Note: This is a brief postscript to a post I published in late 2023 including several images sent to me by Mr. Jan Krajczok, the Polish gentleman from Rybnik, Poland who assisted me in finding primary source documents about the inn once owned by my great-great-grand-uncle in the town of Zyttna, Prussia [today: Żytna, Poland].
Readers should refer to Post 145 for the background on the story of an inn that Dr. Jonas Bruck, my great-great-grand-uncle, owned in Zyttna, Prussia [today: Żytna, Poland], 120 miles away from Breslau, Prussia [today: Wrocław, Poland] where he lived. This was likely an investment property since he was a renowned dentist in Breslau.
Following publication of Post 145, Mr. Jan Krajczok, the Polish gentleman who assisted me in tracking down primary source documents for that post, sent me three images. Two of them show events that took place at the inn; one was the celebration of a national holiday (Figure 1) and the second was a wedding. (Figure 2) The third is an image of an old beer glass from the inn dating from the 19th or 20th century. (Figure 3) Jan estimates the pictures of the inn were taken in the 1920s. Both pictures include advertisements for Tyskie, a Polish brand of beer that originated in Tychy, Poland that has been in continuous production since 1629, making it one of the oldest breweries in the country. Polish flags can also be seen in both images.
In the picture of the national celebration in front of the inn, the deteriorated state of the inn is clearly visible. The contemporary owners of the plot where the inn used to stand purchased it in the 1950s, tore down the dilapidated inn, and built their own house.
PICTURE POSTCARD OF CROWN PRINCE’S WEDDING ADDED ON 4/26/2025
Note: Drawing upon the diary of an Amalie von Koschembahr, née Mockrauer, a relative by marriage, I highlight some observations she recorded between 1897 and 1918 about contemporary events.
Wilhelm Bruck (1849-1907) (Figure 1) was my great-great-grandfather Fedor Bruck’s (1834-1892) younger brother. (Figure 2) As discussed in Post 173, upon his marriage in 1884 to the aristocratic Margarete “Gretchen” von Koschembahr (1860-1946) (Figure 3), Wilhelm adopted her surname in the hyphenated form, Bruck-von Koschembahr. With the family’s arrival in America, the “Bruck” name was forever dropped. I ruefully think I’ve gone from what could have been a very large family to a smaller one on account of this.
Margarete’s parents were Leopold von Koschembahr (1829-1874) (Figure 4) and Amalie von Koschembahr, née Mockrauer (1834-1918). (Figure 5) Curiously, Amalie’s younger sister, Friederike “Fritzel” Mockrauer (1836-1924) (Figure 6) was married to Fedor Bruck; in other words, Amalie’s sister was married to her son-in-law’s older brother. In former times, such cross-generational “hookups” were not altogether uncommon.
Significantly the von Koschembahrs were not Jewish, though this did not prevent Wilhelm and Gretchen’s mischlinge children from being persecuted and forced to flee Germany during the Nazi Era.
Beginning in 1897 and continuing intermittently until roughly a year before her death in 1918, Amalie kept a diary. I became aware of the roughly 50 pages of her journal while researching Post 173. I obtained a typed German transcription of it from my third cousin and subsequently translated it using Google Translate. This resulted in a mostly very readable document.
Leopold von Koschembahr died at 45 years of age, but not before he and Amalie had 11 children born between 1855 and 1873. Amalie never remarried and reverted to her Mockrauer maiden name following her husband’s death. The children Amalie acknowledges in her diary are Hans (1858-1874); Stanislaus (1859-1914); Margarete (1860-1946); Leopold (1862-1908); Adolf (1863-1895); Elisabeth (1865-1865); Mathilde (1866-1931) (Figure 7); Max (1868-1890); Susanna (1869-1903); Erich (1871-1938) (Figure 8); and Friedrich Wilhelm (1873-1873). A 12th child I’ve documented elsewhere, Alexandra Mathilde Isidore von Koschembahr (1 June 1855-14 July 1855), died in infancy; this is a child I reckon was born before Amalie and Leopold were married. Two other children, Elisabeth and Friedrich Wilhelm, also died in infancy. Of the other children, Hans, Adolf, Susanna, Max, Leopold, and Stanislaus predeceased Amalie, with only Margarete, Mathilde, and Erich outliving her.
Select observations and noteworthy events from Amalie’s memoir will be discussed in this post.
A few comments before I launch into this presentation. In writing my posts, I’m ever mindful of the fact that I’m writing about my distant ancestors who are unknown to most readers. For this reason, unless the people’s stories are compelling, I’ll focus on the social and political context in which they lived and on noteworthy events or global developments they may have witnessed or written about that may be familiar and possibly of greater interest to readers. For example, Amalie’s observations on Germany’s expansionist aspirations are intriguing because they speak to Europe’s colonial past.
Another balancing act I have to tightrope is how much of the family “skeletons” to reveal. It is significant that Amalie self-censored her journal so that she removed some pages considering them in retrospect too inflammatory or disparaging. An example of pages she removed relate to the dissolution of her son Leo’s brief first engagement in 1901. Enough survives elsewhere, however, so that even more than 100 years after the journal was written, living descendants may retain some of the same sensibilities. I prefer to think that I’m not whitewashing my ancestors’ stories as much as soft-pedaling uncomfortable truths. I concede this may be a distinction without a discernible difference.
