A Ménage-à-trois: Else - Endell - Greve
by
Helge David, Bonn

Else had many names. In her pre-American years, between 1900 and 1910, they were mainly the names of two men: August Endell and Felix Paul Greve. The story starts at the turn of the century. Else Ploetz, born 1874 in Swinemuende, moved to Berlin following the death of her mother. Here, she met (and developed a liking for) artists and writers from the circles of the painter Melchior Lechter and the poet Stefan George. She travelled throughout Italy with Richard Schmitz, and came to Munich in the autumn of 1900. Else took art lessons in Dachau and here met August Endell, three years her senior, who had became renowned through the controversial design of the Elvira photographic studio. Endell (1871-1925) had been living in Munich since 1892 and was part of the Schwabing art scene. He had contacts in the arts and crafts movement and the women's movement, and to the circle of the poet Karl Wolfskehl, a friend of his since 1894. The paths of our three protagonists therefore cross in Munich, the art capital of the time. Felix Paul Greve (1879-1948) had been living in Munich since September 1901, and left for Berlin in October 1902. Endell lived in Munich for a good ten years - his certificate of registration shows periods of residence between 1892 and 1901, and again between 1903 and 1904. Else Ploetz arrived in Munich on 12 October 1900 as an officially registered "student of art".

Else and Endell
Endell and Else met through the writer OAH Schmitz.^[1] Endell soon developed a strong influence over her and her way of life. He converted her to vegetarianism and stopped her smoking, and kept her away from the bohemian world of Schwabing.^[2] He also seems to have involved her in his work. Endell was an all-round designer: he designed everything from architecture and interior design down to his own and Else's clothes. He wanted to bring beauty to life and everyday existence.

In 1901 Endell and Else left Munich and moved to his home town of Berlin. They got married on 22 August 1901. But the marriage was ill-starred from its earliest days. They remained outsiders in Berlin, and they were in constant financial trouble. Endell completely exhausted himself working on the design of the Wolzogen theatre, and was left physically and psychologically shattered. As Endell wrote in a letter to his cousin Kurt Breysig in (28.) July 1902:

"I am overworked and exhausted. Can hardly keep myself upright. Best regards, August."^[3]

Else's and Endell's marriage soon reached a crisis point, caused by their financial problems and their sexual incompatibility. They travelled to Italy at the beginning of 1902, looking for relaxation and an easing of tensions. But it was not successful. After the Italian holiday, the Endells stopped over in Munich to visit old friends.

During this period, Felix Paul Greve was part of Wolfskehl's Munich circle, a man he had known since 1901.^[4] But Wolfskehl soon distanced himself from FPG in a letter to Gundolf from 4 February 1902:

"I have to tell you one more thing, and pray listen carefully and act wisely on it: it seems that the yarn-spinning of our common and well-known friend, F[elix] P[aul] G[reve] is reaching worrying extremes, and one has to be allowed to warn friends how little one can trust him. Here [in Munich] he seems to have caused confusion in many situations, and the best people have not been able to live in peace with him. I wonder if he is sick?"

Wolfskehl an Gundolf am 4.2.1902 "Ein Wort muss ich Ihnen noch sagen und ich bitte Sie sehr aufzumerken und klug zu sein: Es scheint dass unsres gemeinsamen bekannten F[elix] P[aul] G[reves] Münchhausiaden sehr bedenkliche Grade erreichen und dass es erlaubt sein muss Freunden zu sagen wie wenig weit man irgendwelche Pfade des Zutrauens zu ihm wandeln darf. Hier [in München] scheint er vieles verwirrt zu haben und es haben die Besten nicht in frieden leben können vor ihm. Ob er krank ist?"^[5]

This "yarn spinning" (Münchhausiaden) already revealed Greve as a fraudster. Unfortunately it is not clear how Wolfskehl reached this insightful judgment. Stefan George, editor of the Blaetter fuer die Kunst, was an wther person who liked Greve only at the beginning. He made some efforts to help Greve-as-poet, as shown in a letter to Gundolf from 2 September 1902:

"F.P.G. sent something as well! Alas, too little to qualify as an introductory contribution".^[6]

The problem with Greve's contribution was therefore one of quantity rather than quality - George would have critizised a lack of quality immediately. But George did honour Greve in a different way: in (28) March 1902 he informed Lechter that he would be moving to Giselastrasse 15 - where Greve had been living since January of the same year.^[7] In May 1902, George invited FPG to visit him in Bingen.^[8] Later, however, their relationship deteriorated. FPG's closeness to the George circle was mainly limited to 1902; thereafter they parted ways.

