Bauhaus Dessau. After graduating, Ehrlich joined the KPD and worked with Walter Gropius and Hans Poelzig. In 1934, he was arrested as a resistance fighter and imprisoned in the Buchenwald concentration camp. After the Second World War, he became one of the most distinguished architects and furniture designers in the GDR and worked for the State Security. He died in 1984. Ertl returned to his father’s construction company in Linz after receiving his diploma. In 1938 he joined the NSDAP and the SS and was involved in the planning of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp from 1940 onwards. After the end of the war, he worked again as an architect and building contractor in Linz. In 1972 he was charged and acquitted in the Vienna Auschwitz Trial. He died in 1982.

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