Many of Amalie’s observations speak to the weather, her belief in God, her health, and her relationships and visits across Germany to see her children and family; she also touches on the connection among her children. I consider these to be of limited interest to readers. Except where Amalie’s reflections relate to my great-great-uncle Wilhelm Bruck and his family, I won’t dwell on them.
Amalie appears to have been particularly fond and close to Wilhelm and Gretchen, and their five children, Gerhard (1885-1961) (Figure 9), Charlotte (1886-1974) (Figure 10), Marianne (1888-1975) (Figure 11), Friedrich 1889-1963) (Figure 12), and Heinz (1892-1915). Her brief vignettes of family gatherings with them are particularly memorable since so few written accounts survive of my Bruck ancestors. Wilhelm appears to have been very much adored by his family and mother-in-law. This reinforces the impression I have of some of my Bruck ancestors, namely, that they were charismatic, warm, funny, and extroverted.
At the time Amalie started to record her memoirs in 1897 she was already 63 years old. Until she moved from Berlin to Dresden in April 1902 to live with her unmarried daughter Mathilde “Tilchen,” her entries were recorded in Berlin. Her oldest son was Hans von Koschembahr (1858-1874) who died at sixteen and whom she lovingly remembered in an 1898 entry on what would have been his 40th birthday. Following his father Leopold’s death some months earlier in the same year, Hans would ordinarily have inherited the mantle as patriarch of the family. Instead this role was assumed by the next oldest son, Stanislaus “Stasch” von Koschembahr (1859-1914).
Notably, Stanislaus von Koschembahr was permanently transferred on the 1st of April 1898 to the German General Staff, also known as the Great General Staff [German: Großen-Generalstab]. This was a very big deal, as this was the full-time body responsible for military planning and strategy, initially for the Prussian Army and later for the German Army. Stanislaus was killed in Mulhouse in Alsace-Lorraine on the 9th of August 1914. At the time, General von Koschembahr was commanding the 84th Infantry Brigade.
An entry that Amalie records on the 6th of May 1898 speaks indirectly to Stanislaus’ negative attitude towards some of his sibling’s partners. When his younger sister Susanna Friederike von Koschembahr (1869-1903) got engaged to her future husband Friedrich “Fritz” Otto Freiherr von Ripperda (1864-1922), Amalie remarked that happily this marriage would not cause any conflict among her children because Susanna and Fritz would behave as relatives to Wilhelm and Gretchen Bruck. The implication is that contrary to the marriage of the latter, which Stanislaus opposed, he favored Susanna’s marriage. There are two ostensible reasons he did not approve of Gretchen’s alliance. First, Stanislaus considered Wilhelm to be non-aristocratic and second, he disapproved because Wilhelm was Jewish.
Stanislaus apparently held the same negative views towards his younger brother Leo’s selection of the “commoner” Alice Auerbach as his spouse; she too was Jewish. Here is what Amalie writes: “Since Stanislaus did not agree to this marriage, he behaved with reserve and, unfortunately, not in a friendly manner towards Alice. It was certainly painful for Leo to bring about a rift, but he had no choice, as he had to remain loyal and steadfast to his Alice. So there was another rift between the siblings, and it hurt me immensely. Of course, there was nothing we could do about it—we had to bear it and wait to see whether time and insight would help bring about a reconciliation.” Amalie later notes that Stanislaus and Leo eventually reconciled.
It is also noteworthy that Stanislaus (Figure 13) attended the wedding of Wilhelm and Margarete Bruck’s eldest son, Gerhard Bruck, when he married Hilda von Zedlitz und Neukirch (Figure 14a-c) on the 21st of March 1914. This suggests Stanislaus may also eventually have reached an “accommodation” with his sister and her husband, possibly because his nephew married an aristocrat.
As previously noted, Gretchen and Wilhelm Bruck had five children. Amalie remarks on Wilhelm’s appointment to the Justizrat, Judicial Council, on the 17th of December 1897. Gretchen and Wilhelm appeared to have had a warm relationship. On his 48th birthday in 1898, and on subsequent birthdays, Gretchen wrote short plays for the children to perform that were the source of great merriment. The scenes are so intimate they are easily imagined.
Amalie’s diary, written as it was in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, reflects societal approval of Germany’s colonial expansionism. She remarks very favorably on Germany’s 1897 takeover of Jiaozhou Bay [German: Kiautschou Bucht] in China. In 1898, a formal lease agreement was reached between the Germans and the imperial Chinese government. The Kiautschou Bay Leased Territory was a German leased territory in Imperial and Early Republican China from 1898 to 1914. It covered 213 square miles and was centered on Jiaozhou Bay on the southern coast of the Shandong Peninsula. The Russian Empire resented the German move as an infringement on their ambitions in the region.
Germany was a latecomer to the imperialistic scramble for colonies. Germany had two primary objectives, using the German colony to support a global naval presence and to support the economy of the mother country. Densely populated China was viewed as a potential market to be exploited with expansionist thinkers demanding an active colonial policy from the government. China was made a high priority because it was deemed to be the most important non-European market in the world.