After the stop in Munich, Endell and Else returned to Berlin. Nothing had improved for the couple, and their story proceeded like a novel to its climax. The problems in their marriage increased. There was still an intellectual bond between them, but it left Else's sensuality unsatisfied. As a consequence, she became increasingly hysterical and Endell anxious, to say the least. In November 1902, she stayed in Wyk on the island of Foehr in the sanatorium of Dr Gmelin, where to treat her hysteria, she was given a series of womb (uterus) massages.^[9] Instead, she met and fell in love with a young, good-looking friend of her husband, Felix Paul Greve, although she still remained emotionally attached to Endell. After her return to Berlin, it became obvious that the couple's sexual incompatibility had not been overcome - little wonder, as it was Endell who was more in need of treatment than his wife. At Christmas 1902, the unavoidable happened: Else started her affair with Greve.

As befits this story, reality and fiction became intermingled in tradition as well as the real life of our protagonists. The most important literary testimony in this context is Greve's novel "Fanny Essler", published in Stuttgart in 1905. This fictional biography of Else matches the real person of August Endell in a fictional alter ego.^[10] Else was the co-author of this novel and therefore had a decisive influence. She claimed later that she dictated the novel, and provided material for the story from her own life.^[11] What we read today is a literary profile of the complicated love triangle between the three seen from Else's point of view.

The biographical roman à clef describes Else's life up to her life abroad with Felix Paul Greve. The ending is, however, completely fictitious: the young Fanny Essler dies in Portugal of Malaria, whereas the real Else went on to live for a good many years. The description of her first meeting with Eduard Barrel, alias August Endell, seems to follow the real events, taking the necessary literary-critical caution into account. Biographical testimonies at least reflect the external facts. The evaluation and psychological disposition of the characters, on the other hand, is difficult to verify.

The story within the story
Fanny Essler, alias Else Ploetz, accompanies Heinrich Stumpf (alias Richard Schmitz) to Italy. She is no longer a virgin - we learn about several relationships, among others with Nepomuk Bolle, alias Melchior Lechter. They live in Italy for about a year in a platonic relationship. Stumpf teaches Fanny drawing, sculpting and sketching of ornaments. Their brotherly/sisterly community ends when Stumpf and Fanny decide that she should take drawing lessons in Munich to make further progress. At the beginning of February 1900, Fanny finds a flat in Dachau and starts to take art lessons, but she is soon bored and disappointed. During this crisis period she meets Barrel/Endell. Barrel is described as an author in the novel, but his physical appearance - Fanny speaks of a "strange similarity to a bird's head"^[12] - is a strong indication of his similarity of Barrel to Endell, and so are the aesthetic and pedagogic concepts described in the novel.

Barrel to Fanny: "You have a feeling for ornament. You must draw simple natural things. I think you will enjoy that, and you will soon notice that new forms will come to you. By the way, I can see in your drawings a striving very similar to mine in the field of literature - I mean a striving for the complete vivification of all detailed forms."^[13]

Nature here does not serve as a model in the sense of mimesis, but it is a possible starting point for the development of new forms, gained from details of forms and shapes found in nature. It does not surprise us, therefore, that Barrel makes Fanny draw mosquito wings, bug legs, tree bark and filaments of flowers.^[14] All this is reminiscent of Endell's pure "art of forms" that turns form into an experience. The artistic form should be free from mental associations - similar to the sounds of music - and turn into a psychic experience for the recipient. In the novel, Barrel is introduced as a "critic who broke new ground".^[15] Endell was multi-talented - he was a writer and an artist at the same time. His texts served his aesthetic theories, and at the same time were independent creations. Endell's art reviews are a particularly good example of this.

