Walter Kaesbach

German art historian, art collector and important patron of Expressionist artists. Through the efforts of Walter Kaesbach, the Mönchengladbach Museum came to hold one of the most important collections of Expressionist art in Germany during the Weimar Republic. During the Nazi program against "Degenerate Art" this collection was confiscated in 1937 except for seven works and later destroyed.

During the First World War, Walter Kaesbach volunteered for the medical service. He led an ambulance squad and thereby managed to include a number of artist friends in the medical service, saving them from direct deployment as a soldier at the front. Among these patronized artists were Max Beckmann, Erich Heckel, Anton Kerschbaumer, Heinrich Nauen and Otto Herbig.

From 1920 to 1924, Walter Kaesbach was director of the Municipal Museum in Erfurt. He was then appointed as Academy Director in Dusseldorf. During his directorate at the Erfurt Museum he exhibited Wassily Kandinsky, Lyonel Feininger, Paul Klee, Erich Heckel, Otto Mueller, Hermann Max Pechstein and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff.

As a result of the National Socialist (Nazi) art policy he went on leave in 1933 and then relinquished his position, and retired to Hemmenhofen on Lake Constance. He died on 24 June 1955 in Zülpich, aged 78.