Amalie remarked on how she was closely following the Spanish-American War of 1898, which had not yet been decided at the time she wrote. She may have oversimplified the cause of the war attributing it to “Spain’s poor economics.” The mysterious explosion of the USS Maine in Havana harbor, which killed 266 American sailors, was the major catalyst for war. While the cause of the explosion has never been fully determined, many Americans blamed Spain. Sensationalized news coverage by American newspapers, referred to as “yellow journalism,” exaggerated Spanish atrocities in Cuba and inflamed public opinion, pushing for intervention. American business interests, particularly in the sugar industry, may also have played a part in intervention by America, prodded by businessmen who sought stability and continued profits.
Another contemporary conflict Amalie followed and remarked disapprovingly upon was the Second Boer War (1899-1902), also known as the Boer War, Transvaal War, Anglo-Boer War, or South African War. This was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer republics, the South African Republic and the Orange Free State, over the Empire’s influence in Southern Africa. The Boers were descendants of Dutch colonists, along with French Huguenots and other European settlers, who established a colony at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652. The descendants of the Dutch colonists are known as Afrikaners.
Amalie remarked the following: “It is the most unjust war that nations have ever waged, and the English are losing respect and prestige. How outrageous is their cruelty against a peaceful people who, through toil and tireless work, have created a flourishing empire.” Seen through a modern-day prism, the mistreatment and subjugation of the native population would render a more negative assessment of the Afrikaners.
Of scant interest to readers but of personal curiosity was that Gretchen and Wilhelm’s eldest son Gerhard was allowed to take a vacation to Ratibor [today: Racibórz, Poland] during Easter 1900. Ratibor in Upper Silesia, as regular readers may recall, is where my father was born and where my family had a presence that lasted more than 100 years. Gerhard visited his widowed great-aunt Friederike “Fritzel” Mockrauer (i.e., Amalie’s sister married to Fedor Bruck, already deceased at the time Gerhard visited) while his father and sister relaxed in Krummhübel [today: Karpacz, Poland] near today’s Karkonosze National Park, which straddles the Polish-Czech border. This is a popular ski resort, and near where my father went skiing with friends many years later. (Figure 15) Given this is a place various members of my family vacationed over the years, my wife and I have decided to include it as a destination during our upcoming holiday in Poland and the Czech Republic.
I’m interested in this for two reasons. My famed ancestor Dr. Walther Wolfgang Bruck (1872-1937) from Breslau [today: Wrocław, Poland] was the personal dentist to Kaiser Wilhelm’s second wife Princess Hermine Reuss of Greiz (Figure 16), possibly the Kaiser himself, and other members of the Prussian aristocracy. More directly, the German Crown Prince’s wife, Duchess Cecilie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, visited the flower shop and school owned by my great-aunt Franziska Bruck in Berlin. Official postcards and photographs exist of this visit, one I guess took place in the early to mid-1910s. (Figure 17)
Amalie describes the Berlin scene preceding the Crown Prince’s marriage (Figures 18 & 21): “Even though, at my advanced age, I couldn’t see much due to the associated exertion, the general enthusiasm filled me with joyful participation, especially when my grandchildren returned home from their outings and spoke with delight about all the splendors they had seen. But at least I was able to admire the Unter der Linden boulevard, as Gretchen took a carriage for a ride. The street was transformed into a rose garden, and Pariser Platz, with its tall masts adorned with rich rose tufts in the sun, looked like something out of a fairytale. And the Opera House was beautifully decorated above all else. Long, yellow-tinted garlands of rhododendrons hung from top to bottom, and large bushes on balconies, windows, and corners, as well as the Crown Prince’s Palace, were framed with pink roses and greenery, even all the window frames. One can imagine there was no way there could have been such an abundance of natural, precious roses at the beginning of June, so everything was decorated with artificial ones. Despite the tremendous heat that had prevailed here for days, masses of people gathered in the streets and squares, participating in the event in our Imperial Palace with astonishing stamina and such sincere, enthusiastic joy that every heart had to rejoice. The young bride was immensely popular. The young couple, in general, won the full sympathy of the crowd through their friendliness they gratefully extended to the enthusiastic people. Our Emperor was also very pleased by his people’s joyful participation in the joy that moved his father’s heart. He expressed it in a wonderful speech at the wedding banquet; few can speak like this ruler with his great understanding, spirit, and kind heart.”
In an entry Amalie recorded on the 13th of October 1906 she reflects on her life. In part she writes:
“My upbringing was such that I lacked any practical experience, and this became particularly detrimental to me now that, at the age of 21, when I married, I found myself in circumstances of which I had no idea. My upbringing at home was, in terms of education and the formation of the heart, the best imaginable and even astonishing for that time in the early 19th century, in a simple middle-class home. . .My parents valued decency and morals, raised us very modestly and unpretentiously, but never discussed in depth our future and our destiny in the event of marriage [Editor’s note: this is a criticism of the complete lack of knowledge in sexual matters]. Such matters were strictly kept at arm’s length, as was business knowledge, which must be important to a woman.”
