Category: Breslau (Wroclaw)

POST 118: SEVERAL POLISH DATABASES CONTAINING ANCESTRAL INFORMATION ON PRUSSIAN ANCESTORS

 

Note: A query from a reader about my ancestor Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck’s first marriage led me to obtaining Walter’s marriage certificate to his first wife, which in turn guided me to several Polish databases readers may find useful when researching their own Prussian ancestors. It is worth noting the data from some BUT not all these sources may also pop up when using ancestry.com. In the interest of thoroughness, readers may also want to check the ones cited in this post. I explain some of the challenges of using these sources.

Related Posts:

POST 99: THE ASTONISHING DISCOVERY OF SOME OF DR. WALTER WOLFGANG BRUCK’S PERSONAL EFFECTS

POST 100: DR. WALTER WOLFGANG BRUCK, DENTIST TO GERMANY’S LAST IMPERIAL FAMILY

POST 101: DR. WALTER WOLFGANG BRUCK: HIS DAUGHTER RENATE’S FIRST HUSBAND, A “SILENT HERO”

POST 102: DR. WALTER BRUCK, HIS SECOND WIFE JOHANNA GRÄBSCH & HER FAMILY

POST 109 (PART 1): JOHANNA & RENATE BRUCK’S WARTIME TAGEBUCH (“DIARY”)—YEARS 1940-1941

 

In January of this year, I received an email through my Blog’s Webmail from a gentleman named Stephen Falk from Point Roberts, Washington. Mr. Falk contacted me after reading Blog Post 99 about my accomplished relative from Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland], Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck, subject of multiple earlier posts, wondering whether I was aware of Walter’s first wife, Margarethe “Grete” Skutsch (1872-1942). I confirmed that I knew about her. Stephen, it so happens, has the same relationship to Margarethe Skutsch, second cousin twice removed, as I do to Walter. In passing, Stephen mentioned that he was unaware that Walter had remarried and had fathered two children with his second wife.

Regular readers may recall that in Post 100 I discussed how I discovered Dr. Bruck had previously been married. Quoting what I wrote earlier:

“In researching when and where Walter’s older sister, Margarethe Prausnitz née Bruck, was born and died, I found an ancestral tree showing Walter had been married before he married Johanna Bruck née Gräbsch, the mother of his two children. This came as quite a surprise to me. According to this source, the name of Walter’s first wife was purportedly Margarethe STUTSCH.

I have repeatedly told readers that unless I can locate primary source documents, I am hesitant to believe what I find in other people’s trees. Case in point. While I was eventually able to confirm Walter had indeed previously been married, I learned his first wife’s maiden name was SKUTSCH not Stutsch, complicating my search. Sadly, I found that Margarethe Skutsch, born the same month and year as Walter, March 1872, was murdered in Theresienstadt in 1942.

I unearthed two primary source documents confirming Margarethe’s connection to Walter Bruck. The first was her Theresienstadt death certificate, very rarely completed post-mortem for Jews who died there, giving her married name. The second was the 1907 death certificate for Margarethe’s mother, Berta Skutsch née Grosser, at which Walter was a witness. A picture from around 1917 shows Margarethe and Walter seated at an outside picnic table with the Grand Duke of Oldenburg and his wife, indicating they were still married at the time. Walter’s biography which abruptly ends around 1894-95 gives no indication he was married before he left for America to attend the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery, so the duration of his first marriage is unknown.”

In Part I of Post 109, I also made mention of a seemingly ongoing connection between Walter Bruck’s first and second wives following Walter’s death in 1937. Again quoting:

“Personally intriguing is the mention made on March 30, 1940, that Renate [Dr. Bruck’s surviving child by his second wife] went to visit ‘Tante Margarethe’ to wish her a happy birthday. The quotation marks indicate that while she was not a relative, she was still referred to as an aunt. There is no doubt this is Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck’s first wife who was Jewish, Margarethe Bruck née Skutsch. She was born on March 30, 1872, in Breslau [Wrocław, Poland], and murdered in the Theresienstadt Ghetto on the 22nd of September 1942. It is surprising that Johanna and Renate were in touch with Walter’s first wife, although, as this was certainly the case, it’s astonishing that Johanna made no mention in the diary when Margarethe was deported. Perhaps Johanna had already distanced herself from this Jewish ‘aunt’ by then?”

Soon after establishing contact with Stephen Falk, he informed me that he has a copy of Walter Bruck and Margarethe Skutsch’s marriage certificate (Figures 1a-d), which he graciously shared.  From the certificate, which my good German friend Peter Hanke transcribed and translated for me, I learned several interesting things. (Figures 2a-b)

 

Figure 1a. Page 1 of Dr. Walter Bruck and Margarethe Skutsch’s 1896 wedding certificate with a notation in the upper right-hand corner dated the 8th of January 1924 indicating they were officially divorced on the 21st of December 1923
Figure 1b. Page 2 of Dr. Walter Bruck and Margarethe Skutsch’s 1896 wedding certificate providing the names of witnesses

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 1c. An attached sheet dated the 24th of January 1939 adding the name “Sara” to Margarethe Bruck née Skutsch’s name to indicate she was Jewish. Dr. Walter Bruck died in 1937 so there was no need to add the name “Israel” to his name
Figure 1d. A second sheet attached to Walter and Margarethe’s marriage certificate with a list of other Jewish people who had “Sara” or “Israel” added to their names

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 2a. Transcription of Walter and Margarethe’s 1896 marriage certificate including the sheets attached in January 1939

 

Figure 2b. Translation of Walter and Margarethe’s 1896 marriage certificate including the sheets attached in January 1939

 

As I correctly surmised from Walter’s biography which I discussed in Post 100, he was not yet married to his first wife when he departed for America in around 1894-95 to attend the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery. According to his marriage document Walter and Margarethe married on the 20th of October 1896 in Breslau, Germany. The certificate confirmed that by the time of their marriage in 1896, Walter had already converted to the Protestant religion. For a long time, I thought his conversion might have coincided with the death of Walter’s mother in around 1917, but clearly Walter anticipated the benefits professionally of being Protestant. As he and other Jews who converted would later learn, according to Nazi ideology he would always be considered “racially” Jewish. Walter died in 1937, perhaps by his own hand, so did not live long enough to have “Israel” added to his name, but as readers can see, Margarethe had the name “Sara” added to hers identifying her as Jewish (Figure 1c); sadly, as previously mentioned, she was deported to and murdered in Theresienstadt in 1942.

It is not uncommon for German marriage certificates to include the date of a divorce decree should a marriage be dissolved. As readers will note, a handwritten entry was added to Walter and Margarethe’s 1896 marriage document on the 8th of January 1924 affirming they had been divorced since the 21st of December 1923. (Figure 1a) The timing of the divorce is intriguing. In Post 102, I included a copy of Dr. Walter Bruck and Johanna Graebsch’s wedding announcement dated the 13th of December 1923 (Figure 3), thus, eight days before Walter’s first marriage officially ended.

 

Figure 3. Walter Bruck and Johanna Gräbsch’s wedding announcement dated the 13th of December 1923, eight days before Walter’s divorce from Margarethe Skutsch became official

 

Judging from the entry to Johanna and Renate Bruck’s Tagebuch cited above, it appears that Walter’s second wife had a cordial relationship with his first wife at least until it became too dangerous for Johanna and Renate to associate with the Jewish-born Margarethe Bruck née Skutsch during the Nazi era. While the reasons for the dissolution of Walter and Margarethe’s marriage will likely never be known, perhaps their inability to have children may have been the cause? To date, I have found no evidence they ever had any together.

The marriage certificate contains additional ancestral information about Walter and Margarethe’s parents, information previously known to me, though for readers in a similar situation, such documents can often yield new ancestral data.

Stephen gave me a direct link to Walter and Margarethe’s 1896 wedding document. The source is the “Archiwum Państwowe we Wrocławiu,” the State Archives in Wrocław, which has free, online genealogy collections as well as onsite family history collections. Prior to being contacted by Stephen, I had never accessed the Breslau online records, so will spend a little time broadly explaining to interested followers how to navigate the database. Readers should be forewarned that based on my limited exploration of the website I find it extremely user-unfriendly. Beyond the obvious challenge of negotiating a Polish website, even with the translator automatically turned on, there appear to be specific sequential steps to be followed to access the desired files.

Relatedly, my good friend Peter Hanke provided a link to a website entitled “Ahnenforschung in Schlesien—Liegnitz, Breslau, Lauban, Hirschberg,” Genealogy in Silesia—Liegnitz, Wroclaw, Lauban, Hirschberg that includes a portal page for specifically accessing the documents of the State Archives in Wroclaw (the Standesamt or the German civil registration offices for Breslau I, II, III, IV which were responsible for recording births, marriages, and deaths). (Figure 4) For ease, it helps to begin with the link to “Genealogy in Silesia” just mentioned.

 

Figure 4. Portal page from the “Ahnenforschung in Schlesien—Liegnitz, Breslau, Lauban, Hirschberg” link taking you to the vital records from the former Breslau registry offices

 

Before briefly explaining how to access the Wroclaw records, some background about the city of Breslau is helpful. By the end of the Middle Ages in around 1500, the city had already more than 25,000 inhabitants, something few of the more than 4,000 places in Silesia had reached by the end of WWII. By 1840, 100,000 people were already living in Breslau. From then on, a tremendous growth spurt ensued because of the construction of the railway and the beginning of industrialization. In 1900 the population had quadrupled to 400,000 as outlying areas were incorporated into the city. By 1939 there were 630,000 inhabitants in Breslau. Most readers with an ancestral link to Prussia likely have relatives with a connection to Breslau simply because it was the largest city in Silesia.

I was able to track down a map of Breslau as it looked in 1863 hoping I could locate the streets where Walter and Margarethe lived before they got married 33 years later. The marriage certificate tells us Walter resided at Schweidnitzerstraße 27 (Figure 5), and Margarethe at Zwingerplatz 2. Both locales are found on the 1863 map (Figure 6) although Hindenburgplatz, where Walter later owned a sumptuous home, was then an outlying area known only as “nach Kleinburg.” Peter Hanke also gave me a link to a website containing many high-resolution historic maps of Breslau, including Kaiser Wilhelm Strasse which bisected Hindenburgplatz (Figure 7); for readers interested in understanding the city’s layout through time, I include the link: http://igrek.amzp.pl/result.php?cmd=pt&locsys=1&uni=-706307&box=0.0001&hideempty=on

 

Figure 5. 1897 Breslau Address showing where Dr. Walter Bruck and his father Dr. Julius Bruck lived, Schweidnitzerstrasse 27

 

Figure 6. 1863 map of Breslau showing the locales where Schweidnitzer and Zwinger were located, locales, respectively, where Dr. Walter Bruck and Margarethe Skutsch lived when they were married in 1896

 

Figure 7. 1895 map of Breslau showing the relative locations of Schweidnitzer, Zwingerplatz, and Kaiser Wilhelm Strasse

 

Moving on, let me describe how to access Breslau’s birth, marriage, and death records from the “Ahnenforschung in Schlesien—Liegnitz, Breslau, Lauban, Hirschberg” website. As previously mentioned, Breslau had four Standesämter, or civil registration offices, referred to as “Standesamt BRESLAU I-IV” on the site’s portal page. The responsible registry office was based on one’s street address. Determining the responsible Breslau Standesamt for one’s ancestors without an address and address book is nigh near impossible.

That said, I like a challenge, and attempted to determine the civil registry office for Dr. Walter Bruck for the last year he was alive, specifically, 1937. Living on a street that was in the late 19th century and early 20th century known as Kaiser Wilhelm Strasse, during the Nazi era it was called “Straße der S.A.” “S.A.” stands for Sturmabteilung (SA) which was the paramilitary combat organization of the Nazi Party. The precise address of Dr. Bruck’s residence in 1937 was Hindenburgplatz 17 (Figure 8), bisected initially by Kaiser Wilhelm Strasse, and later by the renamed Straße der S.A. (Figure 9)

 

Figure 8. Dr. Walter Bruck’s listing and address from a 1937 Breslau Address Book showing he lived at Hindenburg Platz 17, a plaza bisected by Kaiser Wilhelm Strasse, renamed during the Nazi era to “Straße der S.A.”

 

Figure 9. 1939 map of Breslau showing that Kaiser Wilhelm Strasse was then called “Straße der S.A.,” which bisected Hindenburgplatz

 

The next step in determining the responsible civil registry office requires having an address book for the year in question, in this example, 1937. The following website (Category:Wroclaw Address Book – GenWiki (genealogy.net) has 104 Breslau Address Books intermittently spanning parts of two centuries and includes the year 1937. The fourth part of this Address Book shows the all-important street directory, which lists the relevant civil registry office under one of the columns. In the case of Hindenburgplatz 17 the responsible Standesamt was “4,” the responsible Evangelical parish was “10,” and the responsible Catholic parish under the column titled “parochia,” was “III.” (Figures 10a-b)

 

Figure 10a. Page from Section 4 of the 1937 Breslau Address Book which identifies the “Standesamt” (civil registry office) responsible for specific Breslau addresses and cross references the relevant Evangelical and Catholic parishes by number

 

Figure 10b. Closeup from Section 4 of the Breslau Address Book with Dr. Bruck’s home address, Hindenburgplatz 17, showing that it was served by Standesamt IV, and that the responsible Evangelical parish was “10” (St. John’s Church) and the Catholic one was “III” (St. Carolus-Kapelle)

 

Readers will rightly wonder which Evangelical and Catholic churches the parish numbers relate to. This information is also found in the fourth part of the address books, in subsection five entitled “V. Abschnitt. Kirchen und Friedhöfe,” Section V. Churches and Cemeteries. (Figure 11) So, in the above example, the Evangelical parish 10 refers to St. John’s Church, while the Catholic parish III would have been St. Carolus-Kapelle. Knowing that Dr. Bruck was a Protestant, I searched for the surviving church registers for the St. John’s Church, none of which are known to have survived WWII.

 

Figure 11. Section 4, Subsection V of 1937 Breslau Address Book entitled “V. Abschnitt. Kirchen und Friedhöfe,” Section V. Churches and Cemeteries, with the names of Breslau’s former Evangelical and Catholic parishes

 

Later, I will briefly discuss one Breslau parish record of personal interest I surprisingly found amongst surviving records for a different Evangelical parish, the church of St. Elisabeth’s.

For readers in fact interested in tracking down the responsible civil registry office as well as the parish for ancestors listed in the various Breslau address books, the following link provides a “how-to” guide on doing so: http://www.christoph-www.de/breslau%201.html; this how-to guide is entitled “Breslau für Familienforscher,” “Wrocław for Genealogists.” (Figure 12) Bear in mind that not all Breslau directories include a table in the fourth part of the book cross-referencing street addresses with civil registry offices and responsible parishes. In this case, readers should examine directories a year or more before or after the target year.

 

Figure 12. First page of “how-to” guide entitled “Wrocław for Genealogists”

 

Continuing. I will use “Standesamt BRESLAU IV” to illustrate how to access the Breslau birth, marriage, and death records. Once you’ve selected a specific civil registry office, you’ll be taken to another page where readers will find the following listings in Polish on the left side (Figure 13): Zespół1428-0 – Urząd Stanu Cywilnego (Zespół1428-0 – Registry Office); Seria1 – Księgi urodzeń (Birth records) (Figure 14); Seria2 – Księgi małżeństw (Marriage registers); and Seria3 – Księgi zgonów (Death books). You can either select birth, marriage, or death records, or “Show All the Listings” in the center part of the screen (i.e., at the time of this writing, there were “233 Results” available). Next, scroll down and select the specific year and records you’re interested in which will take you to another page; scroll down on this page, and select the hyperlinked URL. Images of the vital documents will show up which you can then scroll through systematically; if you know the specific month and/or day you’re looking for you can short-circuit the process. If you attempt to access the vital records from a place other than “Show All the Listings,” which it is possible to do, the hyperlinked URL won’t appear.

 

Figure 13. Cover page of “Standesamt Breslau IV” from which to access birth, marriage & death vital records

 

Figure 14. Page from which to access birth books for Standesamt Breslau IV

 

I want to draw readers attention to another source of information that will take you to maps and plans of the city of Breslau. By selecting “Standesamt Breslau I,” you’ll come to a page entitled “Team 1425-0—Civil Registry Office in Wrocław I” (Figure 15) Click where it says “430 Results,” and on the center of the next page select the box “Civil Registry Office in Wrocław.” (Figure 16) The next page yields “5504 Results” (Figure 17); on the left side you can select “Files of the city of Wrocław” which takes you to a different page with “489 Results” with the icons of Breslau maps through time. (Figure 18)

 

Figure 15. Page from which to begin accessing civil records, maps, and plans for “Standesamt Breslau I”

 

Figure 16. Page with “430 Results” from which to select “Civil Registry Of Wrocław”

 

Figure 17. Page with “5504 Results” from which to select “Files of the City of Wrocław” along the left side of screen

 

Figure 18. Page with ”489 Results” showing icons of old maps and plans of Breslau

 

Suffice it to say with all the digital information available through the “Archiwum Państwowe we Wrocławiu,” one could spend many days studying the offerings; I’ve barely touched on what can be accessed but for interested genealogists the more narrowly you can focus your research with vital dates and addresses of one’s ancestors, obviously the easier things will go.

Before personally acquainting myself with the digital records available at the Wrocław Archives, I asked Stephen to check on specific vital documents where I knew the approximate date or year of the event. Initially, I had hoped to obtain the birth certificates for Walter and Johanna Bruck’s two daughters, Hermine born in 1924, who lived only a few months, and Renate born in 1926. Unfortunately, in Poland as in Germany there is a “protection period” before vital documents can be released to the general public. While the births of both Hermine and Renate took place when Breslau was part of Germany, the protection period is governed by Poland; Poland won’t release Hermine and Renate’s birth certificates, respectively, until 2024 and 2026, so 100 years after their births. In Germany, the protection period for birth certificates is 110 years. In the case of death records, Germany releases them after 30 years but in Poland one must wait 80 years.

Having learned that the protection period for marriage records in both Germany and Poland is 80 years, I had hoped I could uncover Walter Bruck and Johanna Gräbsch’s 1923 or 1924 marriage certificate, to no avail. Perplexingly, the marriage records for this period are not yet digitized. I’ll return to my search for information on Walter and Johanna’s marriage momentarily in discussing another Polish database readers can search for information on Prussian ancestors.

To remind readers, Walter and Johanna’s daughter Renate was married three times. Her first husband, whom I’ve previously wrote about in Post 101 was Matthias Eugen Walter Mehne; according to his daughter Bettina Mehne he was born in 1908 in Breslau. While many birth records from this year exist in the Wrocław Archives, Stephen could not find M.E.W. Mehne’s birth certificate so one can only assume it was among those destroyed during WWII.

Matthias Mehne’s address, Tauenzienplatz 1, means the responsible Standesamt was 4. The responsible Evangelical parish for this address was “2,” while the responsible Catholic parish was “VI.” In the case of the address associated with Matthias Mehne, the Evangelical parish would have been St. Mary Magdalene, while the corresponding Catholic parish would have been St. Dorothea (=Minoritenkirche). It’s unknown to me whether Matthias was an Evangelical or a Catholic, and while church records survive for both parishes, I was unable to find a baptismal or birth record for him amongst these records.

In the aforementioned how-to guide “Wrocław for Genealogists,” the surviving Evangelical and Catholic parish records are identified, and a hyperlink provided to some of them. Uncertain whether any would have relevant records for my ancestors, I started by examining the Evangelical records for the first Evangelical church, St. Elisabeth parish church (Elisabeth-Kirche zu Breslau | Breslau/Wroclaw, Staatsarchiv | Polen | Matricula Online (matricula-online.eu). Miraculously, I stumbled upon the marriage register listing for Johanna Gräbsch to her first husband, Dr. Alfred Renner, confirming they were married on the 6th of May 1905. (Figure 19) While I had previously located their marriage certificate in ancestry.com, it fails to indicate they were married in St. Elisabeth’s Evangelical Church. Armed with this new information, I naively hoped that Johanna Gräbsch’s marriage to Walter Bruck in late 1923 or early 1924 might also have taken place in the same Evangelical Church, so I carefully scrolled through the rest of marriage register for St. Elisabeth’s, to no avail.