Another lead in the novel are Barrel's connections to George and Wolfskehl:

"(Barrel in indirect speech): "There is a literary circle in Munich, which is the counterpart of Nepomuk Bolle's Berlin circle. All kinds of nonsense and idolatry happen here around the second "master", the poet, who has the advantage over Nepomuk Bolle in that he is actually a serious artist. There are, however, a number of nice people there, especially a gentlemen whose house is a meeting point for all followers of this movement (with which he himself, Eduard Barrel, has nothing to do). This Dr Katzwedel was a good friend of his."^[16]

Everything is ascribed to Barrel: the "master" George and his circle, the receptions at Wolfskehl's house (here called Dr. Katzwedel), even Endell's evaluation of the circle and George's poetry. It becomes clear how closely linked, or socially connected, Endell was to the Schwabing artistic scene around Wolfskehl. He did not deny having learnt about "FORM/form" and "KLANG/sound" there, but he went on to develop his own concepts. George's concept of an "GEISTIGE KUNST/art of the mind" is to be taken seriously, but the cult of personality and the circle around him are neither Endell's nor Barrel's thing. Barrel is regarded highly in this literary circle.

(described from the point of view of Fanny) "Herr Barrel, who came as regularly to the receptions of Dr Katzwedel as she did and talked to her a lot, seemed to enjoy a seemingly limitless influence where the "maste" was not concerned, despite his heterodoxy in matters of art."^[17]

The continuation of Barrel's and Fanny's story shows a strong similarity to the story of Endell and Else. Barrel proceeds to teach Fanny on a daily basis in Dachau. Barrel accepts an offer to work as a journalist for a critical weekly and moves to Berlin (= Endell moves to Berlin to work on the Wolzogen theatre). At the end of 1900 Barrel proposes marriage to Fanny, and she accepts, although Barrel seems to her "abstract, neutral, sexless".^[18] But she likes him, and has given up on the idea of great romance. In April 1901 Barrel and Fanny get married (=Endell and Else got married in August 1901). Barrel and Fanny live in a flat in a Berlin suburb, with simple furniture "made from pine stained blue, with simple, light-brown leather covers.^[19] This reflects designs by Endell. The wedding night and all following nights of this marriage end in sensual disappointment.^[20] Fanny describes Barrel as a person overwhelmed by everyday and married life:

"She pitied him, but also started to despise him as a man. The only way she could respect him was as an artist".^[21]

In February 1902, the fictional protagonists travel to Italy via Munich and visit Lake Garda, Sirmione, Verona and Venice. Their journey is marred by financial difficulties. As we know, Endell and Else did indeed visit Italy during this time, and went to Sirmione and Venice. For the fictional Barrel and Fanny, the way back leads over Munich and a reception at Dr. Katzwedel's where Fanny meets Friedrich Karl Reelen, alias Greve.

The relationship between Endell and FPG, and how they originally met, remains largely a mystery. In the novel, they know each other from Florence from before 1901. This could be a hidden clue to the so-called "ELB-FLORENZ/Florence on the river Elbe", Dresden. Endell and Greve might actually have met in the Dresden sanatorium of Dr. Lahmann, at "the WEIßEN HIRSCHEN/White Stag". Greve visited Dresden several times for health reasons during his friendship with Herman Kilian.^[22] In December 1899, Endell was "At the WEIßEN HIRSCHEN/White Stag" to see Dr. Weidner.^[23] This might be the origin of his relationship to Greve and Dr. Carl Gmelin, for whom Endell built the sanatorium in Wyk.

Back in Berlin, the situation escalates. Reelen is a frequent guest of Barrel's, just as FPG and Endell were friends for a short while. In the novel, Fanny is sent to regain her health at the clinic of his friend Dr. Koslin in Stralsund, on the Baltic Sea. We easily recognise Else's stay at Dr. Gmelin's clinic in Wyk. Fanny's treatments - among others aforementioned "womb (uterus) massage",^[24] do not have the anticipated effect on the Barrel's marriage. Fanny's infatuation with the attractive Reelen, already smouldering, breaks forth at Christmas 1902. Barrel is aware of these developments and covers them up, if not to say encourages them; nevertheless he pleads with Fanny to stay with him, if necessary together with her new lover. Barrel himself had asked Reelen to look after his wife Fanny, and it seems that he took into account the possibility of adultery for his wife's sake. Reelen and Fanny leave Barrel, who commits suicide shortly afterwards. The life of the new couple continues without Barrel/Endell, in the novel just as in real life.