She continues, characterizing her husband’s equal level of idealism and inexperience, and the detrimental effects:
“The great inclination and enthusiasm of youth prevailed. My husband, at 26, was just as idealistic and inexperienced as I was, and we lived like children in fairy tales. The awakening was very bitter, and since my husband never explained or confided in me the financial situation we were living in, I only learned in outline about the situation, which had already been poor when I married. The estate of Mittel-Sohra near Görlitz was too large for the means available to my husband, and since I received only a very small dowry, it was too difficult to maintain myself there. The estate was beautiful and, as I imagined, a profitable property, but it required a great deal of diligence, energy, and enthusiasm to make progress, even with extreme frugality. My husband lacked all of this, and I was far too inexperienced to support and encourage him as a loyal companion.”
Ultimately, notwithstanding the fact that Leopold von Koschembahr’s mother gave him money to pay the usurious rates to which he was subjected, creditors repossessed their home in 1856-57. Having saved the capital the couple had received from Leopold’s mother, they began to search for a house in Amalie’s hometown of Tost [today: Toszek, Poland] in Upper Silesia. While waiting for the proper opportunity to buy another estate, Amalie ruefully notes Leopold was led “. . .to the incredible idea of investing the money in speculative securities. At the time, the Union War was raging in America, and American securities were being traded. My husband speculated with these securities and lost all his money. That was a terrible blow—for we were not only penniless, but there were also differences to be paid, for which we didn’t have the money. Now, the courts were still at risk of seizing all our belongings.” Friends and relatives, fortunately, pooled money to help the couple pay their debts and lease a property near Posen [today: Poznań, Poland]. However, because of Leopold’s character, as Amalie describes it, “. . .a serious, steady mind was out of the question. He was composed of kindness and great weakness, an invincible stubbornness and idealism.” Because of Leopold’s failings, the couple eventually also lost the lease on the estate near Posen. Suffice it to say that while Leopold may have been an entitled member of the aristocracy, he was imbued with a terrible business sense.
Given her fondness for her son-in-law, my great-great-uncle Wilhelm Bruck, expectedly Amalie remarks on his sudden death on the 15th of February 1907, then again in 1909 on the anniversary of his death. Naturally, she records the deaths of her daughter Susanna in 1903 and her son Leo in 1908, bemoaning the fact she’s outlived them.
Interestingly, Amalie remarks on the celebration of Kaiser Wilhelm II’s birthday on the 27th of January 1909, a fact that will seem curious to an American audience. Unlike our American President, the German Kaiser was seen as the embodiment of German national identity and the leader who would guide the nation towards greatness. Initially, the Kaiser was seen as a symbol of national unity and strength, but his personality and policies, particularly as they impacted the First World War, led to a shift in perception.
Among Amalie Mockrauer’s siblings was a younger sister named Rosalie Mockrauer (1844-1927) (Figure 19) who was married to Dr. Josef Pauly (1843-1916) (Figure 20), the subject of Post 56. Rosalie and Josef lived in Posen [today: Poznań, Poland] and had nine children, eight of whom were girls. Suffice it to say, that many of the distant cousins whom I’ve found and am presently in contact with, are related to me directly or indirectly through the Mockrauers or their in-laws (e.g., Pauly, Kantorowicz).
Amalie died in August 1918, shortly before World War I ended in November 1918. Surprisingly, she makes no mention in her diary of the war, only a passing reference in 1909 of the unrest among Serbian nationalists against Austro-Hungarian rule. World War I was later sparked by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914.
There is so much more I could extract from Amalie’s memoir, but I’ve simply highlighted a few items to discuss that transcend my own family, hoping this might be of slightly greater interest to readers.
Note: This post is yet another example of a reader supplementing what’s known about some person, event, or place I’ve written about. In this case, the reader directed me to the website of the Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives (B3A) where he astonishingly found contemporary plane crash photos of the aircraft my great-uncle Rudolf Löwenstein was traveling on when he was killed on the 22nd of August 1930 in then-Czechoslovakia.
In the recently published Post 174, I discussed the Rudolf Mosse “Annoncen-Expedition-Reklame-Büro,” the advertising expedition/agency for which my great-uncle Rudolf Löwenstein was the General Agent. I think he worked for Rudolf Mosse & Co. in Danzig [today: Gdańsk, Poland] from around 1905 until his untimely death in a plane crash on the 22nd of August 1930 in what is today the Czech Republic.
Following publication of Post 174, my friend Peter Albrecht von Preußen, sent an email with some positive words. He included a link to information about the accident. Several years ago, my “other” Peter friend, Peter Hanke, the “Wizard of Wolfsberg,” had previously found and sent me and translated news clippings from several contemporary German newspapers with accounts of the August 1930 plane accident. I erroneously assumed the new link was merely to another article. It turned out to be something much more engrossing.
This is a good moment for a brief digression to give another “shout out” to the readers of my blog. It has happened on more occasions than I can recall that readers have found and/or brought to my attention information, websites, visuals, artifacts, etc. related to people, events, and places I’ve written about. In many instances I would never have found these on my own nor knew they exist.