 

Figure 19. Page from Marriage Register for Breslau’s St. Elisabeth’s Church recording Johanna Gräbsch’s 1905 marriage to Dr. Alfred Renner

 

Given Dr. Bruck’s prominence in the city of Breslau during his lifetime, Stephen Falk made an excellent recommendation. He suggested I try and track down a contemporary newspaper that might have included an announcement of Dr. Bruck’s second marriage. I was quickly able to determine the largest Breslau newspaper of the time was the “Breslauer Zeitung” (i.e., “zeitung”=newspaper) but was uncertain whether historic copies of the tabloid can be found online. Consequently, I contacted my friend from Wrocław, Ms. Renata Wilkoszewska-Krakowska, Branch Manager, Museum of Cemetery Art (Old Jewish Cemetery), Branch of the City Museum of Wrocław. Renata graciously provided a link to another Polish database (https://www.dbc.wroc.pl/dlibra?language=en), the Lower Silesian Digital Library. (Figure 20)

 

Figure 20. Portal page for the “Lower Silesian Digital Library” from which to begin “Search”

 

The site includes some back issues of the Breslauer Zeitung, although none for the year Dr. Bruck remarried in either 1923 or 1924. As readers can see, in the very center of the Lower Silesian Digital Library portal page there is a search bar. Beyond looking for old Breslau newspapers, out of curiosity I also searched my family surname, and happened upon references related to three other eminent Bruck ancestors from Breslau, Dr. Julius Bruck (Dr. Walter Bruck’s father), Dr. Eberhard Bruck, and Dr. Felix Bruck. Readers with ancestral connections to Breslau can do similar searches. Occasionally, genealogists may even be rewarded by finding historic pictures of one’s predecessors.

I can’t conclude this Blog post without conceding the obstacles and challenges genealogists face in searching and finding information for ancestors who may hail from Silesia. The language barrier turns out to be the easiest to overcome. Readers should be able to figure out how to access the civil records from the Wrocław Archives, although the process of scrolling through all of them can be tedious, particularly when one does not have dates for any vital events in an ancestor’s life. Figuring out which Protestant or Catholic parish relatives may have lived in, and then hoping the church records for that parish still exist can also be exasperating. Knowing that the protection period for vital events has expired, and then being unable to find digitized copies of those records can be vexing. The list of challenges goes on, but my advice to genealogists is to persist. Experimenting by following some of the steps I’ve outlined should be helpful. Bear in mind that doing ancestral searches can at times involve a steep learning curve.

POST 117: DR. WALTER WOLFGANG BRUCK—DENTIST TO NOBLES, ARISTOCRATS, & NOTED SCHOLARS AND ACADEMICIANS

 

Note: In this Blog post, I introduce readers to the visitors and clients who signed one of two guestbooks maintained by my ancestor Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck, an array of nobiliary and accomplished patrons representing many duchies and disciplines.

Related Posts:

POST 99: THE ASTONISHING DISCOVERY OF SOME OF DR. WALTER WOLFGANG BRUCK’S PERSONAL EFFECTS

POST 100: DR. WALTER WOLFGANG BRUCK, DENTIST TO GERMANY’S LAST IMPERIAL FAMILY

 

Figure 1. Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck (1872-1937) shown wearing the medals that Dr. Wahl purchased at auction in 2013 from Walter’s grandson, Nicholas Francis David Newman (1960-2015)

 

Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck (1872-1937) (Figure 1), acclaimed dentist and distant relative of mine from Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland], has been the subject of multiple Blog posts. Thanks to a German doctor from Köpenick, Berlin, Dr. Tilo Wahl, who photographed or purchased at auction many personal letters, photos, medals, and memorabilia belonging to my esteemed ancestor and generously shared scans of them with me, I have had a trove of materials to mine for Blog stories. The current post is another result of a closer examination of Dr. Bruck’s private papers.

 

Figure 2. Aerial photograph of Dr. Bruck’s home and dental practice at Reichspräsidentenplatz 17, also called Kaiser Wilhelm-Platz, destroyed during WWII

 

During the late 1920’s and the early 1930’s Dr. Bruck and his family lived in Breslau, Germany in a luxurious home at Reichspräsidentenplatz 17, also called Kaiser Wilhelm-Platz (Figure 2), with the owner of record at the time being Walter Bruck. Following the death of Paul von Hindenburg, the German general and statesman who led the Imperial German Army during World War I and later became President of Germany from 1925 until his death in 1934, Reichspräsidentenplatz was renamed by the Nazis to Hindenburgplatz. The renaming of the square was reflected in Breslau address books from 1935 onwards. By 1937, however, Walter’s wife Johanna Bruck was now shown as the owner of record even though Walter continued to live there until he died on the 31st of March 1937. The change in ownership from Walter to Johanna Bruck was a measure to avoid expropriation of the estate by the Nazis as Walter was considered “Jewish,” whereas his wife was deemed to be “Aryan.”

From surviving pictures and two guestbooks belonging to Dr. Bruck that Dr. Wahl physically acquired we know that Dr. Bruck and his wife Johanna Bruck née Gräbsch often entertained and had overnight guests. The visitors seemingly were expected to sign the larger of the guestbooks upon their departure. (Figures 3a-b) This register is 35 pages long with the first guest signature written on the 13th of July 1900 and the last one on the 14th of January 1934. Though the visitors included known family members the bulk of the autographs and entries appear to have been recorded by friends, acquaintances, and colleagues, many of whom were renowned and accomplished individuals. Possibly later I will write a post about this first guestbook and tell readers about some of the names I recognize or have been able to uncover information about.

 

Figure 3a. Cover of the larger of Dr. Bruck’s two guestbooks
Figure 3b. First page of Dr. Bruck’s larger guestbook

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

However, this Blog post will deal with the much shorter second guestbook, what I’ll characterize as the register for “special” guests. I presume that most of the people who signed this register were clients of Dr. Walter Bruck rather than guests of my ancestor, although one cannot preclude the possibility that some of these acclaimed individuals were provided with accommodations. Names and several business cards are found on seven pages of this guestbook. (Figures 4a-g) My friend Peter Hanke graciously deciphered the names, and, astonishingly, found web links to most of the people. There are 42 separate entries representing 40 different individuals. In the case of a few individuals the written name was insufficient to positively identify the person; only one signature could not be construed. The earliest signature is recorded in January-February of 1923, and the last one on the 7th of October 1932, making the time span this guestbook covered much shorter than the first one.

 

Figure 4a. Cover of Dr. Bruck’s guest register containing the names of “special” visitors
Figure 4b. Page 1 of Dr. Bruck’s register for “special” guests

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 4c. Page 2 of Dr. Bruck’s register for “special” guests
Figure 4d. Page 3 of Dr. Bruck’s register for “special” guests

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 4e. Pages 4-5 of Dr. Bruck’s register for “special” guests

 

 

Figure 4f. Page 6 of Dr. Bruck’s register for “special” guests
Figure 4g. Page 7 of Dr. Bruck’s register for “special” guests

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Given the illustrious cadre of clients Dr. Bruck treated, it is impossible in a few words to render justice to their enormous accomplishments. Still, there are a few things that stand out in the roles some played in historic events of their day or as relatives to individuals known to readers. I will identify the signators whose names could be made out and highlight a few things of possible interest.

 

1. Edwin G[ra]f Henckel von Donnersmarck: Januar—Febr[uar] 1923

(Count Edwin Henckel of Donnersmarck, January-February 1923)

 

Figure 5. Edwin Henckel von Donnersmarck (1865-1929)

Edwin Henckel von Donnersmarck (1865-1929) (Figures 4b & 5) was a German-Polish count, landowner, mining entrepreneur, and member of the Prussian House of Representatives.

 

 

 

 

 

 2. Herzog Albrecht Eugen von Württemberg: Febr[uar] 1923

(Duke Albrecht Eugen of Württemberg, February 1923)

 

Figure 6. Duke Albrecht Eugen of Württemberg (1895-1954)

Albrecht Eugen Maria Philipp Carl Joseph Fortunatus Duke of Württemberg (1895-1954) (Figures 4b & 6) was a German officer and prince of the Royal House of Württemberg. Albrecht Eugen belonged to the Catholic line of the House of Württemberg. At the beginning of WWI, he was drafted into the Württemberg Army where he served four years as captain of the 1st Württemberg Grenadier Regiment; he fought in Flanders, France, and Italy. With the death of King Wilhelm II of Württemberg in 1921, Albrecht Eugen inherited the lordship of Carlsruhe in Silesia, where he worked as a farmer and forester.

During WWII, Albrecht Eugen Herzog von Württemberg again did military service in the Wehrmacht, but not at the front, but in staff service, without a rank as a general staff officer. Because members of the House of Württemberg were known as opponents of the Nazi regime, Albrecht Eugen remained in the rank of captain and was not promoted. He was involved in missions in France, Romania, and the Soviet Union. In 1943 he was forced to resign from the Wehrmacht due to the “Prince’s Decree” (German: Prinzenerlass) This refers to a secret decree issued by Adolf Hitler in the spring of 1940. In it, he prohibited all princes that were soldiers in the Wehrmacht who came from the princely and royal houses that had ruled until 1918 from participating in combat operations in WWII. On the 19th of May 1943, Hitler completely expelled all members of formerly ruling princely houses from the Wehrmacht.

By January 1945, Albert Eugen was forced to flee from Carlsruhe (now spelled Karlsruhe) in the current German state of Baden-Württemberg, as Russian troops besieged the area. His castle there with its extensive library of over 30,000 volumes was destroyed by the Red Army.

On the 24th of January 1924, Albrecht Eugen Duke of Württemberg married the Bulgarian Princess Nadezhda (1899-1958), a daughter of Tsar Ferdinand I of Bulgaria. Like her husband, she too signed Dr. Bruck’s guestbook and was probably also one of his patients. (see signature 19) 

3. Otto Lummer, Direktor des Physikalischen Instituts der Universität Breslau, Geh[eimer] Reg[ierungs-] Rat, Dr. ing. h.c. etc.—März 1923

(Otto Lummer, Director of the Institute of Physics of the University of Breslau, Privy Government Councilor, Doctor of Engineering, h.c. etc., March 1923)

Figure 7. Otto Richard Lummer (1860-1925)

Otto Richard Lummer (1860-1925) (Figures 4b & 7) was a German physicist. Among multiple other inventions, with Eugen Brodhun (1860-1938) he developed the photometer cube. A photometer cube or photometer is an instrument for measuring photometric quantities such as luminance or luminous intensity. In astronomy, it is used to measure the brightness of celestial bodies, while in photography, as readers know, the photometer is used as an exposure meter.

 

4. P. fon Riechterstein und Boguslaury Lomobusci

 UNKNOWN 

5. Prof[essor] Dr. Julius Pohl

(Professor Dr. Julius Pohl)

Julius Heinrich Pohl (1861-1942) (Figure 4b) was an Austrian-German pharmacologist and biochemist. From 1897 to 1911 he was Professor of Pharmacology at the German University of Prague and then Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Breslau until 1928. 

6. Herzogin von Pless

(Duchess of Pless)

Figure 8. Mary Theresa Olivia Cornwallis-West, called “Daisy von Pless” (1873-1943), in 1898

This signature belongs to Mary Theresa Olivia Cornwallis-West, called “Daisy” (1873-1943) (Figures 4b & 8), who was born in Ruthin Castle, Wales, Great Britain. She became the Princess of Pleß [today: Pszczyna, Poland], the Countess of Hochberg, and the Baroness of Fürstenstein [today: Wałbrzych, Poland]. She was considered the first high-society lady of the European aristocracy. Quoting about her from a website entitled “hostedby.pl”:

 

 

Figure 9. Current map showing the distance from Pless, Germany [today: Pzczyna, Poland] to Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland]
“Duchess Maria Teresa Olivia Hochberg von Pless, born on June 28, 1873, known as Daisy, was a English aristocrat connected with the palace in Pszczyna, Poland [German: Pless] (Figure 9) and castle in Książ, Wałbrzych [German: Waldenberg] (Figure 10), eldest daughter of Colonel William Cornwallis-West, the owner of the castle Ruthin and estate Newlands, and Mary Adelaide from the home of Fitz-Patrick. She spent all her happy childhood in the Ruthin Castle in North Wales and in a manor house in Newlands. She was closely associated with the court of King Edward VII and George V, relative to the major aristocratic houses of Great Britain. Her brother George was the stepfather of Winston Churchill. She was considered one of the most beautiful aristocrats of her time. Her involvement with the House of Hochberg resulted from an invitation to a masked ball hosted by the Prince of Wales where she met her future husband, Hans Heinrich XV, Prince of Pless, eleven years her elder.

 

Figure 10. Current map showing the distance from Waldenberg, Germany [today: Wałbrzych, Poland], where the castle of Fürstenstein [today: castle in Książ] is located, to Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland]
 

On the 8th of December 1891, (one year after first meeting him) the eighteen-year-old Daisy married wealthy Prince Hans Heinrich XV Pless Hochberg. The wedding took place at London’s Westminster Abbey, and the witness was Edward, Prince of Wales. The wedding was very impressive (the Hochberg Family was the third richest family in Germany and the seventh richest in Europe), echoed in the wide world with the political and aristocratic guests from all parts of Europe. After the wedding ceremony Daisy and her husband went on their honeymoon around the world. After that she came to the Ksiaz, where she felt at this point like a princess from a fairy tale: she had her own castle, own service, beautiful costumes, rich husband and… was terribly far from her native home in England.”

Daisy hosted lavish parties at her family’s immense estates in Silesia and at the magnificent castles of Fürstenstein and Pleß. Invitations to her affairs were highly sought. She was friends with the outstanding men of her time, including the last German Emperor Wilhelm II. Despite her fairytale existence and trying to become a good subject of her new country, Daisy von Pless felt a British sense of superiority over Germany, which she considered “uncivilized.”

At the beginning of WWI, Daisy von Pless left Fürstenstein Castle for political and family reasons. As an Englishwoman, she was constantly subjected to political hostility and accusations of treason. From August 1914, she worked as a Red Cross nurse on hospital trains in France and experienced the end of the war in 1918 in an Austrian hospital in Serbia.

She did not return to Silesia until 1921. On December 12, 1922, Daisy divorced her husband in Berlin and received a severance payment, which lost value due to inflation. She first lived in the English community of La Napoule near Cannes and in Munich until she moved back to Waldenburg for financial reasons. The entire property of the von Pless family was expropriated in 1939, and in 1940 she had to move out of the castle when a new Führer’s headquarters was expanded there. She visited the Groß-Rosen concentration camp nearby several times and sent food there to demonstrate her revulsion with the Nazi regime. In 1943, lonely due to chronic diseases and social isolation, she died impoverished in Waldenburg. Her coffin was reburied in an unknown place before the Red Army invaded in 1945. 

7. H XXX Reuss – 16. April 1923

(Prince Heinrich XXX of Reuss, 16th of April 1923)

Figure 11. Prince Heinrich XXX of Reuss (1864-1939) and Princess Feodora of Saxe-Meiningen on their wedding day, the 28th of September 1898, in Breslau

This signature belongs to Prince Heinrich XXX of Reuss (1864-1939). (Figures 4b & 11) On September 28, 1898, in Breslau, he married Princess Feodora of Saxe-Meiningen (i.e., located in the southwest of the present-day German state of Thuringia (Figure 12)). He was born in the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha [German: German Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha] (Figure 13) which was a dual monarchy in Germany. This means that one ruler ruled over two countries, in this case the duchies of Coburg and Gotha.

 

 

Figure 12. Contemporary map of the States of Germany

 

Figure 13. Map of the German Reich (1871-1918) showing the various states that united to form the German Empire (by Deutsches_Reich1.png: kgbergerderivative work: Wiggy! (talk) – Deutsches_Reich1.png, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7223281)

 

8. Hansheinrich [Hans Heinrich] Fürst von Pless [?]

(Hans Heinrich Prince of Pless)

Figure 14. Hans Heinrich XV, Prince of Pless, Count of Hochberg (1861-1938), in 1916

Hans Heinrich XV, Prince of Pless, Count of Hochberg (1861-1938) (Figures 4b & 14) was a German nobleman and mining industrialist and married to Daisy von Pless (1873–1943) (see signature 6). They and their three children often lived at Fürstenstein Castle, the largest castle in Silesia. It is located on the northern edge of the town of Wałbrzych [German: Waldenberg] in the Książ district in Lower Silesian Voivodeship, Poland (see Figure 10). Prince Pleß had a close relationship with Kaiser Wilhelm II, who regularly spent the hunt season in autumn at Pleß Castle. The emperor also commissioned the prince with confidential missions. During WWI, Pleß Castle was the seat of the imperial headquarters for months.

After the end of the war and the re-establishment of the Polish state, Hans Heinrich remained in Upper Silesia. The attempt to sell the entire property before July 12, 1922, the official takeover of Upper Silesia by Poland after WWI, failed. Thus, Hans Heinrich XV became a Polish citizen, although he was often on trips abroad or lived on the estates located in Germany. 

9. Bolko Graf von Hochberg—18. April 1923

(Bolko Count of Hochberg, 18th of April 1923)

Figure 15. Hans Heinrich XIV Bolko Graf (Count) von Hochberg (1843-1926)

Hans Heinrich XIV Bolko Graf (Count) von Hochberg (1843-1926) (Figures 4b & 15) was a German diplomat, conductor, and composer. He was born at Fürstenstein Castle [German: Waldenberg; Polish: Wałbrzych] (see Figure 10) and came from the noble family of the Counts of Hochberg who resided at Fürstenstein Castle.

 

 

 

10. Per aspera ad astra – R. Pfeiffer—30.4.23

(“Through hardships to the stars,” R[udolf] Pfeiffer: 30th of April 1923)

This signature belongs to Rudolf Carl Franz Otto Pfeiffer (1889-1979) (Figure 4b) who was a German classical philologist (i.e., a person who studies classical antiquity usually referring to the study of Classical Greek and Latin literature and the related languages; it also includes Greco-Roman philosophy, history, archaeology, anthropology, art, mythology, and society as secondary subjects)

Per aspera ad astra is a Latin phrase meaning “through hardships to the stars” or “Our aspirations take us to the stars.” The phrase is one of the many Latin sayings that use the expression ad astra, meaning “to the stars.” 

11. Hermine Kaiserin Wilhelm II.—23.IV.23

(Hermine Empress Wilhelm II, 23rd of April 1923)

 

Figure 16. Hermine Kaiserin Wilhelm II (1887-1947) with Kaiser Wilhlem II and her youngest daughter by her first marriage in Doorn, Netherlands

 

Princess Hermine Reuss of Greiz (German: Hermine, Prinzessin Reuß zu Greiz (1887-1947) (Figure 4c) was the second wife of Germany’s last Emperor, Wilhelm II. (Figure 16) They were married in 1922, four years after he abdicated as German Emperor and King of Prussia. He was her second husband; her first husband, Prince Johann of Schönaich-Carolath, had died in 1920. I have previously explained Dr. Bruck’s relationship with Kaiser Wilhelm II and his second wife in Post 100.

 

12. Geheimrat Professor Dr. Max Koch—25. Juni 1923

(Privy Councilor Professor Dr. Max Koch, 25th of June 1923)

Maxwell “Max” Koch (1854-1925) (Figure 4c) was a German-born Australian botanical collector. 

13. Dr. jur. Bernhard Grund, den 17. Juli 1923—Präsident der Handelskammer

(Dr. jur. Bernhard Grund, President of the Chamber of Commerce)

Friedrich Wilhelm Bernhard Grund (1872-1950) (Figure 4c) was a German lawyer, entrepreneur, and DDP (Deutsche Demokratische Partei or German Democratic Party) politician. Grund was variously a member of the Prussian House of Representatives (1913 to 1918), the Prussian Constituent Assembly (1919 to 1921), and the Prussian Landtag until his resignation on 22 October 1924. Since the 15th century, the term Prussian Landtag has referred to various political institutions in Prussia. 

14. Dr. Felix Porsch–Erster Vicepräsident des Preuß[ischen] Landtags—15.3.1924

(Dr. Felix Porsch, First Vice-President of the Prussia Landtag, 15th of March 1924)

Figure 17. Dr. Felix Porsch (1853-1930)

Dr. Felix Porsch (1853-1930) (Figures 4c & 17) was a German lawyer and politician of the Centre Party. The latter gained its greatest importance between 1871 and 1933 (i.e. the period between the founding of the German Empire and the end of the Weimar Republic). It was the party of Catholics and political Catholicism in the strongly Protestant-dominated German Empire.

