Wilhelm Hölter

In 1935, German Wilhelm Hölter graphic artist designed the new brand of Germany’s great trade fair for agricultural products, the Green Week, a stylized yellow wheat ears on a green background. In the 1930s, he also designed a number of film posters, including for Fritz Lang’s (1890-1976) iconic film “M”. Before the war, he lived in Berlin and was a member of the Bund Deutscher Gebrauchsgraphiker (Association of German Commercial Artists).

Hölter was a convinced socialist and, after the founding of the GDR, became a member of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). In 1947, he became one of the first professors at the newly founded College of Applied Arts in Berlin (East). Although he was a member of the Commission for Fine Arts in the Central Committee of the SED, he had to leave the university in 1950 because of “anti-party behavior” and went to West Berlin. There he took over the chair for Applied Graphics and Lettering at the Academy of Visual Arts.

His brother Hermann Hölter participated as a modern pentathlete at Olympic Games.