In the current instance, Peter Albrecht included the link to the website of the so-called Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives (B3A), which according to the founder of the website, Mr. Ronan Hubert, was established in 1990 for the purpose of dealing with all information related to aviation accidentology. Mr. Ronan self describes as a “Historian in aircraft accidents. Aviation accidentologist. Specialized in psychological preparedness for mass disaster and human factor.” He further writes that “The primary goal of the B3A is to collect, manage and archive all information relating to aviation accidents worldwide since 1918 till [sic] today. Therefore, its records is [sic] currently composed of thousands of documents, reports, photos, etc. representing to date more than 34,400 events.”
Astonishingly, the B3A website includes one photo of the Ford 5 aircraft (Figure 1) on which my great-uncle Rudolf was traveling on the fateful day he died, plus six contemporary photos of the crash. (Figures 2-7) The plane crashed near Jihlava, Czech Republic [German: Iglau]. Details of the plane, the year it was made, the operator of the airline, the number of crew and passengers, the number/of fatalities among the crew and passengers, the captain’s hours of flying experience, the itinerary, etc. are provided. (Figure 8)
The circumstances surrounding the plane accident are also described:
“The aircraft departed Prague-Kbely Airport at 1505LT on a flight to Bratislava with an intermediate stop in Brno. While cruising at a height of 700 metres, weather conditions worsened, and the captain decided first to reduce his altitude. Shortly later, he realized the weather conditions were becoming worse and worse with thunderstorm activity. Due to low visibility, he decided to make a 180 turn to go back to Prague. While flying at a height estimated between 15 and 20 metres in limited visibility, he saw the chimney of a brickwork and made a sharp turn to the left to avoid the collision. Doing so, the aircraft stalled and hit the roof of a farmhouse then crashed half in a garden. While a passenger (Professor Vojtěch Kraus) was seriously injured, all 12 other occupants were killed. Up to date, this accident was considered as the worst involving CSA Czech Airlines since its creation in 1923.”
The names of the crew and passengers are given.
Crew: Josef Sedlář, pilot, Josef Trafina, mechanic.
Passengers: Ing. Mirko Káš, Ing. Vojtěch Jokl, Anton Müller, Vladislaw Müller, Rudolf Vonka, Boh. Jarolímek, Ing. Bernard Eimann, Judr. Anton Hamrle, Prof. Vojtěch Kraus, Marie Rybníčková, Mr. Lowenstein.
As readers can see, my great-uncle “Mr. Lowenstein” was among the passenger fatalities.
According to the contemporary newspaper accounts, translated in Post 71, of the aircraft accident which killed Rudolf and the other passengers and crews, the impact of the plane drilling into the ground was so violent that the petrol tank exploded. The plane was enveloped in a sea of flames. Even though it was raining heavily at the time, the roof of the house into which the plane crashed also caught fire. While the fire brigade extinguished the fire, help came too late. Of the 13 passenger and crew on board, 12 were killed. While the plane’s fuselage appears to have been largely intact, the engine was completely destroyed.
Most people are not apt to have had relatives, friends, or acquaintances killed in a plane crash, but for those rare readers who have lost someone in this manner, it’s intriguing to realize that a website exists which tracks this information.
Note: In this post, I discuss so-called Litfaßsäulen, German advertising columns, that were once ubiquitous in cityscapes across the country but are rapidly being removed.
This post is a spinoff of the previous one where I discussed “Annoncen-Expedition und Reklame-Büro,” advertising expedition or agency. My great uncle Rudolf Löwenstein was the local General Agent for the largest German advertising expedition, Rudolf Mosse & Co., in Danzig [today: Gdańsk, Poland] from around 1905 until his untimely death in 1930. Other than being inspired by my great uncle’s involvement in advertising, this post has nothing to do with my family’s history.
This article is about plaster-postered pillars invented in Berlin in 1854. In German, the advertising columns are known in the plural as Litfaßsäulen. Though I have no reason to believe that my great uncle was involved in the placement of advertisements and posters on these columns on behalf of his clients, it stands to reason he might have been, particularly as a provider of a full-service advertising campaign.
The columns have a colorful history and have even entered the realm of pop culture; more on this below. Though quickly being removed and disappearing from the German cityscape, a low-key, grassroots movement has arisen to save them from removal; it has sparked a fad of writing messages, poems, and heartfelt tributes on the columns, and having two or three people group hug a Litfaßsäule to highlight a reluctance to let them go. I remember having come across these advertising columns during multiple European trips and imaginatively being captured by their quirky, bulky shape. For this reason alone, I’ve decided to make them the subject of this post and explore a little of their history.
A Litfaßsäule is a tall cylindrical advertising column, roughly 3 meters high (i.e., ~ 9 feet), usually placed on sidewalks. (Figure 1) Although several European cities use this type of structure for advertising, they were invented in Germany. The word Litfaßsäule is uniquely German. It comes from the words Litfaß (pronounced Lit-fass) and Säule. The word Säule means “column” or “pillar.” Litfaß is not actually a German word, but instead the surname of the man who ostensibly invented this type of column, the German printer Ernst Litfaß (1816-1874) in 1854. Litfaß was not only a printer but also an actor, poet, impresario, and events manager. He made most of his fortune as the “Reklamekönig,” or advertising king, during the industrial revolution of the mid-19th century.
