Stockburger GeorgAlfred

German Expressionist painter, draftsman and graphic artist, who used the printing methods of lithography, woodcut and copper engraving or etching. A doctor by profession, he only made art in his free time. Stockburgers works are classified as modified Expressionism or Expressive Realism. Stockburger was a member of the Stuttgart Secession, and since 1929 also the Stuttgart New Secession and the so-called Stuttgarter Juryfreien. As an opponent of National Socialism (Nazism), he lost all job and exhibition opportunities in Stuttgart and was disqualified as a degenerate artist. Rather than leaving Germany he went into "internal emigration." After Hitlers Germany started the war against Poland on 1 September 1939, Stockburger was drafted as a medical officer, shortly before completing his doctorate and medical studies. On 23 December 1940, he received his licence to practise as a doctor. In June 1940 he was stationed in the Metz area during the western campaign. There he became involved with the French population and set up a plague hospital. On 21 January 1941, he received his doctorate. Ten days later, he was assigned to a pioneer unit as a doctor on the Eastern Front in northern Russia. Here he saw the indescribable suffering that was inflicted on the civilian population. One person whose situation captivated him until his death was an old, blind Russian with a wooden leg, who was shot by the German soldiers. The war in Russia became Stockburgers trauma, which accompanied him throughout the rest of his artistic life. After his release as a prisoner of war, Stockburger, accompanied by his wife and three daughters, moved to Tübingen. He became one of the "lost generation of artists" along with Manfred Henninger, Gerth Biese, Heinrich Wägenbaur and Erna Ley-Dix. Georg Alfred Stockburger died on 5 April 1986 in Tübingen at age 78. Link to Wikipedia biography (German) Read less