Käthe Kollwitz, née Schmidt, was born on 8 July 1867 in Königsberg (modern day Kaliningrad), East Prussia, as the fifth child of Carl Schmidt (1825-1898) and Katharina Schmidt, née Rupp (1837-1925).

In her personal development she is decisively influenced by her father, her brother Konrad Schmidt (1863-1932) and the personalities of the Freie evangelische Gemeinde (Free Evangelical Community) in Königsberg, which was founded by her maternal grandfather Julius Rupp (1809-1884).

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Birth of Lisbeth Schmidt (1870-1963), Käthe Kollwitz’ sister.

Käthe and Lisbeth had a very close relationship, and as a young woman Lisbeth was frequently the artist’s model. In 1893 Lisbeth married the Jewish engineer Dr Georg Stern (1867-1934) from Königsberg. The couple moved to Berlin, just as Käthe Kollwitz did after her marriage. Her daughters were the physician Regula Stern (1884-1980), Hanna Stern (1896-1988), who later adopted the stage name Johanna Hofer, and the actresses Katharina Stern (1897-1984) and Maria Matray (1907-1993).

Lisbeth wrote for the arts section of the Sozialistische Monatshefte where her eulogy on the 50th birthday of Käthe Kollwitz was published in 1917. She wrote two other insightful articles on her sister – in 1920 for the Freie Welt and in 1927, on the occasion of the artist’s 60th birthday, for the Vorwärts.

In the second half of the 1870s Carl Schmidt (1825-1898), Käthe’s father, converted his building firm into a cooperative society. Soon afterwards he sold the company and the family moved into a flat in the upmarket Königsstrasse in Königsberg.

In the summer holidays, the family spent time at the seaside resort of Rauschen on the Baltic Sea. 

Käthe Kollwitz first extant drawing shows a half-length portrait of the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) after a model.

1884 or 1885: Secret engagement of the artist with Karl Kollwitz (1863-1940).

Karl Kollwitz, a student of medicine, had been friends with Käthe’s brother Konrad Schmidt (1863-1932) since their school days. He was a member of the Freie evangelische Gemeinde.

Karl Kollwitz finished his degree course at the Albertus Magnus University in Königsberg and obtained his doctorate in medicine. In 1891, after marrying Käthe Kollwitz, he opened a surgery as an accredited general practitioner in the Berlin working-class district of Prenzlauer Berg.

In 1913 he co-founded the Social Democratic Association of Physicians and became a member of the Jugendfürsorgeausschuss (Youth Welfare Committee) in the Prenzlauer Berg district. After the November revolution in 1919 he became an SPD town councillor and was involved in local politics in Berlin.

From October onwards Käthe Kollwitz took classes with Ludwig Herterich (1856-1932) at the Munich Damenakademie des Künstlerinnen-Vereins where she stayed for two years.

Herterich had acquired particular renown as a portrait artist and painter of monumental scenes and was a leading representative of the Munich School. His treatment of colour, which combined the artistic device of tone-on-tone painting with the lighter colour range used by naturalistic plein-air painters, was still unfamiliar for the young artist Käthe Kollwitz.

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Works on the theme of gender debate.

First preparatory drawings on the fight scene from the novel Germinal by Emile Zola (1840-1902) in which two men fight over Cathérine – like in »Two Men Fighting in a Tavern«, NT 9 – ignore the social criticism of the novel and instead explore a drama of jealousy that is not at the centre of the plot.

Other early works such as the pen and ink drawing »A Woman’s Destiny«, NT (17a), addressed the misery that women experienced as a result of unwanted pregnancy. This was also a reference to the fate of Gretchen in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s (1749-1832) Faust.

This theme was taken up again in 1893 or earlier in the etching »Woman at the Church Wall«, Kn 17, and was used again in the late 1890s in a lithograph and an etching.

After her return from Munich, the artist rented her first studio in Königsberg.

She was a reader of the Berliner-Volks-Tribüne, the only Social-Democratic newspaper not made illegal by the Anti-Socialism Law. Her brother Konrad Schmidt (1863-1932) was the paper’s main editor for a brief period.

Kollwitz planned to execute the »Fight Scene«, NT 9, from the novel Germinal by Emile Zola (1840-1902) as a painting on canvas. She had drawn this scene in Munich in 1888. For this purpose she made preparatory interior studies in taverns in Königsberg that were frequented by sailors. An example is »Tavern in Königsberg«, NT (52a), a pen and ink drawing with grey wash.

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Marriage of Käthe and Karl Kollwitz (1863-1940) on 21 June.

