Note: In this post, I discuss a so-called “castle” presently located in southwestern Poland that was once owned by the noble von Koschembahr family. My great-granduncle Wilhelm Bruck married into this family and adopted his wife’s matronymic. The manor house which survives in dilapidated condition was once the home of his father-in-law’s two widowed sisters.
In Post 115, I introduced readers to Wilhelm Bruck (1849-1907) (Figure 1), one of my great granduncles, who married Margarete von Koschembahr (1860-1948) (Figure 2) on the 14th of September 1884 in Berlin, Germany. Wilhelm was the younger brother of my great-grandfather Fedor Bruck (1834-1892) (Figure 3), the second-generation owner of the family business in Ratibor [today: Racibórz, Poland], the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel.
Upon their marriage, Wilhelm added his wife’s matronymic to his name. The unusual adoption of a wife’s surname most typically happened when the wife was a so-called peer, that’s to say, was a hereditary titled noble in her own right. The result was that Wilhelm and his descendants became known as “Bruck-von Koschembahr,” though the Bruck surname was dropped entirely upon the family’s arrival in America.
By all measures the von Koschembahr descendants are my distant relatives though until the year before last I’d never been in contact with any members of this branch. While my uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck was particularly impressed with links to nobiliary members on our ancestral line, took special pains to note them in his hand drawn ancestral trees, and may even have been in touch with members of this branch, this has never been of explicit interest to me. Regardless, in December 2023, I was contacted by an American descendant of this offshoot of my family, Christopher von Koschembahr. Christopher mentioned his mother had stumbled upon my blog. He also explained he was the son of Dieter von Koschembahr (1929-1995), who I knew to be one of the grandsons of Wilhelm Bruck and Margarete von Koschembahr.
As an aside, during our exchanges, Christopher asked when my father changed his surname from “Bruck” to “Brook.” I didn’t know at the time. However, in connection with my ongoing German citizenship application, I’ve since learned my father became Gary Otto Brook upon becoming an American citizen in July 1955. I think Christopher’s question stemmed from the fact that he serendipitously named his daughter “Brookes,” so had the original surname been retained, she would have been known as “Brookes Bruck.”
In March 2024, Christopher mentioned to me his intention to visit one of the former family estates currently located southwestern Poland, a short distance northeast of the German border town of Görlitz. Embedded in this email was a message from my third cousin, Kurt Polborn, to Christopher with some of the historical background on the property and the name of the Polish town where the estate is located, Żarki Średnie. Like Kurt and me, Christopher and Kurt are third cousins. A brief digression before I discuss what I know of the von Koschembahr family property and its former residents.
As I explained in the previous post, Post 172, upon learning that Christopher’s family once owned a “castle” in what is today called Żarki Średnie, Poland (Figure 4), I turned to a comprehensive 1893 map of Silesia once sent to me by Paul Newerla. I had discovered the town was called “Kesselbach” during the Prussian era, though was unable to find it on the detailed Silesian map. This is when I turned to the 1:25,000 scale “Urmesstischblätter” military maps discussed in my prior article. (Figure 5) After learning Żarki Średnie/Kesselbach was located 7.5km or 4.66 miles northeast of Gorlitz, I located it on map number “4756-Penzig/Pieńsk.” (Figures 6a-c)
I was unable to find Kesselbach in the meyersgaz.org database even by using “star as a wildcard” in the “Search” bar. This points out the advantage of having several different map sources one can turn to. It was only after I found an old postcard on eBay referring to the castle as “Schloß-Mittel Sohra” (Figure 7) that I found “Mittel Sohra,” in meyersgaz.org. (Figure 8)
Based on the picture in Wikipedia of the von Koschembahr “manor house,” as they refer to it, the mansion appeared to be maintained and in very good shape. (Figure 9) Other pictures found online seemed to corroborate this. (Figure 10) This was a grand illusion as Christopher discovered when he visited the former family estate in July 2024. (Figure 11) While the structure is still standing, the floors and roof are collapsing, the windows and doors are missing or broken, and roots are growing through the foundations and openings. (Figures 12a-b) When Christopher used hand gestures to communicate with Polish laborers working nearby on the day he visited, they gesticulated that tossing a hand grenade into the building would solve the problem.
As a retired archaeologist I have come across multiple such historic structures over the years while conducting pedestrian surveys on the public lands in the western United States. This is one reason the deteriorating mansion holds a peculiar fascination for me, different than it may for the average reader. Adding this to the history that my cousin Kurt Polborn told me about the place, I’ve been able to relate it to specific individuals who lived there. This is not always possible even with recent historic era ruins.
Let me relate the part of the story I’ve been told and connect it to historic documents I’ve uncovered.
I told readers at the outset of this post that my great granduncle Wilhelm Bruck married Margarete von Koschembahr and added her matronymic to his surname. Margarete’s father was Leopold von Koschembahr (1829-1874) (Figure 13) married to Amalie Mockrauer (1834-1918). (Figure 14) As a quick aside, my Bruck ancestors are related by marriage to Mockrauers over several generations, but that’s a story for another day.
Leopold von Koschembahr was Kurt Polborn’s great-great-grandfather. According to Kurt, Leopold filed for bankruptcy on a few occasions, and his large family would likely not have survived without the help of his mother and his Jewish in-laws. Amalie Mockrauer wrote in her diary about the financial disasters of her married life.
As a reflection of the self-perceived “superiority” of the nobility vis a vis the bourgeoisie, upon Wilhelm Bruck’s death in 1907, his widow Margarete dropped the Bruck surname and reverted to her maiden name.
Returning to the ruined manor house in Żarki Średnie, according to Kurt, Leopold von Koschembahr’s had two sisters. The older one was Julie Leopoldine Anna von Koschembahr (1827-1883), referred to as “Anna”; the younger was Isidore Mathilde Helene von Koschembahr (1833-1887), familiarly called “Isidore.” Though they were six years apart, both got married the same year in 1859. Anna married Adolph von Blankensee (1812-1871) (Figures 15a-b), while Isidore wed Major Otto von Heugel (1826-1871). (Figures 16a-b)
Their respective husbands fought in the Franco-Prussian War, also known as the Franco-German War of 1870-1871. Both died during this conflict in France within weeks of one another. Adolph von Blankensee died from Typhus on the 11th of January 1871, while his brother-in-law Otto von Heugel died on the 29th of January 1871 in a place called La-Queue-en-Brie (Figures 17a-b), a commune in the southeastern suburbs of Paris. Following their husbands’ deaths, the widows apparently lived together in the family manor in Kesselbach until their deaths. Both are recorded as having died in Görlitz, the largest nearby town.
The only known depiction of Anna von Koschembahr is an endearing painting from ca. 1830 standing alongside her younger brother Leopold. (Figure 18) The original of this painting is owned by the descendants of Kurt’s recently deceased uncle, Clemens von Koschembahr, Chistopher von Koschembahr’s uncle. In Post 75, I wrote about this Biedermeier-style painting because my third cousin, Agnes Stieda, née Vogel, owns a replica of this painting. (Figure 19) How a copy of this painting came to be made is unknown.
No images are known of Isidore. However, given the extensive von Koschembahr family, it is probable that a likeness of her survives among the family’s ephemera. It is my hope that one of her von Koschembahr descendants may stumble upon my blog and scrutinize their family photos.
The history of the von Koschembahr manor house is unknown. Discovery of the so-called “grundbuch,” the German land register that records property ownership and other details that would have been maintained by a special division of the local court, would provide details on the castle’s construction and ownership. Whether the grundbuch survived the devastation of WWII is also unknown.
I can only surmise what happened to the manor house following Isidore’s death in 1887. Neither Anna or Isidore had any children, However, a younger von Koschembahr sibling, Erich Wilhelm Adolf von Koschembahr (1836-1890), had two daughters, and one may have inherited the property. I would posit the estate continued to be owned by Anna and Isidore’s descendants since titled families tended to own multiple estates around the country. Regardless of what happened to the property following the death of the two widows, there can be no doubt the family lost ownership of the estate at the end of WWII when the family fled the area as the Russians were approaching.
Pictures of the manor house, including the one on Wikipedia, show the shell of the castle still in restorable condition. These pictures, probably taken in the last 10-15 years, suggest that someone lived in and maintained the property until shortly before then. I strongly suspect I’ll eventually write a postscript to this post as I learn more about the history of the von Koschembahr manor house.
The dilapidated remains of the von Koschembahr castle in Żarki Średnie holds a particular appeal to me as a retired archaeologist. Because most historic era remains found throughout the United States are not related to titled families or known individuals and are assuredly not connected to my family, learning of a surviving structure that is piques my interest. I’ll leave it at that.
Note: In this post, I draw readers’ attention to several sources of detailed topographic maps of the German Reich, including areas that are today within Poland. I will briefly discuss the origin of these maps and explain how to access the databases.
It may surprise readers to learn I often derive as much or even more pleasure writing about subjects that transcend my immediate and extended Bruck family. The current publication is one such post. Here I discuss and explain to readers where they can locate historic topographic maps of towns and areas in the former German realm where their ancestors may have come from, including areas that are today part of Poland. Much of Silesia where many of my German ancestors come from is today in Poland; learning where historic maps of the various places associated with them can be found has been invaluable in my work.
I want to begin this post by acknowledging my dear friend, Paul Newerla, who sadly passed away in January 2024. (Figure 1) Like many people with whom I’ve corresponded with on ancestral matters over the years, Paul found me through my blog. He was a lawyer who devoted himself to researching and writing about the history of Ratibor and Silesia in retirement. As a brief aside, Silesia is today divided principally into four Polish województwa (provinces): Lubuskie, Dolnośląskie, Opolskie, and Śląskie. The remainder of the historical region forms part of Brandenburg and Saxony Länder (states) of Germany and part of the Moravia-Silesia kraj (region) of the Czech Republic.
Paul was a tireless researcher (Figure 2), very generous with his time and sharing his knowledge and resources. I miss his help, insights, and kindness. Paul didn’t speak English, and I don’t speak Polish nor German, so our communications involved using an online translator. Still, his warm, self-deprecating humor came through clearly. Case in point. One day, while trying to explain some nuance to me, he prefaced his remarks by using the German word “besserwisser,” basically translated as “know-it-all,” saying he wasn’t trying to sound like one. My wife and I often jokingly use this word which just rolls off the tongue with such ease. I have fond recollections of Paul and all he taught me. I could only hope to be remembered thusly. I was very happy when Paul once told me how much pleasure he took from my research interest in my ancestors from Silesia.
Over the years, I’ve been asked by readers or family members about towns in Silesia where their ancestors come from or found places in ancestral documents citing obscure towns. Being a basically visual person, I’m curious where these places are located and how far distant from Ratibor [today: Racibórz, Poland], where my father was born, they are. This is typically a two-step process. The first step normally involves finding the Polish place names for former German towns. Fortunately, a Wikipedia site cross-referencing the German/Polish town names exists. The obvious second step involves using Google or other resources to see what you can learn about the place, particularly if you’re curious about the history of the town over the ages.
During my email exchanges with Paul Newerla, he sent me many maps, including multiple historic ones of Ratibor and a very detailed 1893 map of Silesia. (Figure 3) In the case of the street maps of Ratibor, this has often allowed me to precisely pinpoint places associated with my family. In any case, I recently discovered to my dismay that a small place that one of my cousins asked me about is not on the 1893 map. This sent me scurrying through saved emails searching for a link to historic topographic maps of the German realm Paul had once told me about. I vaguely recalled these cover the northern and southern parts of Poland. Being of higher resolution, 1:25,000 (see below), I’ve never failed to find any old German town if a map of the area survives.
I eventually found the 2019 email from Paul with links to the maps. And, predictably, I located the German/Polish town my distant cousin had asked me about. This will be the subject of an upcoming blog where I’ll introduce readers to a distinguished branch of my Bruck family that no longer retains the Bruck surname for a surprising reason. I digress. Thinking the website and the maps might be of interest to readers, I decided to write the current post and explain to readers how to access this database.
As Paul was wont to do and which I so appreciated was provide some historical perspective. In the case of these 1:25,000 scale maps, Paul explained that on these maps, one kilometer, roughly 0.621 mile, is equal to 4 centimeters, about 1.575 inches. The production of these so-called “Urmesstischblätter” began ca. 1822 for the entire territory of Prussia, all at the scale of 1:25,000. The maps were hand-drawn unique specimens. They were not published; they were only intended to form the basis for smaller-scale maps. In German, “Messtischblatt” refers to the specific type of topographic map drawn at the 1:25,000 scale, which translates to “survey table sheet” due to the method used for creating these maps. These sheets or leaves marked the beginning of topographical cartography, which has evolved in various stages but is still based on these roots today.
Because of their military importance, the 1:25,000 scale maps are extremely accurate. These maps from the period 1822-1850 were further developed and refined until 1944. This scale allowed for a detailed depiction of features like roads, buildings, rivers, and elevation contours. These maps are valuable historical sources for studying the landscape and development of the German Empire, particularly in the Prussian era.
Maps intended for “civilian” purposes, which obviously could also have a military application, were drawn at a different scale, even down to 1:500. Indicated on each map is the scale at which it was drawn. Postwar maps showing Polish towns indicate the German-era map upon which the Polish version is based. The entire German realm, extending far into neighboring countries including current Polish counties, is covered by these 1:25,000 scale maps.
Let me provide some explanation. Each numbered square corresponds to one map at a scale of 1:25,000. (Figure 4) As readers can see, each square is numbered and named according to the largest city in the area. So, for example, Gdansk in the northern part of Poland, is numbered and named “1677-Danzig/Gdansk.” (Figure 5) The square nearest to the east is one number higher, thus “1678-Weichselmünde/Wisłoujście,” while the one nearest to the west is one number less, thus “1676-Zuckau/Zukowo.” The map to the south of the one you’re researching is always larger by a factor of 100, for example in the case of Gdansk, “1777-Praust/Pruszcz Gdański.”
Below is what a fragment of the northern directory looks like. If you click on a corresponding square, a directory appears. The headers (Figure 6) read: “Pliki” (file); “Godlo” (map number); “Tytul” (designation of the largest city based on the original German version of the map); “Nazwa wsp.” (current Polish town name); “Rok wyd.” (year of publication); and “dpi” (resolution in dots per inch). By tapping on the yellow icon in the upper left, you’ll open the corresponding map; more than one map be listed. The map can be enlarged, then navigated, by simply clicking on it, then scrolling around.
Map number “1780-Tiegenhof/Nowy Dwór Gdański” (Figure 7a-b) corresponds to the town where my father had his dental practice in the Free City of Danzig from April 1932 until April 1937. After you click on the square, you will note there is a map that includes Tiegenhof which was originally published in 1925. Once you click on the yellow icon in the upper left, then on the map itself, and scroll to the bottom, you’ll see some information about the map. In this instance, the 1925 map is based on a topographic survey the Prussian State conducted in 1908. (Figure 8) Having been to Nowy Dwór Gdański a few times and being very familiar with where my father’s dental practice was located, I can immediately find the street on which it was situated.
I discussed another source of maps of the German Empire in Post 156, the Meyers Orts- und Verkehrs-Lexikon des Deutschen Reichs, the “Meyers Geographical and Commercial Gazetteer of the German Empire.” (Figure 9) I refer readers to this earlier post. As ancestry.com points out about the Meyers Gazetteer: “This gazetteer of the German Empire is the gazetteer to use to locate place names in German research. It was originally compiled in 1912. This gazetteer is the gazetteer to use because it includes all areas that were part of the pre-World War I German Empire. Gazetteers published after WWI may not include parts of the Empire that were lost to bordering countries. Overall, this gazetteer includes more than 210,000 cities, towns, hamlets, villages, etc.”
