Cay von Brockdorff

Cay-Hugo Graf von Brockdorff, known as Cay von Brockdorff (9 February 1915 - 17 January 1999) was a German sculptor and art historian who after 1933 became an anti-Nazi resistance activist.

Life Cay-Hugo Graf von Brockdorff (Cay-Hugo, the Count of Brockdorff) was born in the Berlin quarter of Schmargendorf.

He studied at the United National Academy for Free and Applied Arts ("Vereinigte Staatsschulen für freie und angewandte Kunst") in Berlin-Charlottenburg where he was taught by the sculptor Wilhelm Gerstel. After that he launched himself as a freelance visual artist. Through his studies he made contacts with people who would later become opposition activists in the Charlottenburg district, and members of the group around Kurt Schumacher who would be arrested by the Gestapo in 1942.

Around or before 1931, von Brockdorff became a member of the Communist Party and of the Socialist Workers' Party ("Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands" / SAP). In January 1933 the Nazis took power and lost no time in transforming Germany into a one-party dictatorship. Political activism (except in support of the Nazi party) became illegal. Sources nevertheless indicate that from 1936 he was involved in "illegal work" in various groups of "intellectuals" and "workers". In 1939 he linked up with Hans Coppi who around this time became a member of the so-called Rote Kapelle (inaccurately but conventionally translated into English as "Red Orchestra") resistance group. Erika von Brockdorff would later put her Berlin apartment at the disposal of Coppi for use as a radio communication centre, connecting with Moscow, as a result of which she was arrested and, on 13 May 1943, executed. Meanwhile, war having broken out in September 1939, Cay von Brockdorff found himself serving in the army between July and October 1940, and again between April 1941 and October 1942. Between 1943 and November 1946 Cay von Brockdorff was held by the British military authorities as a prisoner of war in Italy. Between 1955 and 1956 he was deputy general director of the State Art Collection in Dresden. After that, From Autumn 1957 till his retirement, he was director at the newly rebuilt Marcher Museum in Berlin.

Towards the end of the 1950s he was excluded from the party.

Output Cay von Brockdorff wrote a number of books on art history, notably "Soviet Artists, building peace" (1952), "Soviet and pre-revolutionary Russian art" (1953 ), "German Painting" (1954) and "Finnish graphic art" (1954).