 

 

15. Fürstin Hatzfeldt—24. Mai 1924 [Trachenberg bei Breslau] (Figure 18)

(Princess Hatzfeldt, Trachenberg [today: Żmigród, Poland] near Breslau, 24th of May 1924)

Hatzfeld, also spelled Hatzfeldt (Figure 4c), is the name of an ancient and influential German noble family. It is not clear who exactly was this princess.

 

Figure 18. Current map showing the distance from Trachenberg [today: Żmigród, Poland] to Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland]

16. H. v. Frisch—Universitätsprofessor—Direktor d[es] Zool[ogischen] Instituts u[nd] Museums—2.VI.1924

(H. von Frisch, University Professor—Director of the Zoological Institute and Museum, 2nd of June 1924)

Figure 19. Karl von Frisch (1886-1982)

Karl von Frisch (1886-1982) (Figures 4c & 19) was a German-Austrian ethologist (i.e., someone who studies animal behavior) who received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1973, along with Nikolaas Tinbergen and Konrad Lorenz. His work centered on investigations of the sensory perceptions of the honeybee, and he was one of the first to translate the meaning of the waggle dance. Waggle dance is a term used in beekeeping and ethology for a particular figure-eight dance of the honeybee. By performing this dance, successful foragers can share information with other members of the colony about the direction and distance to patches of flowers yielding nectar and pollen, to water sources, or to new nest-site locations. 

17. M[ax] Friederichsen, Universitätsprofessor Dr. phil, Direktor des Geographischen Instituts—3.6.1924

(M[ax] Friederichsen, University Professor, Dr. Phil., Director of the Geographical Institute, 3rd of June 1924) 

Maximilian Hermann Friederichsen (1874-1941) (Figure 4c) was a German professor of geography. Between 1923 until 1937 he worked at the University of Breslau. He was forced into retirement because of his wife’s Jewish ancestry on account of the Nazi “Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service.” 

18. Dr. Fritz Reiche, Universitätsprofessor für theoretische Physik—5.6.1924

(Dr. Fritz Reiche, University Professor for theoretical physics, 5th of June 1924) 

Dr. Fritz Reiche (1883-1969) (Figure 4c) was a German theoretical physicist who emigrated to the United States in 1941. I will not try to unintelligibly explain to readers the disciplinary studies Reiche was involved in. There is, however, one fascinating account from a book written by a Robert Jungk entitled “Heller als tausend Sonnen,” “Brighter Than A Thousand Suns,” worth mentioning. The book describes the history of the atomic bomb and its carriers. According to this book, shortly before his departure to the United States in March 1941, Max Reiche was approached by the physicist Friedrich Georg Houtermans asking him to deliver a secret message to physicists in America about the atomic bomb. Anticipating that the Nazis would urge the German physicists to build an atomic bomb, the German theoretical physicist Werner Karl Heisenberg, one of the key pioneers of quantum mechanics, was supposedly trying to slow-walk the process. Reiche delivered this message to Rudolf Ladenburg, whom he knew from Berlin and Breslau, who forwarded the message to Washington. However, according to a play entitled “Copenhagen” by Michael Frayn, a three-person play based on the historic meeting of the two physicists Werner Heisenberg and Niels Bohr and his wife Margrethe in 1941 in German-occupied Copenhagen, there are strong doubts as to whether Heisenberg and his working group were really trying to thwart the construction of the atomic bomb. Perhaps, future historic documents may reveal the truth?

 

19. Nadejda [Nadezhda] Herzogin von Württemberg—18.VII.1924

(Nadezhda, Duchess of Württemberg, 18th of July 1924)

Figure 20. Nadejda [Nadezhda] Herzogin von Württemberg (1899-1958)
Nadezhda (1899-1958) (Figures 4d & 20) who spent her childhood mainly in Sofia and Euxinograd, Bulgaria as well as on the estates of her father came from the House of Saxe-Coburg (see Figure 13). After WWI she had to leave Bulgaria with her family and went into exile in Coburg. In 1924 she married Duke Albrecht Eugen (see signature 2) with whom she had five children. From 1925 to 1930 the couple lived in Carlsruhe (now spelled Karlsruhe) in the current German state of Baden-Württemberg (see Figure 12).

 

 

20. Universitätsprofessor Dr. Ludolf Malten—Direktor des Philologischen Seminars

(University Professor Dr. Ludolf Malten, Director of the Philological Seminary)

Heinrich Wilhelm Ludolf Malten (1879-1969) (Figure 4d) was like Rudolf Pfeiffer (see signature 10) a German classical philologist and religious scholar. As previously mentioned, philology is the literary study of Latin and Ancient Greek, the two languages considered “classical.” In 1919 Malten became a professor at the University of Königsberg in East Prussia. In 1922 he moved to the University of Breslau, where he remained until the end of WWII. After his escape from Breslau in 1945 as the Red Army was approaching, Malten went to the University of Göttingen where he spent the remainder of his career. 

21. ?????

UNKNOWN 

22. Professor Puppe—Direktor des Gerichtsärztlichen Instituts—Geheimer Medizinalrat

(Puppe, Director of the Judicial Medical Institute- Privy Medical Councilor)

Georg Puppe (1867-1925) (Figure 4d) was a German forensic and social physician. He basically founded the field of social medicine which essentially deals scientifically and practically with the state of health of the population and its determinants, the organization of health care, social security, and the political determinants of health, as well as the effects and costs of medical care. According to some experts, social medicine is a bridge between medicine and other disciplines, such as law, sociology, social work, psychology, statistics, and economics. 

23. Professor R[obert] Wollenberg—Direktor der Univ[ersitäts] Nervenklinik—Geheimer Medizinalrat

(Professor R[obert] Wollenberg, Director of the Univ[ersity] Nerves Clinic – Privy Medical Councilor)

Figure 21. Robert Wollenberg (1862-1942)

Robert Wollenberg (1862-1942) (Figures 4d & 21) was a German psychiatrist and neurologist. Between 1921 and 1930, when he retired, he worked at the Silesian Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Breslau.

 

 

 

 

24. Sieghard Prinz zu Schoenaich-Carolath—1925

(Sieghard Prince of Schoenaich-Carolath, 1925)

Figure 22. The seemingly not so happily married couple, Sieghard Prince of Schoenaich-Carolath (1886-1963) and his wife Gräfin Elisabeth zu Castell-Rüdenhausen (1906-1977)

Sieghard (1886-1963) (Figures 4d & 22) was a Prince from the Schoenaich-Carolath family, a Lower Lusatian noble family that came to Silesia as a branch in the 16th century; the Silesian branch was elevated to the rank of Imperial Count in 1700 and to the Prussian princely status in 1741. Lower Lusatia is a region and former territory in the south of the state of Brandenburg, northern Saxony, and western Poland. Its principal city is Cottbus. He got married in May 1936 to Gräfin (Countess) Elisabeth zu Castell-Rüdenhausen (1906-1977), from whom he divorced in 1956.

 

 

25. Friedrich Christian Herzog zu Sachsen—10.III.1925

(Friedrich Christian Herzog of Saxony, 10th of March 1925)

Figure 23. Friedrich Christian Herzog Prince of Saxony (1893-1968)

Friedrich Christian Albert Leopold Anno Sylvester Macarius Prince of Saxony Duke of Saxony (1893-1968) (Figures 4e & 23) was the second eldest son of King Frederick August III of Saxony, the last King of Saxony, and his wife Louise of Tuscany. Friedrich Christian Herzog was the younger brother of Georg, Crown Prince of Saxony (see signature 29), born a mere eleven months later.

 

 

 

 

26. Fürst [Rudolf ?] Kinsky, Wien—[BUSINESS CARD—Figure 4e]

(Prince [Rudolf?] Kinsky, Vienna)

Kinsky of Wchinitz and Tettau (originally Wchinsky, Czech Kinští z Vchynic a Tetova) is the name of a Bohemian noble family, which is known in documents since 1237. Historically, the family acquired important properties in the Kingdom of Bohemia, a medieval and early modern monarchy in Central Europe and the predecessor of the modern Czech Republic. By 1929, roughly 50 percent of Prince Rudolf’s (1859-1930) extensive Bohemia properties had been expropriated. The remaining Czech possessions were lost after WWII due to nationalization because of the Beneš Decrees, though some former possessions in the Czech Republic were returned to the family after 1990. The Kinskys provided numerous important statesmen in the Kingdom of Bohemia and in the Habsburg Monarchy. The historical capital of Bohemia was Prague, since 1918 the capital of Czechoslovakia and now the Czech Republic.

 

27. Friedrich Christian Herzog zu Sachsen—17.III.1925

(Sieghard Prince of Schoenaich-Carolath, 17th of March 1925)

(see signature 25 & Figure 4e) 

28. Prof. Dr. Eugen Kühnemann—Geheimer Regierungsrat—9. Mai 1925

(Prof[essor] Dr. Eugen Kühnemann, Privy Councilor, 9th of May 1925)

Figure 24. Dr. Eugen Kühnemann (1868-1946)

Dr. Eugen Kühnemann (1868-1946) (Figures 4e & 24) was a German philosopher and literary scholar.

 

 

 

 

 

 

29. Kronprinz Georg Herzog zu Sachsen—19.8.1925

(Crown Prince Georg Herzog of Saxony, 19th of August 1925)

Figure 25. Georg, Crown Prince of Saxony (1893-1943)

Georg, Crown Prince of Saxony (1893-1943) (Figures 4e & 25), the last Crown Prince of Saxony, was the heir to the King of Saxony, Frederick Augustus III, at the time of the monarchy’s abolition on 13 November 1918. After the abolition of the monarchy and the abdication of the emperor and the federal princes, George became a Roman Catholic priest. As I implied under Duke Albrecht Eugen von Württemberg (see signature 2), during the time of the National Socialists, former royal members were unpopular, so Georg Herzog devoted himself to consulting at this time. He died of a heart attack while swimming at the age of 50. Georg was the older brother of Friedrich Christian Herzog of Saxony (see signatures 25 & 27).

 

 

30. Carl Budding—Deutscher Staatsvertreter bei der Gemischten Kommission und dem Schiedsgerichte für Oberschlesien

(Carl Budding, German State Representative to the Mixed Commission and Arbitration Court for Upper Silesia)

Figure 26. Karl (Carl) Johann Ferdinand Budding (1870-1945)

Karl (Carl) Johann Ferdinand Budding (1870-1945) (Figures 4e & 26) was a lawyer, Reichskommissar (Reich Commissar) in Silesia, and the District President of West Prussia between 1925 and 1936.

 

 

 

 

31. Alois Fürst zu Löwenstein—3.2.1926

(Alois Fürst of Löwenstein, 3rd of February 1926)

Figure 27. Aloys Fürst of Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rosenberg (1871-1952)

Aloys Fürst of Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rosenberg (1871-1952) (Figures 4e & 27) was a member and from 1908 head of the southern German noble family Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rosenberg, a centrist politician and from 1920 to 1948 president of the Central Committee of German Catholics. Adolf Hitler’s seizure of power in 1933 made it impossible for the Central Committee to continue working. In 1934, for the planned German Katholikentag, German Catholic Day, Prussian Prime Minister Hermann Göring demanded an oath of allegiance to the Third Reich, which Aloys zu Löwenstein refused to provide resulting in cancellation of the event; it would not again take place until 1948. 

32. Prinzessin Felicie von Thurn u[nd] Taxis—30.XI.1926 (Figures 4f & 28)

(possibly: Luise Mathilde Felicie Marie von Thurn und Taxis (1887-1949), 30th of November 1926)

 

Figure 28. Luise Mathilde Felicie Marie of Thurn and Taxis (1887-1949)

 

33. Prinz v. Hatzfeldt Trachenberg—11.4.1927

(Prince v. Hatzfeldt Trachenberg, 11th of April 1927)

Figure 29. Prince Hermann von Hatzfeldt, Duke of Trachenburg (1848-1933) in around 1910

Prince Hermann von Hatzfeldt, Duke of Trachenburg (1848-1933) (Figures 4f & 29) was a German nobleman, member of the House of Hatzfeld, civil servant, Prussian politician, and major general from Silesia.

Hermann Friedrich Anton was the 3rd Prince of Hatzfeldt of Trachenberg (see Figure 18). He was born at the family castle in Trachenberg and raised Catholic. In 1874 he succeeded his deceased father, who was excommunicated in 1847, as head of the Hatzfeldt-Trachenberg line. On the 1st of January 1900 he was awarded the hereditary title “Duke of Trachenberg” in primogeniture. From 1894 to 1903 he was President of the Province of Silesia. In 1872 he married Natalie Gräfin von Benckendorff (1854–1931), who is presumed to be signature 34. 

34. Prinzessin von Hatzfeldt Trachtenberg—11.4.1927 (see signature 15)

(Princess Hatzfeldt, Trachenberg [today: Żmigród, Poland] near Breslau, 11th of April 1927)

(see signature 33 & Figure 4f) 

35. v[on] Gröning—Universitätskurator—Regierungspräsident z. D.—12.4.1927 (v[on] Gröning, University Trustee-Governor (retired), 12th of April 1927)

Albert Heinrich von Gröning (1867-1951) (Figure 4f) was a German administrative lawyer in Prussia. From 1926 Gröning was curator of the Silesian Friedrich-Wilhelms-University and state commissioner for the Technical University of Breslau. 

36. Prinzessin Biron [?] von Curland—10.10.1927

(Princess Biron of Curland, 10th of October 1927)

Figure 30. Herzeleide Prinzessin von Preussen (Prinzessin Biron von Curland) (1918-1989)

Countess Herzeleide of Ruppin (1918-1989) (Figures 4f & 30) was born on Christmas Day 1918, shortly after the defeat of the German Reich and the collapse of the monarchy. For this reason, she was given the name Herzeleide, which in German means “heartbreak.” Her grandfather was Kaiser Wilhelm II, the last German Emperor, and her father was Prince Oskar of Prussia, the 5th son of Wilhelm II. On August 15, 1938, Herzeleide married Prince Karl Biron von Courland, and was thereafter known as Herzeleide Prinzessin von Preussen (Prinzessin Biron von Curland).

Biron of Curland is a Courland noble family, originating from Latvia (Courland in Latvia is Kurzeme), that also settled in Silesia and Bohemia. Branches of the family still exist today. Courland (Latvian Kurzeme) (Figure 31) is one of the four historical landscapes of Latvia, along with Semgallen (Zemgale), Central Livonia (Vidzeme) and Latgale (Latgale).

 

Figure 31. The four historical landscapes of Latvia, including Courland

 

37. Wanda, Fürstin Blücher von Wahlstatt—26.IX.1928

(Wanda, Princess Blücher of Wahlstatt, 26th of September 1928)

Gräfin Wanda Ada Hedwig Blücher von Wahlstatt (Prinzessin Radziwill) (1877-1966) (Figure 4f) was married to Gebhard Leberecht Fürst Blücher von Wahlstatt (1836-1916), a Prussian nobleman and member of the Prussian House of Lords. Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher was the 3rd Prince Blücher von Wahlstatt, a family of the Mecklenburg nobility (see Figure 13). He was one of the great feudal landowners of Silesia. 

38. Blandine Gravinaoth [?]—23.IV.1929

(Blandine Gravina, 23rd of April 1929)

Figure 32. Blandine Gravina (1863-1941) in the upper left with her family and Richard Wagner, her mother Cosima’s second husband, in 1881

Blandine Gravina (1863-1941) (Figures 4f & 32) was a daughter of Cosima Wagner and Hans von Bülow and a granddaughter of Franz Liszt. Blandine’s parents divorced in 1870, and her mother Cosima married Richard Wagner later that same year. Richard Wagner, known to many readers, is considered one of the most important innovators of European music in the 19th century.

 

 

 

39. Eudoxie Prinzessin von Bulgarien—31.XII.1929

(Eudoxie Princess of Bulgaria, 31st of December 1929)

Figure 33. Princess Eudoxia of Bulgaria (1898-1985) in 1932

Princess Eudoxia of Bulgaria (1898-1985) (Figures 4f & 33) was a Bulgarian princess who played the role of the First Lady of Bulgaria for some time until her brother Boris married Princess Joan of Savoy. Eudoxia’s sister was Princess Nadezhda (see signature 19), and her brother-in-law was Duke Albrecht Eugen of Württemberg (see signature 2).

Princess Eudoxia was born in Sofia, Bulgaria as the eldest daughter of King Ferdinand I of Bulgaria and his first wife, Princess María Luisa de Borbón-Parma. Princess Eudoxia never married or had children and lived with her sister Nadezhda’s in-laws in Germany. 

 

40. Adolf G[ra]f Arnim-Muskau

(Adolf Count Arnim-Muskau) 

Adolf Friedrich Heinrich Graf von Arnim-Muskau (1875-1931) (Figure 4f) was a German sports official. From 1913 to 1919 he was a member of the International Olympic Committee. 

41. M[agnus] Freih[er]r v[on] Braun—Reichsernährungsminister—7.10.1932 –[BUSINESS CARD—Figure 4g]

(M[agnus] Baron v[on] Braun, Reichminister of Agriculture, 7th of October 1932)

Magnus Freiherr von Braun (1878-1972) was a German lawyer and politician. In the last two governments of the Weimar Republic (1919-1933) he served as Minister of Agriculture (1932-32). One of his sons was the armaments and missile manager Wernher von Braun (1912-1977), the very well-known German and later American rocket engineer who pioneered weapons and space travel. 

42. Dr. iur. [Dorotheus] Kracker von Schwartzenfeldt—Kaiserlich Deutscher Gesandter a.D. (fragt ergebenst an, ob er Dienstag den 5. d[es] M[onats] zu irgend einer Zeit …..) z[ur] Z[ei]t Breslau, Tauentzienstr. 71

[BUSINESS CARD—Figure 4g]    

(Dr. iur. [Dorotheus] Kracker von Schwartzenfeldt, Imperial German Envoy (retired)) (humbly inquires whether he will be available on Tuesday, the 5th of March at any time. . .)

This business card belonged to Dr. iuris Dorotheus Kracker von Schwartzenfeldt (1869-1953). He was the Kaiserlicher Legations-Sekretär und Geschäftsträger in Bogotá (Imperial Legation Secretary and Chargé d’Affaires in Bogotá) and had previously worked for the last German Emperor Wilhelm II in Doorn, Netherlands, after the Kaiser abdicated the throne following WWI.

As mentioned at the outset, the entries in Dr. Bruck’s guestbook for “special” visitors and/or dental patients covers the period from January-February 1923 until October 1932. Among the signatures, you will notice multiple names that include former hereditary titles. To remind readers, the nobility system of the German Empire ended in 1919 when it was abolished. Today, the German nobility is no longer conferred by the Federal Republic of Germany, and constitutionally the descendants to German noble families do not enjoy legal privileges. Former hereditary titles, however, are permitted as part of the surname (i.e., the nobiliary particles von and zu), and these surnames can then be inherited by a person’s children. The continued use of hereditary titles by Dr. Bruck’s visitors should not surprise anyone given the brief time since their use had been abolished in 1919.

Beyond the former members of the nobility that signed Dr. Bruck’s guest register, one will also notice an array of accomplished individuals in the fields of law, politics, science, academia, and more. This speaks to the rarified environment in which Dr. Bruck worked and socialized.

 

POST 109 (PART 2): JOHANNA & RENATE BRUCK’S WARTIME TAGEBUCH (“DIARY”), YEARS 1942-1944

 

Note: In the second part of Post 109, I discuss the broader historic context in which Johanna and Renate Bruck, wife and daughter of my esteemed ancestor, Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck (1872-1937), recorded the daily happenings in their lives between January 1942 and December 1944. Regrettably, their “Tagebuch” does not encompass the final few months of the war in Berlin through the surrender of the city on May 2, 1945. Thus, the circumstances of any hardships Johanna and Renate may have suffered in this period at the hands of the Russians and the Allies are unknown to us. Like in years 1940 and 1941, Johanna and Renate’s lives are replete with social engagements (getting together with friends; attending movies, plays, and operas; dining out; shopping; clothes fittings; etc.), distractions (tap, tennis, violin lessons), Renate’s amorous liaisons, and, most remarkably, multiple trips. With a few notable exceptions, the war passes almost unnoticed. I do not dwell on Johanna and Renate’s personal lives except where it adds nuance and texture to their accounts or provides some temporal context. From a story-telling perspective, I explore developments in the war and other happenings that while not explicitly discussed in the diary must have weighed on Johanna and Renate’s minds.