The maps in the Meyers Gazetteer also appear to originate from the 1:25,000 Urmesstischblätter maps. I recommend anyone researching German Empire town names to look at the links above to the Urmesstischblätter maps, as well as the Meyers Gazetteer. The meyersgaz.org website remarks: “This is the most important of all German gazetteers. The goal of the Meyer’s compilers was to list every place name in the German Empire (1871-1918). It gives the location, i.e. the state and other jurisdictions, where the civil registry office was and parishes if that town had them. It also gives lots of other information about each place. The only drawback to Meyer’s is that if a town did not have a parish, it does not tell where the parish was, making reference to other works necessary.”
“The archive currently (as of June 13, 2020) contains 29,930 different world atlases, country maps, topographic maps, road maps, panorama maps, railway maps, postal code maps, city maps and special maps. The Atlas Novas Indicibus Instructus by Matthäus Seutter, with its 52 copper engravings, is the oldest original in the map archive. Furthermore, there are several thousand topographic maps of Central Europe. The oldest maps are from 1820. The newest map, on the other hand, is the map of the Hockenheimring from 1999, which shows the old Hockenheimring before the reconstruction. There are many highlights, such as the 89-page Dunlop Autoatlas from 1927, the Conti Atlas from 1938, the general maps from 1954, the clear B.V. Aral maps, the very rare Reichsautobahnatlas from 1938 and the beautiful old French Michelin road maps for France, Spain and Germany. Our special exhibitions, such as the fantastically beautiful Soviet military maps or the Reymann´s Special Map of Central Europe are also worth a click. . .”
Naturally, the landkartenarchiv.de includes the 1:25,000 Urmesstischblätter maps. However, given the vast collection of maps in the archive, readers may find it easier to seek out 1:25,000 scale maps at meyersgaz.org or in the links to the Polish websites listed above. However, if readers are more interested in maps at a grosser scale such as 1:50,000, 1:75,000, and 1:100,000, scroll the vast collection on the landkartenarchiv.de. For readers particularly interested in German Empire maps, I draw your attention to the following:
Using the “Search” function, there appears to be an overlap between the maps that are listed. Given the enormous number of maps archived in this database, perhaps this is not surprising.
Note: In this post, I discuss some previously unknown details about my father, Gary Otto Brook (Dr. Otto Bruck), and his life before and during WWII uncovered in a file I was given by a staffer at the German Embassy in connection with my German citizenship application. The staffer ordered this file from an office in Saarburg, Germany, where my father’s 1950s dossier wound up after his compensation petition was processed.
In Post 166, I related to readers my ongoing endeavor to obtain German citizenship. The process is moving apace thanks to the assistance of an extraordinarily helpful staffer at the German Embassy in Los Angeles. I recently delivered the preliminary application and only require one additional certificate to complete my submission. For reasons I will explain below obtaining citizenship could take 18 months or more. The recovery of an unexpected document is a direct result of my ongoing efforts and is the subject of this post.
Based on my vague childhood recollections of my father’s attempt to obtain some measure of recompense for the loss of his dental practice in the Free City of Danzig during the era of the National Socialists, I would have expected an application to exist supporting his petition. I was just not sure where I might find it. However, I’m now in possession of my father’s 13-page compensation file he originally submitted in the 1950s to the then-Federal Republic of Germany. (Figure 1) The file was ordered by the staffer at the German Embassy from Saarburg, Germany, from an office I did not know existed. While alone insufficient to fulfill application requirements, it bolsters my petition. I will discuss some of the contents below.
Though not particularly revelatory in a broad sense, the petition pinpoints some of the chronological events in my father’s life providing a more nuanced understanding of their timing. The events are told firsthand in a matter of fact-style chronicling when they took place. However, they mask an undercurrent of extreme loss that leaves me almost 90 years later deeply saddened. It’s not what’s written but what’s implied about how my father’s life and by extension the lives of so many other Holocaust victims were extinguished or upended that reverberates to this day. Possibly because of the fragmented nature of our ongoing political discourse this seems even more relevant.
A related issue I’ve been grappling with is the question of success versus justice. Suffice it here to say that for most Holocaust victims or their descendants no amount of financial compensation, what could be construed as a “successful” outcome, can ever make up for the loss they suffered. Ergo, they can never obtain real justice. This is an existential question that merits further consideration outside of my blog. However, it’s a question I’ve been pondering in the context of my longstanding claim against the French Ministry of Culture to obtain compensation and repatriation for paintings confiscated by the Nazis from one of my father’s first cousins in December 1940. Notwithstanding the fact that I’m the closest surviving relative to my father’s cousin, because France has a civil law legal system, I’ve been denied the opportunity to obtain justice on behalf of my family. As my petition nears resolution, this will be the subject of an upcoming post.
Back to the subject of this post. As I proceed, I’ll describe a few of the documents attached to my father’s petition which shed further light on what I know. I need to emphasize that much of the new information about my father comes from a dry recitation of events, not from any detailed discussion about what my father thought or felt about these events. Still, reading between the lines conceals disappointment and resignation to his fate. In fact, growing up, my father often used the word “kismet,” which comes from the Arabic word “qisma” which literally means “to divide” or “allot.” As a practical matter “kismet” is used to describe something that happens by chance like it was meant to be.
One document in my father’s petition is titled “Lebenslauf” (Figure 2), translated as curriculum vitae. Most often, a curriculum vitae summarizes a job applicant’s qualifications from the standpoint of work experience, education, and skills. In terms of what my father includes, it harkens back to its original Latin meaning, “the course of one’s life.” My father, born in 1907 (Figure 3), indicates his schooling involved three years in elementary school followed by nine years in a Humanistic Grammar School. He passed his so-called “Abitur,” basically his high school-leaving examination, in 1926. Then, from 1926 to 1930, he studied dentistry at the universities of Berlin, Breslau [today: Wrocław, Poland], and Munich. He qualified to be a dentist on the 8th of May 1930. During 1930 and 1931, my father apprenticed, assisted, and temporarily filled in for dentists in Königsbrück, Berlin, Allenstein [today: Olsztyn, Poland], and Danzig [today: Gdańsk, Poland].
Let me digress for a moment. As implied above, the broad outline of my father’s life was previously known to me. Still, there are a few surprises. I was aware my father studied dentistry at the University of Berlin since I have his diploma from there, but it was a complete revelation that he studied at the universities of Breslau and Munich. His link to Breslau is less surprising given that the Bruck family had longstanding ties with this city, including the fact that my father’s older brother, Dr. Fedor Bruck, received his dental degree here. However, the fact that my father studied dentistry in Breslau makes me wonder whether he apprenticed with his renowned relative, Dr Walther Wolfgang Bruck (1872-1937) (Figure 4), dentist to Kaiser Wilhelm II, the last German Kaiser, his family, and other royalty. This would strongly suggest my father trained with a family member who was exceptionally skilled in his craft.
Munich and Breslau are about eight hours apart today by car. There is no indication how long my father studied in Munich, although this merits further investigation.
As far as the four places where my father apprenticed in 1930 and 1931, none are surprising. I have in my possession letters of recommendation from the respective dentists in Königsbrück (Figure 5) and Allenstein (Figure 6) commending my father on his exemplary work in their absence. Furthermore, since my father attended dental school in Berlin, then later lived in the Free City of Danzig, I would have expected he would have apprenticed in these places. In the case of Danzig, I even have a picture showing him there in his dental scrubs. (Figure 7)
Let me continue. I know from a note in my father’s surviving papers that he had his own dental practice in a town in the Free City of Danzig named Tiegenhof [today: Nowy Dwór Gdański, Poland] from April 1932 through April 1937; this town is approximately 40km (25 miles) east of Danzig. While it is technically accurate to say my father maintained an independent dental practice until April 1937, as a practical matter because of the Nazi imposed boycott of Jewish businesses, he’d ceased having patients by 1936.
My father’s compensation file includes another informative document, an “Eidesstattliche Erklaerung” (Figures 8a-b), translated as affidavit. Here my father writes that he sold his dental equipment and instruments at less than ten percent of their market value. To compound the affront, patients whom my father had treated before the boycott went into full effect stiffed him to the tune of what today amounts to many thousands of dollars.
One particularly intriguing document included with my father’s compensation application is titled “Fuhrungszeugnis,” a “Certificate of Good Conduct.” (Figure 9) It is dated the 28th of April 1937 from Tiegenhof, and signed by “Die Polizeivertbeltung,” Tiegenhof’s “Police Bureaucracy.” It gives the precise dates my father’s dental practice was in business, from the 14th of April 1932 until the 28th of April 1937. Why my father would have wanted such a document is completely understandable, though why authorities would have felt compelled to document his service when they no longer wanted it in Germany, or the Free City of Danzig is mystifying.
Following the sale of his dental equipment in Tiegenhof, my father moved to the city of Danzig in April 1937, where, in his own words, “he took over the representation of dental colleagues until March 1938.” I presume the anonymity of this larger city, where my father had multiple professional colleagues, allowed him to continue working for a while. This is like what my uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck did after he was forced to shutter his own dental practice in Liegnitz [today: Legnica, Poland] in Lower Silesia after Hitler came to power in January 1933. He moved to Berlin, working under the auspices of non-Jewish dentists until that too became impossible.
I’d always been uncertain where my father spent the period between April 1937 and March 1938. I mistakenly thought he might have joined his brother in Berlin, possibly working there. Based on photographs in his albums, however, I knew that by early March 1938 he’d permanently left Germany since photos show him transiting through Vienna, Austria following his departure. (Figure 10) He was headed to Fiesole, Italy, outside Florence, to join his sister and brother-in-law, who were then operating a bed-and-breakfast there.
What caused my father to leave Germany before Kristallnacht on 9-10 November 1938 is not entirely clear, though I have no doubt he clearly saw the handwriting on the wall. The absence of a wife and any children made his departure a relatively easy decision.
A stray sentence in the affidavit accompanying his compensation petition suggests my father may have had a plan. The two first cousins with whom my father was closest were Jeanne “Hansi” Löwenstein (Figure 11) and her brother Heinz Löwenstein. (Figure 12) Both were born in Danzig, and I strongly suspect that while doing his dental apprenticeship in Danzig in 1930-1931, he lived with his aunt, Hedwig Löwenstein, nee Bruck (Figure 13), and these two cousins. Following the death of her husband Rudolf Löwenstein in a plane crash on the 22nd of August 1930, subject of Post 71, Hedwig and the family moved to Nice, France, along France’s Côte d’Azur. The precise date of their move is unknown.
Following his departure from Germany, I don’t think my father ever permanently intended to stay in Fiesole, Italy. I think his intended destination at the time was Nice, France. My father writes in his affidavit that he was unable to obtain a work permit in France so finally enlisted in the French Foreign Legion in November 1938.
Suffice it here to say that as I learn more about France’s complicity with the Nazis during WWII, I never fail to get angry anew at France’s treatment of my father and his family before, during, and after the war. For me this still seems very relevant, particularly as France has fought for ten years since 2014 to retain paintings rendered by Fedor Löwenstein (older brother of Hansi and Heinz) confiscated by the Nazis in December 1940 in Bordeaux and stored in Paris since, the provenance of which was only uncovered in 2010. I digress.
Though of no particular interest to readers, the exact dates of my father’s engagements in the French Foreign Legion (FFL) and England’s Pioneer Corps are mentioned. My father was in the FFL (Figure 14) in Algeria from the 9th of November 1938 until the 9th of November 1943. He was in the English Army (Figure 15) from the 19th of November 1943 until the 5th of May 1946, thus for two years 224 days. I have a picture of my father in his English Army uniform with his comrades-in-arm, taken in September 1945 in Rome, Italy. (Figure 16) Appearing to be almost a farewell gathering, I mistakenly concluded that my father had been demobilized from the English Army in Rome. Contrary to my assumption, in his affidavit my father writes he was demobilized in Nice, France.
For readers interested in knowing what I’ve learned about my father’s time in Nice, I discussed this in Post 26. After his discharge from the English army, my father procured a permit to work as a dental technician but was unable to work as a dentist. Because he had no connections, he could barely make ends meet.
Other information of personal interest is the precise date my father left France, the 2nd of June 1948, and the exact date he landed in America, the 7th of June 1948. Having previously found my father’s naturalization card (Figure 17) on ancestry.com, I knew he became an American citizen through Court Order #7509013, dated the 19th of July 1955. Though both the “Bruck” and “Brook” names appear on the card, I’d never been sure if he changed his name upon landing in America in 1948 or upon becoming an American citizen. Well, as it turns out, my father changed his name to Gary Otto Brook in 1955.
The final document in my father’s compensation file I’ll discuss is titled “Staatsangehorigkeitsausweis.” (Figure 18) Issued in Berlin on the 22nd of November 1927, this is my father’s German nationality card. I have the original among my father’s surviving papers, and as implied above it bolsters my claim for German citizenship.
As to the restitution my father received for the loss of his dental practice and livelihood, it amounted to a pittance, approximately $2,500. in 1966. Unlike my uncle Fedor who miraculously survived the entire war hidden in Berlin, my father never received a regular pension from the German government.
Let me return to something I alluded to above, namely the reason for the lengthy delay in processing German citizenship applications. The explanation is rich. Because of the tragic events of October 7, 2023, in Israel, Israelis of German descent are applying in droves for German citizenship.
In closing, let me be clear that I don’t expect the above to be of much interest to readers. However, it highlights that occasionally one happens upon a primary source document related to one’s ancestors that fill in some gaps in one’s understanding of their lives. In my case, the recovery of my father’s compensation petition was a fortuitous outcome of my German citizenship application.
Note: In this post I discuss a collection of family photos I obtained from my second cousins in 2016, focusing on a few of historical significance and of personal interest.
In a post I have long intended to write, I discuss another collection of family ephemera, photos in this instance, I obtained in 2016 from my German second cousin, Margarita Vilgertshofer, née Bruck. This post harkens back and tiers off two posts I wrote that year, Posts 32 and 33. I refer readers to those earlier publications for the details describing how through a serious bit of detecting I was able to track down Margarita and her brother Antonio to Bavaria, Germany (Figure 1) though both were born in Barcelona, in Catalonia, Spain.
Through circumstances I’m still unclear about, a marginal insertion on Antonio’s 1946 birth certificate notes when and where he was married in the Federal Republic of Germany in 1982. (Figure 2) I’ve previously found vital certificates for ancestors where notations on where and when vital events in their lives, typically divorces, took place. What makes this notation so unique and inexplicable is that the birth certificate is from a municipal office in Spain, but the marriage took place in Germany. How and why this information was conveyed to Spain puzzles me.
In a similar vein, the most unusual case I’ve come across of vital data for an ancestor having been transmitted from one country to another is in the instance of one of my father’s first cousins, Heinz Loewenstein. I’ve written extensively about him. He was born in the Free City of Danzig in 1905, got married there in 1931, immigrated with his wife to Palestine in the 1930s, enlisted in the English Army’s Pioneer Corps, was captured during the Battle of Greece in 1941, escaped from German stalags multiple times but always recaptured, then eventually was liberated and returned to Palestine following WWII. He and his wife divorced in Palestine or Israel, and somehow this vital data was illegibly noted in the margin of his marriage certificate from a record presumably obtained by the Federal Republic of Germany (i.e., the Free State of Danzig ceased to exist following the start of WWII and Germany’s invasion of Poland and Danzig in 1939). (Figure 3) Knowing what meticulous record keepers the Germans are may explain why this information was recorded but how the Germans obtained it is the more curious question.
Returning to the subject at hand, I want to discuss several of the more unique pictures I found among my second cousin’s large collection of images. Knowing that perusing other families’ photos can be tedious, I will merely highlight a few of historic significance plus several of personal interest.
The most historically significant photo is one taken in Doorn, Netherlands showing Germany’s last Kaiser, Kaiser Wilhelm II. (Figure 4) The circumstances that resulted in the Kaiser being in Doorn is that following Germany’s defeat during WWI, he abdicated the German throne and went into exile in the Netherlands. The picture includes the Kaiser’s second wife, Empress Hermine of Germany (née Reuß zu Greiz), her daughter by her first marriage, and his retinue in exile. In the center of this group is an unidentified Bruck family member. This photograph was the subject of Post 65, and at the time I wrote that post I had no idea who the family member was.
