Munderloh Windows at the Chapel of the Resurrection, Valparaiso University, Indiana, designed by Peter Dohmen

Peter W. Dohmen (1904–1977) was a well-known and highly accomplished German liturgical artist who migrated to the United States with his family after the Second World War. In pre-war Germany, he had won numerous competitions for large frescoes, up to 10 stories high, and art works for public buildings. When he refused several times invitations to become a member of the Nazi party, which recruited accomplished people, he was put on the "black list" and no longer qualified for governmental contracts.

After the war, he decided to leave Germany for the USA, saying that Europe would always be at war. He and the family were on one of the first trains from Cologne to Hamburg, to the American Embassy to apply for immigration for the family. The visas were finally granted after a five-year wait.

Education and early career

Dohmen was born on May 28, 1904, near Cologne, Germany. At an early age, he showed his talent for art. As a young student he painted some beautiful, religious oil paintings with traditional religious themes. He was eager to learn more from the best art teachers in Europe and applied for scholarships to some of the leading art academies. His efforts paid off when he received a scholarship from the German government. He then attended some of the most prominent art academies of Europe, including Cologne, Düsseldorf, Aachen, and the Higher Institute of the Royal Art Academy in Antwerp, Belgium.

He studied under some of the most noteworthy and prominent professors of art at the time, such as Professor Johan Thorn Prikker, Dominikus Boehm and Baron Professor Isidore Obsomer, Director of the Royal Art Academy in Antwerp.

After completing his studies, Dohmen was briefly an art teacher at the Institute for Christian Art in Dortmund before becoming the manager of a highly regarded art studio in Austria, where he worked in fresco murals, mosaic murals and stained glass windows. In 1936, he returned to Germany to establish his own art studio in Cologne.

Peter Dohmen Studios in Germany

Dohmen became well known as an artist in Germany during the 1930s for his monumental art works, including stained glass windows, large frescoes on major public buildings and Byzantine glass mosaics.

In 1937, he made an exciting, historic discovery in the dome of the Ursula Kirche, an ancient church in Cologne. He found that underneath the paint of the vaulted ceilings were beautiful religious paintings dating back to the 13th century. The Minister of Culture commissioned him to restore and save the very valuable frescoes.

Later, the government also commissioned him with the execution of historic fresco murals (3,000 sq. ft.) in the Knights Hall of a medieval citadel in Juelich, Germany.

In 1938, he was offered a professorship at the State Art Academy in Koenigsberg, Germany. However, a few weeks before taking this position, a law was passed requiring that those teaching at a state school had to be members of the Nazi party. Given his dislike of the Nazis, he declined. He wanted to leave Germany, but the government had already made it difficult to leave and eventually impossible.

During the war, the Dohmen family lost their homes twice from Allied bombs. They and most Germans lived in their basements for months to be protected from the constant bombings, at night by the British, during the day by Americans. They had to flee several times with just the clothes they could carry in backpacks, to escape the battle front and once to escape the Nazis. He had helped four of his school friends, who were Jewish, to escape across the border out of Germany. Eventually he was blackballed by the government because of his outspoken opposition toward the Nazi party.

His studio in Cologne was destroyed by bombing during the war. He decided that once the war was over, he would leave Germany and go to America. After the war, as soon as the railroad started running again, he and the family took the train to the American Embassy in Hamburg to apply for an immigration visa. It took five years, and when the visa was granted, the family sold their house and furniture and migrated to the United States. German monetary restrictions allowed the family to only take the equivalence of $10 per person. A relative in Saint Paul, Minnesota, had sponsored the family. They arrived there during one of the harshest winters in years.

