Krenn, Karl

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:37:56 +0000

Krenn, Karl Leonhard Weidinger Tue, 02/09/2021 - 19:44

Karl Krenn

19 November 1898 Linz – June 1984 Vienna
married to Anna, née Lipkovits (8 January 1891 – 15 April 1959)

Karl Krenn, who had a doctorate in prehistoric history, worked from 1932 at the Naturhistorisches Museum in Vienna. He started as a research assistant and rose to become a curator in 1943 in charge of the prehistoric history department, temporarily for some years, and then on a permanent basis from 1950. Prior to this he had earned a reputation as an air raid warden, helping to extinguish fires in the museum building. He was not a member of the NSDAP, and after the war he was entrusted with securing scholarly material from the apartments of museum employees who had been forced to flee and to hand it over to the police. It is unclear, however, whether and how conscientiously he performed this work. Having become unable to work on account of his health, he retired in 1952. He was the subject of provenance research, since he had given twenty-three prints to the Österreichische Galerie between 1944 and 1946.

Keywords

Air raid protection

Museum employee

Prehistory

Katinka Gratzer-Baumgärtner

26 February 2026

Publications about the person / institution

Katinka Gratzer-Baumgärtner, Das Belvedere in Wien: zum Status der Provenienzforschung in der Bibliothek des Hauses, in: Bruno Bauer/Christina Köstner-Pemsel/Markus Stumpf (Hg.), NS-Provenienzforschung an österreichischen Bibliotheken. Anspruch und Wirklichkeit (= Schriften der Vereinigung Österreichischer Bibliothekarinnen und Bibliothekare 10), Graz-Feldkirch 2011, 391–412, URL: fedora.phaidra.univie.ac.at/fedora/objects/o:290050/methods/bdef:Content/download (3.12.2020).

Dieter Hecht, Archäologe und Numismatiker. Die Arisierung der prähistorischen Sammlung von Robert Wadler durch das Naturhistorische Museum Wien, in: Gabriele Anderl/Christoph Bazil/Eva Blimlinger/Oliver Kühschelm/Monika Mayer/Anita Stelzl-Gallian/Leonhard Weidinger (Hg.), … wesentlich mehr Fälle als angenommen. 10 Jahre Kommission für Provenienzforschung (= Schriftenreihe der Kommission für Provenienzforschung 1), Wien-Köln-Weimar 2009, 431–441, URL: doi.org/10.7767/boehlau.9783205118862.431.

Publications by the person / institution

Karl Krenn, Das Naturhistorische Museum im Kriege, in: Annalen des Naturhistorischen Museums in Wien 56 (1948), 1–17.