(b Celle, 22 June 1838; d Berlin, 27 Oct 1906). German sculptor. He first studied sculpture at Hannover (1854–9) and then at Munich under Max von Widnmann. In 1861 he continued his studies in Dresden where Ernst Friedrich August Rietschel, Ernst Julius Hähnel and Johannes Schilling were then training the next generation of sculptors. Hartzer left for Italy in 1866 and in 1869 he settled in Berlin. There he received his first important commissions through King William I of Prussia who had bought an early work Amor with a Mask of Satyr (plaster, c. 1870; Celle, Bomann-Mus.). He contributed eight large figures and some reliefs to the decorative programme of the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin (1872–5), though some of these were later removed. Over the following years he made numerous monuments of scholars, politicians and historical figures (e.g. the St Bernward monument, bronze, 1893; Hildesheim, nr Cathedral). He also sculpted such thematic monuments as History in Berlin and the two versions of Victory for sites in Silesia. As with his allegorical figures (e.g. the relief Hope, marble, c. 1880; Berlin, Dreifaltigkeits-Friedhof II, Mausoleum Schulze-Zitelmann), Hartzer modelled these monuments in a classical style, while his portraits and statues of contemporaries were executed in a realistic manner that sensitively expressed the mood of the sitter (e.g. Georg Waitz, marble, 1887; U. Göttingen, Aulagebäude). Indeed, portraiture was central to his work.