M: "The Clog Maker", "Flax Processing", "Bi't Für", "The Weaving Room" – even the titles of Bernhard Winter's paintings take us deep into the lives of Ammerland farming families. Born in 1871, Winter grew up between Oldenburg and Brake, attended school in Oldenburg and was admitted to the Dresden Art Academy at just 16 years of age. Although his painting career took him to Munich, Berlin, Düsseldorf and even as far as Chicago, he returned to Oldenburg while still a young man, received support from the Grand Ducal Court and was barely 30 when he was awarded the title of professor.
F: That made him the youngest professor in Oldenburg's history. Winter's career progressed rapidly. At the age of 31, he made a "good match", became co-founder of the Oldenburg Association of Artists, and just a few years later put the Ammerland Farmhouse Local History Society on a new footing. Under him, Heinrich Sandstede and Wilhelm Gleimius, the original association devoted to improving the local area became an organisation recognised and appreciated more widely, one that established the Open Air Museum and gradually developed it into a genuine attraction.
M: Bernhard Winter explored the Ammerland customs and traditions in his writing and his paintings and received numerous medals and honours. Naturally, all that patriotic localism appealed to the Nazi regime. In the final days of the Second World War, the Ministry of Propaganda added his name to what was known as the "Gottbegnadeten" list, exempting him from being called up for the “Volkssturm” – Germany's last-ditch defence. However, he was over seventy by then, so that was unlikely in any case.
F: Bernhard Winter came through the Second World War and the subsequent denazification process largely unscathed. He died in Oldenburg in 1964 at the ripe old age of 93.
Fotos: © Tanja Heinemann