 

Related Posts:

POST 83: CASE STUDY USING THE UNITED KINGDOM’S “GENERAL REGISTER OFFICE” DATABASE TO FIND ANCESTORS

POST 108: RENATE BRUCK & MATTHIAS MEHNE’S “LONG-DISTANCE MARRIAGE”

POST 109 (PART 1): JOHANNA & RENATE BRUCK’S WARTIME TAGEBUCH (“DIARY”)—YEARS 1940-1941

 

As discussed in Post 109(1), in November and December 1941 Johanna Bruck transacted the exchange of her apartment in Breslau [today: Wrocław, Poland] at Oranienstrasse 4, with one in Berlin occupied by a couple named the Günthers, located at Xantener Straße 24, in the Berlin district of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. Johanna physically relocated to Berlin in February 1942, followed several weeks later by Renate. Johanna used the intervening period to have the apartment completely refurbished and upgraded.

By September 1941 Johanna understood that Renate’s application for her to be treated “as an equal to German-blooded people” had been or would be rejected. Given how prominent Dr. Walter Bruck (Figures 1-2) had been in Breslau during his lifetime and the certainty the Nazis knew he was “racially” Jewish and that his daughter was a mischling of the first degree may have been the impetus for Johanna to move her daughter to Berlin; after all, by 1938, Renate Bruck had already been expelled from the “Oberlyzeum von Zawadzky,” the Upper Lyceum in the Zawadskie district of Breslau, the private school for daughters from upper class families. Johanna must have felt the anonymity of a larger city afforded her daughter better protection.

 

Figure 1. Johanna Bruck née Gräbsch at the helm of her Adler automobile with her daughter Renate and husband, Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck, in a pre-war photo reflective of their upper-class lifestyle

 

Figure 2. Dr. Walter Bruck with his wife and daughter

 

My cousin Thomas Koch discovered an interesting thing when he examined the Berlin Address Books following Johanna and Renate’s move to Berlin. Johanna is not listed in the 1942 directory, though this may simply have been a function that her move occurred after the directory went to press. However, more mystifying is that she is not listed in the 1943 Berlin Address Book. There are several possible explanations: (1) sloppiness on the part of the publisher in updating the 1943 Address Book; (2) Johanna and Renate lived at Xantener Straße 24 but under the name of another person because of Renate’s racial status as a mischling. This possibility seems unlikely because it would have made obtaining ration cards very difficult and would have been contradictory to the openly, social lifestyle Johanna and Renate led. (3) Johanna unintentionally forgot to register properly; or (4) Johanna and Renate temporarily lived outside Berlin, which was in fact the case for a period in 1943-1944, which I will discuss below.

On May 4, 1942, Johanna makes one of the few entries suggesting the war may have started to impact the everyday lives of ordinary Germans, when she remarks, “Food very scarce!!!” While the scarcity of food is rarely mentioned again, the arrival of “care” packages from friends and relatives outside of Berlin is carefully noted throughout the diary suggesting Johanna and Renate depended on these.

In Post 109(1), I mentioned to readers that upon Renate’s arrival in Berlin, she attended the “Kunstgewerbeschule,” the School of Arts and Crafts. However, neither Johanna nor Renate ever takes her compulsory schooling seriously; numerous instances of Renate missing school are noted. According to Renate’s lifelong friend, Ina Schaesberg, Renate acquired a special skill in arts and crafts that enabled her to make “very pretty and practical things from felt that sold well and brought in money.”

Renate departed Breslau accompanied by her mother on March 19, 1942, though Renate makes a point of noting that two days prior she had visited Matthias Mehne, her future first husband, at his luthier shop to say her goodbyes. (Figure 3) There was already a clear fondness between the two of them. It seems likely Renate and Matthias met at his shop while she was taking violin lessons there. According to Bettina Mehne, Matthias’s daughter by his second marriage, lessons were given not by Matthias himself but by his good friend, a man named “Kulenkampf.”

 

Figure 3. Renate Bruck’s first husband, Matthias Eugen Walter Mehne, at his luthier shop in Berlin in a post-war photo

 

Regardless, immediately after Matthias’s arrival in Berlin in February 1943, he called Renate and they become inseparable until he was forced to enlist in the Wehrmacht towards the latter part of April 1943. Readers may recall from Post 108 that Matthias was found to have helped a Jewish detainee and friend, Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, escape a Sammellager in Breslau, a collection camp for Jewish deportees, with his rucksack in hand. As punishment, the judge, a friend, forced him to join the army rather than let the Gestapo kill him as they had wanted to, figuring he would be killed anyway. Clearly, Matthias’s departure from Breslau, did not prevent the Wehrmacht from finding him there, so his relocation to Berlin was more likely related to his blossoming relationship with Renate than an attempt to avoid military conscription.

By around the 22nd of April 1943, Matthias was forced to present himself in Paris for induction into the German Army, but not without first talking to Johanna about his future with Renate according to an entry before his departure. It took me a while to work out that Renate and her mother referred to Matthias as “boy” throughout much of the diary, possibly because of his youthful demeanor or for some other unknown reason. He was clearly Renate’s primary love interest (Figure 4), though a man named “Gerhard” (surname unknown) was also vying for her affection at the time, a man her twin daughters claim was a love interest for years after the war following her marriage and divorce from Matthias.

 

Figure 4. Renate Bruck and her first husband Matthias Eugen Walter Mehne in Berlin in 1947-48 following his release form British captivity

 

Before backtracking and telling readers about some historic events of WWII I would have expected to be discussed in the Tagebuch, let me briefly tell followers what happened to Matthias following his enlistment. Renate received news of Matthias’s capture on October 12, 1943. He was evidently assigned to the Italian theater-of-war. The Allies landed in Sicily in around July 1943, and by September 1943 had invaded the Italian mainland. Matthias was captured by the Americans in Italy, but quickly turned over to the British and interned as a prisoner of war near Nottingham, England. Renate received her first letter from him dated the 27th of February 1944 about a month later, on the 26th of March 1944. I want to emphatically emphasize that Matthias was not a Nazi but was forced as punishment to enlist in the Wehrmacht because of the courage he had shown trying to help a Jew escape an internment camp in Breslau.

On her 17th birthday on the 16th of June 1943, Renate received a diamond ring. While there is no reason to think this was connected to Matthias, who was by then in the German Army, the day after receiving his first letter in March 1944 following his British internment, Renate celebrated what Johanna referred to as Renate’s “engagement day.” Might Matthias have proposed in his letter? Possibly.

At the beginning of February 1943, the Axis forces including Germany’s 6th Army and its foreign allies surrendered in Stalingrad following a brutal battle that had lasted five months, one week, and three days. There is nary any mention of this development during the war in Johanna’s diary. Nor is there any mention of the “Rosenstrasse Protest” that took place in Berlin during February and March 1943, which fundamentally affected Renate and other mischlinge. This demonstration was initiated and sustained by the non-Jewish wives and relatives of Jewish men and mischlinge who had been arrested and targeted for deportation, based on the racial policy of Nazi Germany. What started out with dozens, then hundreds of women protesting, eventually turned into thousands of women demonstrating in icy winter weather over seven days, until 1,700 Berlin Jews herded together into the Jewish community house on Rosenstrasse near Alexanderplatz were freed. The Rosenstrasse protest is considered a significant event in German history as it was the only mass public demonstration by Germans in the Third Reich against the deportation of Jews. One can only imagine how much horror and misery might have been avoided had such protestations by Germans occurred much earlier. To my cousin Thomas Koch this is very personal since his grandmother and future mother were among the Rosenstrasse protestors, and his Jewish grandfather among those freed.

Let me turn now to an entry made by Renate on the 11th of May 1943, in which she noted that she would not be accepted in the Reich Labor Service, the Reichsarbeitsdienst or RAD. The Reich Labor Service was a major organization established in Nazi Germany to help mitigate the effects of unemployment on the German economy, militarize the workforce, and indoctrinate it with Nazi ideology. It was the official state labor service, divided into separate sections for men and women. So called “half-breeds,” mischlinge, were not excluded from labor service. The mother of my cousin Thomas, like Renate also a mischling, was in the Reichsarbeitsdienst in 1940. Thus, it is a source of irritation to Thomas that Renate was somehow able to avoid the labor service. Were the conditions “tightened” for Renate through contacts Johanna had that “prevented” her from being accepted? Or was Renate’s non-acceptance intended to protect her from something or exclude her from something contrary to the rules? We may never know the answers to these questions.

Years ago, when I was still working with Thomas Koch trying to discover where Johanna and Renate Bruck had gone after they left Breslau, which we now know to have been in February-March 1942, Thomas shared with me an application that had been submitted by a woman named Ms. Edith Czeczatka to the Tracing Service of the German Red Cross in 1948. Ms. Czeczatka requested information on the whereabouts of Johanna and Renate and gave as their residential address in the town of Erfurt, Germany, Dammweg 9. (Figures 5a-b) I mentioned this in Post 83, even including a picture of the residential building where they lived. (Figure 6) Johanna and Renate’s association with Erfurt was a mystery until the discovery of their Tagebuch.

 

 

Figure 5a. 2019 letter to my cousin Dr. Thomas Koch from the “Deutsches Rotes Kreuz Generalsekretariat Suchdienst,” the German Red Cross’s Tracing Service, responding to his request for information about Renate Bruck; this letter cites a 1948 request for information on Johanna and Renate from a former neighbor when they lived at Dammweg 9

 

 

Figure 5b. Translation of 2019 letter from the German Red Cross’s Tracing Service to my cousin Dr. Thomas Koch

 

Figure 6. The apartment building at Dammweg 9 in Erfurt, Germany where Johanna and Renate Bruck lived after Renate was employed by the MAKO Maschinen Co. GMBH as a draftswoman

 

 

An entry on the 22nd of May 1943 explains why Renate accompanied by Johanna temporarily moved to Erfurt that year. That day, Renate was told to come for an interview at the employment office of “MAKO Maschinen Co. GMBH”; she’d apparently applied for and been hired as a technical draftswoman beginning on June 1st. More on this company below. The company had offices in both Berlin and Erfurt, but Renate was required to report to Erfurt beginning on the 17th of June 1943 for training. Almost immediately, the girls that had been hired were given two months of paid vacation until the drawing rooms were readied. It is clear from the diary that Renate was permanently assigned to work in Erfurt.

Towards the beginning of September 1943, prior to moving to Erfurt, Johanna and Renate went to visit family and friends in Breslau, then spent a few days vacationing in Jannowitz, Silesia [today: Janowice Wielkie, Poland], before returning to Breslau, then leaving for Erfurt on September 12, 1943. For the period of her employment, Renate and her mother lived in Erfurt on weekdays, then returned to Berlin on weekends.

It appears that for at least a year until September 24, 1944, Johanna and Renate lived with a family called the “Hallers.” Then, on September 25, 1944, they moved within Erfurt into the house at Dammweg 9, previously mentioned, where the “Maulhardt” family also lived. Presumably, this was a boarding house the family owned.

Let me digress now and briefly discuss the MAKO Maschinen Co. GMBH that Renate worked for. MAKO was a company network owned by Max Kotzan, and the name was a combination of letters from his first and last name. The 1943 Berlin Address Book identified the various components of the business which included chemical-technical and metallurgical development; machine factories; and apparatus engineering and construction. Curious to get a better handle on what the company actually produced, I came upon an obscure reference which I found intriguing because it shed light on Germany’s efforts to develop solid fuel rockets, which might well have changed the trajectory of the war. Quoting briefly from a publication entitled “The V2 and the Russian and American Rocket Program” by Claus Reuter:

“More and more information is now surfacing telling of the launch of a ballistic missile powered by solid propellant near Arnstadt just before the war ended.  [EDITOR’S NOTE: Arnstadt is a town in Thuringia, Germany, about 20 kilometers south of Erfurt. During the Second World War, it was the site of a prisoner-of-war camp, mainly for Poles and Russians.]. Many believe it was this missile which was to carry a nuclear payload. The missile was developed in the top-secret think-tank installation at the Skoda factory under the control of the SS-Obergruppenfuehrer Kammler. . . .

. . . Most historians and experts say that because of the shortage of solid propellants the missile was never produced and that no nuclear program existed.

More and more eyewitness accounts surface telling us a different story, accounts which say the missile was launched successfully. Also, a photo surfaced showing a large missile being built at the MAKO factory in Rudesleben, Thuringia. It shows the Sonderrakete A-4 (Special Rocket A-4) for solid fuel. The launch took place nearby at one of the top-secret factories in Thuringia the Polte 2 plant. The plant was controlled by SS-Obergruppenfuehrer Kammler.

The MAKO plant specialized in the construction of pressure tanks and also produced equipment for the Luftwaffe, like drop tank, for the rocket program oxygen tanks for the V-1 and also mobile liquid oxygen transport tanks for the V-2 rocket batteries. The MAKO was owned by Maz Kotzan. Kotzan as a WWI flyer had close connections to Hermann Goering and Ernst Udet, both WWI pilots. The MAKO received the contracts from the RLM [EDITOR’S NOTE: Nazi Germany’s Ministry of Aviation, “Reichsluftfahrtministerium,” abbreviated RLM]. Behind the Polte 2 plant Kotzan had erected two aircraft hangers and a landing strip.

Here personalities like SS-Obergruppenfuehrer Kammler or Wernher von Braun arrived to visit some of the installations. In the MAKO and Polte 2 plants some of the top-secret developments were tested. It was here that the Americans found the top-secret radar-absorbing aircraft paint. The paint was immediately shipped to the U.S.”

I am obviously no rocket scientist, pardon the pun, so suffice it to say the advantage of a solid motor is that it can provide huge amounts of thrust, and is therefore used as a booster to make satellite launching rockets gain high initial velocity before using higher-efficient liquid motors to gain horizontal velocity above the densest part of the atmosphere. There seems little doubt that had the Nazis been able to master this technology and place fissile material atop a missile powered by solid fuel, at a minimum, the war would have dragged on and more misery and death occurred.

I will readily acknowledge to readers that I have veered quite a distance from Johanna and Renate’s diary, but this was primarily in the interest of drawing attention to the company for which Renate worked, which was obviously deeply involved in Germany’s arms development. There is virtually no mention in their diary of Johanna and Renate’s time in Erfurt, except for their continuing active social lives. However, it is safe to assume that part of their reticence to talk about Erfurt could be connected to statements of secrecy they were sworn to. Clearly, as a mischling Renate wanted to draw as little attention to herself as possible, and it’s somewhat surprising the company even hired her given her status.

Evidently, by virtue of Renate’s amorous relationship with Matthias Mehne, her future first husband, she and Johanna had gotten to know Matthias’s parents, referred to as “Ma and Pa” in the diary and his sister “Lu,” short for Luzie. Matthias’s parents were Albert Eugen Mehne (b. 1883, Dresden) and Hedwig Gertrud Marie Göbel. Johanna and Renate regularly visited, received packages, and stayed in touch with them during Matthias’s wartime absence. While a reference I found states Albert Eugen Mehne moved to Gelsenkirchen, Germany around 1922 (Figure 7), which is about 500 miles due west of Breslau, Johanna and Renate always visited them in Breslau during the war, suggesting Matthias’s parents had returned there at some point.

 

Figure 7. Obscure reference from “Amati Auctions” mentioning that Renate’s future father-in-law, Eugen Mehne, worked in Gelsenkirchen, Germany after 1922

 

Surprisingly, Johanna and Renate traveled quite extensively during the years 1942 through 1944. While there were periodic disruptions and delays on account of the war, amazingly the trains continued to run on a predictable schedule though often with significant delays. Among the places they stayed besides Berlin, Breslau, and Erfurt were the widely scattered towns of Friedrichroda (small town and health resort in Thuringia), Babelsberg, Potsdam, Jannowitz, Neuendorf and Kantreck in Pomerania bordering the Baltic Sea, and Hamburg. They clearly knew people in many of these places, but others were seemingly vacation destinations.

Not surprisingly, the war had an impact on the lives of Johanna and Renate, although this fact is rarely manifested in the diary. However, on the night of February 16, 1944, the Allies launched a major bomb attack against Berlin, and the following day Johanna was notified by teletype that “our apartment had suffered greatly.” Then, on February 18th, Johanna remarks “Our apartment—a field of rubble, quite terrible.” It does not become clear until an entry in the early part of May 1944 that Johanna and Renate’s apartment was still habitable.

It goes without saying there are dozens and dozens more entries in Johanna and Renate’s Tagebuch reflecting on the weather, taking umbrage in air raid shelters, Johanna being hospitalized, and much more. Readers should realize I’ve been very selective in the entries I’ve chosen to highlight to make this post engaging and more reflective of the wartime events that had to have impacted Johanna and Renate’s lives. My intent is merely to give followers a glimpse into the lives that my ancestors Johanna and Renate Bruck lived during WWII (Figure 8), and how surprisingly “normal” their existence seems to have been given the enormity of death and destruction that surrounded them.

 

Figure 8. Post-WWII photo of Renate and Johanna Bruck in England

 

REFERENCE

Reuter, Claus (2000). The V2, and the Russian and American Rocket Program. (2nd ed.). Repentigny, Quebec (Canada): S.R. Research & Publishing.

 

 

POST 109 (PART 1): JOHANNA & RENATE BRUCK’S WARTIME TAGEBUCH (“DIARY”)—YEARS 1940-1941

 

Note: This is the first of a two-part story about the wartime “journal” or “diary” written by Johanna and Renate Bruck, the widow and daughter of my esteemed ancestor from Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland], Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck (1872-1937), a second cousin twice removed. The German word “Tagebuch” strictly speaking translates as a diary or journal but in effect is more of a record or log of the extensive daily activities Johanna and Renate were engaged in between January 1940 and December 1944. What could have been an extremely absorbing account of the daily lives of an Aryan woman and her “mischling” daughter during WWII, within the context of global events and the impact of National Socialism on Jews, half-Jews, Germans, and others in Europe, instead turns into a mundane and drab account of their rather “ordinary” existences. The Tagebuch is often more remarkable for what it omits than what it says about the ongoing events of the tragic period in which it was written. It is difficult to make sense of many of the entries, which would in any case be of little or no interest to readers. For this reason I explain some of the war-related references and discuss a few specific people I’ve been able to identify.

 

Related Posts:

POST 54: “I DECIDE WHO IS A JEW”

POST 99: THE ASTONISHING DISCOVERY OF SOME OF DR. WALTER WOLFGANG BRUCK’S PERSONAL EFFECTS

POST 100: DR. WALTER WOLFGANG BRUCK, DENTIST TO GERMANY’S LAST IMPERIAL FAMILY

POST 101: DR. WALTER WOLFGANG BRUCK: HIS DAUGHTER RENATE’S FIRST HUSBAND, A “SILENT HERO”

POST 102: DR. WALTER BRUCK, HIS SECOND WIFE JOHANNA GRÄBSCH  & HER FAMILY

POST 103: RENATE BRUCK: A TALE OF TWO GODMOTHERS

 

Regular followers of my Blog are aware of the multiple posts I have recently written about Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck (1872-1937) and his extended family. This sequence of posts was prompted by a contact earlier this year from a Berlin doctor, Dr. Tilo Wahl, who in around 2013 purchased at auction the commemorative medals, personal effects, private papers, and photos that once belonged to Dr. Bruck. The seller of these items was Nicholas Newman, Dr. Bruck’s grandson, who sadly committed suicide in 2015 in London.

As Ms. Madeleine Isenberg, my friend affiliated with the Jewish Genealogical Society of Los Angeles, has been wont to tell me, there is no such thing as coincidence but rather as her uncle impressed upon her, its “beshert,” fate or predestination. Not only was it providential Dr. Wahl would stumble upon my Blog and contact me, but that he would also share copies of Dr. Bruck’s personal papers and photos. This was magnified when Nicholas Newman’s twin sisters from Sydney, Australia, similarly chanced upon my Blog while researching their deceased brother and contacted me.