The Litfaßsäule and the concept of public advertising behind it was inspired by a trip Litfaß took to Paris in 1843. He was completely taken by the advertising he witnessed there, the unlikely inspiration being a circular pissoir bedecked with advertisements. Litfaß saw an opportunity where others saw only a public toilet. Another purported source of inspiration was supposedly advertisement columns in England that were lit with a lantern from the inside and drawn around the city on a wagon. So, while Litfaß did not per se invent advertising columns, he promoted the idea of permanent, cylindrical pillars.
In mid-19th century Berlin, advertisements, signs, notices, and political announcements were randomly affixed to trees, building facades, and what have you. Things looked completely disorganized. Appalled by these excessive and random postings, Litfaß suggested to the chief of police of Berlin that columns be erected all over the city on which people could hang their posters. Perhaps he deemed that these columns would fulfill or contribute to Germany’s stereotypical orderliness?
After years of negotiations, Litfaß received the first permit for his “advertising columns” on December 5, 1854. He received a monopoly from the city of Berlin for the erection of his columns that was valid until 1865. In 1855, the first 100 advertising columns were erected in Berlin and named Litfaßsäulen in his honor; another 50 columns were erected in 1865. In exchange for the monopoly, the contract also called for the installation of up to 30 public urinals in exchange for the monopoly, though none were ever built.
Initially, Litfaßsäulen were used to advertise cultural events. To ensure that no inappropriate ads were posted and that the posters were hung in an orderly fashion, an inspector was responsible for examining the columns daily.
The authorities and advertisers quickly recognized the advantages of the new advertising medium. The state could censor the content beforehand, while advertisers who purchased space were assured their advertisements would remain uncovered and visible for the entire rented period without being pasted over.
Created in Germany, the advertising medium quickly spread to neighboring European countries and eventually to the rest of the world. Paris got its own version of the ad pillars in 1868, where they are called “colonnes Morris,” Morris columns. They were named after the printer Gabriel Morris who implemented an idea like his German counterpart’s.
The columns took on a new purpose in 1870 when the Franco-German war broke out. Litfaß convinced city leadership that these columns, typically located in central locations and busy plazas, would be an ideal place to disseminate crucial information about happenings on the Front. It’s not entirely clear to me whether this condition that the latest news be published on the columns originated from the outset of the 1854 monopolistic arrangement or evolved over time. Regardless, an advantage is that people could gather around these columns and catch up on ongoing wartime developments much quicker than from newspapers, which took longer to print. Interestingly, Litfaß was also given the monopoly by the Prussian Emperor to print so-called Kriegsdepeschen, telegrams from the Front, and post them on his pillars.
After the two world wars, the columns were used to post notices by people looking for missing loved ones, as well as help-wanted ads for rubble clean up, as well as other public advertisements. Modern Litfaßsäulen publicize concerts, performances, and other cultural events from around the city.
Until 2019, there were slightly more than 2,500 columns remaining in Berlin. However, since then, many more have been removed. Historically, Berlin’s Litfaßsäulen were spread throughout the city from the busiest plazas to the most remote suburbs. The city plans to preserve 50 of the classic columns as historic monuments. Part of the justification for their removal is they require constant upkeep, for example dealing with erosion caused by dogs urinating against them. An upkeeper’s nightmare but an archaeologist’s dream is that periodically the columns need to be scraped after an average of 150 layers of posters have been pasted on them! Suffice it to say, archaeologists have a way of individually separating and reading those layers and, so inclined, could learn a lot from their study.
Ironically, while the traditional columns will effectively be removed, a new company from Stuttgart has acquired the advertising rights for 15 years to build 1,500 new columns of a newer type that will be larger and have lighting.
Germany’s most famous Litfaßsäule is in the Berlin district of Wilmersdorf. It was featured on the cover of a 1929 German children’s book, entitled “Emil and the Detectives” by Erich Kästner. (Figure 2)
In Vienna, Austria, numerous advertising pillars in the vicinity of the Vienna River cover the stone spiral staircases leading to the surface from the depths; they protect unauthorized entry into the understructure. The advertising columns are equipped with a door that can be opened from the outside with a key and from inside without one. In a 1949 Orson Welles film, entitled “The Third Man,” the protagonist Henry Lime escapes into the Viennese sewers through an advertising column. (Figure 3)
Another use of the advertising columns has been practiced in Nuremberg, Germany since 2015. Public toilets have been installed inside which can be used for a small fee. In Görlitz, Germany, on the border with Poland, the mayor has tried to stem their demise by looking into their possible use as 5G signal masts. Since 2021, in Düsseldorf, Germany, the historic advertising pillars are already being used for this purpose. They have a barely recognizable door that provides access to the technology, and an aluminum-colored radio mast “hood,” reminiscent of a woman’s hat from former times. These 5G signal masts improve reception and provide higher network stability within a radius of 400 meters (i.e., ~1,300 feet).
A 1979 German stamp (Figure 4) and 2016 20 Euro German coin (Figure 5) have been issued to commemorate Litfaßsäulen.
Note: In this post, I discuss my great-uncle Rudolf Löwenstein and the Rudolf Mosse “Annoncen-Expedition-Reklame-Büro,” advertising expedition or agency, for which he worked.
