Hans Sachs

Hans Sachs (1881-1974) was a Berlin dentist whose greatest accomplishment came from his passion for posters. He was the leading founder of an important group devoted to collecting posters which started an influential poster magazine. Before the seizure of his collection of 12,500 posters during Kristallnacht on 9 November 1938, he had the largest collection of posters in Germany, probably in the world. He was able to escape to the United States, but he never regained possession of the posters. After years of court battles, 4,344 posters were returned to his son in 2013. Some will be given to museums, but most have been or will be sold at auction.

His life in Germany Hans Josef Sachs was born in Breslau, Germany, now Wrocław, Poland, on 11 August 1881. He began collecting posters when he was only 16, possibly inspired by a gift to his father of three life-size prints of Sarah Bernhardt signed by Alphonse Mucha. In 1903-4 he served a year in the army, and again for some months in 1914–15. He was educated as a chemist, receiving his doctorate in 1904 in chemistry, physics, and mathematics; and then another in dentistry. He then interned for six months in the United States. He was married for the first time in 1910. While he was successful as a dentist, with Albert Einstein among his patients, and wrote a number of standard works on periodontosis, his avocation was posters. He regularly worked from three o'clock in the afternoon into the night on his passion, making a detailed index card for each poster, each of which was identified by a numbered label. His poster collection grew, and in 1905 he was one of the principal founders and then the president of the Verein der Plakatfreunde (Society of Poster Friends), which soon had regional chapters. In 1910 it founded a quarterly Das Plakat (The Poster), with Sachs as both editor and publisher. During its short life from 1910 to 1921, its circulation grew from 200 to over 10,000. The Verein der Plakatfreunde ended a year later. It is unclear why the poster group and its magazine ended, possibly because of conflicts between collectors, art lovers, commercial artists, and business.

Arrest, escape from Germany and life in America On 9 November 1938, Kristallnacht, he was arrested and sent to the Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg concentration camp. The collection was stolen by order of Joseph Goebbels, who wanted them for a proposed new wing devoted to business art in the Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin (Museum of Decorative Arts). After 17 days in the concentration camp, Sachs was released, and with his second wife Felicia and their one-year-old son Peter were able to escape from Germany, first to London for a few days, and then to New York. From his former collection he was able to take with him only the 31 posters by Toulouse-Lautrec, which he later sold in America. But in 1966, many were rediscovered in East Berlin, in the basement of the Deutsches Historisches Museum (German Historical Museum). Sachs's posters were identified by his label affixed to the back.

Later history After seven years in the courts, in February 2009, Hans Sachs's son Peter was ruled to be the lawful owner of 4,344 posters, but it was not until 2013 that they were released. Guernsey's auction house in New York held sales in January and November 2013, and will hold a third on a date not yet announced. Buyers included the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Peter Sachs died in September 2013.