That same year, the couple moved from Königsberg to Berlin, where Dr med Karl Kollwitz opened a surgery in the working-class district of Prenzlauer Berg. Under the German health insurance scheme, he had been allocated to tailors’ insurance. In Berlin Käthe Kollwitz was closely confronted with the deprivation that was rife in the city and which she also saw in her husband’s patients. In her art, she soon focused on socially critical themes.

The artist began to take up her work on a print series on the novel Germinal by Emile Zola (1840-1902).
She created three etchings on the theme: the »Scene from Germinal«, Kn 19 III b, originally conceived as a drawing in Munich, which represents a drama of jealousy between two men and Cathérine, as well as a »Conspiracy Scene«, Kn 10 and Kn 11, in two versions.

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Birth of her first son, Hans Kollwitz (1892-1971).

The artist’s eldest son became a school physician in 1928 and later head of department for pandemic diseases in Berlin. After World War II, he retired early to devote his time to his mother’s work.

Hans Kollwitz was the first to publish selections of her diaries and letters. He supported exhibitions and published a book with photographs of Käthe Kollwitz’ sculptural works.

Start of the artist’s work on the cycle »A Weavers’ Revolt« (1893-1897).

Almost 40 preparatory drawings for the Weavers cycle have been preserved. The ink drawing »Hans Kollwitz with a Candle« (1895), NT 115, a detail study for folio 2 in the series, is among the most impressive individual works and early proof that the artist often used her two sons as models.

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First participation of Käthe Kollwitz in exhibitions.

She exhibited the etchings »Welcome«, Kn 13, and »At the Tavern«, Kn 15, at the Great Berlin Art Exhibition. At the same time she was represented at the Free Berlin Art Exhibition with the etching »At the Church Wall«, Kn 17, and with two pastels which are no longer traceable.

At the Free Berlin Art Exhibition the critic and collector Julius Elias (1861-1927) became aware of the artist and wrote an appreciation of her works in his exhibition critique in the magazine Die Nation.

Birth of Käthe Kollwitz’ niece Regula Stern (1894-1980).
The eldest daughter of Lisbeth and Georg, Käthe Kollwitz’ sister and brother-in-law, was an actress. She gave up her acting career in 1922 to become a physician. Being half Jewish, she had to close her surgery in Berlin under the Nazis and was only allowed to work as a nursing auxiliary. Regula Stern gave Karl and Käthe Kollwitz medical care when they were old. After 1945 Regula Stern started working as a doctor again.

Birth of her second son, Peter Kollwitz (1896-1914).
Käthe and Karl Kollwitz’ youngest son wanted to become an artist. He finished school with a secondary school leaving certificate and in 1912 he enrolled on a training course at the Berlin Museum of Applied Art. In the summer holidays of 1914 Peter and Hans Koch (1897-1995), Erich Kremms (1898-1916) and Richard Noll (d. 1916) embarked on a hiking tour of Norway where Peter learned of the outbreak of the war. This news led the friends to consider volunteering.
Peter Kollwitz was killed on 22 October 1914 near Dixmuide in Belgium.

Birth of Kollwitz’ niece Johanna (Hanna) Stern (1896-1988).
The second daughter of Kollwitz’ sister Lisbeth had the stage name Johanna Hofer. Even while still studying to become an actress, Max Reinhardt engaged her for the Deutsches Theater in Berlin. She married her second husband, the actor and director Fritz Kortner, with whom she emigrated to the US in 1933. In 1948 she returned to Germany and had a large number of major roles on stage and TV.

Birth of Käthe Kollwitz’ niece Katharina Stern (1897-1988).
The third daughter of Lisbeth and Georg Stern had a successful career as a dancer under the pseudonym Katta Stern. From 1933, under the Nazi regime, she was prohibited from performing in Germany. Her husband, Walter Herrendörfer (1900 – d. in WW II) was drafted into Organisation Todt (a civil and military engineering organisation using forced labour). As her application for emigration to the US was turned down she had to retire from public life and lived together with her mother whom she looked after until her death.

Completion of the cycle »A Weavers’ Revolt« (1893-1897).
The first presentation of this print cycle was received very well at the Grosse Berliner Kunstausstellung in 1898 and she became a young artist of considerable renown.

Käthe Kollwitz had an artistic breakthrough with her cycle »A Weavers’ Revolt« (1893-1897) at the Grosse Berliner Kunstausstellung.
Max Liebermann (1847-1935), a member of the awards jury, made sure that the artist was recommended to Kaiser Wilhelm II (1859-1941) for a medal. Due to the socially critical content of the cycle, however, the Kaiser rejected the recommendation stating: »This would mean a disparagement of any high distinction. Decorations and medals have their place on the chests of men of merit.«

The Dresden Print Room under the directorship of Max Lehrs (1855-1938) was the first public collection to start acquiring works by Kollwitz. The art historian Lehrs subsequently became one of the most important patrons of Käthe Kollwitz. There is evidence that a total of 177 prints and 22 drawings were bought until Lehrs’ retirement.