I only learned the identity of the ancestor by marriage when I obtained a captioned copy of the identical photo from an altogether different source. I discussed this in Post 100. (Figure 5) Johanna Elisabeth Margarethe Gräbsch (1884-1963), the second wife of my accomplished Bruck relative from Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland], Dr. Walther Wolfgang Bruck (1872-1937), is standing amidst Kaiser Wilhelm II and his entourage. Dr. Bruck was the Kaiser’s wife’s dentist and likely also the Kaiser’s dentist. How precisely this worked with the Kaiser being in Berlin, later in Doorn, and Dr. Bruck being in Breslau is unclear.
Another historically noteworthy photo shows the Duchess Cecilie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (Figure 6) in the flower school of my great-aunt Franziska Bruck (1866-1942) (Figure 7) in Berlin when she visited it on the 15th of October 1915. The Duchess was the last German Crown Princess and Crown Princess of Prussia as the wife of Wilhelm, German Crown Prince, the son of Wilhelm II. My great aunt Franziska wrote two books featuring the elegant Ikebana-style floral wreaths and bouquets she specialized in, and, according to family lore, is reputed to have put together floral arrangements for the royal family.
Another photo among my cousin’s photo array, which crosses the line between historically noteworthy and personally interesting, shows Margarita’s mother working in Franziska’s flower school and shop in Berlin. (Figure 8) While I knew from her wedding certificate that my beloved Aunt Susanne, later murdered in Auschwitz, had been a managing director in Franziska’s flower shop, I’d never known any other family members who’d worked there.
In any case, the photos discussed above document my family’s personal relationship with Germany’s last royal family.
Further evidence of the Kaiser’s wife’s connection to my Bruck family can be found in Dr. Bruck’s Breslau house guest book, a scan of which I have, which she signed when she visited him in Breslau on the 23rd of April 1923 (Figures 9a-b), presumably to have her teeth worked on. Yet more evidence of the two families’ bond can be found in a signed children’s book that Princess Hermine Reuß gave to Dr. Bruck and his wife upon the birth of their second daughter Renate (Figures 10a-b). Their first daughter Hermine, named after the Princess, unfortunately died shortly after her birth.
My cousin Margarita’s photo collection includes some unique photos of family members. One of the most unusual is of my uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck (1895-1982) in his WWI military attire. (Figure 11) My uncle Fedor has been the subject of a few posts (see Posts 17 & 31) for several reasons. Firstly, he was one of around only 5,000 Jews who survived in Germany during WWII. Secondly, he was assigned to Hitler’s dentist’s surviving dental office following the war. Thirdly, because of his pre-war friendship with one of Hitler’s dentist’s dental assistants, he had knowledge of Hitler’s fate at the end of the war. Warned by the Americans this knowledge could get him kidnapped by the Russians, he fled Berlin. For their part, the Russians were anxious to uphold the specter of Hitler as a surviving “boogeyman” who could return at any moment to again terrorize the world. The photo of my uncle in his military uniform was taken in a studio, though I know from a surviving postcard that during WWI my uncle was based on the Eastern Front in what is today the Ukraine which was then part of Russia.
A brief related anecdote. My uncle’s wife, Verena Brook, née Dick (1920-2007), was 25 years his junior. Upon my uncle’s death in 1982, my aunt offered me some of my uncle’s memorabilia. One of the more unusual items she offered, which in retrospect I should have accepted, was the section of my uncle’s WWI uniform he’d cut out where a bullet had penetrated and he’d been wounded. I suspect I could have used this for DNA analysis.
Moving on to other unique family photos.
One photo I particularly fancy shows Margarita and Antonio’s grandfather, my great uncle Wilhelm Bruck (1872-1952) in 1889. He is standing alongside a so-called Penny-farthing, an early type of bicycle. (Figure 12) It was popular during the 1870s and 1880s, with its large front wheel that provided for high speeds on account of it traveling a large distance for every rotation of the wheel. Because the bicycle had solid rubber tires the only shock absorption was in the saddle.
In multiple earlier posts, I’ve discussed the hotel, the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel, my family owned in Ratibor [today: Raciborz, Poland] for three generations, from roughly 1850 to around 1925. Several historic photos showing a partial view of the hotel, then located on Oderstrasse, exist. However, among my cousin’s collection is the only known photo of the front entrance of the family establishment. (Figure 13)
The Bruck’s hotel was originally purchased by Samuel Bruck (1808-1863), my great-great grandfather. The second-generation owner of the hotel was Fedor Bruck, my great-grandfather after whom my uncle Fedor Bruck was named. Though I previously had a picture of my great-grandfather, two additional photos of him survive in Margarita’s albums, including one in which he is most fashionably dressed in the finest attire of the day. (Figure 14)
Many years ago before I started doing ancestral research I visited the Mormon Church’s FamilySearch Library in Salt Lake City. Archived in the library’s stacks was a pretentiously titled book on my family, entitled “A Thousand Year History of the Bruck Family.” I’ve subsequently obtained a more mundanely named copy, “The Bruck Family: A Historical Sketch.” The book was written by Alfred Julius Bruck, who’d anglicized his name to “Brook” upon his arrival in England. Included in Margarita’s photos is one of Alfred Bruck and his wife, Rosie. (Figure 15) Other pictures confirm they visited Margarita and her family in Munich.
Expectedly there are many pictures of Margarita’s family within her collection, many of them very endearing. (Figure 16) The circumstances that led Margarita and her brother Antonio to having been born in Spain is because her grandfather, Wilhelm Bruck, worked in Spain in the early 20th century on the installation of the first electric lines in Barcelona. While he would return to Germany following the completion of his contractual obligations, following Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, his connections in Spain permitted him to immigrate there. Additionally, both of Wilhelm & Antonie Bruck’s two children, Edgar and Eva (Figure 17), were born there so retained Spanish citizenship.
There is an intriguing picture that speaks to the aristocratic lifestyle my great aunt and uncle led in Spain showing Edgar being fed by a wetnurse. (Figure 18) During their residence in Barcelona, Wilhelm and Antonie appear to have lived in Tibidabo, the highest neighborhood in the city. (Figure 19)
Intriguingly there are a few pictures of my immediate family among Margarita’s photos I was previously aware of. One is a cabinet card of my uncle Fedor, my aunt Susanne, and my father Otto as children. (Figure 20) Another is my aunt Susanne and her two cousins, Edgar and Eva, along with a group of other actors who performed together. (Figure 21)
A riveting picture in the collection, reflective of the horrific toll of WWI, was presumably taken at a recuperative center after the war. (Figure 22) Besides medical staff, it presumably shows wounded soldiers who had one of their limbs amputated. Since I recognize no one in the photo I’m uncertain why this picture is in Margarita’s collection.
Note: In this post, I use a passage from the diary of one of my distant Bruck relatives to examine the foundations of liberal and nationalist student fraternities founded in Germany, Austria, and Chile during the 19th century, and the historic and social context behind their development.
I’ve periodically written about family ephemera I’ve accessed through near or distant relatives, most recently in Post 167 where I discussed copies of photographs I obtained from my fourth cousin Tom Brook that he inherited from his father Casper Bruck (i.e., the Bruck surname was anglicized upon our families’ respective arrivals in England and America). Often these keepsakes and souvenirs offer fascinating glimpses into the past and provide visual images of family members who were at times involved in extraordinary historical adventures or tragic events. And occasionally, I even recognize a physical resemblance or attribute passed down through the generations. I’ve spent a considerable amount of time over the years scrutinizing old photographs looking for elusive clues hidden in these pictures; sometimes I even learn things from what’s not in the images.
Let me provide some context for the current post, which also involves some family memorabilia, in this instance a family diary. Honestly, nothing beats a detailed memoir for a peek into people who populate one’s ancestral tree. Though by no means unique to my family nor universally true, the resolute moral fiber some of my ancestors exhibited, as reflected in their stories, stands in stark contrast to what I see around me today.
The diary or memoir in question was written in German by Bertha Jacobson, née Bruck (1873-1957) (Figure 1), for her granddaughter, Maria Jacobson (1933-2022). Bertha was my second cousin two times removed and Maria was my fourth cousin. While irrelevant, Bertha’s birth and death years correspond precisely with the birth and death years of my own grandmother, Else Bruck, née Berliner (1873-1957). Regrettably, my own grandmother left me no such memoir. Then again, Bertha was much closer to Maria than I was to my grandmother, who also survived the Holocaust and eventually made her way to America. Upon Maria’s parents’ departure from Berlin, Maria was left in the temporary care of her grandmother there, both of whom ultimately escaped and made their way to America via Cuba.
Maria discovered her grandmother’s memoir when she was cleaning out her aunt’s cluttered apartment following her aunt’s death. Amidst the disarray, Maria was lucky to stumble on the diary. I knew Maria (Figure 2) and was aware of her grandmother’s diary. Because it is typewritten in German, which I don’t speak, and because Maria regularly remarked how challenging it was to decipher and comprehend the marginal and inserted handwritten notes and who precisely was being discussed, I never requested a copy. Regardless, shortly before her death Maria donated the diary to the Leo Baeck Institute (LBI) in New York, along with other family papers.
Fast forward. Within the last year, Helen Winter, née Renshaw (Figure 3), another of my fourth cousins, living in Wolverhampton, England, contacted me through my blog. I’ve discussed her in multiple recent posts. Upon determining Helen is more closely related to Maria and Bertha than me, I mentioned to her in passing Bertha’s memoir. Uncertain as to the conditions under which Maria had donated the diary to the LBI, given Maria’s proclivity towards privacy in matters of family, I suggested Helen might want to check with them as to its accessibility. As it turns out, the memoir was publicly available and Helen was able to obtain a copy. Ever since, Helen has been involved in the challenging task of translating the document.
Some brief background about Helen. She is a retired lawyer, living as mentioned in England. Helen continues to be involved in some legal work but has a passion for studying and writing about our mutual ancestors relying in large part on her vast collection of family ephemera. Beyond having a large body of materials to draw upon, Helen understands German. Her grandfather once suggested she should become a translator, at which in my humble opinion she would have been excellent, though it was suggested more disparagingly in the vein that this was “a suitable job for a woman.” Suffice it to say Helen is doing an amazing job deciphering Bertha’s memoir. Thanks to her decryption, I’m discovering things about our ancestors I never had any expectation of and learning about some aspects of European history I knew little or nothing about.
To reiterate something I’ve periodically emphasized. I make no claim that my lineage is any more exceptional than those of readers, only that my family’s surviving documents, photos, etc. provide an opportunity to investigate my ancestors and more importantly examine the social and historical context in which they lived. Naturally, this transcends my own family and might be of passing interest to people who are unrelated to me.
I recall more than ten years ago giving a translated talk at the museum in Nowy Dwór Gdański, Poland (German: Tiegenhof), the town formerly in the Free City of Danzig where my father had his dental practice between 1932 and 1937. A Jewish audience member was astonished that seven albums of my father’s photos survive when, but a few scant pictures of his ancestors exist. This is typical among descendants of Jewish victims or survivors of the Holocaust. My father’s pictures have provided me with a trove of individuals and topics to study.
As Helen progresses in her translation, I will periodically discuss parts that are of passing interest. Before beginning, let me provide some temporal context as to the estimated date of the diary. While Bertha Bruck does not state when she started writing her memoirs, she provides one telling clue. She mentions her husband’s sister, Martha Jacobson, née Zamorÿ, born on the 15th of June 1852, saying she was 84 and in ill health at the time, suggesting she suffered from dementia; Bertha remarked she hoped not to wind up like her. Chronologically, this would suggest she started writing the memoir in around 1936. One ancestry.com reference, however, places Martha’s death circa 1935, so possibly Bertha erred as to her sister-in-law’s age. Regardless, the memoir was likely begun in 1935 or 1936 following Hitler’s rise to power in Germany in 1933 and before Bertha’s escape to America.
The passage that is the focus of this post opens the door to discussing the origin of so-called “Burschenschaften,” liberal and nationalist student fraternities founded in Germany, Austria, and, of all places, Chile in the 19th century; all I’ll say about the connection of these fraternities to Chile is it’s due to the German cultural influence in the country at the time.
The relevant quotation from Bertha’s memoir relates to Bertha’s grandfather and Helen’s great-great-grandfather, Jonas Bruck (1843-1911) (Figure 4), our nearest common relative. I’ve previously written about Jonas. Because of the cataclysmic and destructive events associated with WWII and the ensuing Communist era, there are few tombs of my Jewish ancestors that survive, that of Jonas and his accomplished son, Dr. Julius Bruck, being exceptions. Both Jonas and Julius along with their respective wives are entombed in Wrocław, Poland (German: Breslau) in a restored monument in the former Jewish cemetery. (Figure 5)
“With regard to those champagne lunches with the grandparents, I remember Grandfather’s conversation, which was so lively, and almost uninterrupted. I clearly remember one story. In about the year 1831, Grandfather went to Jena, as a young student. The first place one had to go was Weimar. When the crowd of young students appeared before his house on Frauenplan [Square], Goethe had already undressed. However, he came to the window—and he had attached a row of medals to his woolen nightshirt. That the man of the greatest intellect and highest art in the country should be motivated, at all, by the human littleness of earthly vanity, is such a thing as the most understanding person can hardly speak of it; his contemporary and very congenial friend, Wilhelm von Humboldt, speaks regretfully in his letters to his wife of Goethe’s ‘little weakness.’ It distressed Humboldt on behalf of this great man who was his friend, that he had asked him to obtain an order for him. While this is certainly not part of my own memories, but, because I foresee that my descendants will probably not be able to provide themselves with German education, I mention Humboldt. From his wise standing above [material] things, from his ability to, very quickly, derive a standpoint beyond the individual’s, from his personal experience. I have so often derived consolation and peace—at a great distance, of course! I hope that, if my descendants, also go into scientific oursuits, they may also still retain understanding/appreciation of the world of Goethe, Humboldt, and others, men who could only possibly have originated from Germany. It’s for this reason I have made this digression.”
There’s a lot to unpack in this brief recollection. Without Helen’s intercession, who is better versed in Prussian and German history, some aspects of Bertha’s diary would be difficult for me to make sense of.
Jonas Bruck’s visit to Jena appears to have been related to the fact that, like his sons, he was a Burschenschaftler, a member of a Studentenverbindungen, traditional student associations called Burschenschaften. The very first one, the so-called Urburschenschaft (“original Burschenschaft”), was founded on 12 June 1815 at Jena. Ergo, Jonas’ visit to the founding city.
Burschenschaften student organizations started as an expression of the new nationalism prevalent in post-Napoleonic Europe after the Napoleonic Wars of 1803 to 1815. Prussia, the largest of the Germanic states, had been significantly embarrassed during the Napoleonic era, particularly after the disastrous Battle of Jena-Auerstedt in 1806, where their army was decisively defeated by Napoleon. This led to major territorial losses and a humiliating peace treaty that left them severely weakened and under French influence; this event exposed Prussia’s military inadequacies and forced them to undergo significant reforms to regain their standing on the European stage.
Following its founding in 1815 at the University of Jena, the Burschenschaft movement spread all over Germany. The early student groups were egalitarian and liberal and favored the political unification of Germany. A significant number of the Burschenschaften’s early members were students who had taken part in the German wars of liberation against the Napoleonic occupation of Germany.
The Burschenschaften participated in student demonstrations at the Wartburg Festival in October 1817, which was followed in March 1819 by the assassination of August von Kotzebue, a German writer who served the Russian tsar, by the nationalistic Burschenschaftler Karl Sand. These events sufficiently alarmed the major German states for them to pass the Carlsbad Decrees in 1819, which effectively provided for the suppression of the Burschenschaften.
The states represented at the meeting in Carlsbad were Austria, Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, Mecklenburg, Hanover, Wurttemberg, Nassau, Baden, Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, and electoral Hesse. The occasion of the meeting was the desire of the Austrian foreign minister Klemens, Prince von Metternich, to take advantage of the concern of the recent revolutionary events, particularly the murder of August Kotzebue, to persuade the German governments to jointly suppress the liberal and nationalistic tendencies within their states.