 

 

Figure 1. Francesca and Michele Newman, my fourth cousins

 

Nicholas’s twin siblings, Francesca and Michele Newman (Figure 1), are the offspring of Renate Bruck’s third marriage. Since our initial encounter, we have developed a warm relationship and have had several Zoom calls. The twins have been able to fill in a few holes in my understanding of their mother and grandmother’s lives following their grandfather’s death in 1937, but most astoundingly, while examining their family memorabilia, they happened upon a so-called “Tagebuch,” written between January 1940 and December 1944 by their grandmother and mother, Johanna and Renate Bruck. (Figure 2) Technically a diary or journal, it can more accurately be characterized as a record or log of daily events the writers were engaged in.

 

Figure 2. The frontispiece of Johanna and Renate Bruck’s 5-year wartime “Tagebuch,” diary, covering the period from January 1940 through December 1944

 

Knowing the numerous questions I had about Dr. Bruck’s wife and daughter following his death, they offered to send me the original Tagebuch. While hesitant to risk losing this valuable document, I accepted their gracious offer and fortunately it arrived safely. The twins have since generously donated their mother and grandmother’s diary to the Museum of Cemetery Art (Old Jewish Cemetery), a Branch of the City Museum of Wroclaw, where their great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather are interred. Since Dr. Walter Bruck is well-known to staff of the museum, they were thrilled beyond measure to receive this donation.

Briefly, let me explain to readers how I was able to learn the contents of the Tagebuch. For much longer than I have been in contact with Francesca and Michele Newman, I have known one of their cousins from the Berlin neighborhood of Köpenick, Dr. Frank Thomas Koch (Figure 3); as another instance of serendipity, Dr. Tilo Wahl is a practicing dentist in this same district of Berlin. In any case, whereas Thomas and I are fourth cousins, Thomas and the twins are third cousins, so a generation more closely related. Over the years, Thomas and I have collaborated in tracking Johanna and Renate Bruck to England following their emigration from Germany, without specifically uncovering the intermediate steps that led to them arriving there.

 

 

Figure 3. My fourth cousin, Frank Thomas Koch, in Berlin in 2015, who is a third cousin to Francesca and Michele Newman; Thomas transcribed & translated Johanna & Renate’s “Tagebuch”

 

Given Thomas’ interest in this branch of our family, upon learning of the existence of the Tagebuch, he offered to transcribe it. I sent Thomas a high-quality PDF of the journal, which he systematically transcribed over a roughly two-month period. Then, using the best of the known online translators, DeepL, he translated the log. But Thomas went beyond a cursory perusal of the “journal.” He provided some context for events taking place in Nazi Germany that ought to have been touched on by Johanna Bruck but were not. As one additional step, I put Thomas in touch with Renate Bruck’s lifelong still-living 95-year-old friend, Ina Schaesberg (Figure 4), who was able to recall specific people named in the Tagebuch and identify their role in Johanna and Renate’s lives. Since Ina speaks little English, Thomas was more effectively able to extract information about these people from her than I could. Finally, yet another source of information was Bettina Mehne (Figure 5), daughter of Renate Bruck’s first husband, Matthias Eugen Walter Mehne, by Matthias’ second wife; Bettina was able to recognize the diminutive names of some of her ancestors.

 

Figure 4. Renate Bruck’s lifelong best friend, Ina Gräfin von Schaesberg née Weinert (b. 19 March 1926, Breslau) as she looks today (photo courtesy of Ina Schaesberg)
Figure 5. Matthias Mehne’s daughter by his second marriage, Bettina Mehne

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Briefly, let me give readers an impression of the Tagebuch. It is a five-year diary, of a type that still exists today, with some peculiarities. It covers the span from January 1, 1940, through December 24, 1944, although not chronologically. That’s to say, January 31, 1940, is not followed by February 1, 1940, but rather by January 1, 1941, then January 1, 1942, etc. While this may make sense, it prevents the reader from following the flow of events. Thus, Thomas, in transcribing and translating the diary, did so chronologically.

The diary has two authors, Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck’s widow, Johanna Bruck née Gräbsch, and his daughter, Renate Bruck. (Figure 6) Most of the entries are recorded by Johanna, whose writing is Old German Script in vogue around the 1900’s (known as “die Kurrentschrift” or “Kurrent” for short in German); Renate’s handwriting is more typical of today’s German cursive.

 

Figure 6. Authors of the “Tagebuch,” Johanna & Renate Bruck, in England following WWII (photo courtesy of Dr. Tilo Wahl)

 

The Tagebuch is written in a telegraphic style, meaning in a clipped way of writing that abbreviates words and packs as much information into the fewest number of words or characters. At times, this means that certain terms or turns of phrases are not well understood or are indecipherable.

Rarely is the Tagebuch introspective or self-analyzing. Comparatively intimate, confidential, or personal messages are rarely recorded. The diary does not give us a sense of the broader events going on in the war during the Nazi era. For Johanna and Renate life seems to go on as normal, notwithstanding the fact that as a half-Jew Renate was considered a mischling of the first degree.

The war, the aftermath of its destruction, hunger, and repression are rarely mentioned. If Renate as a mischling or her mother were ever under observation by the Nazis and their informants is never made clear. However, as the author James F. Tent asserts in his seminal book about German mischlinge, “In the Shadow of the Holocaust: Persecution of Jewish-Christian Germans,” the intensity of persecution, discrimination, and harassment of mischlinge in the Third Reich varied greatly. Tent reports that in certain areas and regions, there was little distinction between “Jews” and “Mischlinge” in terms of persecution, while in other parts of the Reich virtually nothing happened to them, and they were not treated as outsiders.

There were at least two areas where Renate’s status as a mischling affected her life. Until 1938, Renate attended the “Oberlyzeum von Zawadzky,” the Upper Lyceum in the Zawadskie district of Breslau, which was a private school for daughters from upper class families. After 1938, all “non-Aryan” girls were forced to leave. Following her expulsion from the Lyceum, until Renate relocated with her mother to Berlin in February-March of 1942, she attended the “Kloster-Schule der Ursulinen,” the Ursuline Convent School. Then, beginning in 1942 upon her arrival in Berlin, she attended the “Kunstgewerbeschule,” the School of Arts and Crafts.

The second area where Renate’s life was affected by her status as a mischling of the first degree was in her desire to be a fully recognized member of the “deutschen Volksgemeinschaft,” wanting “to belong” and not be an outsider; the Volksgemeinschaft is a German expression meaning “people’s community” that originally became popular during WWI as Germans rallied in support of the war. It appealed to the idea of breaking down elitism, and uniting people across class divides to achieve a national purpose. During the Nazi era, the wanting “to belong” among children and young people was expressed, among other ways, in their membership in the Hitlerjugend (HJ), Hitler Youth, or the Bund Deutscher Mädel (BDM), League of German Girls or Band of German Maidens. However, anyone who was “non-Aryan” could not become a member of the Hitler Youth or BDM.

Ina Schaesberg, Renate’s lifelong friend, relates an uncomfortable situation Renate put her in on account of her desire to belong to the BDM. So the story goes that Renate forced Ina to get her a BDM uniform so they could play together as “German Maidens” privately at home wearing their outfits. Jumping ahead to January 1942 which will be discussed in Part 2 of this post, Renate was denounced for this act by an informer that required Johanna to report to the police, although the incident appears to have had no serious consequences.

Johanna resolved to address the matter of Renate’s exclusion from the BDM. She makes the following entry on January 29, 1941. “I received first a call from Norbert Pohl about BDM application to Hess.” Let me attempt to put this in context for readers and tell readers about the players, acknowledging that I do not have a copy of Renate’s BDM application so can only surmise what it may have included.

Johanna Bruck seemingly appealed the issue of Renate’s application to join the BDM to a high, if not the highest, authority, namely to Hitler’s deputy in the Nazi Party, Rudolf Hess (1874-1987). The quote above makes this evident. Hess had been the highest-ranking member after Hitler of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP), National Socialist German Workers’ Party, and Reich Minister without portfolio since 1933 when the Nazis seized power.

Johanna could have justified her request that Renate be accepted into the BDM in one of two ways. Purely hypothetically, Johanna could have argued that Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck was not the biological father of Renate and that she was the daughter of an affair Johanna had had with an “Aryan.” It’s conceivable Johanna was aware of a similar argument that had been made in the case of the German field marshal general Erhard Milch (Figure 7) by his mother, distant relatives of both Renate and me.

 

 

Figure 7. Field Marshall Erhard Milch (far left) with Hitler and Hermann Göring (white uniform) (photograph by Heinrich Hoffmann, available at www.audiovis.nac.gov.pl, copyrighted by the State Treasury of Poland)

 

To remind readers, I wrote about Erhard Milch (1892-1972) in a post entitled “I Decide Who is a Jew” (Post 54), a saying widely attributed to Hermann Wilhelm Göring, one of the most powerful figures in the Nazi Party between 1933 to 1945. Erhard Milch was a German field marshal general (Generalfeldmarschall) who oversaw the development of the German air force (Luftwaffe) as part of the re-armament of Nazi Germany following WWI. He was State Secretary in the Reich Ministry of Aviation and Inspector General of the Air Force. During most of WWII, he oversaw all aircraft production and supply. In other words, Milch was important to the Nazis. Based on his mother’s disclosure that Erhard was not the son of her Jewish husband but supposedly born of an incestuous relationship with her uncle, an “Aryan,” he was declared a so-called “Honorary Aryan” (i.e., a person with Jewish roots who was appointed an honorary Aryan).

Thus, one way Johanna hypothetically could have argued that Renate be accepted into the BDM was by professing she was not the child of a Jew. Alternatively, Johanna could have argued that while Renate was regrettably a “mischling of the first degree,” her enthusiasm for the Nazis, their movement, and their ideals more than made up for this “flaw.” Which option Johanna chose is unknown to us. Probably her request was not supported by Hess or was delayed and put on the backburner. Regardless, several months after Johanna’s request, Hess flew to England in May 1941, ostensibly to make peace with the Allies. He was interned in England, and following Germany’s defeat, at Nuremberg he was sentenced to many years in prison as a Nazi and war criminal.

Who then was the Norbert Pohl who called Johanna Bruck on January 29, 1941? According to my cousin Thomas Koch, Norbert Pohl (1910-1968) was probably already a big shot in the SS (Schutzstaffel, or Protection Squads) at the time of Johanna’s BDM request. He was the chief judge of the SS at the Police Court VI in Krakow from July 1940 until March 1942. Johanna makes a remarkable entry on February 12, 1941, recording that she received a call from Frau Pohl, presumably the wife of the SS grandee Norbert Pohl, urging haste with the written request. On February 20th, Johanna delivered the application to the Obergau, a division of the National Socialist state, specifically to the “Obergau 4, Obergaubehörde Niederschlesien der Nazipartei NSDAP,” which was headquartered in Breslau. Pohl may subsequently have forwarded Johanna’s letter and documentation to Rudolf Hess and kept her informed about developments.

Because of the clipped style in which the Tagebuch is written, we are left to wonder about some of the brief entries recorded by Johanna that may have been related to the application submission. For example, on February 28, 1941, so eight days after submitting the petition to the NSDAP, Johanna writes that she sent a letter to Mackensen. This is undoubtedly Anton Ludwig Friedrich August Mackensen (1949-1945), Generalfeldmarschall, Field Marshall General, Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck’s military superior during WWI (Figure 8) and someone who stood up for him in 1933 after he was dismissed from his academic position. (Figure 9) Could the letter have had anything to do with Renate’s application to the NSDAP and a request for his support? It seems likely, but we may never know.

 

Figure 8. During WWI, Dr. Walter Bruck in the front seat with his first wife, Margarethe Bruck née Skutsch (1872-1942), who was Jewish, accompanied by his military superior, Field Marshall General Anton Ludwig Friedrich August Mackensen (1949-1945), and his wife (photo courtesy of Dr. Tilo Wahl)

 

 

Figure 9. Transcription & translation of section from book entitled “Zwischen Kaiser und Führer: Generalfeldmarschall August von Mackensen” by Theo Schwarzmüller detailing how and why Mackensen came to Dr. Walter Bruck’s defense following his dismissal from his teaching position in 1933 after the Nazis came to power

 

As it relates to the formal written request Johanna submitted for Renate to the Nazi authorities on February 20, 1941, Thomas figured out the German designation for this application was called “Gesuch über die Gleichstellung mit Deutschblütigen,” an “application for equality with German-blooded people.” The relevant literature indicates about 10,000 such applications were presented, but that only about 500 of them were ever approved. Of particular interest is that Hitler himself approved or denied these requests. Hitler’s allies were apparently more lenient in ratifying them.

What is clear from the journal and what we now know was an “application for equality with German-blooded people” submitted by Johanna is that she knew many people, including influential Nazis.

Unfortunately, the Tagebuch contains no mention as to what transpired after Renate’s application was submitted. However, based on an entry recorded on the 16th of September 1941, apparently Johanna suspects that her “request” for Renate to be treated “as an equal to German-blooded people” has been or will be rejected.

Let me turn now to log entries having to do with the Nazi regime and wartime events that may be of interest to readers.

On January 30, 1940, Johanna mentions the hustle and bustle going on that week on account of “Führerwoche,” Führer Week, in honor of the seventh anniversary of Hitler becoming Chancellor of the Reich on January 30, 1933.

On February  23, 1940, schools other than Renate’s were closed on account of a so-called “coal vacation,” days schools were closed during severe winters to save coal and heating oil to be used in support of the war effort.

On February 25, 1940, Johanna records that “Klaus,” one of Renate’s friends, had his National Socialist youth initiation ceremony as school graduation ceremonies and initiation rituals into the Hitler Youth and BDM were referred to at the time.

May 1st was a National Holiday, “Tag der Arbeit,” Labor Day, interestingly appropriating a tradition from the Labor movement.

On June 2nd, 1940, Johanna mentions listening to the radio, without specifically indicating that the broadcast presumably celebrated the Wehrmacht’s victory over France. Then, on June 25th, there was a school vacation because of “the acceptance of the peace terms imposed on the French.”

Interestingly, on November 23, 1940, the day of Hitler’s failed “Beer Hall Putsch” in 1923, in Munich, the Führer delivered a radio broadcast.

In several places, Johanna merely records “Führer speech,” so we are left to peruse the history books to identify what major speech Hitler delivered on these dates. The first instance is on February 24, 1941, which corresponds with a celebration at the Münchener Hofbräuhaus on the announcement of the NSDAP platform when Hitler declared an intensification of submarine warfare.

On April 9, 1941, Johanna remarks on the “great political events in the Balkans,” which coincided with the Wehrmacht’s campaign against then-Yugoslavia and Greece, resulting in Salonika’s capture on that date.

On May 4, 1941, Johanna again merely records, “Führer speech.” This coincides with an address Hitler made before the German Reichstag, in which he invoked the alleged desire for peace on the part of Nazi Germany, which had always been thwarted and now led once again to the defeat of then-Yugoslavia and Greece in the Balkans.

On June 22, 1941, Johanna records that Adolf Hitler declared war on the Soviet Union. No further embellishment is provided. Then, on October 3rd, there is another entry, “Führer speech.” This day it turns out marked the start of the Kriegswinter-Hilfswerks, War Winter Relief Fund, and Hitler’s declaration that the Soviet Union had already been defeated and would never rise again. Barely two weeks later, the German Wehrmacht, accustomed to victory, took its first major defeat during the Battle of Moscow.

Relatedly, jumping ahead to January 3, 1942, Johanna makes another clipped entry that requires explanation: “. . .sweater and jacket donated for the soldiers.” Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion plan, called for the capture of Moscow within four months of the Axis forces invasion of the Soviet Union on the 22nd of June 1941. Hitler and his generals were convinced they would defeat the Soviet Union before the onset of winter 1941. Therefore, the German soldiers were ill-equipped for the severe winter when the Red Army counter-attacked during the Battle of Moscow, and they were largely without winter clothes. The donations of clothing from the German population were intended to compensate for this lack of winter equipment; Johanna was among the donors.

Let me turn now to some entries in the Tagebuch that give us insight into aspects of Johanna and Renate’s personal lives and their circle of friends and acquaintances. While of lesser interest than the terse war-related notes, they are still noteworthy.

According to a note recorded on the 24th of March 1940, Johanna and Renate were members of the “Christengemeinschaft.” The “Christengemeinschaft, Movement for Religious Renewal” is a Christian church that is close to anthroposophy but is regarded as an independent cult community. It was founded in Switzerland in 1922 following the suggestions of Rudolf Steiner and had followers in Breslau. Today, there are 140 congregations in Germany though the church exists worldwide. From the point of view of the mainstream churches, it represents, among other things, a different understanding of baptism.

It was through the Christengemeinschaft that Johanna sought to have Renate accepted for confirmation classes. Judging from the somewhat vague notes in the Tagebuch, there were discussions and a dispute with Church Pastor Müller about this, but Johanna eventually prevailed seemingly with the help of other members of the congregation. In any case, Renate was eventually confirmed on the 17th of March 1941.

Relatedly, on June 19, 1941, Johanna makes a point of mentioning the ban of eurythmy in schools, and the great joy it elicited; whether this was personal joy or more widespread elation is unclear. Eurythmy is an expressive movement art originated by Rudolf Steiner in conjunction with Marie von Sivers in the early 20th century. Primarily a performance art, it was also used in education, especially in Waldorf schools, and – as part of anthroposophic medicine – for claimed therapeutic purposes. The ban of eurythmy was probably connected with the flight of Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s Deputy, to England on May 10, 1941. With his departure, anthroposophy lost its most important promoter among the Nazi hierarchy. Ten days prior to the ban on eurythmy, the Christengemeinschaft to which Johanna and Renate belonged had been banned, and its priests and leading community members jailed. While Johanna makes mention of the eurythmy ban, she is silent on the ban of the church. What effect the ban had on Johanna and Renate is unknown, but, regardless, by this time Renate had already been confirmed.

A brief entry from July10, 1941, “letter to . . .Lettehaus” was explained to me by my cousin. “Letteverein” and “Lettehaus” were institutions founded in 1866 to “promote the gainful employment of women.” Johanna was faced with the problem that her daughter was basically barred from higher education and university studies in Nazi Germany for “racial” reasons. But even though higher education was not attainable for Renate, economic independence was a goal for Johanna, who had to remember she would not live forever and that her assets might not be transferable to Renate. Therefore, these institutions offered options. In clarifying this entry, Thomas explained that his mother, also a mischling of the first degree, availed herself of the Letteverein and Lettehaus.

As to Johanna and Renate’s financial situation, let me say a few words. As I have alluded to and discussed in earlier posts, Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck was an eminent dentist. He was the personal dentist to the last German Kaiser’s family and other members of the nobility. Judging from the lavish social events he hosted and the lifestyle he led, it can be assumed he was well-to-do.

 

Figure 10. Aerial photograph of Dr. Bruck’s lavish home and location of his dental practice at Reichspräsidentenplatz 17, destroyed during WWII

 

According to Breslau address books of the time, during the late 1920’s and the early 1930’s Dr. Bruck and his family lived in a luxurious home at Reichspräsidentenplatz 17 (Figure 10), with the owner of record at the time being Walter Bruck. Following the death of Paul von Hindenburg, the German general and statesman who led the Imperial German Army during World War I and later became President of Germany from 1925 until his death in 1934, Reichspräsidentenplatz was renamed by the Nazis to Hindenburgplatz. The renaming of the square was reflected in Breslau address books only in 1935. By 1937, however, his wife Johanna Bruck was now shown as the owner of record even though Walter continued to live at Hindenburgplatz 17. The change in ownership from Walter to Johanna Bruck was a measure to avoid expropriation of the estate by the Nazis as Walter was considered “Jewish,” whereas his wife was deemed to be “Aryan.” We know from elsewhere that Walter converted from Judaism in about 1917, around the time his mother died, and that, unlike his accomplished father and grandfather, respectively Dr. Julius Bruck and Dr. Jonas Julius Bruck, he was not interred in Breslau’s Jewish Cemetery. Obviously, as far as the Nazis were concerned, Walter’s conversion from Judaism was of no consequence and he was still deemed Jewish. On multiple occasions, Johanna mentions that she and Renate visited her deceased husband’s grave, regrettably never mentioning which cemetery he was interred in. This is a mystery to be resolved.