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The publication of Kollwitz’ etching »Welcome«, Kn 13, in the magazine Pan representated an appreciation of her work at an early stage in her career. Her original choice for the publication was a self-portrait as a colour lithograph, Kn 46. As this work – her very first colour lithograph – failed to meet her expectations, she eventually submitted the etching »Welcome« which was created in 1892 on the occasion of the birth of her son Hans.
The Pan magazine for art, poetry, theatre and music, founded in Berlin in 1895, with original prints enclosed, was an important voice of German Art Nouveau.

The etching »Uprising«, Kn 46, was Käthe Kollwitz’ first exploration of the Peasants War theme.

The etching with an allegorical personification of ›Liberty‹ leading the fighters on the barricades was originally also published under the title »Peasants’ War« and probably renamed when the eponymous cycle was published in 1908.

She created the large-scale etching »Carmagnole«, Kn 51, which became her calling card.
La Carmagnole is a battle song from the French Revolution that became popular when Carmagnola was taken in 1792. Each stanza ends with the refrain Dansons la Carmagnole / Vive le son du canon (Let us dance the Carmagnole / Long live the sound of the canon).
A passage from Charles Dickens’ (1812-1870) novel »A Tale Of Two Cities«, published in 1859, probably served as a literary inspiration.

Kollwitz started work on the large-scale etching »Charge«, Kn 70, for the »Peasants’ War« cycle and the same year she presented a proof of the etching at the Black-and-White Exhibition of the Berlin Secession.

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The artist visited Paris for the second time and studied at the Académie Julian for two months, presumably in the sculpting class of Raoul Verlet (1857-1923).

She visited the studios of Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) in Paris and Meudon with a letter of recommendation by Hugo von Tschudi (1851-1911).

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The »Self-portrait, frontal view«, Kn 85, was probably executed as a colour lithograph in 1904.

The majority of the artist's lithographs, including almost all the colour lithographs, were printed by Hermann Birkholz (?-1927) in Berlin - including the »Self-portrait, frontal view« from 1904, one of her most highly traded prints on the art market today. The few prints of this work were acquired by her most important collectors during the lifetime of the artist. They included Erich Cohn, Campbell Dodgson, Geheimrat Helferich, Ackermann & Sauerwein, Johanna and Walter Wolf, Salman Schocken and her later editor Alexander von der Becke.

Exhibition of 13 works by Kollwitz at the Paris Salon des Indépendants.

Kollwitz presented the cycle »A Weavers’ Revolt«, Kn 33-38, the etching »Carmagnole«, Kn 51, »Hamburg Tavern«, Kn 55, the lithograph »Woman With Orange«, Kn 56, and at least one drawing – »Female nude, seated«, NT 170, which is today in the possession of the Getty Research Institute.

Käthe Kollwitz designed the poster »German Cottage Industry«, Kn 95, for the eponymous exhibition in Berlin.

Berlin was the centre of the German cottage textile industry. The exhibition was an enormous success and was conceived by bourgeois social reformers and labour unions. It was the first major exhibition of its kind in Germany and aimed at drawing attention to the low wages of cottage industry workers and their catastrophic working and living conditions.

There was a rumour which came up in the Weimar Republic that the Kaiserin had refused to visit the exhibition as long as the poster was publically displayed.

Käthe Kollwitz received the Villa Romana Prize on the occasion of the first graphic-art exhibition of the German Association of Artists.

The award, donated by Max Klinger (1857-1920), included a cash prize of 2,000 marks and an invitation for a stay of up to one year at the Villa Romana in Florence.

Käthe Kollwitz, like other award winners before her, spent only a short period at the Villa – probably a good two months.

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Birth of Käthe Kollwitz’ niece Maria Stern (1907-1993).
Maria Stern was the fourth and youngest child of Käthe Kollwitz’ sister Lisbeth. She became an actress, choreographer and writer. After her marriage to the Hungarian film director and actor Ernst Matray she emigrated to the US in 1933, but returned to Germany after World War II and, among other activities, wrote screenplays for TV series.

Käthe Kollwitz’ diary entries have been preserved from 1908 onwards.
They were not intended for publication and contain the artist’s reflections on personal matters, involvement with her work, thoughts about her relationship with others and her search for her political position.
After her son Peter (1896-1914) fell at the beginning of the First World War in 1914, the thoughts she wrote down in her diary revolved continuously around an idealistic image of her sons, Peter’s sacrifice for the Fatherland and her own attitude to the situation.
The ten-volume diary (18 September 1908 to May 1943) is kept at the Stiftung Archiv der Akademie der Künste, Berlin.