Following passage of the Carlsbad Decrees, the clubs went underground until 1848, when they actively participated in the German Revolution. The latter resulted in the short-lived German Empire (1848-1849), the ultimately failed proto state which attempted to unify the German states within the German Confederation to create a German nation-state.
As an aside, the German Empire of 1848-1849 is not to be confused with the German nation-state that existed from 1871 to 1918. The latter, also referred to as Imperial Germany, the Second Reich, or simply Germany, was the German Reich that lasted from the unification of Germany in 1871 until the November Revolution in 1918. It’s ending following the defeat of Imperial Germany in WWI marked the change in the form of government from a monarchy to a republic.
The Burschenschaften’s motto was “Ehre, Freiheit, Vaterland,” or “Honor, Freedom, Fatherland.” As mentioned, its goals included the political unification of Germany; the abolishment of Germany’s smaller states; improving student life; and increasing patriotism. After the establishment of the German Empire in 1871, the student associations faced a crisis, as their main political objective had been realized to some extent, namely, German unification.
In the 1880s, a renaissance movement, Reformburschenschaften, arose and many new Burschenschaften were founded. It was also during this time until the 1890s when the members turned increasingly anti-Semitic with many believing that Jews hampered the unification of Germany. Some members resigned in protest following the adoption at an Eisenach meeting declaring that Burschenschaft “have no Jewish members and do not plan to have any in the future.”
It is fascinating that the German nationalism of 1848 that was based upon liberal values changed during the German Empire (1871-1918) into German nationalism based upon Prussian authoritarianism, Prussia being the largest and most dominant of the former German states. Their supporters were conservative, reactionary, anti-Catholic, anti-liberal, anti-socialist, and anti-Semitic in nature.
The Reformburschenschaften were dissolved by the Nazi regime in 1935/36. In West Germany, the Burschenschaften were re-established in the 1950s but no longer played a significant role in German politics. The Burschenschaften faced a renewed crisis in the 1960s and 1970s as the German student movement of that period trended more towards the left. Today, about 160 Burschenschaften exist in Germany, Austria, and Chile that range from progressive to nationalistic.
Bertha mentions that Jonas Bruck and his fellow Burschenschaftler showed up outside the home of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), who lived in Weimar and was by then an elderly man. Weimar is only about 23 miles from Jena, and visiting Goethe’s hometown was likely to be a necessary pilgrimage point for students. Both Jena and Weimar were once part of the Duchy of Saxe-Weimar (Figure 6) and are today located in the German state of Thuringia. (Figure 7)
Goethe is considered to have been a “polymath,” an individual whose knowledge spans many different subjects, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific problems. In American history Benjamin Franklin is considered one of the foremost polymaths because he was a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, and political philosopher, as well as one of the Founding Fathers.
Goethe is widely regarded as the greatest and most influential writer in the German language. His work has had a profound and wide-ranging influence on Western literary, political, and philosophical thought from the late 18th century to the present day. It’s very telling that Bertha Bruck digressed to acknowledge Goethe and his friend, Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835), German philosopher and linguist, and opine that they could only have originated in Germany and express the hope that her descendants would retain an appreciation and understanding of their world.
Absurdly, as I was reading Bertha’s telling of Goethe showing up at his window in a nightshirt, I couldn’t dispel the image of Ebenezer Scrooge wearing his night garment being visited by the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and yet to come. Regardless, this passage also caught my attention because of the further absurdity of Goethe appearing at his window wearing his nightshirt bedecked with a sash of medals and awards. According to Bertha’s retelling, Humboldt was embarrassed on behalf of his friend that he had once asked him to obtain an unearned Austrian medal for him.
I forwarded this section of Bertha’s memoirs to my doctor friend from Köpenick, Berlin, Dr. Tilo Wahl (Figure 8), whom I introduced to readers in Post 99 and whose interest in so-called “phaleristics” I discussed there. This is an auxiliary science of history and numismatics which studies orders, fraternities, and award items, such as medals, ribbons, and other decorations. I thought Tilo might be interested that the famous Goethe too was interested in these. Tilo responded telling me that it was well known that Goethe had an interest in orders and medals. He was apparently involved in designing the Saxe-Weimar house order, the “vom Weißen Falken” (white falcon). (Figure 9) The first examples were made by jewelers in Goethe’s hometown of Frankfurt. He was also a great collector of coins.
I mentioned above that at least one of Jonas Bruck’s sons, Friedrich Felix Bruck (1843-1911), was also a Burschenschaftler. If the name sounds familiar it’s because he was Tom Brook’s great-grandfather whom I discussed in Post 167. I also previously wrote that Helen possesses a large collection of family ephemera. This includes a 25th anniversary yearbook, so to speak, covering 1848 to 1873, of a student association Friedrich Felix Bruck was a member of in Breslau [today: Wrocław, Poland] called “Arminia.” (Figure 10) The expensively produced printing includes photos of all its presumed members, including Felix Bruck (Figure 11), sporting a delightful assortment of smoking and Baker boy caps and a handsome array of whiskers.
Helen delved into the derivation of the name of Felix’s student association since the only reference I could find to “Arminia” was to Jacobus Arminius (1560-1609); the latter was a Dutch Reformed minister and theologian during the Protestant Reformation period whose views became the basis of Arminianism and the Dutch Remonstrant movement. He is not, however, the source name of Felix’s student association.
As Helen explained, many nationalistic student associations in Germany took the name “Arminius,” sometimes translated as “Hermann.” This was in honor of Arminius, a Germanic warrior chieftain of the so-called Cherusci, a Germanic tribe inhabiting the northwestern German plains and forests in the Weser River area. During the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 A.D., also called the Varus Disaster, today located in the German state of Lower Saxony in northwestern Germany (see Figure 7, “Nedersachsen”), Arminius led an alliance of German tribes that ambushed three Roman legions led by Publius Quinctilius Varus and his auxiliaries. What allowed Arminius to methodically outfox the Romans and anticipate their tactical response during the Battle was that he had received a Roman military education on account of his Roman citizenship. In any case, in the 19th century Arminius was seen as a hero of Germanic independence, and since the inception of the Burschenschaften student associations in 1815 they were called “Arminian.”
Followers will have observed a noticeable drift in this post away from Bertha Bruck’s actual words to an examination of the historical and social context in which my ancestors lived. I’ve concluded this may be of broader interest to readers.
REFERENCES
Arminia. (2021 April 17). In German Wikipedia.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arminia
Arminius. (2025 January 6) In Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arminius
Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. (2024 December 29) In Wikipedia.
Note: This post is inspired by a German action-thriller I recently streamed on Netflix in which the Zentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde cemetery in the eastern part of Berlin is shown; this is where one of my great aunts happens to be buried. Investigating further, I learned a little about the importance of this cemetery in the former German Democratic Republic or East Germany and some of the important socialist and communist personages interred here.
I recently finished streaming a German action-thriller comedy series entitled “Kleo.” It follows the revenge journey of a former East German Stasi assassin named Kleo Straub. According to the storyline, in 1987, after successfully assassinating a double agent in a West Berlin club, Kleo is falsely imprisoned for treason by her agency. When she is released after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, she plans her revenge on the conspirators who framed her, using her considerable skills as a trained assassin.
While the story is not true, it is based on real history. Fundamentally, it is historical fiction, with artistic license used to embellish real figures, politics, and history. To provide an authentic setting for the spy show, the show was filmed in different locations in Germany and Serbia.
As I will further explain, one scene in an episode of the first season was filmed in the former eastern part of Berlin and was immediately recognizable to me. This was very surprising since I claim no specific or even general knowledge of the geographic layout of Berlin, notwithstanding my family’s deeply rooted connection to this city but particularly because the landscape has been vastly altered from prewar times due to heavy Allied bombing during the war.
One historic personality who figures as a major antagonist in the first season is Erich Mielke (1907-2000). Mielke was a German communist official who served as head of the East German Ministry for State Security (Ministerium für Staatsicherheit – MfS), better known as the Stasi, from 1957 until shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Dubbed “The Master of Fear” (German: der Meister der Angst) by the West German press, Mielke was one of the most powerful and most hated men in East Germany.
Wikipedia describes his role following his return to Germany from the Soviet Union after WWII as follows: “Following the end of World War II in 1945, Mielke returned to the Soviet Zone of Occupied Germany, which he helped organize into a Marxist–Leninist satellite state under the Socialist Unity Party (SED). The Stasi under Mielke has been called by historian Edward Peterson the ‘most pervasive police state apparatus ever to exist on German soil.’ During the 1950s and 1960s, Mielke led the process of forcibly forming collectivized farms from East Germany’s family-owned farms, which sent a flood of refugees to West Germany. In response, Mielke oversaw the 1961 construction of the Berlin Wall and co-signed standing orders for the Border Guards to use lethal force against all East Germans who attempted to commit ‘desertion of the Republic’.”
Wikipedia goes on to further describe his fate following German reunification: “After German reunification in 1990, Mielke was prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned for the 1931 policemen’s murders. A second murder trial for the 260 killings of defectors at the Inner German border was adjourned after Mielke was ruled not mentally competent to stand trial. Mielke was also charged, but never tried, with ordering two 1981 terrorist attacks by the Baader-Meinhof Group against United States military personnel in West Germany. Released from incarceration early due to ill health and senile dementia in 1995, Mielke died in a Berlin nursing home in 2000.”
According to the plot line in the German action-thriller, Kleo, suspecting Mielke, the former head of the Stasi, of a role in her indictment on treason cleverly orchestrates the now-imprisoned chief’s poisoning in Season 1, Episode 4. Her intent is not to kill him, but rather have him transported to a hospital where she can implausibly infiltrate the hospital, disguise herself as a nurse, and interrogate him. Suffice it to say, things go awry, and she winds up killing Mielke.
In Episode 6, Mielke’s State funeral takes place at the realZentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde cemetery in the eastern part of Berlin, and is presided over by another historic personality, Erich Honecker’s wife, Margot Honecker (1927-2016). Mielke is, in fact, buried in the Zentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde.
Erich Honecker (1912-1989) was a real German communist politician who led the German Democratic Republic, East Germany, from 1971 until shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989. He was the General Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) and Chairman of the National Defence Council; in 1976, he became Chairman of the State Council, the official head of state. As leader of East Germany, Honecker was viewed as a dictator. During his leadership, the country had close ties with the Soviet Union, which maintained a large army in the country.
As Cold War tensions eased in the late 1980s with the advent of perestroika and glasnost, the liberal reforms introduced by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, Honecker refused to make any fundamental changes to the East German political system. He continued to maintain a hardline attitude modeled on the inflexible regimes of North Korea, Cuba, and Romania. Honecker was eventually forced to resign by the SED Politburo in October 1989 to improve the government’s public image, an effort that ultimately failed and resulted in the collapse of the entire regime the following month.
Following German reunification in 1990, Honecker sought asylum in the Chilean Embassy in Moscow, but was extradited back to Germany in 1992, after the fall of the Soviet Union, to stand trial for human rights abuses in East Germany. Suffering from terminal liver cancer, however, the trial was abandoned, and Honecker was allowed to rejoin his family in exile in Chile, where he died in May 1994. Honecker is buried in the central cemetery in Santiago, not in the Zentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde in Berlin.
A brief digression for context as to why I’m writing this post. My father customarily referred to family and acquaintances using sobriquets, often slightly pejorative ones. In French, the language we spoke at home when I was growing up, he called one of his aunts living in East Berlin during the Cold War “la Communiste,” the Communist. I never met her. I can no longer recall exactly when I learned her real name was Elsbeth Bruck (1874-1970) (Figure 1), but I probably heard it from my German now-deceased older first cousin. This may also have coincided with when I learned that her surviving personal papers are archived at the Stadtmuseum in Spandau. (Figure 2) I discussed in Post 15 having visited and photographed Elsbeth’s personal papers (Figure 3) in 2014. I visited her tomb in 2012, located in none other than the Zentralfriedhof Friedrichfelde (Figure 3) in the Lichtenberg borough of Berlin. (Figure 4)
Let me provide some brief history about this cemetery. Beginning in 1900, with the burial of Wilhelm Liebknecht, founder of the Socialist Democratic Party (SPD), the cemetery became the resting place for many of the leaders and activists of Germany’s social democratic, socialist and communist movements. In 1919, the coffins of Karl Liebknecht (son of Wilhelm Liebknecht) and Rosa Luxemburg, co-founders of the Communist Party of Germany, were buried in a mass grave in a remote section of the cemetery.
Notwithstanding a 2009 Charité autopsy report casting doubt on whether Rosa Luxemberg’s remains were ever buried there, to this day a grave commemorating her and nine other foremost socialist leaders surrounds the central garden roundel at the cemetery. The Charité, incidentally, is Europe’s largest university hospital, affiliated with Humboldt University and the Free University of Berlin. And Humboldt University it so happens is where my uncle Professor Dr. Franz Müller (Figure 5), husband of my aunt Suzanne Müller, nee Bruck, murdered in Auschwitz, taught until the Nazis came to power in 1933 and revoked his teaching credentials.
The so-called “Monument to the Revolution” was erected in front of the mass grave where the coffins of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg had been interred in 1919. It was destroyed by the National Socialists in January 1935. The division of Berlin following the Second World War caused the cemetery to be within the borders of East Berlin, where it was used to bury East German (GDR) leaders.
The current “Memorial to the Socialists” (German: Gedenkstätte der Sozialisten) was inaugurated in 1951. Although located some distance from the site once occupied by the 1926 Monument to the Revolution, the 1951 memorial was planned as its “moral successor” and as the central memorial site for East Germany’s Socialists, Communists and anti-fascist fighters.
The 1951 Memorial to the Socialists consists of a central garden roundel (Figure 6) surrounded by a semi-circular brick wall. (Figure 7) The central garden roundel is dominated by a porphyry stele or obelisk with the words Die Toten mahnen uns (English: The dead remind us), which is surrounded by 10 graves commemorating foremost socialist leaders, including Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. (Figure 8) Set into the semi-circular brick wall are gravestones and niches with the urns of distinguished Socialists and Communists, as well as a large red marble tablet bearing the names of 327 men and women who gave their lives in the cause of fighting the National Socialists between 1933 and 1945.
Of more personal interest is the area immediately behind the semi-circular brick wall of the Memorial to the Socialists, referred to as the Pergolenweg Ehrengraben (i.e. “tombs of honor”) section of the cemetery. Here are buried the urns of Socialists, Communists and anti-fascist fighters of merit who were considered distinguished enough by the Politburo of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany to rest in the vicinity of the foremost party leaders yet not as eminent as to entitle them to a grave in the Memorial to the Socialists itself. Until 1989, decisions whether a person should be buried in the Memorial to the Socialists or the adjacent Pergolenweg section of the cemetery rested solely with the Politburo of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, and many honored this way were also given a state funeral.
Previously unknown to me is that my great-aunt Elsbeth Bruck’s headstone is in the Pergolenweg section of the Zentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde. (Figure 9) My great-aunt’s placement in this section of the cemetery confirms what I already knew about her, namely, that Elsbeth was a very high-ranking apparatchik in the former GDR government, that’s to say, a prominent member of the Communist Party apparat or administrative system. Whether she was given a state funeral upon her death in 1970 is unknown to me.
Another thing that attests to the high esteem with which Elsbeth was regarded within the former GDR is an award she received. She was given the “Vaterländischer Verdienstorden in Silber,” the “Patriotic Order of Merit in Silver,” for “special services to the state and to the society.” This order survives with Elsbeth’s personal papers at the Stadtmuseum in Spandau. (Figure 10)
Fascinatingly, people buried in the Pergolenweg section could also have the urns of up to three family members buried with them. Amusingly, all this makes me wonder whether I could be buried alongside my great aunt. I presume this tradition ended with the demise of the GDR but it’s still entertaining to contemplate.
