Christian Warlich


Christian Warlich was a Hamburg based tattooist who professionalised tattooing in Germany. He supposedly was the first one to use an electric tattoo machine in Germany.

Biographical and career information

Warlich was born and raised in Hannover-Linden. He left his parental home at the age of 14, went to Dortmund and reportedly became a boilermaker. He went to sea and might have had contact with tattooists in the US. He got married in 1914 in Hamburg and opened a pub at Kieler Straße 44 around 1919. There was a separate area where he tattooed. His grandson and Theodor Vetter, a close friend of the family, worked as a business tout for Warlich.
According to his own account Warlich tattooed „everything the male body should express politics, eroticism, athleticism, aesthetics, religion, in all colours, at every location.“ Though, in the context of a legal dispute about a face tattoo which was done by a competitor, Warlich claimed „a decent tattooer does not tattoo a face.“
In over 40 years of working as a tattooist he had more than 50.000 customers, also Prince Axel and Prince Viggo from the Danish Royal family. Warlich died at work in his pub.
After Warlich’s death Theodor Vetter took care of a part of the estate, the second part, including the famous flash book and photos, was sold to the Museum für Hamburgische Geschichte in 1965. So it was possible to show Warlich’s flash book in the exhibit „Wohin mit der Stadt“ in 2013. The Museum für Hamburgische Geschichte is planning to re-publish the Vorlagealbum, which was previously brought out by Stephan Oettermann. In 1981, he published the album with an accompanying text in cooperation with the museum. Although, over the next ten years, three editions of the volume were published, it is no longer available today.
Oettermann’s publication was a groundbreaking and pioneering work. However, the low reproduction quality of the images do not entirely do justice to Warlich’s work. The quality of the original designs deviates strikingly from that of the reproductions. Therefore, a completely new and appropriate edition is planned.

Research Projekt

The Hamburg-based art historian Ole Wittmann is the head of the current research project „Der Nachlass des Hamburger Tätowierers Christian Warlich “ – also known as „“ – which is carried out in cooperation with the Museum für Hamburgische Geschichte. Wittmann is a postdoc scholarship holder of the Hamburg Foundation for the Promotion of Science and Culture.

Selected bibliography