Completion of the »Peasants’ War« cycle. This print series was shown in its entirety at the Great Art Exhibition in Dresden in the same year.

The cycle gave the extent of the artist’s fame an enormous boost and marks the high point and completion of her cycles of revolutionary themes. It was printed as a gift of the Association for Historical Art.

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From 1908 to 1911 Kollwitz worked for the satirical weekly Simplicissimus. Around 1908 there are several diary entries on visits to female patients of her husband where she describes the severity and tragedy of proletarian life.
In 14 drawings for the satirical magazine she directly addressed the problems of the proletariat and her graphic works increasingly became an instrument of social and political commitment.

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Käthe Kollwitz took part in the celebrations on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of her grandfather’s Julius Rupp (1809-1884) birth in Königsberg.

The artist’s first sculptural work was the »Portrait Relief Julius Rupp«, S 01 – an image of her grandfather. On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of his birth the Free Evangelical Community honoured their founder with a commemorative stone which included the bronze relief by Käthe Kollwitz.

After World War II, in which the relief was lost, it was reconstructed by mistake after Käthe Kollwitz’ painting of her father. It was only in 1990 that a faithful reproduction by the Berlin sculptor Harald Haacke (1924-2004) cast at the Berlin Noack foundry replaced the original relief.

Käthe Kollwitz attended the Abendakt (evening class for nude painting) at the sculptor Arthur Lewin- Funcke’s (1866-1937) private school for painting and sculpting – probably in the context of her increasing orientation towards sculptural works.

Her eldest son Hans Kollwitz (1892-1971) started a degree course in medicine.

In spring 1910 the artist addressed the topic of Expressionism for the first time in her diaries.

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Around 1910/11 the artist created a large number of etchings on the theme of ›Death‹ after drawings in which she was preoccupied with the life-threatening diphtheria infection of her son Hans Kollwitz (1892-1971) in 1908.

From September 1912 to autumn 1928 Käthe Kollwitz rented a studio at the Berlin Siegmundshof for her sculptural work.

The artist designed a poster for the propaganda committee »For Greater Berlin«, Kn 122. Following an intervention by the association of homeowners, chief of police Traugott von Jagow (1865-1941) banned the poster for ›incitement to class hatred‹.

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The artist contributed two drawings – today not clearly identifiable – for the Berlin exhibition Die Frau in Haus und Beruf (Women at Home and Work).
Her works were to be included in a 13-part pictorial broadsheet in the section Die Frau in der Wohlfahrtspflege (Women in Social Welfare Work), in which women artists explored the development of social care for female prisoners in the 19th century. For this reason, the authorities in Berlin for the first time granted permission to make drawings in prisons.

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The lithograph »March Cemetery«, Kn 128, was created as a members’ gift of the Freie Volksbühne theatre whose director was Käthe Kollwitz’ brother Konrad Schmidt (1863-1932).
Konrad took his sister to the cemetery for those who fell in the March Revolution in 1848 when she was studying in Berlin. She visited the cemetery regularly after she moved to Berlin.

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Her youngest son, Peter Kollwitz (1896-1914), who was not yet of age at that time, received permission from his father to volunteer for military service.

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From late 1914 onwards Käthe Kollwitz was imbued with the desire to create a memorial in honour of the sacrificial death of young volunteers – embodied in the figure of her son, with his father at his head and his mother at his feet.

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Käthe Kollwitz used her art to come to terms with her grief – as in the expressive charcoal drawing »The Sacrifice«, NT 722.

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Her eldest son Hans Kollwitz (1892-1971) was deployed to a military reconnaissance unit with moored balloons in Romania.

The artist presented her very first sculptural work, the »Group of Lovers«, S 13, at the spring exhibition of the Free Secession.

The Bildermann magazine, published by Paul Cassirer (1871-1926), printed the lithograph »Mother with child on her arms«, Kn 136.

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There were numerous exhibitions in her ›jubilee‹ year. The Berlin Print Room presented almost the entire graphic work of the artist.
At the Paul Cassirer (1871-1923) Gallery, Käthe Kollwitz exhibited for the first time a substantial number of drawings. This exhibition subsequently travelled to Königsberg, Dresden, Hamburg and Mannheim.

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Käthe Kollwitz began work on her print series »War« (1918-1922/23). She had initially planned the cycle in the last year of the war as a series of etchings, but reworked it as a lithograph cycle in 1919/20 and eventually executed it as a woodcut series in 1921-1922/23.

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The Prussian Academy of Art appointed Käthe Kollwitz a member and professor – it was the first appointment of a woman artist in over 100 years.