Dr. Walter Bruck died in Breslau on the 31st of March 1937, whether by his own hand or not is unknown. Following Walter’s death, Johanna is presumed to have sold the house around that time because when in 1939, the “racial” census takes place (Figure 11), the widow Johanna Bruck and her daughter Renate Bruck are no longer living at Hindenburgplatz 17, but at Oranienstrasse 4. (Figure 12) The latter house does not belong to Johanna but to a retired banker by the name of “E. Bucher.” Johanna and Renate apparently lived there in a large stately apartment, from which they sublet rooms. Apart from the income this generated, Johanna undoubtedly received a significant sum of money from the sale of the house at Hindenburgplatz 17 as well as an inheritance from her husband. At various points in the Tagebuch, Johanna bemoans the expenditure of money on certain things, but rarely do we get the impression that she is lacking for money, nor does her active social life or the multiple activities she and Renate are enrolled in suggest otherwise.

 

Figure 11. The 1939 German Minority Census listing Johanna and Renate Bruck, by which time they lived at Oranienstrasse 4

 

Figure 12. Table inside Oranienstrasse 4 with photograph of Dr. Walter Bruck

 

There are scores upon scores of names mentioned in the journal. An unusually large number of them are referred to as “Tante,” aunt, or “Onkel,” uncle, with most presumed to be close friends rather than blood relatives. Several, however, “Tante Leni,” “Tante Irene” or “Tante I.,” and “Onkel Willy” are known to the writer and are unquestionably Johanna and Renate’s kin. In some instances mention is made of celebrating this or that person’s birthday on a particular day or week; given my familiarity with the dates of birth of family members, I was able to work out how some of the people were referred to. Thus “Tante I.” was Johanna’s sister-in-law, Irene Elisabeth Gräbsch née Klar who was married to Johanna’s brother, Paul Karl Hermann Gräbsch. Tante Irene was often accompanied by her son “Ebi,” a cousin and frequent playmate of Renate’s. (Figure 13) “Tante Leni” was Johanna’s sister, Helene Emma Clara Steinberg née Gräbsch. (Figure 14) “Onkel Willy” was Willy Gräbsch, a merchant from Breslau, probably unmarried or widowed, whose relationship to Johanna is unclear.

 

Figure 13. Renate Bruck on her 10th birthday, the 16th of June 1936, with her first cousin Ebi Gräbsch, with whom she spent much time playing
Figure 14. Johanna’s sister, Helene Emma Clara Steinberg née Gräbsch

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Personally intriguing is the mention made on March 30, 1940, that Renate went to visit “Tante Margarethe” to wish her a happy birthday. The quotation marks indicate that while she was not a relative, she was still referred to as an aunt. There is no doubt this is Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck’s first wife who was Jewish, Margarethe Bruck née Skutsch. (Figure 15) She was born on March 30, 1872, in Breslau [Wrocław, Poland], and murdered in the Theresienstadt Ghetto on the 22nd of September 1942. (Figure 16) It is surprising that Johanna and Renate were in touch with Walter’s first wife, although, as this was certainly the case, it’s astonishing that Johanna made no mention in the diary when Margarethe was deported. Perhaps Johanna had already distanced herself from this Jewish “aunt” by then?

 

 

Figure 15. Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck’s first wife who was Jewish, Margarethe Bruck née Skutsch (1872-1942), and who was murdered in Theresienstadt

 

 

Figure 16. Margarethe Bruck née Skutsch’s death certificate from “Holocaust.CZ” showing she was murdered on the 22nd of September 1942 in the Theresienstadt Ghetto

 

Among the names mentioned are a coterie I surmise are people who provided professional services to Johanna, such as housecleaners, cooks, seamstresses, teachers, clergy, etc. This includes “Fräulein Anna,” Miss Anna. According to Ina Schaesberg, she was the cook in the Bruck household for many years, during Dr. Bruck’s lifetime and after his death. She was considered “Aryan.” According to the 1935 “Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor,” Jews were forbidden to employ “Aryan maids” under the age of 45. However, since Anna exceeded this age limit, she could remain employed in the house of Walter Bruck even after 1935. Following the death of Walter in 1937, she continued to work for Johanna and even followed her to Berlin (more on this in Part 2 of the post).

Johanna’s and Renate’s beloved long-haired dachshund, “Resi,” is often mentioned, though it took me some time to figure out that this was a dog and not a person. (Figure 17)

 

Figure 17. Renate Bruck with Resi, her long-haired dachshund

 

Because Renate was an exceptionally cute young girl who blossomed into a very attractive young woman, she had droves of admirers whom she frequently saw and skillfully manipulated. The fate of most are unknown, but in at least two instances Johanna tells us precisely the dates they were killed while serving in the Wehrmacht. The death of “Hans Roth,” often mentioned in the diary, is noted on October 26, 1941, though he was killed on the 21st of September 1941 on the Eastern Front as his death certificate confirms. (Figures 18a-b) Similarly, an even closer friend of Renate’s, “Christoph von Kospoth,” was killed-in-action on the 4th of April 1944 near Dresden, Germany. (Figures 19a-b)

 

Figure 18a. Cover page from ancestry.com of Hans Ferdinand Roth’s (1921-1941) death certificate, one of Renate Bruck’s childhood friends
Figure 18b. Hans Ferdinand Roth’ death certificate showing he was killed on the Eastern Front in September 1941

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 19a. Cover page from ancestry.com of Christoph von Kospoth’s (1923-1944) death certificate, one of Renate’s many teenage admirers
Figure 19b. Christoph von Kospoth’s (1923-1944) death certificate showing he was killed in Croatia in 1944

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Other names and deaths are recorded by Johanna, but I’ve been unable to match them with historic documents which might have been able to tell me more about them.

Many names in the Tagebuch include only forenames or surnames, so it’s impossible to precisely identify these individuals. However, in several instances, with surnames and professions given I was able with certainty to discover the identities or people. While these rarely add much to the narrative of Johanna’s and Renate’s lives, I will discuss a few only because I was able to learn something about them.

A name that frequently appears in Johanna’s entries is called “Hella Goossens.” She appears to have been a friend. This represents the sole instance where I was able to find a picture of someone named in Johanna’s and Renate’s diary who was not a family member. A vivacious looking woman born on the 21st of May 1884 in Hagen, North Rhine-Westphalia, a Rio de Janeiro Immigration Card shows she immigrated to Brazil in 1950 (Figure 20); she is identified as a domestic worker. Seemingly, she was joining her son, Herbert Goossens, who had immigrated there in 1939. (Figure 21)

 

Figure 20. The Rio de Janeiro Immigration Card for Hella Goossens, one of Johanna Bruck’s friends from Breslau, showing she immigrated to Brazil in 1950

 

 

Figure 21. The Rio de Janeiro Immigration Card for Hella Goossen’s son, Herbert Eugen Goossens, showing he immigrated to Brazil in 1939

 

As I alluded to earlier when talking about Johanna and Renate’s financial situation, both were involved in numerous extracurricular activities, particularly Renate. For her part, Johanna was taking Italian lessons with a Frau Koesel at the home of a Frau Conberti. Mrs. Conberti is listed in Breslau Address Books between 1934 and 1941 and shows she was an interpreter and language teacher. (Figures 22a-b) One is left to wonder whether Johanna was merely taking Italian for self-improvement, or envisioned emigrating to Italy? In the case of Renate, she was taking piano lessons, violin classes, tap classes, confirmation classes, and more. She would meet her future first husband, Matthias Mehne, in late 1941 in Breslau at his luthier shop, and immediately be “smitten” by him, but there is no indication they got involved romantically until they met again in Berlin in 1942.

 

Figure 22a. Cover page from ancestry.com of 1941 Breslau Address Book listing Maria Conberti as an interpreter and language teacher
Figure 22b. 1941 Breslau Address Book listing Johanna’s Italian language teacher, Maria Conberti

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Readers may wonder, as I did, whether any of Johanna’s and Renate’s acquaintances and friends are directly or indirectly acknowledged as Jewish. In one instance the name “Grete Stomberg or Sternberg” is noted, who can be presumed to have been Jewish because her apartment was confiscated by the Nazis. Another named individual was “Ferdinand Abramczyk,” later identified through a Breslau Address Book as a Justizrat, a member of the Judicial Council, who’d had “Israel” added as his middle name by the Nazis to mark him as Jewish.

Johanna frequently mentions bouts of “biliary pain,” most frequently caused by obstruction of the common bile duct or the cystic duct by a gallstone. This would eventually lead to hospitalization.

There is one final topic I want to discuss before ending the rather lengthy first part of Post 109. As previously mentioned, it appears that by September of 1941, Johanna is aware that Renate’s application for her to be treated “as an equal to German-blooded people” has been or will be rejected. This may have been the impetus for Johanna to relocate to Berlin. However, rather than simply move there, Johanna sought to swap apartments with someone from Berlin. She hosted a couple, the Günthers, with whom she would eventually exchange apartments. In February-March 1942, Johanna and Renate would move to Xantener Straße 24, in the Berlin district of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. More will be said on this in Part 2 of Post 109.

Among the more popular posts I have published in my Blog are veritable wartime diaries I have managed to get a hold of from various branches of my Jewish family. In all these instances, there is clearly an effort on the part of the author to write names in code or designate Jewish or “righteous” individuals by single letters or initials to conceal their identities. At no time do I detect a similar intent by Johanna or Renate.

Literally, with the hundreds of entries in Johanna’s and Renate’s Tagebuch, it is difficult to do justice to the diary. However, as I’ve indicated multiple times, the clipped style of writing associated with a telegraphic style makes it unlikely I would have been able to decipher the names of most of their acquaintances and friends nor the role they played in their lives. More importantly, it’s improbable this would have added much to the narrative since so many of the entries focused not on the political and current events of the time but rather on the social and amorous activities of the writers.

In closing I will quote from Ms. Renata Wilkoszewska-Krakowska’s observations of Johanna and Renate’s diary. Renate is my friend and Branch Manager, Museum of Cemetery Art (Old Jewish Cemetery) which is a Branch of the City Museum of Wroclaw, the  institute where the Tagebuch was donated. Sadly, Renata’s thoughts mirror my own: “I am amazed that in the era of mass deportations of Breslau and Silesian Jews from 1941 to 1944, there is nothing in the diary on this subject. On November 21, 1941, over a thousand people were arrested, held for four days at the Odertorbahnhof train station, then deported to Kaunas, Lithuania, and shot on November 29th. Among them were many famous and influential inhabitants of Breslau, including Willy Cohn and his family, author of the famous diary/journal entitled “Kein Recht. Nirgends” (“No Law. Nowhere.”), published in German and Polish. In the context of the war, the everyday life of Johanna and Renate seems quite banal and normal. It’s hard for me to believe it, because as early as 1942, mischlinge were also deported to the occupied part of Poland and East.”

REFERENCES

Schwarzmüller, Theo. Zwischen Kaiser und Führer: Generalfeldmarschall August von Mackensen. Paderborn, Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, 1995.

Tent, James F. In the Shadow of the Holocaust: Persecution of Jewish-Christian Germans. Lawrence, University Press of Kansas, 2003.

 

POST 108: RENATE BRUCK & MATTHIAS MEHNE’S “LONG-DISTANCE MARRIAGE”

 

Note: This post is about Renate Bruck, my third cousin once removed, and her long-distance marriage to her first husband, Matthias Eugen Walter Mehne. In my years of doing ancestral research, I have only ever once come across such an arrangement in the case of good friends of my father. Given the uncommonness of such marriage covenants, I became curious about them. I learned as with many social and cultural “protocols” involving the Nazis, there were very specific provisions in law that governed not only long-distance marriages, but also posthumous marriages (i.e., “marriages of convenience”), and even post-mortem divorces.

 

Related Posts:

POST 99: THE ASTONISHING DISCOVERY OF SOME OF DR. WALTER WOLFGANG BRUCK’S PERSONAL EFFECTS

POST 101: DR. WALTER WOLFGANG BRUCK: HIS DAUGHTER RENATE’S FIRST HUSBAND, A “SILENT HERO”

 

 

Figure 1. Renate Bruck’s lifelong best friend, Ina Gräfin von Schaesberg née Weinert (b. 19 March 1926, Breslau) as she looks today (photo courtesy of Ina Schaesberg)

 

The inspiration for this post came from my 95-year-old friend, Ms. Ina Gräfin von Schaesberg née Weinert (b. 19 March 1926, Breslau [today: Wrocław, Poland]). (Figure 1) Ms. Schaesberg, whom I’ve mentioned to readers in previous posts, was best friends with my third cousin once removed, Renate Bruck (1926-2013), their entire lives. (Figure 2) Over the course of many email exchanges, Ina, with whom I’ve now become friends, mentioned in passing that she had attended Renate’s wedding to her first husband, Matthias Eugen Walter Mehne (1908-1991) (Figure 3), hereafter Matthias Mehne, in around 1943 in Wiesbaden, Germany. Ina emphasized that Matthias had not physically been present at his own wedding, so I became quite curious about this situation.

 

Figure 2. In a school play in around 1936 Renate Bruck in white dressed as a princess, and Ina Schaesberg garbed in black as her “prince” (photo courtesy of Ina Schaesberg)

 

 

Figure 3. Renate Bruck and her first husband, Matthias Mehne, in Berlin in around 1947 or 1948 (photo courtesy of Dr. Tilo Wahl)

 

 

As I alluded to in the introduction to this post, I have only once previously come across such an arrangement involving two of my father’s very close and staunchly anti-Nazi friends, Peter and Lolo Lau. (Figure 4) In their instance, however, Peter’s brother, Rudi Lau, had been his stand-in when he got married to Lolo. While Peter would eventually be captured and held for several years as a prisoner-of-war in Virginia, at the time of his marriage he was still an active German soldier in the Wehrmacht stationed in then-Yugoslavia. Rudi Lau himself would never marry as he later died of injuries sustained during WWII.

 

Figure 4. My father’s lifelong friends Lolo & Peter Lau in Oberhausen, Germany in 2012 who were married in the Free State of Danzig in Peter’s absence while he was deployed in the Wehrmacht and his brother Rudi was his “stand-in”

 

To the best of Ms. Schaesberg’s recollection, in the case of Renate and Matthias’ marriage, Matthias had no stand-in.

As I began to contemplate the circumstances of Renate and Matthias’s marriage, I surmised that as Germany’s fortunes changed as the war progressed, it was not inconceivable that Matthias had been drafted in 1943 into the German Army even though he would have been 35 at the time.

Let me briefly digress. Anticipating what will be the subject of an upcoming Blog post, I am in possession of a copy of Renate and her mother Johanna Bruck’s five-year wartime Tagebuch, in essence a diary. (Figure 5) In early 1943, Renate and Johanna Bruck had relocated to Berlin from Breslau [today: Wrocław, Poland], likely as a precautionary measure; since Renate was a mischling of the first degree according to the Nuremberg Race Laws (i.e., her father’s parents were Jewish making her half-Jewish), and in danger of being deported and murdered, the anonymity of a larger city may have afforded her more protection. Suffice it for now to say Renate’s diary entries make numerous mention of her future first husband Matthias during the months of March through April 1943, thereafter which he is rarely mentioned. As a brief aside, Renate and Matthias were both originally from Breslau and likely knew one another from there, but only became involved romantically after they separately moved to Berlin. Matthias was not Jewish so the reason why he moved to Berlin is unknown.

 

Figure 5. The frontispiece of Johanna and Renate Bruck’s 5-year wartime “Tagebuch,” diary, covering the period from January 1940 through December 1944

 

I already knew from the German newspaper article I had found among Renate’s father’s personal papers that Matthias was a prisoner-of-war in England in the latter stages of WWII. (Figures 6a-c) Curious as to how and when he was captured by the British, I turned to Ms. Bettina Mehne (Figure 7), Matthias Mehne’s daughter by his second marriage. I presented my theory to Bettina that Germany’s declining fortunes during the war caused them to draft older men. The actual story is more involved.

 

 

Figure 6a. Undated German newspaper article post-dating WWII about Renate Bruck’s first husband, Matthias Mehne mentioning he was a British POW

 

 

Figure 6b. Transcription of newspaper article about Matthias Mehne

 

 

Figure 6c. Translation of newspaper article about Matthias Mehne

 

Figure 7. Matthias Mehne’s daughter by his second marriage, Bettina Mehne, who related the story behind her father’s forced deployment during WWII

 

I refer readers to Post 101 in which I discussed at length Matthias Mehne’s courage on Kristallnacht, November 9-10, 1938, and the role he played protecting a Jewish man named Alfons Lasker that night. The fearlessness Matthias showed that night extended throughout the war, and has, to this day, connected the Mehne and Lasker families. Alfons Lasker’s daughter, Ms. Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, was arrested in Breslau, shipped to Auschwitz, and miraculously survived. Anita, who is a world-renowned cellist, wrote a biography in 2000 entitled “Inherit the Truth,” detailing her wartime experiences. In this book she documents Matthias Mehne’s role in protecting her father on Kristallnacht, the passage of which is quoted in Post 101.

According to Bettina Mehne, there is one story Anita does not relate in her biography which explains why Matthias Mehne was forced to join the German Army. After Anita Lasker and her sister were arrested in Breslau and held there in a Sammellager, a collection camp for Jewish deportees, they attempted to escape with Matthias Mehne’s rucksack in hand; why this came to be in their possession is not clear. After they were recaptured, the Nazis found Matthias’s name in the rucksack, and he too was arrested and brought before a judge. Already subject to weekly questioning by the Gestapo because Matthias and his father refused to fly the swastika outside their luthier business on various “flag days” and hang a photo of Hitler inside their shop, they wanted him sentenced to death. The judge, however, was a friend of Matthias from the riding stables, and instead forced him to join the army as punishment, telling the Gestapo to let the Italians do their dirty work and kill him. So Matthias was soon sent off to war, though he made prompt work of being captured by the Americans, thereafter which he was handed off to the British.

With the benefit of Bettina Mehne’s firsthand account, I now understand the circumstances that lead to her father’s incarceration as a prisoner-of-war. Given Matthias’s status as a POW, I was curious how his marriage could be arranged across enemy lines, so to speak. I turned to Ms. Regina Stein (Figure 8), a provenance researcher, who’d previously and graciously researched at no cost to me address information for Matthias for the years 1943-1990. Regina sent me an interesting article from German Wikipedia on so-called “Ferntrauungen,” long-distance marriages (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsches_Eherecht_im_Zweiten_Weltkrieg#Ferntrauung_im_Zweiten_Weltkrieg). Let me highlight some relevant information.

 

Figure 8. Dr. Regina Stein, provenance researcher in Berlin, who provided a source for background information on distance marriages, marriages of convenience, and post-mortem divorces in Nazi Germany post-1939

 

 

It is clear from this article that German marriages during WWII with an absent groom were not uncommon. Beginning in 1939, various special regulations were enacted by the German Reich. This made it possible for distance marriages, posthumous marriages (“marriages of convenience”), and even death divorces. Post-mortem marriages had already taken place in France during the First World War.

Beginning with the enactment of the Nuremberg Laws on the 15th of September 1935, marriages between “Deutschblütigen,” German-blooded people, and Jews was prohibited, and “extramarital sexual intercourse” between Jews and other Germans barred. Different regulations applied to mischlinge, a pejorative term often applied to Jews meaning “hybrid, mongrel or half-breed.” From 1942 onward, however, their applications for marriage permits were no longer processed for the duration of the war. I’ll briefly return to this below, specifically as it relates to Matthias and Renate.

The possibility of a remote marriage existed according to “§§ 13 ff. der Dritten Verordnung zur Ausführung des Personenstandsgesetzes (Personenstandsverordnung der Wehrmacht) vom 4. November 1939,” (Third Ordinance for the Implementation of the Personal Status Act (Personal Status Ordinance of the Wehrmacht) of November 4, 1939. Such marriages were possible for Wehrmacht members (i.e., the Wehrmacht was the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945) who “took part in a war, a war-like enterprise or a special mission” and left their location, presumably were deployed. For such a remote marriage to take place, the Wehrmacht soldier had to declare his intent to the battalion commander who recorded it; had to provide an affidavit documenting “Aryan descent”; and the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, the High Command of the Armed forces, had to submit a marriage license to the bride’s registry office. According to Ina Schaesberg, Matthias Mehne and Renate Bruck‘s remote marriage took place in Wiesbaden, Germany in 1943 or 1944.