After turning down several employment offers from leading stained glass studios in the US, he established the Peter Dohmen Studios in Saint Paul. His more modern art style was just what young architects were looking for and had not been able to find. These architects did not want the very traditional church art, often referred to as "kitsch". His timing had been perfect and he soon started receiving contracts for some very prominent institutions.^[1]

Peter Dohmen Studios in St. Paul

Among his major works are the mosaic murals at Carleton College in Minnesota, stained glass windows in the library of the University of Notre Dame and the windows in the Chapel of the Resurrection at Valparaiso University, Indiana.^[1]

Dohmen married the daughter of a well-known businessman in Cologne. They had two sons just before the war broke out. In the 1950s, he and his wife designed the stained glass windows in the United States and they were fabricated in some of the most reputable fabrication studios in Germany, using only the highest grade glass and materials, such as mouthblown antic glass. This glass gives the windows a crystal-like character. The windows were then shipped in sections to the US for installation.^[2]

Dohmen's works can be found in numerous churches in the states of Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Oklahoma, North- and South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa and Wisconsin. He also did the breathtaking Byzantine glass mosaic columns in the Veterans Administration building in St. Paul, introducing art which had been used for thousands of years, and can be seen at the Vatican, St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice, and many of the extraordinary buildings of old Europe. Other Minnesota locations of Dohmen's stained glass art are Messiah Episcopal Church in Saint Paul, Pilgrim Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, Richfield United Methodist Church and Saint James Lutheran Church in West St. Paul.

He was often invited to display his works of art in art exhibitions in Europe and the US.

He retired in 1972 and died in May 1977 in Koenigswinter, Germany. He left behind some of the most extraordinary works of arts for others to enjoy.

In 1961, Dieterich Spahn worked as his apprentice and assisted in the production of two of the Valparaiso windows.^[1] In 1971, after Dohmen decided to retire, Spahn and the New York artist Mel Geary bought the Peter Dohmen Studio.^[3] Spahn has carried on in the great tradition and has designed many outstanding stained glass windows in his own style over the past 40 years. His studio is in Minnetonka, Minnesota.

Tragedy and return to Europe

The Dohmens lives were upended by the controversial police killing of their 27-year-old son, Volker H. Dohmen, on May 19, 1964, in Long Beach, California, where he had represented the family firm on the West Coast.^[5] After an argument with other patrons at a Hollywood bar, one of those he argued with called police and reported that Volker had kidnapped his fiancée (a claim she denied).^[6][5] Plainclothes police went to Volker's apartment at 2 am, witnesses said police did not identify themselves as police officers; Volker, who possessed a gun, thought the men with guns were associated with the men they argued with at the bar and denied them entry; he fired two shots out of the apartment window to try and dissuade the officers as they started breaking into his apartment and firing.^[6][5] Neighbors called police and reported Volker cried out "My god, I'm hit! Call the police. Somebody please call the police."^[6][5] Apparently wounded, Volker jumped 20-feet from the window and began running; he first stopped at a community pool with his arms raised, but—upon seeing a group of uniformed policemen near a marked police car—he ran towards them while unarmed, with his arms upraised, dressed only in his undershorts.^[6][5] The police yelled "halt or I'll shoot" and then killed him in a volley of fire that struck him with 4 pistol shots and 2 shotgun blasts.^[6] His fiancée was falsely told Volker had broken his arm and was in the hospital.^[5] He had committed no crime.^[5] A jury ruled the killing was a "justifiable homicide" while "resisting lawful arrest."^[7] The family then hired private investigators who took witness interviews that filled in the full account of the killing, including that Volker was clearly unarmed at the time of the volley of fire that ended his life.^[6] The Dohmen's then filed a $3M claim against the City of Long Beach and the 5 officers (Volker's fiancée sued separately for $25,000); the Long Beach City Council denied the claims (calling it "an unfortunate set of circumstances"), the parents' declining health made them decide against the rigors of trial.^{[8][9][10][5]} In May 1966, the Dohmens, surviving son Lothar, and Volker's fiancée published a bittersweet memorial to Volker and the injustice of his killing in the Minneapolis Tribune.^[10] Volker had been a 2-time state chess champion, captain of the Macalester College soccer team, as well as the local Minneapolis Kickers, so his parents established 3 trophies for soccer and chess championships in his name.^[5] The family had a 4,000-word open letter published in an LA-area newspaper addressed to the people of Long Beach to restore their son's name.^[5] In 1970 the Dohmens, citing deep bitterness with the American justice system, returned to Germany.^[5][11]

References