Collapse
Endell to Breysig, end of January 1903: "Dear Kurt. I cannot go on. I am done with. Faster than I thought. I am very ill. Maybe forever. I am going abroad for several months."^[25]

In January 1903, Else, FPG and Endell embarked together on a ship to Italy. Endell followed the new couple through Italy, begging for affection. In Naples, FPG and Else had enough and asked Endell to leave. He left for Ischia by bike,^[26] leaving behind Greve and Else who called themselves a married couple.^[27]According to Else, during this time Endell attempted and failed to commit suicide in Naples.^[28] The Greves went from here to Palermo, where they had a lovely time until Greve was arrested in 1903 - an event Else was not at all expecting at the time.^[29]

Endell suffered a lot under the new situation, especially as his financial situation continued to worsen. In a letter to his cousin Kurt Breysig from Ravello on 6 July 1903, Endell described his problems with hindsight: stress, problems with his marriage, and permanent financial problems:

"I had absolutely no hope left at all, even when I pretended to be certain. And this is why my wife left me, because I let her leave, because I had not hope left, and no strength to offer her anything at all. I had lost all confidence. In Munich this would not have been possible, I would always have found help there and things would never have gone this far. In Berlin I had nobody but this half-maniac, who betrayed me and forced me ever deeper into despair. He praised my strength and power, and through a thousand tricks made me feel the weakness of my impotence, everything under the pretence of wanting to help ... I was close to going crazy ... The man, who was a common swindler, and the woman, who loved him more than anything else - and yet she was more than you think - and me in my misery. I was without power or hope, not able to do anything. The situation is serious, very serious."^[30]

Endell here linked biography and topography. Berlin is described as a place of loneliness that created the conditions necessary for the tragedy to happen. Endells description of FPG as a "swindler" follows the cliche of the yarn-spinner (MÜNCHHAUSEN) and con-artist. Endell insists on his wife's purity in an idealising fashion. He fails to accept criticism or analysis of what happened to the point of self-denial. Just like in the novel, Endell vaguely hints at the possibility of suicide and emphasises the degree of his despair. Endell to Breysig, from Ravello, on 6 August 1903:

"You will never understand my point of view and my feelings in this matter. I do not feel pure at all, and I am not convinced at all of the value of my "golden" love. And I do not have the slightest reason to no longer admire my wife for what I have always admired in her. I found in her just the purity that I was looking for and that I find lacking almost everywhere."^[31]

Apart from Greve, Breysig and perhaps Sabine Lepsius, Endells Berlin circle of friends only seems to have developed in later years. It is typical that after his crisis in 1904, he lived for several months in Munich, revisiting his old Munich friends. The collapse of Endell's first marriage seems to have brought about a major change in his art. The great courage and the energetic will to expression that characterised the photographic studio Elvira and the Wolzogen theatre were replaced by a calmer form of expression. I would not agree with Reichel, though, who sees a paradigmatic change from Art Nouveau to functionalism in Endell's art. In my view, the aesthetic foundations of Endell's work remained stable well past this episode.

The end of a marriage
Reichel based his analysis mainly on the memoirs of Anna Endell, Endell's second wife, and he does not mention Else Ploetz at all. He puts Endell's severe mental crisis of 1902/03, caused by the collapse of his marriage and Else's affair with Greve, down to a kidney problem. His "stay in the South"^[32] is described as an Italian holiday, ignoring the fact that Endell spend the first period following the escaping couple around Italy to salvage whatever he could of his marriage. Reichel treats the years between 1901 and 1905 only cursorily, which is surprising as his work is otherwise one of the best appraisals of Endell's life. For whatever reasons, several events in Anna Endell's memoirs are distorted or glossed over.

