Hans Bohrdt

Who was Hans Bohrdt?

Hans Bohrdt was born on February 11, 1857 and died December 19, 1945 into a comfortably well-off middle-class family. He lived and worked in Berlin, Germany. His love for the sea began when he was 15 when he visited the port of Hamburg. Bohrdt was a self-taught painter who would later go on to give private lessons to Kaiser Wilhelm II. German Kaiser Wilhelm II took a liking to Bohrdt and would fund all of his projects. In 1915 Bohrdt created his most famous illustration which is called "The Last Man". The image shows a German navy officer holding up a German flag as his ship sinks because he would rather go down with the ship than surrender. "The Last Man" would become one of the most widely recognized propaganda images used during the war to inspire courage. Bohrdt was accepted into the Imperial Yacht Club in Kiel. In 1906 the emperor even grants Bohrdt a spacious villa in Berlin. After World War I Germany was completely destroyed. Bohrdt now made a living creating maritime postcards, book illustrations, magazines, and supplied images for newspaper articles.