REFERENCES
Zentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde: Der Pergolenweg. Gedenkstatte der Sozialisten, Table 12. Tafel 12
Note: In this post, I discuss the contents of a collection of photographs shared with me by one of my fourth cousins, Tom Brook. They shed light on some of our mutual ancestors and give a unique glimpse into his father’s WWII deployments, primarily in Egypt, Libya, and India.
Periodically a relative or acquaintance will share with me their collection of family photos or memorabilia. Acknowledging that some readers will consider this akin to a friend inflicting their vacation photos on you, to me this is like a treasure hunt particularly when the pictures are unlabeled and I’m able to identify the subjects through logical deduction or by comparison to labeled images. Frequently, knowing the owner’s ancestral lineage helps; if they’re related to me, I’m often able to identify their ancestors because of my familiarity with our family tree.
On other occasions, the photo collections provide historic glimpses of well-known events or places or, alternatively, off-the-beat locations. It is worth remembering that World War II was a global conflict that took soldiers to often remote spots around the world. In the case of my own father’s surviving photos of his time in the French Foreign Legion while stationed in North Africa, mostly in Algeria, I’ve been told they’re unique. I would say the same regarding the collection I’m about to discuss.
My wife Ann and I recently traveled to New York to meet my fourth cousin Tom Brook and his husband Sam Wahl. (Figure 1) Beyond the fact we’d never previously met, and I was curious to make their acquaintance, Tom had mentioned his father Casper Bruck’s album of photos which he’d expressed an interest in showing me. This is an assemblage I was particularly intrigued to peruse given his family’s connection to Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] where multiple of my own ancestors also hail from. Some of our most accomplished mutual ancestors come from Breslau, several of whom are buried in the still-existing Old Jewish Cemetery [Polish: Stary Cmentarz Żydowski we Wrocławiu]. (Figure 2) Relevantly, both of our families changed their surname to “Brook” upon their arrival in Anglo-Saxon countries.
I previously introduced Tom Brook to readers in Post 143 when I discussed his role as one of the first reporters on the scene after John Lennon was shot in December 1980 outside The Dakota Building on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, an event he is invariably asked about on milestone anniversaries of this tragic event. Like then, Tom still works for the BBC as the host of a weekly show called “Talking Movies,” where he reviews new releases and interviews actors.
Like other cousins I’ve discovered around the world, Tom found me through my blog when he asked if we are related. As I happened to have him in my ancestral tree, though with no details, I explained we are fourth cousins. Serendipitously, I was more recently contacted by Tom’s second cousin from Wolverhampton, England, Helen Winter, née Renshaw (Figure 3), whom I’ve previously mentioned to readers as the source of lots of family ephemera. While Helen and Tom have never linked up, Helen’s older sister Anna Renshaw clearly recalls meeting him as a child in England where both grew up. As further evidence of my ancestral connection to Tom, my fourth cousin twins (Figure 4) from Sydney, Australia, also born in England, whom I mirthfully refer to as “my movie star cousins,” are Tom’s third cousins.
In any case, during our recent encounter in New York Tom showed me his father’s photo album along with an unusually decorated cigar box that belonged to one of his ancestors, likely his great-grandfather (Figure 5); a little more on this box below. Tom allowed me to borrow the album so I could duplicate the photographs for later study. This has been invaluable because with Helen Winter’s help, together we’ve managed to identify the subjects in a few images that Tom specifically wondered about. Also, photos detailing Casper Bruck’s deployment during the war capture rare images of a few places that are today household names.
In this post, I’ll discuss a few family photos but will mostly highlight places where Casper was deployed during the war; I think this will be of broader interest to my audience. These images provide an opportunity to discuss what was going on in the war and its immediate aftermath at the time Casper took his photographs.
Given that the album belonged to Tom’s father, not unexpectedly, most images show Casper and his immediate family at various stages of their lives. In terms of family photos, I’ll address mostly those whose subjects were unknown to Tom.
One of the oldest photos in Tom’s collection is an undated Daguerreotype-like image of a youngish man with three children (Figure 6); as readers can make out, the figures are darkly illuminated. Helen Winter and I were able to determine this is Tom’s great-grandfather, Felix Friedrich Bruck (1843-1911) and his three children, Eberhard Friedrich Bruck (1877-1960), Margot Giles, née Bruck (1879-1949), and Werner Friedrich August Bruck (1880-1945). Eberhard Bruck and Werner Bruck are, respectively, Helen Winter and Tom Brook’s grandfathers as young children. Margot, the only daughter, is distinguishable because she is holding a doll. A later photo dated 1930 shows Eberhard Bruck and his daughter, also named Margot (1917-1985), and Werner Bruck (Figure 7); Margot is Helen Winter’s mother.
The youngest of Felix Bruck’s children, Werner Bruck was born on the 23rd of August 1880, and his mother, Anna Elise Bruck, née Prausnitz (1853-1880) died a week later, perhaps a result of childbearing complications. Obviously, the Daguerreotype-like picture, when Werner appears to be only a year or two old, does not include his mother. The picture clearly captures the weight of her death on the family, where all look immeasurably sad. Elsewhere among Tom’s photos is a stand-alone picture of his great-grandmother. (Figure 8)
Felix Bruck never remarried. Elsewhere in Tom’s album are a few untitled pictures of him later in life where he is portlier and more difficult to recognize compared to when he was younger. (Figures 9-10) After studying the setting and comparing the photos to similar ones among Helen’s ephemera, there is no doubt the photos depict Felix. Margot Bruck was the first of his children to bear him a grandchild, Otto Giles (1904-1980), and a photo survives of Otto as a child seated on his grandfather’s lap in his study. (Figure 11)
The surviving photos taken in Felix’s study are particularly intriguing to me. Hanging on the wall above his desk are portraits of unidentified individuals I’m almost certain depict older Bruck ancestors, possibly Felix’s grandparents. (Figure 12) Unfortunately, I have no portraits to compare them against. Helen’s collection of photos includes a comparable one of Felix seated in his study with his daughter Margot standing aside him with those same portraits visible. (Figure 13)
Beyond the pictures of Tom’s great-grandparents, Tom’s album includes pictures of his grandparents (Figure 14), parents (Figure 15-16), aunt and uncle (Figure 17), and cousins. Apart from casual family acquaintances, Helen and I have been able to identify most of the subjects. A particularly endearing photo was taken in 1928 of Casper with his younger brother Peter. (Figure 18)
Let me shift now to Casper Bruck’s intriguing wartime images.
The individual pages in Casper photo album typically note the year(s) and place(s) the pictures were taken. Casper Bruck’s album includes a page of photos taken in El Alamein, Egypt, and in Benghazi and Tripoli, Libya in 1942-43. El Alamein is a town located on the Mediterranean Sea 66 miles west of Alexandria, Egypt, while Benghazi and Tripoli are in Libya further west but also along the Mediterranean. A little historic context is useful to understand Casper’s pictures.
The Second Battle of El Alamein was fought near the western frontier of Egypt between the 23rd of October and the 4th of November 1942. El Alamein was the climax and turning point of the North African campaign during WWII and the beginning of the end of the Western Desert Campaign. The Axis army of Germany and Italy suffered a decisive defeat at the hands of the British Eighth Army that prevented them from penetrating into Egypt. This kept the Suez Canal in Allied hands and prevented the full-scale invasion and seizure of the Middle Eastern and Persian oil fields.
In a 13-day battle the Axis Panzerarmee Afrika was crushed and forced to retreat from Egypt and Libya to the borders of Tunisia. The Axis fought a defensive campaign in Tunisia into 1943. Although they engaged in a tenacious rearguard action, the Axis forces were in an impossible position. In May 1943, they were forced to surrender, with the loss of around 240,000 prisoners.
Casper’s album separately includes a sequence of photos taken in Cairo; I can’t say for sure when they were taken because the last numeral on the date is hidden but I think they predate his pictures from El Alamein, meaning they were likely taken earlier in 1942 before the Second Battle of El Alamein. The images from Cairo are interesting more for what they don’t show, namely, the pyramids outside the city; curiously, several famous mosques are instead illustrated. (Figure 19)
Turning to Casper’s photos of El Alamein, one image stands out. In the foreground is a corrugated metal sign reading “El Alamein Salvage,” and in the near background is written “Springbok Road.” (Figure 20) I found an identical copy of this image that sold on eBay for £6.99. I imagine this was a popular photo spot, and that multiple examples of this picture survive in the decaying albums of former English soldiers involved in the Western Desert Campaign. Several of Casper’s photos appear to show German and Italian abandoned war materiels waiting to be broken up for scrap metal, ergo the salvage effort. (Figure 21)
Another intriguing photo in Casper’s album is simply labeled “ITIES.” (Figure 22) Having no idea what this signifies, I eventually discovered this is derogatory English slang for Italians. The photo clearly shows Italian prisoners of war. What I learned while researching this image is that unlike the Germans whose retreat from El Alamein was more orderly, thereby limiting the number of their surviving soldiers captured, their Italian allies lacked motor transport to evacuate their withdrawing units thus resulting in more Italians being swept up by the British. Regardless, by November 4 the motorized elements of the Axis were in full retreat, and because of the sluggish British follow-up they were allowed to escape virtually unscathed to Tunisia.
The page on which Casper’s pictures of Benghazi and Tripoli are found is labelled “MEF 1942-43,” which stands for “Middle East Forces 1942-43.” (Figure 23) It’s not clear that Casper was in one of vanguard British infantry divisions that participated in the Tunisian campaign that ultimately defeated the Axis forces there in 1943. Photos of Casper place him in Ismailia, Cairo, and Alexcandria, Egypt between 1942 and 1945. However, this overlaps with the period between 1942 and 1946 when he was assuredly in India and Pakistan. Possibly, Casper’s regiment was duty-based in Egypt but deployed elsewhere as needed? As we speak, I’m attempting to obtain Casper’s military dossier from the United Kingdom’s Military of Defence to better understand the sequence of his deployments.
My friend Brian Cooper, an amateur English military historian who has assisted me immeasurably in learning where my father’s first cousin, Heinz Loewenstein, was incarcerated during the war, recognized that in several of Casper’s photos where he is sporting a beret, he is wearing a badge of the Glider Pilot Regiment. (Figure 24) A 1946 group picture of Casper’s regiment labeled “Sergeant’s Mess. Glider Pilot Depot” shows the regimental badge. (Figure 25) Casper’s album includes photos of him piloting his glider (Figure 26) and flying over the Indus and elsewhere. It’s obvious Casper was a glider pilot, at least in India and Pakistan. (Figure 27)
Having never previously come across any of my distant ancestors who were glider pilots during WWII, nor photos of their activities, I did a little research. It’s quite engrossing. The most widely used glider during the war was the Waco CG-4A. Given that Casper adopted a mutt during his time in India which he named “Waco” (Figure 28) it is reasonable to assume he piloted one of these crafts.
Gliders from India supported military operations in Burma during WWII. Special operation units battled the Japanese army in Burma attempting to reopen the Burma Road linking India and China. Waco CG-4A gliders were used to land troops, ammunition, medical supplies, and even mules to carry supplies. Significantly, in a special operations battle using gliders to fight the Japanese army in Burma, more than 9,000 fighters were dropped 165 miles behind Japanese lines.
Fascinatingly, some gliders carried up to three mules; the pilots or handlers always had a pistol at the ready to shoot any mules that went berserk. While this may sound cruel, it is important to understand that a glider is built of steel tubing and doped fabric (i.e., a textile material that is impregnated with a chemical compound, known as “dope,” the primary purpose of which is to cause shrinkage of the fabric, thus making it taut and improving the flow of air over it during flight) so that it would take little for a mule to kick out the side of a glider endangering the crew and craft.
Gliders were advantageous because they could deploy large numbers of troops quickly and accurately. Also, they could land in small, inaccessible areas where a larger aircraft couldn’t land. They were also used to transport heavier equipment that was too large for parachutes or other transport aircraft. The India-Burma campaign involved difficult terrain that made it difficult to land gliders, so they were often treated as semi-expendable.
Allied forces retrieved gliders using twin-engine transports, such as a C-47 transport planes (Figure 29), through a technique referred to as “glider snatching.” The tactic involved having the transport plane fly low to the ground and quickly hooking onto a special attachment point on the glider, essentially “snatching” it into the air without needing to land. This allowed for the retrieval of troops or supplies from a combat zone where landing might be impossible; this was referred to as a “glider snatch pick-up.” This maneuver was considered risky due to the need for precise timing and low flying altitude. The Allies also used twin-engine transports to snatch up gliders filled with wounded soldiers and fly them to hospitals.
Returning briefly to the cigar box Tom Brook showed me. (see Figure 5) I shared pictures I’d taken of it with Helen, who in turn passed it along to one of our mutual German cousins. It appears that one of the captions is the beginning of Heinrich Heine’s lyrical love poem, “Die Lorelei.” According to modern scholars, Heine is now seen as a romantic poet, for his passion, his independence of mind, and his hatred of political repression. However, he was critical of German Romanticism, which he saw as idealizing the feudal past, being a deterrent to political progress, and encouraging xenophobia. For this reason, his books were later banned by the Nazis. The inclusion of Heine’s poem on Felix Bruck’s cigar box may have signified his attachment to liberal principles.
More could certainly be gleaned from Casper’s photos, but my intent has merely been to highlight a few unique images that provide a sense of the theaters in which Casper Bruck fought. For readers holding comparable collections of family photos, military or otherwise, scrutinizing them with a hand lens will no doubt yield some intriguing finds. Personally, I repeatedly find myself returning to my father’s pictures, continually discovering something I’d previously missed.
REFERENCES
Battles of El-Alamein. Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/event/battles-of-El-Alamein
India in World War II (2024, October 17). In Wikipedia. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/India_in_World_War_II
National WWII Glider Pilots Association. 1944, India/Burma was the glider snatching capital of the world. https://ww2gp.org/burma/buma_compulation.pdf
National WWII Glider Pilots Association. GliderPickup. https://www.ww2gp.org/gliderpickup/
Second Battle of El Alamein (2024, December 6). In Wikipedia. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Battle_of_El_Alamein
Tunisia 1942-1943. British Infantry Divisions. British Military History. Docs – Tunisia 1942 – 1943 – British Infantry Divisions – British Military History
Note: In my most overtly political post, I discuss the Nazi decrees that led my father and a relative by marriage to become stateless. I consider this topic in the context of my ongoing German citizenship application process permitted by German law as a descendant of my father who was “deprived” of his German nationality in 1941.
After many years contemplating applying for German citizenship, I recently started assembling the notarized documents to make this a reality. I had always intended to do this as a practical exercise that I could then write about on my blog. However, the current uncivil body politic here in America makes this more imperative than ever. To those who say, “fascism can never happen in America,” I merely remind readers this is what many German Jews said after Hitler was appointed Chancellor by President Paul von Hindenburg on the 30th of January 1933. The phrase “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” comes to mind. I choose to be prepared.
The initiation of my German citizenship application has me thinking about how my father, Dr. Otto Bruck, and Ernst Mombert, subject of my previous Post 165, came to be referred to as “apatride,” the French word for stateless. This term is used on both of their official contemporary French documents.
Some context is helpful.
Germany’s Federal Office of Administration provides information on the statutory basis for “naturalization on grounds of restoration of German citizenship after deprivation.” Pursuant to Article 116(2) of the Basic Law (Grundgesetz, GG) of the Federal Republic of Germany, persons who were “deprived” of their German citizenship by the National Socialists between 1933 and 1945 are entitled to naturalization. This means that the persons had been German citizens and were deprived of this citizenship in the National Socialist era or that a naturalization that had taken place between 1918 and 1933 was revoked.
As defined in Article 116(2) GG (Grundgesetz), persons are deemed to have been “deprived” of their German citizenship on political, racial, or religious grounds whenever this citizenship was either:
Such people and their descendants have been entitled to naturalization by the GG since 24 May 1949.
In the case of the 1933 act, individual cases of deprivation of German citizenship were published in the Reich Gazette (Reichsanzeiger). With respect to the 1941 decree, this applied to all German citizens of Jewish faith who had their habitual residence abroad when the ordinance entered into force or later resided abroad. It’s on this basis that I qualify to apply for German citizenship through descent from my father.
