Andreas Paul Weber

Memorial plaque at the birthplace of A. Paul Weber in Arnstadt, Thuringia Andreas Paul Weber (1 November 1893 – 9 November 1980) was a German lithographer and painter.

Early life Weber grew up in Arnstadt, where his father was a rail assistant. Encouraged by his mother and grandfather, he briefly attended the Kunstgewerbeschule Erfurt (School for decorative and applied arts) before joining the Jungwandervogel, a movement of Germans who wanted to start a new lifestyle closer to nature, in 1908.

Weber served in the Jungwandervogel until 1914, when he was drafted in World War I. He was conscripted to fight on the Eastern Front, before working as a caricaturist for an army magazine. He began to come into his own when it came to art and lithography, as he had his work published in such journals as the Magazine for National Revolutionary Politics.

He also became a member of a National Bolshevik group when Adolf Hitler rose to power in Germany. As a result, he was imprisoned by the Nazi Party in 1937

After 1945, Weber lived in Großschretstaken near Mölln. In 1951, the A. Paul Weber Circle was founded in the Hamburg Griffelkunst Association – for which Weber had been working from 1940. From then on he received financial support from the Griffelkunst Association.

In 1955 he was awarded the Art Prize of the State of Schleswig-Holstein and in 1963 the Hans Thoma Medal. In 1971 he received an honorary professorship from the state of Schleswig-Holstein "in appreciation of his complete work as a graphic artist. Weber was also awarded the Great Cross of Merit in 1971 by the then Federal President Gustav Heinemann. Heinemann was one of his great admirers and it was also the one who opened the A. Paul Weber Museum on the cathedral peninsula in Ratzeburg in 1973 on the occasion of Weber's 80th birthday.