Karl Ehlers, a wartime artist

The donation

Living in Brussels since 2001, German-born Justus Schönlau discovered several drawings made during the Second World War among the belongings of his maternal grandfather Karl Ehlers around 2020. At the time, Karl Ehlers was stationed in Belgium as a soldier in the German Wehrmacht.

Showing great generosity, Justus Schonlau wished to donate some of these drawings to SNCB-NMBS’s historical collection. Thanks to his donation, these works are now preserved in our collections, searchable in our historical database, and presented to the public as part of the temporary exhibition “Belgian Railways Under Occupation: Between Collaboration and Resistance”, on display at Train World until June 2026.

The artist: Karl EHLERS (°1904 Hollenbek – † 1973 Detmold)

Karl Ehlers was a German sculptor and artist born in Hollenbek on 16 March 1904. Trained at the Düsseldorf Academy of Fine Arts (1923-1929), he was a pupil of sculptor Hubert Netzer and spent one year at the Istanbul Academy of Fine Arts.

He went on to teach drawing and stone cutting. Some of his works were confiscated by the Nazi regime as part of the campaign against “degenerate art”.

Enlisted during the Second World War, and then imprisoned in the Soviet Union until 1948, he then resumed his artistic activity, leading a sculpture class. Karl Ehlers died on 16 April 1973 in Detmold.

The sketches

During his military service, Karl Ehlers created several drawings, mainly sketches made in the field. His style was characterised by clear, rapid and evocative lines, reflecting an artist’s eye for shapes and atmosphere.

These sketches were made during the Second World War, when Ehlers was stationed in occupied Belgium as a soldier in the German Wehrmacht. Responsible for drawing up an inventory of Belgium’s railway infrastructure, he produced this as a private drawing, outside his official duties.