As I’ve discussed, we know that at the time of Matthias and Renate’s marriage, he was already a POW in England, likely in late 1943 or possibly early 1944. The German regulations accounted for such an eventuality. For POWs, the battalion commander to whom a Wehrmacht soldier declared his intent to marry was replaced by a steward appointed according to the agreement of the treatment of POWs or by the most senior captured officer of the highest rank. The marriage ceremony in the local registry office, as in Renate and Matthias‘ case, had to take place within two months, though this timeline changed at various times during the war.

Colloquially, the long-distance marraige was referred to as a “Stahlhelmtrauung,” a “steel helmet wedding,” or as a “Trauung mit dem Stahlhelm,” or “steel helmet wedding ceremony,” because a steel helmet was positioned in the place where the groom would otherwise have stood during the ceremony in the Standesamt, the registry office. The marriage took effect when the woman declared her intent to marry before the registrar, even if the groom had already died by this time. In the latter event, the marriage was deemed to have taken place on the day when the groom had declared his intent to marry. While the free copy of the marriage certificate sent to the Wehrmacht soldier did not indicate it had been a long-distance marriage, the marriage register in the registrar’s office showed the marriage had been concluded in the absence of the husband.

The possibility of long-distance marriage excluded those soldiers who had not written down their intent to marry, but in whom it could be proved that they had been willing to marry. However, it seems that on November 6, 1941, Adolf Hitler had signed a secret decree together with Hans Heinrich Lammers, the head of the Reich Chancellery, and Wilhelm Keitel, the head of the Wehrmacht High Command, in which the Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick was empowered to “order the subsequent marriage of women to soldiers who have fallen or died in the field, if it can be proven that there was a serious intention to marry and there are no indications that the intention was given up before death.” For professional soldiers, the approval of the High Command of the Wehrmacht had to be obtained. It was only on the 15th of June 1943 that the Reich Minister of the Interior notified the registry offices “confidentially” of Hitler’s decree and established guidelines for processing posthumous marriage applications.

In the case of such “Leichentrauung,” “funeral marriage,” or “Totenehe,” or “death marriage,” it was up to the woman alone to testify to the authorities of the last will of the dead person. The woman who entered such a marriage with a dead man did not become a wife through marriage, but rather a widow. As a war widow, she was eligible to obtain financial benefits and claim an inheritance, and any common children were not considered out-of-wedlock. Parents often objected since they were typically excluded from the inheritance, and claimed the bride was only concerned with obtaining economic advantages, sometimes justifiably. The possibility of abuse, such as legitimizing children conceived by men other than the deceased husband, was another issue. Because of well-founded concerns, in around 1944, the right to inheritance was limited to the children conceived by the fallen bridegroom. In total, there were about 25,000 such marriages with fallen soldiers.

In connection with the discussion about entering into marriage with a deceased, the Reich Ministry of Justice discussed whether a marriage that had had already been dissolved due to death could still be divorced. This is referred to as a “Totenscheidung,” “divorce from a deceased.” The impetus here was that supposed “hero widows” were free to lead “dishonorable, carefree lives” and get involved with other men following the deaths of their fallen bridegrooms. To address this concern, the Reich Ministry of Justice issued confidential guidelines which made “war adultery” punishable; the possibility of a “death divorce” was created for women who broke their marriage vows while their husbands were on the front lines or acted “offensively” following their husband’s deaths. Legal proceedings could be initiated, and, if “proven” the wife committed adultery, the divorce was effective retroactive from the day before the husband’s death. A wife culpably divorced lost the right of inheritance and the survivor’s pension.

Considering Renate and Matthias’s distance marriage, I became curious whether I could obtain a copy of their marriage certificate from the civil registry office in Wiesbaden where their marriage had supposedly taken place; I wanted to know whether the certificate made any mention of the distance marriage, and who might have been a witness to the ceremony besides Ina Schaesberg. I contacted the Rathaus, City Hall, but they responded I was not closely enough related to obtain the document in question.

As an aside, Germany has a period of “privacy” for vital records. Unless you are immediate family, you cannot access birth records until 110 years following the birth of the individual, marriage records for 80 years, and death records for 30 years. Assuming Renate and Matthias married in 1943, their marriage record will not publicly be available until 2023. Consequently, I asked Renate’s twin daughters by her third marriage, Francesca and Michele Newman (Figure 9), to inquire about their mother’s marriage license. The Wiesbaden Rathaus checked marriage records between 1941 and 1946 but regrettably could not find any trace of Renate and Matthias’s wedding certificate. What to make of this is unclear.

 

Figure 9. Renate Bruck’s twin daughters by her third marriage, Francesca and Michele Newman, my “movie star” cousins

 

One final point I would like to make about Renate and Matthias’ distance wedding. As previously mentioned, according to the Nuremberg Laws, Renate was a mischling of the first degree because she was half Jewish. By 1943, the presumed year of her marriage, the Nazi regulations prohibited marriages between German-blooded people and mischlinge. While Matthias could clearly prove he was of “Aryan descent,” is it possible Renate did not have to submit such documentation to the registry office? If so, this seems highly unusual given the Nazis penchant for strictly enforcing discriminatory measures against Jews and mischlinge. Without a copy of Renate and Matthias’ marriage certificate the question remains unanswered.

 

REFERENCE

Lasker-Wallfisch, Anita. Inherit the Truth: A Memoir of Survival and the Holocaust. Thomas Dunn Books, 2000.

POST 106: EVIDENCE OF CONVERSION FROM JUDAISM IN MY FAMILY

 

Note: In this post, I discuss the proof I have found for conversions from Judaism for German family members, some of which unavoidably consists of indirect evidence. This topic naturally involves touching on the political, economic, and social context under which such conversions took place.

Related Posts:

POST 38: THE EVIDENCE OF MY FATHER’S CONVERSION TO CHRISTIANITY

POST 56: REFLECTIONS ON LIFE AND FAMILY BY THE PATERFAMILIAS, DR. JOSEF PAULY

 

 

There is a long history of Jewish conversion to Christianity, both voluntary and forced conversion. Forced conversions of Jews go back to Late Antiquity, the boundaries of which are a continuing matter of debate, but the period between roughly the 3rd and 8th centuries A.D. Royal persecutions of Jews from the 11th century onward typically took the form of expulsions with exceptions. Jews were forced to convert to Christianity before and during the First Crusade (1096-1099) including in parts of what are today France, Germany, and the Czech Republic.

The mass conversion event which took place on the Iberian Peninsula in A.D. 1391 when tens of thousands of Spain’s Jews converted to Christianity because of pogroms is the one readers will be most familiar with. Practicing Jews who refused to convert were expelled by the Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella in the Alhambra Decree of 1492, following the Christian Reconquest of Spain. The net effect of the Alhambra Decree and persecutions carried out in earlier periods is that over 200,000 Jews converted to Catholicism and between 40,000 and 100,000 were expelled. In adjoining Portugal, by contrast, where an edict for Jewish expulsions was also ordered four years later in A.D. 1496, most Jews were not allowed to leave but were forced to convert.

Though conversions continued over time across many other parts of Eastern, Central, and Western Europe, forced conversions were apparently less common in the 20th century and were later more often the result of Jews choosing to convert to integrate into secular society. In Germany, which is the focus of this Blog post as it relates to my family, conversions occurred in three main periods. The first began during the Mendelssohnian era, named after Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786), the German Jewish philosopher to whose ideas the Haskalah, the “Jewish Enlightenment” of the 18th and 19th centuries, is attributed. A second wave occurred during the first half of the 19th century. And the third and longest period of conversions was a result of antisemitism and began roughly in 1880.

Conversion among German Jews was not an uncommon phenomenon in the 19th century owing to the myriad restrictions and myths that confronted them, and stymied their hopes, ambitions, dreams, and careers. In a sense, conversion to Christianity was the easy way out. Heinrich Heine (1797-1856), the noted German poet, writer, and literary critic, who himself converted, was reputed to have said conversion was his “ticket of admission into European culture.” Across most of the German states that united to create “modern” Germany in 1871, dominated by the state of Prussia, Jews were often rewarded for renouncing Judaism by being given influential positions and financial incentives. Whereas, during the 17th century, most converts were poor, by the middle of the 18th century, the converts were richer. The departure of the wealthier converts deprived the Jewish community of part of its operating budget. In any event, it is estimated that by the 20th century, close to one million Christians in Germany were of Jewish origin. According to Deborah Hertz’s book, “How Jews Became Germans: The History of Conversion and Assimilation in Berlin,” the majority of converts were infants whose parents wanted to spare them “conflicts” as adults. She notes that 60 percent of converts between 1800 and 1874 were under five years of age.

Adolf Hitler came to power in January 1933.  The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service (Gesetz zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums), which excluded Jews and other political opponents of the Nazis from all civil service positions, was one of the first anti-Semitic and racist laws to be passed by the Third Reich, enacted on the 7th of April 1933. The law initially exempted those who had worked in the civil service since August 1, 1914, those who were veterans of World War I, or those with a father or son killed in action in World War I. The Civil Service immediately impacted the education system because university professors, for example, were classified as civil servants.

With the seizure of power by the Nazis, the new government enacted laws that required all citizens to document their genealogy in full. The regime sought to identify Jews who had converted to Christianity over the preceding centuries. With the help of church officials, a vast system of conversion and intermarriage records was created in Berlin, the country’s foremost Jewish city. These records, the Judenkartei, the Jewish Register or File, begin in 1645. Work on creating this file had started before the Nazis even came to power under a private initiative which sought to uncover proof of the Jewish ancestry of university and college professors and judges. By 1932, this file had already collected 400,000 genealogical records of Jews in Germany. The constantly expanding file was taken over and expanded in 1933 by the Reichsstelle für Sippenforschung (RfS), renamed Reichssippenamt on the 12th of November 1940, the Reich Office for Clan Research.

Readers who have accessed ancestral records for their German Jewish relatives may have noticed notations in the upper left- or right-hand corners or along the margins of vital documents. Beginning August 17, 1938, Jews had to add “Israel” (males) (Figure 1) or “Sara” (females) (Figure 2) as their middle name. Similarly, on passports, which allowed German Jews to leave Germany, when they still could, but not return, a large “J” was imprinted. (Figure 3) These and other measures instituted by the Nazis were intended to officially separate Jews from the German populace. While German Jews still converted after the Nazis seized power, as I will illustrate in the case of my uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck, readers can easily surmise this was futile.

 

Figure 1. Birth certificate for my uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck showing he was born on the 17th of August 1895 in Leobschutz, Germany [today: Głubczyce, Poland], with a notation added by the Nazis on the 31st of January 1939 in the upper righthand corner adding the middle name “Israel” to identify him as Jewish
Figure 2. Birth certificate for my second cousin once removed Susanne Dorothea Neisser showing she was born in Stettin, Germany [today: Szczecin, Poland] on the 30th of July 1899, with a notation dated the 10th of January 1939 adding “Sara” to her name to identify her as Jewish
Figure 3. 1939 passport for one of my distant relatives Fritz Hirsch with a big red “J” and “Israel” added to his name, both indicating he was Jewish (photo courtesy of Roberto Hirsch)

 

As I contemplated the question of conversion from Judaism among my immediate and extended ancestors, I began to wonder what evidence I could find in the ancestral records proving my relatives’ “alienation” from their Jewish roots. In my limited experience, finding such documents is not easy. In the case of some of my ancestors but not all of them, conversion was a “pragmatic” decision, as I’ve alluded to. Again, citing the poet Heinrich Heine, he declared that he was “merely baptized, not converted.” Quoting from a letter he once wrote: 

“From my way of thinking you can well imagine that baptism is an indifferent affair. I do not regard it as important even symbolically, and I shall devote myself all the more to the emancipation of the unhappy members of our race. Still I hold it as a disgrace and a stain upon my honor that in order to obtain an office in Prussia—in beloved Prussia—I should allow myself to be baptized.”

 

Figure 4. My great-great-uncle Dr. Josef Pauly (1843-1916)

 

In re-reading the memoirs of Dr. Josef Pauly (Figure 4), husband of my great-great-aunt, who had likely been baptized Catholic as a child and whose recollections I discussed in Post 56, I wonder whether he may not have been implying the same sentiment when he wrote:

“I believe in God as the creative force of the universe, to an immanent [NOTE: (of God) permanently pervading or sustaining the universe] consciousness, to a moral world order, to the invisible God of the world as the Jewish religion has revealed it first, whose goodness is identical with the eternal laws.”

As I began to search through my files and recollect what evidence for conversion I had found for my ancestors, I initially concluded that most of the “proof” was indirect, such as in the case of my father which I discussed in Post 38. However, upon further consideration, I realize I have found considerably more direct validation than I initially thought. Beyond the obvious instances where the graves or burial records of my forefathers interred in existing and destroyed Jewish cemeteries survive, proving they did not convert, I found corroboration for several ancestors confirming they were baptized.

The earliest instance is the case of my great-great-aunt Amalie Mockrauer (1834-1918). (Figure 5) On ancestry, I uncovered a record showing she was baptized in Dresden, Germany, 21 years after her birth, on the 13th of April 1855. (Figure 6) This was undoubtedly in anticipation of her marriage to Leopold Julius Wolf von Koschembahr (Figure 7) later that year on the 26th of September 1855 in Saint Clement Danes, Westminster, London, England, an Anglican church. (Figure 8)

 

Figure 5. My great-great-aunt Amalie Mockrauer (1834-1918) in 1904, the earliest of my ancestors for whom I could find evidence of conversion from Judaism

 

Figure 6. My great-great-aunt Amalie Mockrauer’s baptismal record showing she was born on the 9th of September 1834 in Leschnitz, Germany [today: Leśnica, Poland] and was baptized on the 13th of April 1855 in Dresden, Germany
Figure 7. My great-great-aunt Amalie Mockrauer’s husband Leopold von Koschembahr (1829-1874) in Halberstadt, Germany in approximately 1860

 

 

Figure 8. Cover page from ancestry.com proving my great-great-aunt Amalie Mockrauer married her husband Leopold von Koschembahr on the 26th of September 1855 in Saint Clements Danes, Westminister, London, England, several months after she was baptized in Dresden

 

Initially, I thought Leopold von Koschembahr was also of Jewish origin because his grandson, Gerhard Bruck von Koschembahr (i.e., Gerhard’s father, Wilhelm Bruck, took his baroness wife’s surname) (Figure 9), departed Germany for the United States via Switzerland in 1938 with his 12 children. However, I learned from a New York Times article dated the 2nd of October 1938 that Gerhard departed Germany NOT on account of his grandfather’s Jewish roots but because his great-grandmother, on his mother’s side, was non-Aryan. (Figure 10) This gives credence to the concern descendants of Jews whose ancestors had long ago converted or had never converted felt when the Nazis started tracing their ancestral origins. In the case of Leopold von Koschembahr, I found his baptismal record showing he was baptized on the 5th of December 1829 (Figures 11a-b), proving he was not Jewish at birth. As readers can discern from this example, confirming or refuting the Jewish origins of one’s ancestors can be like solving a complex puzzle.

 

Figure 9. Amalie and Leopold von Koschembahr’s grandson, Gerhard Bruck-von Koschembahr (1885-1961), who I initially thought was a converted Jew
Figure 10. New York Times article dated the 2nd of October 1938 confirming that Gerhard von Koschembahr left Germany because his great-grandmother on his mother’s side, Therese Graetzer (1809-1883), was non-Aryan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 11a. Cover page from ancestry.com of Leopold von Koschembahr’s baptismal record, showing he was baptized on the 5th of December 1829 in Magdeburg, Germany

 

 

Figure 11b. Leopold von Koschembahr’s baptismal record, showing he was baptized on the 5th of December 1829 in Magdeburg, Germany

 

Moving on to other family members, let me briefly discuss the evidence for conversion for my uncle by marriage Dr. Franz Müller, my uncle by blood Dr. Fedor Bruck, my father Dr. Otto Bruck, and Dr. Adalbert Bruck, the great-grandfather of a fourth cousin.

The Centrum Judaicum Foundation is housed in the New Synagogue Berlin which was consecrated on the Jewish New Year in 1866, at which time it became the largest Jewish house of worship with its 3,200 seats. While the synagogue was spared major damage on “Kristallnacht,” it was severely damaged by Allied bombing during WWII. In 1958, the main room of the synagogue was demolished, so that today only the parts of the building closest to the street remain structurally intact.

Documents addressing the history of Jews in and around Berlin are archived there, including surviving records on conversions that took place in the city. In the case of my uncle by marriage Dr. Franz Müller, married to my aunt Susanne Müller née Bruck murdered in Auschwitz, the Centrum Judaicum has an index card on file indicating he converted on the 25th of November 1901. This did not prevent him being dismissed from his position as Humboldt University professor when the Nazis came to power in 1933 in accordance with their Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service.

In the instance of my fourth cousin’s great-grandfather, Dr. Adalbert Bruck, the Centrum Judaicum could find nothing in their archives about him, so referred my cousin to the Evangelische Zentralarchiv in Berlin, the Protestant Central Archive in Berlin. In principle records of all Jewish conversions to Christianity in Berlin are kept here, though many did not survive WWII. According to a letter sent to my cousin, Dr. Adalabert Bruck’s record survives indicating he converted on the 27th of November 1890; however, his wife Anna Bruck née Flatow’s information survives only indirectly in the form of a 1930 document showing she supposedly converted on the 17th of February 1900. (Figures 12a-b)

 

Figure 12a. Letter to my fourth cousin from the Protestant Central Archive confirming the conversion information they have in their archives on his ancestor, Dr. Adalbert Bruck and his wife, Anna Bruck née Flatow

 

 

Figure 12b. Translation of letter from the Protestant Central Archive

 

 

The conversion of my uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck, who has been the subject of several Blog posts because of his incredible tale of survival in Berlin during the entirety of WWII thanks to family and “silent heroes,” adds another element to my uncle’s compelling story. The register documenting his conversion survives and indicates he was baptized in Berlin on the 11th of June 1939 at the Messias Kapelle, a Lutheran Church. (Figures 13a-b, 14) Two godparents are named in the register, a “Herr Engelbert Helwig” and a “Herr Roderich von Roy.” Ancestry shows Englebert Helwig to have been a Holocaust survivor, and Roderich von Roy to have been born on the 3rd of August 1895, exactly two weeks before my uncle. Did my uncle know these people beforehand, or were they just random parishioners who attended the Messias Kappelle selected to be his godparents? We may never know.

 

Figure 13a. Left page of my uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck’s record showing he was baptized on the 11th of June 1939 in the Messias Kapelle

 

Figure 13b. Right page of my uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck’s baptismal record

 

 

Figure 14. Entrance to the Messias Kapelle today

 

Lutheran is a denomination among the Protestant, in fact it is the oldest of the denominations to break away from Catholicism and is traced to the founder of the movement, Martin Luther of Germany. (Figure 15)

 

Figure 15. Visual depiction of the denominations of Christianity

 

Hoping to find a picture of the Messias Kapelle, I did a Google query and stumbled upon a fascinating article written by Christiane Jurik, Editor-in-Chief of Ariel Ministries, discussing the origins of the Messias Kapelle and its role in German Jewish baptisms. I quote:

 

“Historically, most baptized Jews in Germany joined the Lutheran Church. There, even those who were true believers in Yeshua were mostly met with indifference; sometimes with suspicion; or worst, with anti-Semitism. In order to avoid this treatment, some Jewish believers started looking for places of worship where they could stay among themselves. In 1901, the Berlin Society purchased a property in one of the most urban boroughs of the city, called Prenzlauer Berg. The ministry not only moved its headquarters to the building but soon started construction work of what became known as the Messias Kapelle (‘Messiah Chapel’). Three days before Christmas of 1902, the chapel opened its doors to the Jewish believers of Berlin.

While the goal of the Berlin Society had been to offer a haven for Jewish believers, its work was closely affiliated with the Lutheran Church. In fact, the chapel officially belonged to the union of Protestant churches that also included the Confessing Church, whose most famous member was Dietrich Bonhoeffer. However, in 1930, the Lutheran Church revoked its support of the work of the Berlin Society and withdrew its pastors from the chapel. From then on, the Messias Kapelle was run by laymen.

In 1935, the Lutheran Synod forbade the baptizing of Jewish people. One of the pastors in Berlin expressed the general sentiment: ‘I am convinced that the family who told me it would be a horrible thought for them that the hand that baptized a Jew would touch their child is not alone.’

Yet not everyone obeyed the new directives of the Synod. The Messias Kapelle at this point separated itself completely from any state-run institution and in turn became the most important place of Messianic baptism in Berlin. According to the baptismal records of the time, over 700 German Jews got baptized there in the years between 1933 and 1940.