Käthe Kollwitz made a drawing of Karl Liebknecht (1871-1919), assassinated on 15 January, at the request of his family in the mortuary.

In the same year, she created the lithograph of Hugo Haase (1863-1919), who died on 7 November as a result of an earlier assassination attempt. The artist had known this pacifist and leader of the USPD since her youth.

Her eldest son Hans finished his degree course in medicine and married Ottilie Ehlers-Kollwitz (1900-1963).

His wife came from an East Prussian family of land owners. She studied applied graphics at the Reimann School in Berlin and illustrated children’s books and Grimm’s fairy tales together with Hans Baluschek. In 1946, the Henning Gallery in Halle edited an album with 13 of her woodcuts and wood engravings most of which were depictions of East Prussian landscapes.

The couple had four children – Peter (1921-1942), the twins Jördis (1923-2017) and Jutta (*1923-2021), and Arne (*1930). Their first-born son was named after Hans Kollwitz’ younger brother who fell in 1914 aged 18.

Commissioned by the regional police office of the state commissioner for health and nutrition, Käthe Kollwitz designed three »Pamphlets against Profiteering«.

As a result of food shortages and the onset of inflation, excessive pricing was rife. The population was encouraged to report such cases of usury and profiteering. 

Inspired by Ernst Barlach’s woodcuts at an exhibition of the Free Berlin Secession, the artist created the final version of one of her first works in this technique for a »Memoriam for Karl Liebknecht«.

Kollwitz was outraged by the assassinations of Karl Liebknecht (1871-1919) and Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919) and impressed by the funeral procession that the USPD and KPD used as an opportunity to stage a mass demonstration. She decided to represent the workers’ farewell artistically without advocating Liebknecht’s political stance.

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Birth of the artist’s first grandson Peter Kollwitz (1921-1942).

The son of Hans Kollwitz and Ottilie Ehlers-Kollwitz, being the first grandchild of the artist, was given the name of her son who fell in 1914. Peter Kollwitz was drafted in 1940 and fell on 22 September 1942 on the Eastern Front near Rzhev.

From 1921 to 1922/23 Kollwitz was occupied with the execution of the print cycle »War«. This first woodcut cycle revealed the inner development of the artist in her attitude towards the First World War – from a supporter to a pacifist. The cycle ended with an appeal to mothers not to let their children join a war. This was a concern that was of great importance to the artist for the rest of her life and which she described in 1941 as her ›testament‹.

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Following an appeal by Lenin in which he asked all progressive artists and intellectuals to contribute to the relief of the catastrophic drought in the Volga region, Kollwitz joined the central and foreign committees of the communist Workers International Relief (WIR) – not, however, for political, but for humanitarian reasons. 

The poster »Help Russia«, Kn 170, was created for the Künstlerhilfe (Artists Relief) a subdivision of the WIR that supports their work with posters, exhibitions and other events.

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Birth of the twin-grandchildren Jördis (1923-2017) and Jutta (*1923-2021).

Jutta Bohnke-Kollwitz did a degree course in German studies and in 1960 she assumed the task of building up the Cologne Germanica Judaica – Library on the History of Judaism in Germany. From 1985 until the end of 1989 she was the leading founding member of the Käthe Kollwitz Museum in Cologne. In 1989 she published Käthe Kollwitz’ complete diaries and in 1992 a selection of the artist’s letters to her son Hans.

The two daughters of Hans Kollwitz and Ottilie Ehlers-Kollwitz provided care for the artist in the last year of her life at Moritzburg.

The artist designed the poster »The Survivors – War against War«, Kn 197, which was translated into numerous languages.

She became the second graphic artist – after Théophile Alexandre Steinlen (1859-1923) to be commissioned by the International Labour Union to the design for a poster for the Anti-War Day in September 1924 at which the 10th anniversary of the First World War was commemorated.

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For the occasion of the Central German Youth Day of the Socialist Workers Movement in Leipzig Kollwitz created the poster »Never Again War«, Kn 205. After World War II it became an icon of the peace movement until well into the 1980s.

The lithograph »Bread«, Kn 208, was Käthe Kollwitz’ contribution to the portfolio Hunger – seven original lithographs, published by Otto Nagel (1894-1967) for the Artists Relief of the WIR. The other artists who submitted contributions were Otto Dix, George Grosz, Eric Johansson, Otto Nagel, Karl Völker and Heinrich Zille.

Death of Katharina Schmidt (1837-1925), the artist’s mother who had lived at the flat of the Kollwitz family in Weissenburgerstrasse from 1919.
Death of Anna Butzke (1863-1925), wife of her brother Konrad. After Anna’s death he moved in with Käthe and Karl Kollwitz.

