# Margarete Kühn

Margarete Kühn (4 February 1902 – 12 September 1995) was a German author and art historian. She was the first director of the State Palaces and Gardens Administration in Berlin. She made significant efforts for the preservation of the Berlin Palace and the reconstruction of the Charlottenburg Palace during the post-war period.
In 1948, she was responsible for moving the medieval manuscript the Riesencodex, the complete compilation of works of St. Hildegard of Bingen, from Dresden to Hildegard Abbey through an unofficial channel.

## Biography

Margarete Kühn was born on 4 February 1902 in Lütgendortmund [de], Germany. She studied natural sciences in Munich, but later changed to art history. She also studied in Vienna and Leipzig. In 1928 she received her doctorate in Munich. She joined as an assistant at the Prussian Palace Administration in 1929 and later she became a research assistant at the same institute.

### Berlin Palace and Charlottenburg

From 1935 Kühn started working with Ernst Gall (1888–1958), then director of the Prussian Palace Administration, and was responsible for Charlottenburg Palace. During the division of Berlin, Kühn protested unsuccessfully against the evacuation of the Berlin Palace by the German People's Police. Following the demolition of the palace by East Berlin magistrate, Kühn and Hinnerk Scheper, the state curator of Berlin, moved their office to West Berlin.
Afterwards a new office of West Berlin Palaces administration was established at Charlottenburg Palace, named as the State Palaces and Gardens Administration. At the end of the war, Kühn became the first director of the State Palaces and Gardens Administration in Berlin and was involved in the reconstruction of the damaged Charlottenburg Palace. She held the office of director until her retirement in 1969. Following her retirement, Martin Sperlich succeeded her as director and continued the reconstruction of Charlottenburg Palace until his retirement in 1984.
Kühn published number of books about Charlottenburg Palace and other Berlin monuments.

### Monumenta Germaniae Historica and the Riesencodex retrieval

In 1946, after her brother's death and World War II, Kühn wanted to become a nun at Eibingen Abbey. The nuns there instead asked her to retrieve the works of Hildegard of Bingen. Kühn was a researcher on the Monumenta Germaniae Historica, a project to gather all German texts from the Roman era to AD 1500. She used her work on this project as cover to photograph and remove Bingen's Wiesbaden Codex or Riesencodex from Soviet state control in Dresden and have her friend Caroline Walsh deliver it to Eibingen Abbey. A similar size and weight book was put in the place of the original. In 1950, her trick was discovered. To try and protect Kühn, her colleague Franz Götting claimed that her poor eyesight had led to a mistake (Kühn had had a cancerous eye removed). A trade was agreed and other valuable books sent to Dresden in exachange for the codex remaining at the State Library of Wiesbaden.

### Later life

Kühn continued to research and work in the field of medieval studies. Between 1958 and 1974 she served as an editor of the journal for art history. From 1962 to 1995, she edited the works of Karl Friedrich Schinkel.
She died on 12 September 1995 in Berlin. Her obituary described her as having lived 'an almost monastic existence.'

## Awards

Kühn was awarded the Great Federal Cross of Merit and the Ernst Reuter Plaque.
In 2005, to recognize her efforts for the reconstruction of Charlottenburg Palace, a street in Charlottenburg was named after her.