According to Reichel, "On 3 January 1909 Endell married Anna Meyn ... They had already met in 1904, but her father, who was very conservative, opposed their planned marriage for a long time. He did not want an artist in the family, who on top of everything else published articles in Maximilian Harden's Zukunft.^3][33]

I do not wish to deny the reasons given here. Endell had only published one article in the Zukunft, but that had been explicitly against the Kaiser Wilhelm II. Apart from anything else, Endell was constantly in financial trouble, and the rich Wilhelm Meyn will have hoped for a better match for his daughter. But there is another reason why the two could not get married earlier, which Anna Endell does not mention at all: either Endell was not divorced from Else Ploetz before December 1906, or he was not yet allowed to get married again. Pacey dates the annulment of their marriage to 23 January 1904, but does not disclose his sources.^[34] Divay on the other hand mentions lengthy legal problems.^[35]

Greve to OAH Schmitz on 14 December 1906: "If you want to follow the English custom, you could call this a wedding breakfast. I have just received news that after some research the problems regarding the legalisation of my marriage are about to be resolved. This is of course strictly between us."^[36]

As OAH Schmitz knew all the protagonists well, he tried in vain to reconstruct the exact events of Christmas 1902 and their consequences.^[37] In any case, the legal problems of the divorce made a wedding between Endell and Anna Meyn impossible until late in 1908.^[38] They announced their engagement in August 1908, and got married in (3) January 1909.

FPG and Else
Else's and Greve's jolly time in Italy came to a sudden end when FPG was arrested in Bonn for fraud and embezzlement. He had cheated his old friend Herman Kilian out of 10.000 Marks. Between June 1903 and July 1904, Greve spent a year in Bonn prison.^[39] Else had to struggle through on her own in Italy, and was "supported" by several men during this time. She did not regard this as prostitution. ^[40]After Greve's release from prison, FPG and Else travelled throughout Europe and he began his career as a translator of Oscar Wilde and Andre Gide, among others. It is not clear whether FPG and Else ever got married. Else's memoirs on this point are very vague.^[41] FPG wrote to Andre Gide on 22 July 1908 that he was about to get divorced.^[42] In 1909, he staged his own suicide, as he was deeply in debt.^[43] From 1910 there is silence. FPG was a storyteller: he constantly reinvented himself. He disappeared from the German stage to reappear again three years later in Canada. As a connection to his old existence, he kept his initials: Frederick Philip Grove.^[44] Else followed him, but in 1911 FPG disappeared again, this time out of Else's life as well. Else therefore moved her field of action to New York.

New York Dada
In 1913, Else got married to a Baron Leopold von Freytag-Loringhoven in New York. He committed suicide as a French prisoner of war five years later,^[45] and left Else with nothing but an impressive name. Now called Baroness Else von Freytag-Loringhoven, Else went on to make a name for herself in North America, especially in New York, as an artist, model and muse. In New York years, she was connected to Man Ray and Marcel Duchamps,^[46] and in Paris to Tristan Tzara.^[47]

The sculpture God (1916), which had been ascribed to Morton L. Schamberg, for many years although it is very untypical for his oeuvre,^[48] is today ascribed to Else von Freytag-Lohringhoven. ^[49] The sculpture consists of a cast-iron plumbing trap, connected to a wood miter box. A ready-made is created from two independent parts. One can speculate how this scandalous new form of art reminded Else of mechanisms contained in Endell's aesthetics. His search for new forms in his immediate environment, his liberation of well-known forms from their sense and meaning, of their usual context and their syntax. These are elements which reappeared in Dada in a very different way. Endell liberated form from all connections and dedicated it to sensual experience. In this way, everything could be art. One could say that Endell created a kind of ready-made of the visual. The decisive difference - apart from the obvious formal differences - is that Endell did not feel any opposition to art as such. He still believed that society could be changed and renewed in and through art. He trusted art, whereas Dada destroyed this ideology of beauty.

By 1916, Endell had been overtaken and left behind by the new avantgarde. Else returned to Berlin in 1923. The circle closed when Else tried to establish contact with Endell. But this is a different story again.

Finally, FPG, Endell and Else were united in death. Endell died of a heart attack in 1925. Else went to live in Paris, where she did not find integration into the American artist's colony. She died in December 1927, probably by her own hand.^[50] FPG died in 1948 in the Canadian chapter of his life. Only in 1974 did D.O. Spettigue discover the double identity of Frederick Philip Grove as the former Felix Paul Greve.^[51] In the end, his eternal initials, FPG, gave Greve away.