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Karl Trinkhaus, son of German Lithographer Karl Hermann Trinkhaus, was born in 1904 in Stötteritz. He attended elementary school in Zwenkau, a town just south of Leipzig before returning back to Stötteritz for the rest of his primary education. He then completed an electrician internship with the Leipzig company Brüggerman und Lepus until the age of 22. He then attended the Leipzig Municipal Trade School until 1924, where basic training in the natural sciences as well as artistic training was supported. In his free time he worked as an artist as a self-taught artist. He worked partly with Löw, as a stage designer and was known for his socially critical work. Trinkhaus presented his work to expressionist artist, Wassily Kandinsky, who wrote him a glowing letter of recommendation. Using this letter, the impoverished Trinkaus applied to the Weimar Bauhaus. He was admitted there for the winter semester of 1927/28 but dropped out after two semesters for unknown reasons.

Trinkhaus then worked in the politically left-wing art and culture scene in Leipzig and Berlin as a set designer and graphic artist. Among other things, he was responsible for designing the cover pages of the magazine “Der Kulturwille” and in 1927/1928 he designed several collages for the “Reiseblatt”, “Kunst und Volk”, “Querschnitt”, “Kunststelle” and “Rundfunk”. He also contributed several articles to the “Fachblatt der Maler”.

He became politically active and joined the KPD. From 1932 he was the agitprop leader of the KPD local group in Wolfen. According to his personal account, in May 1933 he joined an underground group of the now banned KPD.

In 1935 Trinkhaus received a diploma as an aircraft engineer. From 1936, through members of the Dessau KPD group, he worked first as an aircraft electrician, then as an engineer at the Junkers aircraft and engine works in Dessau, then at the Junkers “Belei II” factory in Langensalza. His activities included tasks in circuit diagram development, precision measurements and part design. In his free time he continued to work artistically, primarily as a collagist and illustrator. In 1945 he was drafted into the German Navy in Schwerin and was taken prisoner by the Americans without a fight.

The sources on his work from 1945 to 1950 are contradictory. In 1953 he married Magda Sendhoff, née Müller, (1899–1963)[2], who was persecuted by the Nazis as a communist, and moved with her to Wandlitz.

Trinkhaus worked as a speaker at the Museum of German History in Berlin from 1954. From 1960 he was a research assistant at the Georgi Dimitroff Museum in Leipzig, which was modeled after the Museum of German History.

After the death of his wife in 1964, Trinkhaus moved back to Leipzig. Since the Nazis had come into power in the 1930s, Trinkhaus had retreated into internal exile, which led to mental erosion. According to personal files, he was also very disappointed in the political doctrines and narrow-minded view of art in the GDR. These factors, in addition to greif over the loss of his wife, may have led to his early death in 1965.