Franz Stassen (born February 12, 1869 in Hanau; died April 18, 1949 in Berlin), a German painter, draftsman and illustrator who first studied the Berlin Academy of Fine Arts from 1886 to 1892. He next settled in Hanau, but returned again to Berlin some time later. Stassen progressed from naturalism to Art Nouveau, in the style of Sascha Schneider, Fidus, Koloman Moser and Gustav Klimt. Stassen worked primarily as a book illustrator, illustrating more than 100 books, 50 bookplates and 25 postcard motifs. In 1908, he produced the Helden-Album, Stollwerck-Collector's Album No. 10, for Cologne chocolatier Ludwig Stollwerck. That same year he made contact with the Bayreuth Wagner circle, soon becoming an inside member. He created portfolios devoted to Wagner-works, including "Das Rheingold" and "Der Ring des Nibelungen". His  style was partly realistic in form, influenced by the dramatic gestures and eye movements of the new popular medium cinematography. Contemporary publicists hailed Stassen's work as a tribute to Germanic nature worship and as the reform movement of the 20th century. Stassen himself connected his ideals with an esoteric and spiritualist Christianity. He joined the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in 1930, creating four tapestries for Hitler's Reich Chancellery, with motifs from the Eddas. He remained a politically neutral illustrator of Wagner's works, as well as myths and legends, headlining solo exhibitions in Bayreuth (1937) and Dresden (1940). In 1939, Hitler awarded him the honorary title "Professor".  Stassen's wife Minna died in 1913, and after 1941 he lived with a male "significant other" attesting to his homosexual orientation.  In 1944, near the end of the war, Adolf Hitler included him in a list of the most important Nazi painters. After the Second World War, Stassen went about with great energy repairing his war-damaged works. Up to his death in 1949, he was working on illustrations for Goethe's Faust.