In an imagined account that may have taken place in my father’s life almost 95 years ago, in Post 71 I pictured the day he learned that his uncle, Rudolf Löwenstein, had died in a plane crash. (Figure 1) The date was the 22nd of August 1930, when his uncle was returning to Danzig [today: Gdańsk, Poland] in the Free City of Danzig from visiting family in then-Czechoslovakia. At the time, I’m certain my father was living with his uncle and his paternal aunt, Rudolf (1872-1930) and Hedwig Löwenstein, née Bruck (1870-1949), and likely two of their three children, while apprenticing as a dentist. My father would eventually open his own dental practice in April 1932 in a town 40km (i.e., ca. 25 miles) to the east of Danzig in Tiegenhof [today: Nowy Dwór Gdański, Poland], also located in the Free City of Danzig.
As mentioned, Rudolf and Hedwig Löwenstein had three children, the eldest, Fedor Löwenstein (1901-1946), who died in 1946 before I was born. Hedwig passed away in 1949, also before I was born. However, as a child I met Rudolf and Hedwig’s two youngest offspring, Jeanne Goff, née Löwenstein (1902-1986) and Heinz Löwenstein (1905-1979), in Nice, France. (Figure 2) If the Löwenstein surname sounds familiar to regular readers, it’s because I’ve written multiple posts about Fedor Löwenstein and his brother Heinz Löwenstein.
As a reminder, Fedor Löwenstein was an accomplished artist, 25 of whose artworks were intercepted and confiscated by the Nazis at the Port of Bordeaux in December 1940 as they were being shipped to New York: Long time readers know I’ve been engaged in a more than 10-yearlong battle with the French Ministry of Culture to recover the three surviving paintings. Heinz Löwenstein, by contrast, fought as a member of England’s Royal Pioneer Corps and was captured in the Battle of Greece in 1941, and incarcerated and escaped from German stalags no fewer than five times. His story is truly movie-worthy.
In any case, based on what I know, Jeanne and Heinz Löwenstein were the two cousins my father was closest to. (Figures 3-4) He lived with them in Danzig, then later near Jeanne and her mother in Nice, France. The fact that these are my father’s only cousins whom I met growing up supports the notion they were close. Another of my father’s first cousins lived in New York City, where I grew up. Because my father didn’t bother to tell her about my birth, she never again spoke to him. Suffice it to say, I never met her. With rare exceptions my father was not into family, a phenomenon I don’t fully comprehend.
A brief digression. I have an ancestral tree on ancestry.com with around 1,200 names. I use it to orient myself to the people I write about on my blog. Where available, I attach images or pictures of family members, though for long-ago ancestors sometimes the best I can do is find a painted rendering of them. In the case of Rudolf Löwenstein, I’ve not yet uncovered a picture of him though I remain optimistic one or more survive. The difficulty is that none of Rudolf and Hedwig’s children had children of their own so tracking down who may have inherited Löwenstein family photos and personal papers and where they may have wound up, assuming they’ve survived, is challenging.
My paternal grandfather Felix Bruck (1864-1927) and his seven siblings including Hedwig Bruck were all born in Ratibor [today: Racibórz, Poland], the same place as my father. Hedwig and Rudolf Löwenstein were married there in 1899. For reasons that are unclear to me their first child Fedor Löwenstein was born in 1901 in Munich, Germany. Their two younger children, however, were born in Danzig, respectively, in 1902 and 1905.
It’s safe to assume that no later than 1902, Rudolf and Hedwig Löwenstein had relocated to Danzig, presumably from Munich. However, contemporary Danzig address books first list Rudolf Löwenstein in the 1905 directory. (Figure 5) His occupation at the time was “Generalvertreter fur Rudolf Mosse und Paul Stabernack & Co., Berlin,” or General Agent for Rudolf Mosse & Co. The 1905 address book identifies this as the “Zentral-Bureau fur jederlei Reklame,” or the Central office for all kinds of advertising. Above the bolded ad Rudolf Löwenstein is identified as a “Kfm. (=Kaufman), Vertreter d.(=der) Annoncen-Expedition,” or translated literally as “merchant or businessman, agent for advertisement expedition.” Curious as to what precisely an advertisement expedition is, I investigated.
In German Wikipedia, I learned about Rudolf Mosse & Co., the company for who Rudolf Löwenstein was an agent. Rudolf Mosse (1843-1920) was a German-Jewish publisher, company founder, and businessman. He founded Rudolf Mosse Zeitungs-Annoncen-Expedition on the 1st of January 1867 in Berlin. He started by advertising his own business in advertisements but quickly went from being a mere intermediary to being a provider of advertising space, which he sold to advertisers. As one of the first publishers, he accomplished this by leasing entire advertising pages from several newspapers. This was a highly successful business model, so much so that five years after he founded his company it had 250 branches in Germany and abroad. Obviously, one of these branches was in Danzig and Rudolf Löwenstein was its local General Agent.