The documentary film maker Hans Cürlis (1889-1982) produced a short film portrait of Käthe Kollwitz for his film cycle Schaffende Hände (creating hands) that he had begun in 1923.
The individual sequences on painters, sculptors and graphic artists such as Lovis Corinth, Max Liebermann and Renée Sintenis documented the artists’ different characteristic methods. Käthe Kollwitz was filmed working on the drawing »Mother with Child on her Back«.

The films were shown individually, but also as part of film matinees or as a supporting programme in cinemas.

Käthe Kollwitz worked on her sculptural self-portrait from 1926 to around 1936.

One of the probably three bronze casts of this bust that were made during the artist’s lifetime was acquired in the 1930s by the New York collector Erich Cohn (1898-1972), (today: private collection, Berne); another cast was bought by Joseph Katz (no biographical data) (today: Baltimore Museum of Art, USA); the third cast has been part of the collection at the Käthe Kollwitz Museum Köln since 2016.

On the occasion of her 60th birthday, Käthe Kollwitz received many honours. Among the 500 letters and telegrams were congratulations from the German Minister of the Interior, the Prussian Minister of Culture, the Reichskunstwart (literally: imperial art protector), the Mayor of Berlin and the Russian ambassador. This shows that Käthe Kollwitz enjoyed great renown during the Weimar Republic that went far beyond any artistic circles.
The Berliner Tageblatt newspaper published a short appreciation by Gerhart Hauptmann.

The artist received an invitation to take part in the celebrations of the 10th anniversary of the October Revolution in Moscow and travelled there accompanied by her husband.
Other public figures from Berlin that were invited included the writer and editor Arthur Holitscher, the writer Johannes R. Becher, the women’s rights activist Helene Stöcker and the economist Robert René Kuczynski. The latter was the founder and chairperson of a Committee for the support of a plebiscite that advocated expropriation without compensation of the German aristocracy. This committee was also supported by Käthe Kollwitz.

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At the autumn exhibition of the Prussian Academy of Art Kollwitz presented an overview of her entire graphic work on the occasion of her 60th birthday. The exhibits included almost 100 prints and drawings from the artist’s own collection as well as from private and public collections.

From 1928 to 1933 Käthe Kollwitz was the first woman to direct one of the six master workshops of the Department of Fine Art at the Prussian Academy of Art. This position also made her a member of the senate. She was given a large studio for her own work.

The same year, the artist had a number of severe heart problems as a result of a flu infection. She was ill for several months and undertook treatment at a spa.

Käthe Kollwitz became the first woman to be awarded the Order Pour le Mérite for arts and science.

In his role as Chancellor of the Order, the theologian Adolf von Harnack (1851-1930), presented the artist with the Pour le Mérite in her studio. Others who were awarded the Order in the Weimar Republic included Max Liebermann, Gerhart Hauptmann, Max Slevogt, Leopold Graf von Kalckreuth and, in 1933, Ernst Barlach. These were artists that would have failed to receive any award under Kaiser Wilhelm II.

After the death of Heinrich Zille (1858-1929), Käthe Kollwitz and Hans Baluschek (1870-1935) took over the patronage for the film Mutter Krausen’s Fahrt ins Glück to commemorate the artist and Kollwitz designed the film poster. The film was produced with the decisive involvement of Otto Nagel (1894-1967).

Birth of her youngest grandchild Arne Andreas Kollwitz (*1930).

Professor Dr med Arne Kollwitz was the head physician of the urological department for many years before being appointed medical director at the Sankt-Franziskus Hospital in Berlin.
After the death of his father Hans Kollwitz (1892-1971) he has chaired the community of heirs of the Kollwitz estate.

The artist supervises the installation of her work »Mothers« from the War cycle as a graffiti installation in the building of the Workers’ Welfare Association, Saarbrücken, (no longer extant).

After the bankruptcy of the Dresden art dealer Emil Richter, Alexander von der Becke (1902-58) in Berlin became the new publisher of Kollwitz’ graphic works.

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After working on her memorial »Mourning Parents« for 18 years, from 1914 to 1931, Käthe Kollwitz completed a version in plaster and exhibited it at the Prussian Academy of Art.

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Together with her husband Karl Kollwitz and a further 33 public figures including Heinrich Mann, Albert Einstein, Erich Kästner, Ernst Toller and Arnold Zweig, Käthe Kollwitz signs the Urgent Appeal – a poster campaign appealing for the formation of a unity front of the SPD and KPD to thwart a National Socialist majority.

After Hitler came to power in 1933, Käthe and Karl Kollwitz and a further 19 public figures once again issued a last-minute appeal to the left-wing parties to form a union in order to prevent the impending abolition of any personal and political freedom by a National Socialist government.