As a sidebar, I would note that incorporation of “revocation of naturalizations” in the title of the 1933 Act is particularly pertinent as I listen to the current vitriol being spewed from fascist-loving cultists anxious to return to the past. I’m reminded of another saying, often attributed to Edmund Burke, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
As mentioned above, Hitler was appointed German Chancellor on the 30th of January 1933. It’s not clear precisely when Ernst Mombert, a relative by marriage, left Germany nor what profession he was engaged in at the time. However, by November 1933, Ernst had purchased a fruit farm in Fayence (Var), France, and essentially became a farmer. Because the circumstances related to the application of the 1933 Act all related to naturalizations that took place between 1918 and 1933, this Act would not have applied to Ernst Mombert nor deprived him of his German citizenship. I think he would not have lost his citizenship until the 25 November 1941 Act was passed.
My father’s circumstances were different though I think he too became stateless under the Reich Citizens Act of 25 November 1941. In the early 1930s, my father Dr. Otto Bruck (Figure 1) was a dental apprentice in the Free City of Danzig, and I believe was briefly living with his aunt Hedwig Loewenstein, nee Bruck (Figure 2), and cousins in Danzig [today: Gdansk, Poland]. By April 9, 1932, he had opened his own dental practice in nearby Tiegenhof [today: Nowy Dwór Gdański, Poland], also located within the Free City of Danzig. My father’s surviving 1932 Day Planner gives the precise day he arrived in Tiegenhof.
Just a brief footnote. While “Free City of Danzig” and “Free State of Danzig” are often used interchangeably, the key difference lies in the level of precision. “Free City” is generally considered the more accurate term, as it specifically refers to Danzig as a self-governing city-state under the protection of the League of Nations after WWI, whereas “Free State” implies a slightly larger, more autonomous territory encompassing the city and surrounding areas, though this interpretation is less common in historical context. Throughout this post, I use “Free City.”
By my calculation, my father lived in the Free City between ca. 1930-1932 until 1937. Theoretically, he would have had two options vis-à-vis citizenship. He could have retained his German citizenship or opted to become a citizen of the Free City, a so-called Danziger. Given that he lived and worked in the Free City, logically he would eventually have become a citizen there, but for the war. However, Free City citizenship does not appear to have been a precondition for owning and operating a business there. More on this below.
The gentleman at the German Embassy assisting me with my German citizenship application sent me a copy of a so-called “Optionsurkunde” that documented the switch from Danziger to German Reich for another individual applying for German citizenship. (Figure 3) He asked me to look for such a document among my father’s surviving papers, but if he ever switched nationality no such document survives. According to the official from the German Embassy, copies of these Optionsurkunden in the archives were likely destroyed during the war making it impossible for me to know for sure whether my father became a Danziger.
Had my father become a Danziger, I presume he could have held dual citizenship. I base this assumption on the fact that he had driver’s licenses simultaneously from both the German Reich and the Free City in 1935, the pair of which are in my possession. (Figures 4a-b; 5a-b)
Curious whether the Optionsurkunden might have survived, I recalled a Ms. Regina Stein, a German provenance researcher of museum collections in Berlin, who’d assisted me in 2021 on another matter. I misremembered her as a forensic genealogist. Regardless, I contacted her asking whether she’d ever come across such documents. Unfamiliar with them, Regina reached out to her network of colleagues involved in genealogical research.
One of her associates, Ms. Sabine Ruks, responded. She provided information that at least in my mind clarifies my father’s situation with respect to whether he ever became a Danziger. Beyond that, however, her analysis places my father’s situation in terms of citizenship in a broader temporal and geopolitical framework. Let me explain.
My father was born in 1907 in Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland] in Upper Silesia. Following Germany’s defeat during WWI, the terms of the Versailles Treaty mandated that a plebiscite be conducted in Upper Silesia. This referendum was intended to determine ownership of the province between Weimar Germany, the constitutional federal republic that existed between 1918 and 1933, and Poland; the region was ethnically mixed with both Germans and Poles. The outcome of the plebiscite, which was marred by violence, was that Upper Silesia was divided. The eastern part of the province went to Poland, while the western part, including Ratibor, remained German. Therefore, the question of my father opting for German nationality following the plebiscite never arose.
My Bruck family lived in Berlin from at least 1927 onwards. Clearly, this would not have raised any option (Optionsurkunde). My father’s move to the Free City of Danzig should likewise not have raised this either, although this question requires further examination.
The Free City of Danzig was ceded by the German Reich on November 15, 1920, and placed under the protection of the League of Nations. Poland took over the foreign policy representation. Therefore, passports were marked with “Citizenship: Free City of Poland.”
The Free City of Danzig ceased to exist after Germany invaded Poland on the 1st of September 1939, followed shortly thereafter by the absorption of the Free City into the German Reich. Made up mostly of Germans and governed by a largely pro-Nazi government, Danzigers welcomed Nazi incorporation into the German Reich.
From September 1, 1939, the law on the reunification of the Free City of Danzig with the German Reich made them “Germans in accordance with detailed regulations.” As Sabine Ruks notes, “Until then, a foreigner could obtain Danzig citizenship if he or she had lived there for five consecutive years before applying (from January 11, 1920, at the earliest). Otto Bruck lived in the city-state from at least 1932 and could therefore have applied for the first time around 1938, in this case to the Danzig authorities. But even if that had been the case, he would have become German again by law on September 1, 1939.” (Sabine Ruks, personal communication)
Regardless, by September 1939, my father had long quit Tiegenhof and was in Algeria with the French Foreign Legion. While not relevant to my father since he had long-ago left Germany and had already become stateless as of 25 November 1941, the loss of Germany’s eastern territories after WWII did not affect the citizenship of Germans who’d fled from there: they continued to retain German nationality.
I want to end this post by discussing one of my father’s maternal cousins, a man named Ernst Berliner (i.e., Berliner was my paternal grandmother’s maiden name), who also became stateless. (Figures 6a-b)
“This is a collection of individual index cards of Jews who had their German nationality annulled by the Nazis. The records were created when German citizenship was revoked because of the anti-Semitic Nuremberg Laws of 1935. The laws spelled out exactly who was considered Jewish and who was allowed German citizenship and its accompanying rights. The Nuremberg Laws also prevented Jews from marrying those of German descent.
These records were filmed from index cards at the Berlin Document Center in 1959. The records have some suffix names added, Israel for men and Sara for women, which were used to readily identify Jews. The records include information on:
Name
Birth Date
Birthplace
Occupation
Last address”
Confused as to the overlap in dates and the varying authorities depriving Jews of German nationality, I asked a German friend and my contact at the German Embassy about these things. They explained that while the names of Jews whose nationality was annulled between 1935 and 1944 because of the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 were ALSO published in the Reichsanzeiger, such individuals and their descendants claim restoration of German nationality under a different authority, specifically Section 15 of the German Nationality Act (Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz, StAG). In the case of Ernst Berliner, his name was published on the 23rd of February 1938 issue of the Reichsanzeiger. (Figures 7a-b)
Pursuant to Section 15 StAG, persons who lost their German citizenship in some way other than because of the 1933 and 1945 decrees or who were never able to acquire German citizenship due to Nazi persecution and their descendants can become German citizens. Suffice it to say, this provision benefits in particular persons who lost their German citizenship after their flight, for instance, by virtue of a foreign citizenship or through marriage with a foreign national. Compared to naturalizations under the GG which have been in effect since 24 May 1949, naturalizations under StAG have only been permitted since 20 August 2021.
I know of several friends and relatives who’ve applied for German nationality, several successfully. An advantage I have stems from having worked and written about my family’s history for over ten years, so I am generally familiar where the original vital certificates are located that have not been digitized. Case in point, as we speak, I’m trying to obtain a certified copy of my father’s birth certificate from the archives in the town where my father was born. I’m also eligible to apply for French nationality through my mother. A German passport would allow me unrestricted stays in countries that are members of the European Union, so if the EU continues to exist there is no obvious advantage to obtaining French nationality. Still, as an intellectual exercise it might be an interesting challenge.
Note: In this post, I examine newly acquired documents obtained from France’s Ministère des Armées related to a man named Ernst Mombert arrested and deported from France to Auschwitz with my aunt Suzanne Müller, née Bruck in August-September 1942.
As I write this post, I’m reminded of what the mother of one of my former girlfriends told her when she was working on her doctorate, “you’re learning more and more about less and less.” Such is the case of a man related by marriage to my family who I introduced in earlier posts, Ernst Mombert (“Ernest” in France); he was arrested in Fayence, France in August 1942, along with my father’s beloved sister, Suzanne Müller, née Bruck. (Figure 1) Their fates were already known to me.
However, recently I’ve learned more about Ernst thanks to a French student from Toulon, France, Julia Saintgermain. (Figure 2) In commemoration of the 80th anniversary in 2022 of the mass deportations of Jews from the Var department of France, where both Toulon and Fayence are situated, as a school project Julia and her schoolmates researched some Jewish victims of this extradition. Julia selected Ernst and Suzanne and came across my blog in the process. Julia contacted me and eventually supplemented what I’d uncovered. I will discuss these recent discoveries. What I learned about Ernst in small part informs me about my aunt’s final weeks, so it is materially relevant.
A little context. My aunt Suzanne (1904-1942) was married to an older gentleman, my uncle Dr. Franz Muller (1871-1945) (Figure 3), who was 33 years her senior; he had two children from a previous marriage, Peter Muller-Munk and Karin Margit Muller-Munk. Because of Franz’s and Suzanne’s age difference, her “stepchildren” were roughly the same age as her. Franz’s daughter Margit was married to Franz Mombert (“Francois” in French), Ernst’s brother, and the two co-owned a fruit farm in Fayence, France. After my aunt and uncle were forced to leave Fiesole, Italy, outside Florence, in September 1938, after earlier fleeing Berlin, Germany in late 1935 or early 1936, they took refuge at Ernst and Franz’s farm in Fayence, France.
While researching Ernst Mombert, Julia stumbled on Posts 22 & 23 where I introduced him to readers. She initially asked whether I knew how he’d wound up in the various detention camps in France he is documented to have been incarcerated in during the war (more on this below). As I discussed in Post 119, I’d only been aware he’d been briefly detained in a place called “Le Camp de La Rode” near Toulon, so was unable to answer her question though I was equally intrigued.
Julia obtained a file on Ernest Mombert from France’s “Ministère des Armées” in November 2022, which she graciously shared. (Figure 4) In this post I’ll discuss several new things I learned from this dossier. I would reiterate two points I’ve made in previous posts. First, the assistance of readers and people whom I refer to as “my boots on the ground,” particularly native German and French speakers, has often given me access to documentary evidence I would likely never have found on my own. Second, I find it illuminating that extensive files often exist on Jews murdered during the Holocaust, as though documenting their deaths was more important than celebrating their lives and accomplishments. I acknowledge there may have been pragmatic reasons for post-mortem documentation, such as resolving estate issues.
The Ministère’s file includes documents from their archives of the so-called “Ministère Des Anciens Combattants Et Victimes De Guerre,” Ministry of Veterans and Victims of War. I’ll discuss some of these records beginning with the most recent and working my way backwards.
In Post 23, I talked about my aunt and Ernst’s arrest in Fayence in August 1942 by the Vichy (Figure 5), and the overarching geopolitical environment surrounding the timing. In that earlier post, I also highlighted the last three “postcards” (Figures 6a-c) my aunt ever sent following her arrest; the postmarks and dates on the cards provide clues as to the exact date of her and Ernst’s seizure and the route by which they were ultimately deported to and murdered in Auschwitz. Because her first card was dated the 26th of August 1942 from a place near Fayence called Draguignan, 19 miles to the southwest, I assumed she’d been taken prisoner several days prior. It turns out that according to the dossier, this is the precise date Ernst and Suzanne were detained and began their final journey. My aunt clearly wasted no time communicating with her husband following her arrest.
On one page in the report dated the 13th of August 1946 (Figure 7), the following telling sentences are written: “Arreté 26/8/42 par la gendarmerie de Fayence comme Israelite. Étranger, deporté de Drancy le 7/9/1942, depuis sans nouvelles.” Translated: “Arrested the 26th of August 1942 by the Fayence constables as a Jew. Foreigner, deported to Drancy on the 7th of September 1942, no news since.” This page along with one or two others in the dossier from the Ministère des Armées confirm the date that Ernst Mombert and my aunt Suzanne were arrested in Fayence. This passage begs dissection.
First some historical background. Nazi Germany captured France during WWII following the abbreviated Battle of France that lasted from only May 10, 1940, until June 25, 1940. The occupation of France by Nazi Germany at first affected only the northern and western portions of the country. The remainder of Metropolitan France was the rump state of Vichy France headed by Marshal Philippe Petain. Fayence was in this so-called unoccupied “free zone” (zone libre). Vichy France adopted a policy of collaboration with Nazi Germany which entailed helping the German authorities deport Jews to killing centers, explaining why Franz and my aunt were arrested by the Fayence constables rather than their Nazi overlords. In November 1942 Germany and their Italian allies finally occupied Vichy France, the zone libre.
A 2017 article I came across by Paul Webster, entitled “The Vichy Policy on Jewish Deportation,” speaks to this tragic French collaboration:
“Even some pro-German states took a stand. Fascist Hungary resisted Nazi demands to hand over Jews until the country was invaded in 1944. Italy had anti-Semitic laws, but nevertheless defended French Jews in south-eastern France, which was occupied by the Italian army, and thus saved thousands of lives.
The last example is the most relevant to the tragic French experience, whose consequences are yet to be resolved. More than 60 years after a collaborationist French government helped deport 75,721 Jewish refugees and French citizens to Nazi death camps, the national conscience has still not come to terms with the betrayal of a community persecuted by French anti-Semitic laws.”
As a half-French, half-German Jew, this last paragraph explains my highly ambivalent attitude towards the French, namely, their unwillingness to acknowledge and apologize for their complicity in the persecution and murder of Jews during and immediately following WWII.
In the file, Ernst is characterized as “étranger,” foreigner. (see Figure 7) While clearly a Jewish refugee from Germany, by the time of his deportation, he had owned land and been a farmer in Fayence since 1933. (Figure 8) Like my father, Ernst was characterized as “apatride,” stateless (see Figure 7), so thereby not afforded the protection that long-term residency should have bestowed.
Another page in the dossier from the Ministère des Armées dated the 20th of July 1946 uses the words “NON RENTRE” (Figure 9) as regards Ernst Mombert’s whereabouts at the time. Translated as “not returned,” this is a highly charged expression, as I learned. It was a transparent effort by French authorities to avoid culpability for the fate of deportees, most of whom had been transported by the French using their railway system to the German collection center of Drancy outside Paris, a known transit point to the concentration camp of Auschwitz. There can be no doubt the French knew most deportees had been murdered and would never return.
This leads me to a brief discussion in a historical fiction book by Anne Berest my wife Ann is currently reading, entitled “The Postcard,” that coincidentally speaks to this very point regarding the French government. Quoting:
“‘After the war, Myriam wanted to file an official record for each member of her family.’
‘What kind of record?’
‘Death certificates.’
‘Oh. Yes. . .of course.’
‘It was extremely complicated. It took almost two years of dealing with endless bureaucratic red tape for Myriam to file a record. And bear in mind: at the time, the French government still wouldn’t officially use the terms “killed in concentration camp” or “deported.” The term they used was “not returned.” Do you understand what that meant? The symbolism?’
‘Yes. The French government was saying to the Jews, your families weren’t murdered because of our actions. They just. . .haven’t come back.’” (2021:255)
As Anne Berest implies, the hypocrisy is breathtaking.