Let me say a little more, generally, about “Annoncen-Expedition,” but more specifically about Rudolf Mosse & Co. This is also drawn from German Wikipedia (i.e., U.S. Wikipedia does not include mention of these advertising expeditions). In the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries, advertising expeditions mediated the placement of advertisements between newspapers and advertisers. This was only possible after the abolition in Prussia of the so-called “insertion obligation” on the 1st of January 1847. Prior to this date, advertisements were only allowed to be published in intelligence magazines. After the abolition of the insertion obligation, advertisements could also be placed in daily newspapers.
While Rudolf Mosse was a major player in the German advertising landscape during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, his company was not the first advertising expedition in Germany. In 1855, the first advertising expedition was founded in Altona by the Haasenstein advertising agency. Similar companies had already emerged earlier in the Anglo-American world, as well as in France. Haasenstein collected advertisements from advertising customers, sold them to newspapers and collected a commission.
In Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, and in many other cities, advertising expeditions were also founded as pure intermediaries of advertising space. Soon newspapers financed more than 50 percent of their operations by advertising, which made them attractive capital investments.
At first, the advertisements differed only slightly from the rest of the paper, forcing advertisers to find a suitable publication environment for their ads. In the decades after the founding of the German Empire in 1871, however, and amid industrialization and mass production, advertisements began to stand out and be distinctive. The advertising expeditions, above all Rudolf Mosse as mentioned above, leased the entire advertising space of some newspapers and thus went from simply being an intermediary to being a provider of advertising space. In addition, the advertising expeditions now also advised their customers on the design and placement of the advertisements.
In 1872, Rudolf Mosse founded the “Berliner Tageblatt,” followed in 1889 by the founding of the “Berliner Morgenzeitung.” Mosse purchased printers and expanded his expedition to become a newspaper publisher, thus competing with other publishers. Effectively, the advertising expeditions had grown into large media companies and were accused of favoring (their own) newspapers and influencing the content of the other publications in which ads were placed.
Between 1918 and 1929, there were fierce price wars between the advertising expeditions. Some became the objects of speculation for investors. By the mid-1920s, branches of American advertising agencies first opened in Germany, all of which operated as full-service companies. By 1932, Rudolf Mosse & Co., which had grown into the largest advertising expedition at the time, ran into financial difficulties and was acquired by a German GmbH (i.e., “Gesellschaft mit beschrankter Haftung,” a “limited liability company (LLC)” which offers limited liability to its owners and is comparable to an American LLC).
On the 12th of September 1933, the Nazis passed the Gesetz über Wirtschaftswerbung, the “1933 Commercial Advertising Act.” This created the legal basis for the establishment of an “Advertising Council of the German Economy.” This Council served to synchronize the advertising industry in the Nazi state. The advertising expeditions were de facto brought into line and were now under the control of the Ministeriums für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda, the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda.
Following Rudolf Löwenstein’s untimely death in 1930, his son Heinz took over the business although the business was still listed under his father’s name. (Figure 6) The 1933 Danzig address book list introduces a slightly different business term, namely, “Reklame-Büro,” which translates literally as “advertising agency.” As opposed to an advertising expedition, I think this was a company that created and managed advertising campaigns for other businesses, developing marketing strategies to promote products or services across media channels. In other words this was a full-service company versus one that merely helped facilitate the placement of advertisements in newspapers and elsewhere.
While Heinz Löwenstein appears to still have been the General Agent for Rudolf Mosse advertising expedition in 1933, I strongly suspect it was probably the last year he was in business. The 1933 Commercial Advertising Act would have severely limited his ability as a Jew to freely run his advertising agency. Based on an unclear reference on one of his military papers, I have reason to believe that he and his wife immigrated to Palestine ca. 1935, whereupon he joined Britain’s Royal Pioneer Corps.
There is one final thing I want to discuss regarding Heinz Löwenstein’s occupation as indicated in the 1934 Danzig address book, namely, the use of the German term “propagandist.” Like me, given the years in which Heinz operated the “Reklame-Büro. Annoncen-Expedit.” after Hitler came to power, readers might erroneously assume he was a mouthpiece for the Nazi government. “Propagandist,” in the English sense is defined as “someone who creates and spreads propaganda, which is communication used to influence or persuade an audience, often with a specific agenda or viewpoint, and may not be objective.” I can’t emphasize strongly enough how implausible it would have been for Heinz to parrot Nazi ideology, given his life history. Heinz clearly saw the handwriting on the wall and, in my opinion, departed for Palestine as soon as he was able to after Hitler came to power.
Given what I believe to be true about Heinz, I turned to German Wikipedia to understand the use of the term “propagandist” in German. A German synonym for propagandist is Verkaufsfördererung. Expectedly, the term means something very different in German, a sales promoter, who is involved “in sales promotions, namely, all temporary activities with a promotional character [that] are combined within the marketing communication policy, which serve to activate the market participants (sales bodies, dealers, customers) to increase sales results, and support other marketing measures.” Use of this term in the context of running an advertising agency makes much more sense to describe the work that Heinz Löwenstein was involved in.
This suggests one final thought. Growing up my German-born father would occasionally use a German aphorism or saying to make a point. Asked to explain, he would tell me there was no comparable saying in English. While the difference between use of “propagandist” in English versus German is not quite the same thing, it is worth bearing in mind that online translators may occasionally give you inaccurate translations so further investigation may be required.
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.