Käthe Kollwitz had the stone version of her sculptures »Mourning Parents« exhibited in the atrium of the Berlin Nationalgalerie.

The same year, this work was installed at the war cemetery in Roggefelde, Belgium.

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On 15 February 1933 Käthe Kollwitz was forced to leave the Prussian Academy of Art.
As in 1932, Käthe and Karl Kollwitz and Heinrich Mann (1871-1950) signed an Urgent Appeal after the National Socialist takeover to support a poster campaign urging left-wing parties to unite for the last so-called ›free‹ elections on 5 March 1933.

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After the takeover by the National Socialists the artist experienced existential anxiety and created her »Self-portrait in profile, looking left, drawing« NT 1240 as an act of artistic self-reassurance.
In the US, the popularity of Käthe Kollwitz rose continuously.

The Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts organised a Kollwitz exhibition in 1933. In 1934 Harvard University showed prints by the artist, and in 1934/35 there was a countrywide touring Kollwitz exhibition.

After Käthe Kollwitz had had to leave her studio at the Academy of Art, she rented a workshop at the Klosterstrasse Studio House from autumn 1934 to 1940.
Despite an indirect exhibition-ban, the artist regularly participated in the annual exhibitions at the Klosterstrasse Studios from 1935 until 1938. She was, however, compelled to exchange works several times as these had been rejected by the ›Reich Chamber of Culture‹.

For her younger colleagues, she served as a model of integrity and perseverance.

After leaving her studio at the Academy of Art, Käthe Kollwitz started work on her last print cycle, »Death«, in spring 1934. Five of its folios were shown at the autumn exhibition of the Academy of Art.

From October she interrupted work on the cycle to refocus on her sculpture »Mother with two Children« at her new workshop at the Klosterstrasse Studio House.

Between 1935 and 1936 Kollwitz created the bronze relief »Rest in the Peace of His Hands«, S 30, for her own family tomb. 

The siblings Konrad Schmidt (1863-1932), Käthe Kollwitz and Lisbeth Stern (1870-1963) jointly bought a tomb for themselves and their spouses at the central cemetery in Berlin Friedrichsfelde. After the death of her husband in 1934, Lisbeth Stern asked her sister to create a sculptural work, which Käthe Kollwitz did with the bronze relief she made in 1935/36. As the cemetery became part of East Berlin in the GDR after 1945, it was not possible to bury Lisbeth Stern there in 1963.

Kollwitz finished her sculpture »Mother with two Children«, S 29, and had the plaster model cast in cement.

Celebration of Käthe Kollwitz’ birthday on 8 July 1937.

In the US, by contrast, interest in Kollwitz’ works grew continuously. In 1937 and 1939 galleries in New York and Los Angeles presented her works.

The Berne art dealer and author of the first complete catalogue raisonné of Käthe Kollwitz’ prints, August Klipstein (1885-1951), won the approval of the gallerist Hudson Walker (1907-1976) to stage an exhibition of her prints in New York. In Los Angeles, the book dealer Jake (Jacob) Zeitlin (1902-1987) organised a small travelling exhibition of the artist’s works.

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The artist had her sculpture »Mother with two Children«, S 29, executed in shell limestone by the sculptor Erich Geisler (1901-1983) in the inner courtyard of the Klosterstrasse Studio House. Kollwitz financed the work with money made available by her friend and painter Leo von König (1871-1944). This stone version was lost in World War II.

In 1949 the municipal authorities of East Berlin had a copy made in shell limestone by Fritz Diederich (1869-1951) and installed it in Kollwitzstrasse where the artist’s house was before it was destroyed in 1943.

After completing the sculpture »Mother with two Children« she created mainly small-scale sculptures between 1937 and 1943 as these – according to the artist – would not hurt her heirs and did not cost much. Besides, she said, they could be produced in any room and did not exceed her strength.

Kollwitz worked in parallel on the »Soldiers’ Wives waving Farewell«, 2nd version, S 32, the »Tower of Mothers«, S 35, and the »Pietà«, S 37.

After the funeral, Käthe Kollwitz made a drawing from her memory of the dead Ernst Barlach (1870-1938) lying in the open coffin.

Her mourning was also expressed in her work on the bronze relief »The Lament«, S 38, which she completed in 1940.

The artist received a commission for the design of a »Tombstone for Franz Levy«, S 34B, at the Jewish cemetery in Cologne Bocklemünd.

Franz Levy (1892-1937) was a member of the board of the Cologne-based department stores' group Leonhard Tietz AG. As a Jew, he had to leave the company in 1934 and founded his own business consulting firm before he died in 1937. The two sons Helmut and Henry are taken to Great Britain in 1938 on one of the Kindertransports, daughter Marlies and wife Doris also emigrate there in 1939.
Despite the increasing persecution of Jews, Käthe Kollwitz managed to accept the commission by Levy’s widow Doris Levy.