The fact Ernst Mombert never came back is reflected on several pages in the dossier, including a document dated the 30th of October 1946, titled “Acte De Disparition,” Deed of Disappearance, or the date he went missing. (Figure 10)
In the case of four of Anne Berest’s “not returned” relatives, it took until October 26, 1948, for them to be officially declared “missing.” The next phase of her ordeal then began with her fight for official death certificates, which only a judgment by a civil court could render in the absence of bodies. When the judgment was eventually handed down on July 15, 1949, seven years after her relatives died, stunningly, the official place of death of her relatives was Drancy, as it would also have been for Ernst and Suzanne. In other words, the French government didn’t recognize that they died at Auschwitz. Thus, the deported went from “not returned,” to “missing,” to “deceased on French soil.” (2021: 255-56) The official death dates were the date the deportation convoys left Drancy. In the case of Ernst and Suzanne, who were aboard the same convoy, their death dates would have been recorded as the 7th of September 1942 when the transport left Drancy.
In Anne’s case, the Ministère Des Anciens Combattants Et Victimes De Guerre even requested the trial court prosecutor to specify the place of death as Auschwitz, but they rejected this request. Additionally, the court prosecutor refused to say at the time that the Jews had been deported because of race, but rather said it was for political reasons. It took Anne until 1996, after vigorous lobbying, that official recognition of “death by deportation” was granted and the death certificates were amended. (2021: 256)
In the case of Ernst’s certificate of death, his death judgment was rendered by the Draguignan civil court on the 17th of July 1947, but there is no mention of “death by deportation” since the judgment was made well before 1996. (Figure 11) My aunt’s death certificate was similarly issued by the Draguignan civil court more than two years later, on the 21st of September 1949. (Figure 12) The certificate states she was deported to Poland, but again no mention of “death by deportation.”
TRANSCRIPTION OF ERNST MOMBERT’S DECLARATION OF DEATH (see Figure 11)
en marge à gauche est écrit :
“transcription du jugement, déclaration du décès de Mombert Ernest”
sur la page est écrit :
“Mairie de Fayence, arrondissement de Draguignan”
“Le 7 décembre 1947, 10 heures, nous, maire de la commune de Fayence avons procédé à la transcription du jugement déclaratif du décès ci-après.
d’un jugement rendu par le tribunal de première instance de Draguignan établi le 17 juillet 1947.
Il a été extrait ce qui suit :
Par ces motifs, le tribunal sévit de première instance de Draguignan, après en avoir délibéré en jugement conformément à la loi
Déclare le décès de Mombert Ernest apatride d’origine allemande né à Frisbourg en Brisgau (Allemagne) le 9 juillet 1911 du mariage de Paul Mombert et de Gieser Cornelie, domicilié en dernier lieu à Fayence (Var)
déporté le 7 septembre 1942
ordonne la transcription du présent jugement sur les registres courants de l’état civil de la commune de Fayence (Var) et du lieu de naissance de Mombert Ernest
Dit que mention en sera faite pour être en besoin sera ainsi jugée et prononcé à Draguignan en audience publique tenue au Palais de Justice de ladite ville le 17 juillet 1947
par messieurs Basque président, Beleret juge doyen, madame Parivet Thierrot juge en présence
de monsieur Clagnier juge suppléant occupant le siège du ministère public
assistés de monsieur Mailhare greffier
Enregistré à Draguignan le 22 juillet 1947
folio 29, case 290 pratis
le receveur Jeanne Cairrail et de cette transcription nous vous dressons la présente note que nous avons signée à la requête de monsieur le procureur de la République suivant note du 4 courant
approuvons la rature de 55 mots rayés nuls”
TRANSLATION
In the margin on the left is written:
“Transcription of the judgment, declaration of the death of Mombert Ernest”
On the page is written:
“Fayence City Town Hall, Draguignan district”
“On December 7, 1947, 10 a.m., we, the mayor of the municipality of Fayence, proceeded to the transcription of the declaratory judgment of death below.
Of a judgment rendered by the Draguignan Court of First Instance established on July 17, 1947.
The following has been extracted:
For these reasons, the court is in the first instance of Draguignan, after having deliberated in judgment in accordance with the law.
Declares the death of stateless Mombert Ernest of German origin born in Frieburg in Brisgau (Germany) on July 9, 1911 from the marriage of Paul Mombert and Gieser Cornelie, last domiciled in Fayence (Var).
Deported on September 7, 1942.
Orders the transcription of this judgment on the current registers of the civil status of the municipality of Fayence (Var) and the place of birth of Mombert Ernest.
Said that mention will be made to be in need will thus be tried and pronounced in Draguignan in a public hearing held at the Palace of Justice of said city on July 17, 1947.
By gentlemen Basque president, Beleret judge dean, Mrs. Parivet Thierrot judge in presence.
Of Mr. Clagnier substitute judge occupying the seat of the public prosecutor’s office.
Assisted by Mr. Mailhare clerk.
Registered in Draguignan on July 22, 1947.
Folio 29, case 290 practices.”
The receiver Jeanne Cairrail and from this transcript we give you this note that we signed at the request of the Public Prosecutor following note of 4 current.
Let’s approve the erasure of 55 null crossed out words.
Let me turn to another topic referred to in the Ministère’s document file, namely, the places and dates in France where Ernst Mombert was interned (Figure 13):
These are the internments Julia Saintgermain first asked me whether I knew anything about. As I mentioned above, prior to obtaining the dossier documenting the above internments, the only place where I’d found a fleeting reference that Ernst had been held was “Le Camp de la Rode” near Toulon. I found this in a publication by André Fontaine entitled “Quelques Camps du Sud-Est 1939-1940.” Because I can find no mention of this as an internment camp, I think it may simply have been a collection or transit point.
I suspect Ernst was detained here very, very briefly, possibly only from the 4th of September 1939 until around the 16th of September 1939. Let me explain my reasoning by providing some context.
Let me review what I discussed in Post 119. WWII began with the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. The next day, France decreed a national mobilization. Internment sites for nationals of the German Reich (i.e., German, Austrian, and Czech emigrants) were planned and requisitioned in every French departement. By the 3rd of September, the French Minister of the Interior sent a telegram to each prefecture concerning the “concentration of foreigners from the German empire.” Immediately notifications about the planned roundups were circulated and posters put up in the town halls. All male nationals of the German Reich between 17 and 50 were required to report for incarceration. Male nationals from the department of Var were initially detained in La Rode near Toulon. This city is on the French Riviera located 74 miles southwest of Fayence.
Now according to the Ministère’s dossier Ernst was detained in Les Milles as of the 4th of September 1939. André Fontaine very specifically places Ernst in Toulon at La Rode, so sometime around the 4th of September Ernst turned himself into the French authorities there. Why then is Ernst shown as incarcerated in Les Milles on that precise date? If, as I theorize, La Rode was never more than a collection or transit point, technically a “subcamp” of Les Milles, the place of Ernst’s initial incarceration may simply have been recorded as Les Milles.
André Fontaine remarks the following on the transfer of the German Reich nationals to Les Milles from Toulon: “On September 16, 1939, the departure from Toulon was announced: a truck took the luggage at 6pm and the train left at 9pm. The arrival was only the next morning in Aix-en-Provence [Editor’s Note: location of Les Milles], after 15 hours of train to cover 90 km [Editor’s Note: 55 miles].” On these grounds, I surmise Ernst was among the detainees transferred from Toulon to Aix-en-Provence on the 16th of September 1939.
Based on when nationals of the German Reich were required to report for internment, sometime around the 4th of September 1939, and when detainees were transported from La Rode to Les Milles, the 16th of September 1939, circumscribes Ernst’s detention dates in La Rode, so I think.
From the dossier, we learn that Ernst was incarcerated for over a year in Les Milles (Figures 14-15) until the 25th of October 1940. According to the timeline provided, Ernst’s next internment was in Gurs, a large concentration camp in southwestern France, located 385 miles west of Aix-en-Provence. Ernst’s internment there started the day after it ended in Les Milles, the 26th of October 1940. It seems highly unlikely the distance between the two places could have been covered in one day. The reason for Ernst’s transfer from one camp to the other is unknown, though it took place many months after the Vichy government signed an armistice with the Nazis on the 22nd of June 1940. Had the Nazis intended to deport the Jews to Drancy from Gurs, as they later did, they could just as easily have done so from Les Milles, as they also later did.
According to the dossier, Ernst’s internment at Gurs ended on the 15th of May 1941. Whether Ernst was released or escaped from there is unknown though clearly he returned to his farm in Fayence, where the file claims he was last interned from the 26th of August 1942 until the 7th of September 1942. These latter dates are in error. The last three “postcards” written by my aunt following her and Ernst’s arrest on the 26th of August 1942 confirm this. Her cards were dated and/or postmarked, respectively, from Draguignan on the 26th of August, from Les Milles in Aix-en-Provence on the 29th of August, and from Avignon on the 2nd of September. For whatever bureaucratic reason, Ernst’s stops on his way to Drancy, outside Paris, were all recorded as part of his incarceration in Fayence.
Ernst Mombert was incarcerated twice in Les Milles in Aix-en-Provence, the first time supposedly beginning on the 4th of September 1939 until the 25th of October 1940, then briefly a second time simultaneously with my aunt around the 29th of August 1942. I can only imagine how Kafkaesque it must have seemed to Ernst to be returned to a concentration camp he thought he’d escaped from.
Except for the period between the 15th of May 1941 and the 26th of August 1942, Ernst was almost continuously incarcerated in France from September 1939 until he was deported to Auschwitz in September 1942. First, following Germany’s invasion of Poland on the 1st of September 1939, as a German Jew refugee living in France, he was incredulously perceived and incarcerated as a possible quisling. Then, after Germany conquered France, he was interned as a Jew which led to his untimely death in September 1942. (Figure 16) Though my aunt’s route to Auschwitz followed a different pathway, her fate was identical. (Figures 17)
Fontaine, André. Quelques camps du Sud-Est, 1939-1940 [réfugiés allemands], Recherches régionales. Centre de documentation des Alpes-Maritimes, 1988, 29e année, n° 3, p. 179-206.
Note: In this lengthy and involved post, I continue to discuss recently obtained documents related to the Nazi SS and Wehrmacht soldier Prinz Wilhelm von Hessen-Philippsthal-Barchfeld. As with other individuals discussed in my blog, notably one of my father’s first cousins, Heinz Löwenstein, my knowledge about them is not obtained linearly but rather comes in spurts and episodically. Inevitably, my Jewish family came into contact and had their lives convulsed by the Nazis so for this reason I will occasionally discuss the fate of some of these individuals.
My continued interest in the Nazi Schutzstaffel (SS) and Wehrmacht soldier Prinz Wilhelm von Hessen-Philippsthal-Barchfeld stems from the fact that in Posts 133, Parts I & II, I misidentified him as Reinhard Heydrich, the notorious “Butcher of Prague.” The picture in which the putative Heydrich appeared was a group photo taken at Castle Kamenz (Figures 1a-b) in Lower Silesia [today: Kamieniec Ząbkowicki, Poland], purportedly in 1936 or 1937.
To remind readers Reinhard Heydrich was a high-ranking German SS and police official during the Nazi era and a principal architect of the Holocaust. Heydrich was chief of the SS’s Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RHSA), the Reich Security Main Office, and Stellvertretender Reichsprotektor, Deputy Protector of Bohemia and Moravia. The resemblance of the individual in the group photo to Heydrich, and the fact the person was clearly dressed in a SS uniform convinced me he was indeed Heydrich. I further explained in Posts 133, Parts I & II how and why Heydrich might have been at Castle Kamenz at the time the picture was taken. For these reasons I had no reason to question the identification.
My misidentification might well have gone unnoticed save for the fact that an astute German physics teacher with an avid interest in German military history pointed out my mistake. He told me the Nazi in the SS uniform at Castle Kamenz was Prinz Wilhelm von Hessen, a relative of Prinz Friedrich Heinrich Albrecht von Preussen (Figure 2), the then-owner of the castle. While initially hesitant to believe I’d made such a blatant error, I realized further investigation was necessary given the high standard of accuracy to which I strive. I used an artificial intelligence application to confirm that Wilhelm was indeed Heydrich’s doppelganger. This was the subject of Post 157 & Post 157, Postscript.
Some brief background on the group photo. It was furnished to me by a reader who stumbled upon Post 46 where I discussed Prinz Friedrich Heinrich Albrecht von Preussen. This reader, related to both Prinz Friedrich and Prinz Wilhelm, originally estimated the picture was taken in 1936 or 1937, though the evidence now suggests it was probably taken in 1935; more on this below. While the reader who sent me the photo was initially reluctant to believe Heydrich was Prinz Wilhelm von Hessen, additional research he’s undertaken proves this is the case.
Below I discuss recently uncovered evidence of Prinz Wilhelm von Hessen’s time and place of death and review the earlier documents related to Wilhelm von Hessen’s Nazi Party membership and military service discussed in Post 157, Postscript. This data helps explain why in the ca. 1935 picture Wilhelm von Hessen is wearing a SS uniform while in subsequent images he is dressed as a Wehrmacht soldier. The recent records confirm Wilhelm von Hessen’s fate in the Soviet Union following Germany’s defeat at the Battle of Moscow and its subsequent retreat.
As I explained in Post 157, Postscript, the Berlin State Archives retains a list of members of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), the Nazi Party, who were members of the royal houses. Wilhelm Prinz von Hessen-Philippsthal-Barchfeld’s name is included in this roster. (Figure 3)
The unseen column headings from this list of aristocrats who were members of the Nazi Party and the information specific to Wilhelm von Hessen reads as follows:
“Region” (Kurhessen)
“Name” (Prinz Wilhelm von Hessen)
“Date of Birth” (1st of March 1905)
“Member Number” (of the Nazi Party) (1187621)
“Date of Admission” (to the Nazi Party) 1st of May 1932)
“Remarks” (in Prinz Wilhelm’s case, it shows that he died on the 1st of May 1942).
The roster indicates Wilhelm died on the 1st of May 1942, but elsewhere his death is recorded as the 30th of April 1942. I reckon Wilhelm died on the 30th of April but that his death was officially recorded a day later.
Separately, some of my German contacts also found “Prinz von Hessen Wilm.,” as he’s identified, in the so-called Dienstalterliste, the SS seniority list. This is further proof that Wilhelm was indeed a member of the SS.
As discussed in Post 157, Postscript, Prinz Wilhelm von Hessen’s name appears on the Dienstalterslistenfor the years 1934-1937. Below is what these lists tell us.
Prinz von Hessen Wilhelm’s party number “1 187 621” is again shown on the SS seniority list, but in a separate column his SS member number, “52 711,” is now indicated. Wilhelm von Hessen joined the SS as a SS-Sturmführer on the 20th of April 1934. Sturmführer was a paramilitary rank of the Nazi Party which began as a title used by the Sturmabteilung (SA) in 1925 and became an actual SA rank in 1928. Translated as “storm leader or assault leader,” the origins of the rank dated to the World War I when the title of Sturmführer came to be used.
In 1934 Prinz von Hessen Wilhelm was a member of the service unit abbreviated as “F. Mo. II/27.” “F.” is short for Führer, while “Mo. Sta.” stands for “Motorstaffel,” or motorized squadron. Thus, it appears that in 1934 he was head of the motor assault team of II Sturmbann of the Standarte 27. Let me try and explain what this means. Bear in mind I know little about the organization of the SS so my explanation may be imprecise. I invite knowledgeable readers to correct and/or amplify my characterization.
The number of soldiers in a motorized squadron is unknown but was possibly only a few men. Standarte was a regimental sized unit of the SS; more on this below. Sturmbann refers to an “assault unit,” and was a paramilitary unit within the Nazi Party. As previously mentioned, the term originated from German shock troop units used during World War I who were characterized by their aggressive tactics and were often at the forefront of assaults. Putting this together suggests Wilhelm von Hessen was the motorized squadron leader of the assault unit of a particular regiment.
The number of column headings in the 1935 Dienstaltersliste was expanded to two side-by-side pages. Wilhelm’s previous rank of Sturmführer was now referred to as an Untersturmführer. A SS-Untersturmführer was the first commissioned SS officer rank, equivalent to a second lieutenant in other military organizations.
