Paul Renner (9.8.1878 Werningerode – 25.4.1956 Hödingen)

After training to be a painter in Berlin, Karlsruhe and Munich, Renner primarily worked as a book designer and typographer. He was admitted to the Deutscher Werkbund, an association of artists, architects, designers and industrialists as early as 1910. He started heading up the graphic design vocational schools in 1926, and became the Director of the Master School for Germany’s Printers in 1927. During the event Kampf um München als Kulturzentrum (Battle for Munich as Cultural Center) organized by Thomas Mann in the Munich concert hall in 1926, he publicly criticized the anti-modern and reactionary climate of the state capital. He made a significant achievement in modern design in 1928 with the font Futura, which brought him international notoriety.

He turned against National Socialist cultural politics and ideology, stridently and publicly, with his book Kulturbolschewismus? in 1932, especially their antisemitic and ‘anti-Bolshevik‘ phrases. The book was published by Zürich Eugen Rentsch Verlag, since several German publishers had rejected his publication. Renner’s apartment and office were searched on March 25, 1933. He was arrested on April 4, 1933, but after his stepson Heinz Haushofer intervened, was set free again by Rudolf Heß the following day. He was suspended as the Director of the Master School for Germany’s Printers on April 11, 1933, and ultimately dismissed on February 16, 1934 for ‘national unreliability’, his pension canceled. He lived in seclusion in Hödingen am Bodensee until 1945.

In the post-war period, he made a name for himself again with typographical and theoretical work.