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Karl Kollwitz (1863-1940) had to give up his surgery for health reasons.

Death of Karl Kollwitz (1863-1940) on 19 July.

The small-scale sculpture »Farewell«, S 39, was created between 1940 and 1941.

Aware that the death of her husband Karl Kollwitz (1863-1940) was close – since a severe illness in 1939 his strength had declined visibly – the artist began work on a bronze group in February 1940 which she finished in early April 1941. This small group – like almost all other bronze works by the artist from 1940 onwards – was cast by the Noack foundry in Berlin Friedenau.

At the same time, the artist worked on a commission for a grave relief for Kurt Breysig (1866-1940).

Gertrud Breysig, the widow of the historian, commissioned Käthe Kollwitz after her husband’s death in 1940. Kurt Breysig had been held in great esteem by the artist’s son during the period of the youth movement before the First World War.
The sculptor Fritz Diederich (1869-1951), who had also executed the mother figure for the »Mourning Parents« memorial in stone on behalf of the artist, executed the stone version in 1943.

The lithograph »Seeds for sowing must not be ground«, Kn 274, was created as Kollwitz’ artistic legacy.
The title, taken from a passage in Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, is another reference to the artist’s anti-war stance. 
In 1918, shortly before the end of the First World War, she had opposed Richard Dehmel’s Appeal for a final push to win the war, which was addressed to potential volunteers, in an open letter. In 1941 she took up the motif for two works in relief and for the lithograph again.

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On 22 September, Peter Kollwitz (1921-1942), the artist’s eldest grandson, fell in Russia.

On 3 August, Käthe Kollwitz accepted the invitation of the sculptress Margret Böning (1911-1995) to come to Nordhausen, a small town in Thuringia, which had not yet been as afflicted by air raids as Berlin. Her sister Lisbeth Stern (1870-1963) and her daughter Katharina (1897-1984) as well as Clara Stern (1890-unknown), Georg Stern’s niece, were also invited.

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On 23 November the home in Weissenburgstrasse, where the artist had lived for many years, was destroyed in an air raid. On 3 December the house of her son Hans in Berlin was also destroyed.
The destruction of the home in Berlin, where Käthe Kollwitz had lived for 51 years, meant that many of her works were lost, including almost all the early paintings and many drawings. Works that were in her son’s house were also destroyed.
During the previous months, Margret Böning (1911-1995) and Clara Stern (1890-unknown) managed to take a large number of graphic works to a safe place in Nordhausen where they were examined and signed by the artist.

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Before moving to Nordhausen, Kollwitz completed her last small-scale sculpture »Two Soldiers’ Wives waiting«, S 43.

The increasing number of air raids on Nordhausen made it necessary to move. On 20 July Käthe Kollwitz accepted the invitation of Prinz Heinrich von Sachsen (1896-1971) to move to Moritzburg near Dresden. The artist moved and occupied two rooms at the Rüdenhof.
In 1943, the Prince had already taken two portfolios with drawings by Käthe Kollwitz into safekeeping.

Since 1995 – the 50th anniversary year of her death – Rüdenhof has been a memorial site for the artist and given the name »Käthe Kollwitz Haus Moritzburg«.

Käthe Kollwitz gave permission to the Stuttgart collector Paul Beck (1887-1949) to have her sculpture »Pietà« (1937-1939) executed in roughly twice the original size by the Stuttgart sculptor Schönfeld. This stone sculpture was for Paul Beck’s son Reinhold who died as a result of his war injuries. The installation of this memorial at the Waldfriedhof cemetery in Stuttgart Degerloch took place as late as 1948 – three years after the artist’s death.

Death of Käthe Kollwitz in Rüdenhof, Moritzburg, on 22 April – a few days before the end of the war .

After the death of their grandmother, the twin-granddaughters Jördis and Jutta, who had cared for her until her death, managed to save most of the artist’s graphic works that she had taken with her to Moritzburg.

Her funeral on 24 April at the local cemetery was attended by only a few close friends. After the end of the war, on 23 November, the artist's body was exhumed and taken to Dresden for cremation. A belated funeral ceremony is held here on 27 November, attended by her relatives and official guests. In the evening, Theodor Plivier (1892-1955), with whom Kollwitz had been acquainted for a long time, read from his recently finished novel Stalingrad for the bereaved in the municipal theatre.
In accordance with her wishes, Käthe Kollwitz was laid to rest in the central cemetery in Berlin-Friedrichsfelde, where she was buried in the family grave.