Translated, the left-hand page columns include the following information:
“Consecutive number”
“Surname & first name”
“Epee”
“Ring”
“SA sports badge”
“Reich sports badge”
“Service”
“Nazi Party Number 1-1,800,000”
“Nazi Party Number over 1,800,000”
“SS Number”
“Date of birth”
Several of the columns above refer to orders and decorations awarded during World War I by the German Empire, then later by the Nazis.
The right-hand page columns include the expanded list of SS paramilitary ranks, and the date, if applicable, that a soldier attained the rank:
The 1935 Dienstaltersliste tells us that Wilhelm von Hessen was promoted to a SS-Obersturmführer on the 9th of November 1934. A SS-Obersturmführer was typically a junior company commander in charge of fifty to a hundred men.
Then on the 20th of April 1935 he was promoted to a SS Hauptsturmführer. This rank was a mid-level commander who had equal seniority to a captain (Hauptmann) in the Wehrmacht and the equivalency of captain in foreign armies. (Figure 6)
By 1935 Wilhelm von Hessen was now attached to the “6 Mo. Sta.,” believed to mean that he was then part of the “6 Motor-Standarte.” Again, the number of soldiers in this motorized squadron is unknown. Not entirely clear to me is whether the “6 Motor-Standarte” equates to the 6th SS-Standarte, though this seems likely.
According to the Dienstalterslisten, Wilhelm von Hessen was assigned to new units in both 1936 and 1937. In 1936, he had a position in the “Stammabt. Bez. 14.” “Stammabt.” stands for “Stammabteilung,” which was a unit of the so-called Allgemeine SS (more on this below) in which men older than 45 years of age or SS members no longer fit for service were grouped together. These “Stammabteilung” were in turn divided into “Bezirke” or districts. Wilhelm von Hessen’s assignment to this organizational unit is puzzling since in 1936 he was only 31 years old and had no known physical disabilities that would have limited his fitness for service.
By 1937 Wilhelm von Hessen was no longer with the “Stammabt. Bez. 14.” but had been reassigned to the “SS Abschnitt XXVII.” This unit had originally been established in November 1933, but by October 1936 had been reorganized. SS Abschnitt XXVII was primarily an administrative and organizational unit within the Allgemeine SS. It did not directly engage in major military campaigns or operations, but instead was focused on overseeing SS activities, recruitment, and coordination within its designated area. While the unit was not involved in combat, SS Abschnitt XXVII played an essential role in supporting the Nazi regime and its ideology.
Let me quickly explain two things I mentioned above, namely, the Allgemeine SS and the Standarte.
Wilhelm was a member of the so-called “General SS,” or Allgemeine SSwhich was the administrative and the non-combative part of the SS. This is to be distinguished from the Waffen-SS which was the combat branch of the Nazi Party’s paramilitary Schutzstaffel organization.
As discussed in Post 157, the German physics teacher mentioned above tells me that in the group photo Wilhelm von Hessen is wearing the letter “M” on his collar tab. This is the badge of the Motor-Standarten of the SS. As previously mentioned, according to the Dienstaltersliste der SS for 1935, he was a member of the 6.Motor-Standarte, suggesting the group photo was taken at around this time. The SS-Standarte was the primary regimental-sized unit of the Allgemeine SS. There were 127 SS-Standarten although by 1945 most existed only on paper never reaching their prescribed strength.
The Standarten regiments each had their own number, but were also referred to by other names, such as location, a popular name, or an honorary title. After Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933, the 6th SS-Standarte, for example, adopted the honorary title of “Charlottenburg” and often participated in major Nazi Party rallies held in the German capitol.
In ancestry.com, I found Prinz Wilhelm von Hessen’s military personnel card (Figure 9) which provides information on the date and place of his death and confirms the Wehrmacht unit he was a member of at the time of his death including his rank. To remind readers, I erroneously concluded in Post 157, Postscript based on inaccurate information in the German Wikipedia entry for Wilhelm von Hessen that he was a soldier in the SS at the time of his death. The transcription and translation of Wilhelm’s personnel card proves otherwise:
[Tag, Stunde, Ort und Art des Verlustes = Day, hour, place and type of loss, so of death]
30.4.42, fallen
The so-called Ersatztruppenteil, the substitute unit of which Wilhelm was at one time a member, trained soldiers to make up for the losses of the fighting regiment that fought on the front; such units were not directly involved in combat. Once the war started in 1939, the Wehrmacht started to establish these “Ersatz” substitute units for every battalion. Wilhelm’s personnel card identifies his Ersatz battalion as Schützen Ersatz Bataillon 2.
Wilhelm’s military personnel card makes two things clear. First, since Wilhelm was killed in a combat Wehrmacht regiment, he was obviously no longer involved in training soldiers in the Ersatztruppenteil. Second, since he died fighting for the Wehrmacht, clearly at some point he’d voluntarily transitioned to or been conscripted into the regular army. The question of when he transferred from the SS will now be examined in depth.
While trying to make sense of Wilhelm’s military service, including when he might have transferred from the SS to the Wehrmacht, my good friend Peter Albrecht sent me a link to a newsletter published by the so-called “Eaglehorse.org” which sheds light on this issue. This organization describes itself “. . .as a rallying point for former members of the Squadron, our German comrades in the Bundeswehr, Bundesgrenzschutz, Bayern Grenzpolizei, the people of Bad Kissingen and surrounding towns in the Squadron area of operations.” The military unit in question is the 2nd Squadron/11th Armored Cavalry Regiment (ARC), once based in Bad Kissingen, Germany.
Readers might rightly ask, “How is this relevant to Wilhelm von Hessen?” Let me explain.
It turns out that officer cadets of three Wehrmacht battalions were assigned to Manteuffel Kaserne near Bad Kissingen during the Third Reich. Eaglehorse not only chronicles their history and stories but also those of U.S. regiments later stationed there. One of the Wehrmacht battalions based at Manteuffel Kaserne included the Kradschützen Bataillon 2 (also known as “2 Krad” and “K2”), a motorcycle infantry battalion which Wilhelm von Hessen was known to be a member of. According to Eaglehorse.org, records for the three battalions at Manteuffel Kaserne “are long lost or hopelessly scattered.” However, surviving sources have allowed the group to partially reconstruct the experience of officer cadets at the time using “. . .the officer accession system of the Wehrmacht Heer and the brief ‘201’ file of a cadet then lieutenant and company commander in 2 Krad named Prince Wilhelm von Hessen. . .” It appears, then, that a file related to Wilhelm survives which allows us to accurately speculate about the experiences of German soldiers who aspired to become officers when Monteuffel Kaserne initially opened in 1935.
A brief point of clarification. The Wehrmacht consisted of three branches, the Heer (army), the Kriegsmarine (navy), and the Luftwaffe (air force).
As Eaglehorse.org notes, Germany never established a national army academy in the model of Sandhurst in England; L’Ecole Speciale Militaire de Saint Cyr in France; or West Point. Instead from the 19th century onwards Germany had several private or partially supported “cadet training schools.” These academies exposed the children of the German aristocracy and the upper middle class to the study of military tactics, organization, and discipline. A graduate of these schools could enter the army as an “Officer Aspirant” or Anwärter, a German title that translates as “candidate,” “applicant,” or “recruit,” and begin a two-year probationary period on active duty. During this time, the cadet was assigned to a so-called line unit, or regiment, and trained at the junior enlisted then mid- and senior-grade NCO levels. They received specialized training monitored at the division level, attended branch specific training courses at centralized locations and were field and academically tested to either fail or progress to the next level.
In the pre-war period, a German general by the name of Heinz Wilhelm Guderian was tasked with building the Wehrmacht’s 2nd Panzer Division. It was formed on the 15th October 1935, and was one of three tank divisions created at the time. General Guderian selected the newly promoted Major Hasso von Manteuffel from Kradschützen Bataillon 2, the same battalion in which Wilhelm von Hessen had been an officer cadet, to run the aspiring officer training program for the Panzer Division. Wilhelm von Hessen’s record as a cadet, then later as a reserve officer, has surfaced that informs us of his military service.
Quoting from Eaglehorse.org:
“Von Hessen, a minor member of a German royal family from Fulda, was highly connected to the old guard of Gernany. . .Hessen entered the Army as an aspirant officer in the reserves in 1935 with the 2 Krad in Eisenach. His title of Prince may have impressed some, but progression through the pre commissioning program was based solely on merit and achievement.
Von Hessen’s record does not specify the exact dates of advancement, however, as the unit moved to Bad Kissingen, his career clearly progressed. Perhaps at Manteuffel [EDITOR’S NOTE: BAD KISSINGEN] or in Austria [EDITOR’S NOTE: EISENSTADT, 36 MILES FROM VIENNA, AUSTRIA], he successfully passed his final examination and probationary period as a lieutenant and received his commission as a lieutenant in the reserve army with active-duty status. Upon formal commissioning, he already would have been a proven platoon leader.
Once the war began, still as a platoon leader, he was wounded in Poland and again in France. In 1941, with the campaign in Greece, he was a company commander with the K2, and, the following year, moved to a staff position with the higher command 2nd Schützen Regiment. Then, some months later, he took command of the regimental headquarters company. Continuing as a first lieutenant, as the war in Russia began and the 2nd Panzer Division was committed, he took command of Rifle Company 7 in the mechanized brigade and the same week that his promotion to captain was approved, was killed in action in April 1942.”
As I noted earlier, according to Wilhelm von Hessen’s entry in German Wikipedia he was a member of the 2nd SS Panzer Division. For this reason, I erroneously concluded that he died as a member of the SS. Confusing matters, it turns out that the Wehrmacht also had a 2nd Panzer Division, and this is the unit Wilhelm was a member of. The Wikipedia entry for the Wehrmacht’s 2nd Panzer Division matches the conflicts in Poland, France, Greece, and the Soviet Union which Wilhelm participated in according to the information in his file discussed above.
Let me turn now to another issue that may confuse readers as it did me. The SS seniority lists, the Dienstalterslisten, from 1936 and 1937 continue to include Wilhelm von Preussen’s name even though he is known by 1935 to have been in the cadet training school and as noted above assigned to the Wehrmacht’s Kradschützen Bataillon 2. This suggests Wilhelm continued to hold a commission within the SS. This possibility is supported by a sentence in Wikipedia tucked into the discussion about the Allgemeine SS: “SS members could also hold reserve commissions in the regular military as well as a Nazi Party-political rank.” This means that Wilhelm von Hessen could have been a member of the non-combative Allgemeine SS and worn their uniform, but also had a commission in the Wehrmacht and separately worn their uniform. In the case of the ca. 1935 picture Wilhelm is obviously wearing a black SS uniform while in seemingly contemporaneous photos he is in a Wehrmacht outfit. (Figure 10)
I briefly summarize Wilhelm von Hessen’s trajectory in the Nazi Party, SS, and the Wehrmacht roughly as follows. He was admitted to the Nazi Party on the 1st of May 1932; joined the SS on the 20th of April 1934; transitioned to the cadet training school and the Wehrmacht around the 15th of October 1935 when the cadet school opened in Bad Kissengen; continued to retain a commission in the SS while in the Wehrmacht until 1937; fought as a member of the 2nd Panzer Division in Poland (1939), France (1940), Greece (1941), and the Soviet Union, before eventually being killed on the 30th of April 1942 in Russia.
Before closing out this lengthy post, I want to discuss two other documents related to Wilhelm von Hessen that were found.
Peter Albrecht ordered and sent me Wilhelm’s official death certificate he obtained from the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e. V.(VDK), Germany’s War Graves Commission. (Figures 11a-b) It confirms that Wilhelm was in a Wehrmacht unit as a Hauptmann (Captain), and that he was killed-in-action on the 30th of April 1942 in a place called Wyschegory, Russia. The VDK included a map of the location of Wyschegory. (Figure 12) They stated that an official casualty report does not provide a clear grave location, and that he likely could not be buried by his comrades. They noted that Wilhelm probably rests in an unmarked grave, and that if he’s eventually found he will be moved to a war cemetery in Germany. Wilhelm’s death was reported in the New York Times. (Figures 13a-b)
By way of historic context, Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union, known as Operation Barbarossa, started on Sunday, the 22nd of June 1941. The failure of Operation Barbarossa reversed the fortunes of Nazi Germany. The German offensive came to an end during the Battle of Moscow near the end of 1941 and resulted in the Wehrmacht’s defeat and the eventual collapse of Nazi Germany in 1945.
Possibly, Wilhelm’s unit was retreating westward following the Battles of Rzhev (Tver Oblast, Russia) when he was killed near Belyi (Tver Oblast, Russia). Belyi is about 74 miles west-southwest of Rzhev. (Figure 14) The likelihood that Wilhelm was involved in the Battles of Rzhev is conjecture.
While I found Wilhelm’s military personnel card in ancestry, I also found his “death certificate” from Herleshausen in the German state of Hesse. (Figures 15a-b) The page is from the town’s civil registry book. This certificate was completed on the 7th of August 1942, so several months following Wilhelm’s death in Russia. Herleshausen is where Wilhelm and his wife and children lived in a castle now owned by his great-grandson.
Below is a transcription and translation of the page:
TRANSCRIPTION:
Nr. 16 – Herleshausen, den 7. August 1942 Der Hauptmann der Reserve Prinz und Landgraf Wilhelm von Hessen, gottgläubig, wohnhaft in Herleshausen Schloss Augustenau ist am 30. April 1942 um — Uhr — Minuten (Todesstunde unbekannt) bei Wyschegory, östlicher Kriegsschauplatz, verstorben. Der Verstorbene war geboren am 1. März 1905 in Rotenburg an der Fulda (Standesamt Rotenburg Nr. 21). Vater: Landgraf Chlodwig von Hessen Mutter: Landgräfin Karoline von Hessen geborene Prinzessin zu Solms-Hohensolms-Lich Der Verstorbene war verheiratet mit der Prinzessin Marianne von Hessen geborene Prinzessin von Preußen. Eingetragen auf schriftliche Anzeige der Wehrmachtauskunftstelle für Kriegesverluste und Kriegsgefangene. Todesursache: gefallen Eheschließung des Verstorbenen am 30.1.1933 in Tabarz (Standesamt Tabarz Nr. 2 / 33)
REMARK TOP LEFT:
Herleshausen, den 22. August 1962 Auf Anordnung des Amtsgerichts in Kassel vom 7. Mai 1962 ( 1 III 52/61) wird berichtigend vermerkt, dass der Name des Verstorbenen Wilhelm Ernst Alexis Hermann Prinz und Landgraf von Hessen (nicht Prinz und Landgraf Wilhelm von Hessen) lautet.
TRANSLATION
No. 16 – Herleshausen, the 7. August 1942
The captain of the reserve Prince and Landgrave Wilhelm of Hesse (Figure 16), a believer in God, residing in Herleshausen Castle Augustenau is on 30. April 1942 at — clock — minutes (death hour unknown) at Wyschegory, eastern theater of war, died.
The deceased was born on the 1st. March 1905 in Rotenburg an der Fulda (Rotenburg Registry Office No. 21).
Father: Landgrave Chlodwig of Hesse
Mother: Landgrave Karoline of Hesse born Princess of Solms-Hohensolms-Lich
The deceased was married to Princess Marianne of Hesse, born Princess of Prussia.
Registered on written notification of the Wehrmacht information office for war losses and prisoners of war.
Cause of death: fallen
Marriage of the deceased on 30.1.1933 in Tabarz (Registry Office Tabarz No. 2 / 33)
TRANSLATION—REMARK UPPER LEFT
Herleshausen, the 22. August 1962
By order of the district court in Kassel of 7. May 1962 (III 52/61) is corrected that the name of the deceased
Wilhelm Ernst Alexis Hermann Prince and Landgrave of Hesse
One final observation. After the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II and the termination of Germany’s monarchy following their loss in WWI, the nobility was no longer legally recognized in Germany. While noble titles and designations are still commonly used as part of family names, the 1962 remark in the upper left of Wilhelm’s death certificate is an acknowledgment of this new reality where the title “Prince” is added after his name rather than before.