On November 11, 1938, during the Kristallnacht, the Messias Kapelle and the seat of the Berlin Society were trashed by the Nazis. Still, it would take until January of 1941 for the ministry and the chapel to be officially closed permanently. Ten months later, the first deportation of Jewish people began in Berlin. Records prove that of the 700 Jewish believers who had been baptized in the Messias Kapelle after 1933, 86 were hauled off to the ghettos of Lodz, Riga, Minsk, and Warsaw. Only two of them survived the Holocaust. It is unknown what happened to the rest of the congregation.”

A few observations. Among the survivors baptized in the Messias Kapelle was my uncle who lived until 1982. Beyond the obvious interest in self-preservation for the 700 or so Jews who got baptized in the Messias Kapelle during the Nazi era, the fact they could be baptized here as late as 1939, worship among other Jewish converts, and be told about the Jewish Messiah may have had appeal. While it’s unclear whether the chapel has been deconsecrated, the author of the above quote tells us that a marketing and public relations firm now owns it and that the worship hall, altar, and a marble relief resembling a Temple survive. It’s sad this is not a recognized historic monument.

Growing up my father never spoke about religion and religion was never part of my upbringing. In fact, I was baptized as a Catholic by my grandparents at six years of age in Lyon, France, at the request of my parents almost as an afterthought, hoping it might protect me in the event of another Holocaust. However, as most readers will surmise, as a half-Jew, I would have been considered a mischlinge of the first degree according to the Nuremberg Laws. Not good enough to survive being murdered.

Aware my father had attended dental school in Berlin, I checked with the Centrum Judaicum in Berlin to ascertain whether they might have a record of my father’s conversion, but they do not. Knowing my father’s penchant for procrastinating, I have always suspected my father never placed a high priority on getting baptized and converting until it became an absolute necessity. And, in my opinion, that only became necessary after he moved to the town of Tiegenhof [today: Nowy Dwór Gdański, Poland] in the Free State of Danzig where he opened his dental practice in 1932. As I discussed in Post 38, the evidence for my father’s conversion comes in the form of a receipt for payment of quarterly church taxes to the Evangelische Kirche in Tiegenhof. (Figure 16)

 

Figure 16. Document found among my father’s papers initially thought to be a dental invoice later determined to be a receipt for payment in 1936 of Church Tax to the Evangelische Kirche in Tiegenhof

 

Figure 17. My second cousin twice removed, Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck (1872-1937), in his WWI military dress uniform

 

My second cousin twice-removed, Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck (1872-1937) (Figure 17), subject of several recent Blog posts is thought to have converted in Breslau [today: Wrocław, Poland]. Dr. Barbara Bruziewicz-Mikłaszewska, professor of dentistry at the University of Wrocław, who has written about Dr. Bruck, cites a file from the University’s archives saying he converted in 1916 (i.e., University file: sygn. S99, s. 62, nr sprawy AU – 481/46/2001). As we speak, I am working with one of Dr. Bruziewicz-Mikłaszewska’s colleagues to obtain verification of the date of Dr. Bruck’s baptism. Unlike his father and grandfather, who are buried in the Old Jewish Cemetery in Wrocław, Walter’s place of internment in Wrocław is unknown but was undoubtedly in a Christian cemetery that likely no longer exists.

As I mentioned above, in principle all surviving records of Jewish conversions to Christianity in Berlin are archived at the Evangelische Zentralarchiv. For conversions that took place outside of Berlin, however, there is no central repository of this information that I am aware of. Thus, the only possibility of tracking down comparable information for one’s Jewish ancestors is to know the town and parish church where the baptism occurred, and then hope the registers have survived.

 

REFERENCES

Bruziewicz Mikłaszewska, Barbara. Outline of the history of university dentistry in Breslau/Wrocław. [Polish: Zarys dziejów uniwersyteckiej stomatologii we Wrocławiu]. 2010, University of Wrocław, PhD.

Hertz, Deborah. How Jews Became Germans: The History of Conversion and Assimilation in Berlin. Yale University Press, 2009.

Jurik, Christiane. “In the Eye of the Storm: Messianic Believers in Nazi Germany.” Ariel Magazine, Winter 2019, www.ariel.org/magazine/a/in-the-eye-of-the-storm-messianic-believers-in-nazi-germany

Kirshner, Sheldon. “Historian Studies Phenomenon of Conversion in Germany.” Canadian Jewish News, 17 January 2008.

 

POST 103: RENATE BRUCK: A TALE OF TWO GODMOTHERS

Note: In this Blog post, I discuss Renate Bruck’s two prominent godmothers, images of whom exist among Dr. Walter Bruck’s surviving papers and photographs.

Related Posts:

POST 68: DR. JULIUS BRUCK AND HIS INFLUENCE ON MODERN ENDOSCOPY

POST 68, POSTSCRIPT: DR. JULIUS BRUCK, ENGINEER OF MODERN ENDOSCOPY-TRACKING SOME OF HIS DESCENDANTS

POST 99: THE ASTONISHING DISCOVERY OF SOME OF DR. WALTER WOLFGANG BRUCK’S PERSONAL EFFECTS

POST 100: DR. WALTER WOLFGANG BRUCK, DENTIST TO GERMANY’S LAST IMPERIAL FAMILY

POST 101: DR. WALTER WOLFGANG BRUCK: HIS DAUGHTER RENATE’S FIRST HUSBAND, A “SILENT HERO”

POST 102: DR. WALTER BRUCK, HIS SECOND WIFE JOHANNA GRÄBSCH & HER FAMILY

 

 

The Nuremberg Laws consisted of two race-based measures which deprived Jews of their rights. They were designed by Adolf Hitler and approved by the Nazi Party at a convention in Nuremberg on September 15, 1935. The first of these measures, termed the “Reichsbürgergesetz,” the “Reich Citizenship Law,” declared that only those of “German or kindred blood” were eligible to be Reich citizens; the remainder were designated as “subjects of the state” without any citizenship rights. The second provision, the “Gesetz zum Schutze des Deutschen Blutes und der Deutschen Ehre,” the “Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour,” usually simply called the “Blutschutzgesetz” or “Blood Protection Law,” forbade marriage or extramarital intercourse between Jews and Germans. These measures were among the first of the racist Nazi laws that culminated in the Holocaust.

Under the Nuremberg laws, Jews could not fly the German flag and were forbidden to employ in domestic service female subjects of German or kindred blood who were under the age of 45 years.

The first supplementary decree elaborating upon the Nuremberg Laws was passed on November 14, 1935. It defined Jews as persons with at least one Jewish grandparent and explicitly declared they could not be citizens of the Reich; it further decreed that Jews could not exercise the right to vote nor occupy public office. This was ultimately one of 13 ordinances that completed the process of Jewish segregation.

One enactment, passed on November 26, 1935, expanded the provisions of the law to include Roma (Gypsies) and Black people. While exact figures cannot be ascertained, historians estimate that the Germans and their allies killed between 250,000 and 500,000 European Roma during World War II. Although the Nazis did not have an organized program to exterminate African Germans, many of them were persecuted, as were other people of African descent. Black people in Germany and German-occupied territories were often isolated, and an unknown number were sterilized, incarcerated, or murdered.

It is important to emphasize that the racial definition of Jews under the Nuremberg Laws meant that Jews were persecuted NOT for their religious beliefs but for their so-called racial identity that was irrevocably transmitted through the blood of their ancestors.

Because the Nuremberg Laws did not define a “Jew” nor the phrase “German or kindred blood,” the critical task of defining their meaning fell to bureaucrats because of the criminal provisions for noncompliance contained within the law. Two basic categories of Jews were recognized. A full Jew referred to anyone with three Jewish grandparents, a rather straight-forward definition. Defining part-Jews, who were referred to as “Mischlinge,” a pejorative term meaning “hybrids, mongrels, or half-breeds,” was more challenging. Eventually they were divided into two classes. First-degree Mischlinge were defined as people who had two Jewish grandparents but did not practice Judaism and did not have a Jewish spouse. Second-degree Mischlinge were those who had only one Jewish grandparent.

Students of history may find it interesting to learn that out of foreign policy concerns, persecutions under the Nuremberg Laws did not begin until after the conclusion of the 1936 Summer Olympics, held in Berlin that year.

Also worth noting is one of the effects of the Nuremberg Laws. It gave rise to a horde of purportedly “licensed family researchers” who offered their services to concerned Germans afraid the Nazis would discover Jewish relatives among their ancestors. The Health Ministry as well as church offices were involved in providing birth and baptismal certificates as proof of Aryan origin.

 

Figure 1. Walter and Johanna Bruck with their daughter Renate in Breslau (photo courtesy of Dr. Tilo Wahl)

 

I introduce the Nuremberg Laws in the context of talking about Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck and his wife Johanna Bruck née Gräbsch’s daughter, Renate Bruck. (Figure 1) While Renate’s mother was Protestant, Dr. Bruck’s parents were Jewish, so according to the Nuremberg Laws, Renate was considered a first-degree Mischling. Evidence suggests Walter converted to Protestantism around 1917, confirmation of which I am still trying to track down. The timing of his conversion may have corresponded with the death of Walter’s mother, Bertha Bruck née Vogelsdorf (1843-1917), in 1917 (Figure 2); Walter may have been reluctant to convert from Judaism until his mother passed away. Unlike his parents and paternal grandparents who are buried in the Old Jewish Cemetery in Breslau [today: Wrocław, Poland], the place of Walter’s burial or cremation is unknown. (Figure 3) What is clear is that Walter was not interred in a Jewish cemetery.

 

Figure 2. Walter Bruck’s mother, Bertha Bruck née Vogelsdorf (1843-1917) (photo courtesy of Dr. Tilo Wahl)

 

Figure 3. The headstones of Dr. Walter Bruck’s father and grandfather, Dr. Julius Bruck (1840-1902) and Dr. Jonas Bruck (1813-1883), and their respective wives, following restoration of their tombs in 2016

 

As for Renate Bruck, there is no indication she ever set foot in a synagogue or was taught about the Jewish religion, which makes sense if her father converted from Judaism nine years before Renate was even born. On the contrary, a preliminary examination of the five-year Tagebuch, diary, belonging to Renate and her mother covering a critical period from January 1940 through December 1944, makes it clear Renate was attending Confirmation classes throughout 1940 and early 1941, and was confirmed at age 14 in Breslau on the 17th of March 1941. (Figure 4) As far as the Nazis were concerned, however, this would not have altered Renate’s status as a first-degree Mischling. And, in fact, Renate’s lifelong friend Ina Schaesberg (Figure 5) confirms that Renate and the other Jews and half-Jews were expelled from the private school they all attended in Breslau. More will be said in a future Blog post about the contents of Johanna and Renate Bruck’s diary including their attitude towards the Nazis.

 

Figure 4. Page from Johanna and Renate Bruck’s five-year “Tagebuch,” diary, showing Renate was confirmed on the 17th of March 1941 when she was 14 years old

 

Figure 5. Renate Bruck’s lifelong friend, Ms. Ina Schaesberg, born in 1926, the same year as Renate

 

 

Among the pictures in Walter Bruck’s photo album are two showing people Renate identified as her godmothers. I was curious that Renate had two godmothers but learned that traditionally Christian children can have three godparents in total, though they can have as many as the parents want. Usually, girls have two godmothers and one godfather while boys gave two godfathers and one godmother, although there is no hard and fast rule about this. Without access to Renate’s baptismal record, it is unclear whether both godmothers were listed on it at the time of her baptism. There is no indication as to who Renate’s godfather may have been.

Renate provided information on the captions about each of her godmothers which allowed me to make some interesting connections.

Figure 6. One of Renate Bruck’s two godmothers, “Tante ‘Steffa’ Stephanie,” August Josephine Stephanie Erhlich (1884-1966) (photo courtesy of Dr. Tilo Wahl)

Renate’s first godmother was named “Tante ‘Steffa’ Stephanie” (Figure 6); as readers can make out from the caption, her father was identified as “Geheimrat Prof. Erhlich,” and her husband was the “Commerzienrat Schwerin.” There was also a cryptic parenthetical notation after Stephanie’s father’s name, “Salvasan,” the significance of which only become apparent to me later. (Figure 7)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 7. Three photos captioned by Renate Bruck related to her godmother, Stephanie Schwerin née Erhlich, showing two elegant homes she owned with her husband, Ernst Louis Schwerin (photo courtesy of Dr. Tilo Wahl)

 

A “Geheimrat” is a Privy Counselor, a member of the government or cabinet minister; in the current context, however, “Geheimrat” refers to an honorary title used in Prussia that was bestowed upon Dr. Erhlich as an accomplished doctor (see below). A “Kommerzienrat,” a Commercial Counselor, also called a commercial attaché, is a commercial expert on the diplomatic staff of a country´s embassy or large consulate.

Based on Renate’s captions, I correctly concluded that Tante Steffa was Stephanie Schwerin née Erhlich. I discovered a substantial amount of information about her on ancestry.com, including her birth certificate. Her birth name was August Josephine Stephanie Erhlich, and she was born on the 19th of October 1884 in Berlin. Her parents’ names are listed on her birth certificate as Paul Simon Erhlich and Hedwig Erhlich née Pinkus. (Figures 8a-b)

 

Figure 8a. Cover page from ancestry.com accompanying Stephanie Erhlich’s 1884 birth certificate
Figure 8b. August Josephine Stephanie Erhlich’s 1884 birth certificate listing her parents’ names as Paul Simon Erhlich and Hedwig Erhlich née Pinkus

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I very quickly realized that Tante Steffa’s father was none other than Dr. Paul Erhlich (1854-1915) (Figure 9), the Nobel Prize-winning German Jewish physician and scientist who worked in the fields of hematology, immunology, and antimicrobial chemotherapy. In 1908, Dr. Paul Erhlich was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his contributions to immunology. His foremost achievements were discovering a cure for syphilis in 1909 (The First Syphilis Cure Was the First ‘Magic Bullet’ | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine) and inventing the precursor to Gram staining bacteria. The techniques Dr. Erhlich developed for staining tissues made it possible to distinguish between different types of blood cells, which in turn made it possible to diagnose various blood disorders.

 

Figure 9. The noted immunologist and 1908 Nobel Prize recipient, Dr. Paul Erhlich (1854-1915), father of Renate Bruck’s godmother

 

Dr. Erhlich’s laboratory discovered Arsphenamine, the drug introduced in the early 1910s as the first effective treatment against syphilis and African sleeping sickness. Renate Bruck’s cryptic parenthetical reference to “Salvasan” was the mistakenly spelled name for “Salvarsan,” the name under which Arsphenamine was marketed, also known as “compound 606.”

A biographical sketch on Dr. Erhlich to which I link here (Paul Ehrlich – Biographical – NobelPrize.org) makes mention of his two daughters, including Stephanie (Mrs. Ernst Schwerin) and Marianne (Mrs. Edmund Landau).  Both were the result of his marriage in 1883 to Hedwig Pinkus (1864-1948). According to their marriage certificate, Stephanie and Ernst Schwerin got married in Frankfurt, Germany on the 20th of February 1904.

Along with the picture of Stephanie Schwerin née Erhlich among Dr. Walter Bruck’s papers are two showing the elegant homes she and her husband, Ernst Schwerin, owned, a large estate in Breslau, as well as a mountain retreat probably located in the Riesengebirge [today: Krkonoše, Karkonosze, or Giant Mountains in northern Czech Republic and south-west Poland]. (see Figure 7) There can be little doubt Stephanie and Ernst were wealthy, and, likely, lost much of their fortune when they fled Germany after the ascendancy of the Nazis. Primary source documents prove that in accordance with the Nuremberg Laws, both Ernst and Stephanie Schwerin had their German nationalities annulled sometime between 1935 and 1944. (Figures 10-11) Other primary source documents show that Stephanie and her husband made their way to New York City via Switzerland. They emigrated from Switzerland in October 1938. (Figures 12-13)

 

Figure 10. Proof of the annulment of Ernst Schwerin’s German nationality between 1935-1944 on account of him being Jewish

 

Figure 11. Proof of the annulment of Stephanie Schwerin née Erhlich’s German nationality between 1935-1944 on account of her being Jewish

 

Figure 12. Ernst Schwerin’s Swiss Emigration Form showing he left for New York in October 1938
Figure 13. Stephanie Schwerin’s Swiss Emigration Form showing she left for New York in October 1938

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Social Security Death Index indicated Stephanie died in New York in June 1966 (Figure 14) and her husband Ernst passed away on the 25th of November 1946. (Figure 15) I asked a friend with a subscription to Newspapers.com and GenealogyBank if he could track down their obituaries, hoping I might find a living descendant. My friend was unable to locate an obituary for Ernst Schwerin, but his wife’s obituary shows she died a most gruesome death on the 7th of June 1966 at the age of 81 by plunging from her 10th floor apartment at the Hotel Croydon. (Figure 16) According to the obituary, she left two notes in German, confirming she committed suicide. Likely, these notes were intended for her two sons, Hans Wolfgang Schwerin (1906-1987) and Guenther Karl-Joseph Schwerin (1910-1997), neither of whom ever appears to have ever been married. Hans Schwerin, who was an author, lawyer, and psychoanalyst, was a regular fixture on the Society pages during the 1950s. (Figure 17)

 

Figure 14. Stephanie Schwerin’s Social Security Death Index showing she passed away in June 1966 in New York City

 

Figure 15. Cover page from the New York Extracted Death Index showing Ernst Schwerin died on the 25th of November 1946 in Manhattan, New York

 

Figure 16. Stephanie Schwerin’s obituary dated the 8th of June 1966 showing she plunged to her death the previous day (from Newspapers.com)

 

Figure 17. Photo from the Society page of “New York Age” of Ernst and Stephanie Schwerin’s elder son, Hans Schwerin (1906-1987) (from Newspapers.com)

 

 

The second of Renate Bruck’s godmothers, Elfriede Reichelt, turns out to have been another prominent personage. As readers can make out for themselves, Renate Bruck identified her second godmother as a photographer. (Figure 18) Operating under the assumption she was well-known, a Google query confirmed this. She was born Elfriede Klara Emma Reichelt on the 30th of January 1883 in Breslau, and died of bladder cancer on the 22nd of August 1953 in Grünwald , outside Munich. She was a German art photographer, who in her time was one of the best-known professional photographers in Germany.

 

Figure 18. The second of Renate Bruck’s godmothers, noted portrait photographer Elfriede Reichelt (1883-1953), between Johanna Bruck and Elfriede’s husband, Hans Wieland, on the Brionian Islands in April 1927 (photo courtesy of Dr. Tilo Wahl)

 

The photograph of Elfriede Reichelt appears to have been taken in April 1927 in Brioni, Yugoslavia [today: Brijuni, Croatia], when Elfriede and her unidentified husband were vacationing there with Walter and Johanna Bruck. Her unnamed husband I was later able to determine was Hans Wieland, an industrialist from Ulm, Germany, whom Elfriede married in 1927 and separated from in 1936.

In the Deutsche Fotothek 743 of Elfriede Reichelt’s portrait photos are inventoried (Deutsche Fotothek), including multiple self-portraits. Because of copyright issues, I cannot illustrate these images here, but readers are encouraged to peruse them. Allow me to make a few observations about her photos. Reichelt had unprecedented access to Germany’s last Kaiser, Wilhelm II, and his family while they lived in exile in Doorn, Netherlands following WWI, and often photographed them. It is possible that Elfriede also photographed the Kaiser’s wife, Hermine Reuß, when she visited Dr. Walter Bruck in Breslau for dental treatments. It is even conceivable Dr. Bruck introduced the Kaiserin to Elfriede. Not surprisingly, given the friendship that existed between Walter Bruck and Elfriede Reichelt, her images include one of my renowned ancestor. Oddly, the photograph is incorrectly captioned. It is most curious that Walter Bruck’s picture is labeled as Dr. Fedor Bruck, which happens to have been my uncle’s name who was also a Breslau-trained dentist. Could Elfriede have known my uncle? The period my Uncle Fedor Bruck (1895-1982) spent in Breslau following WWI suggests this is possible. (Figure 19)

 

Figure 19. My Uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck (1895-1982) in his WWI uniform, who later attended dental school in Breslau, Germany

 

Regular readers may remember I have written multiple Blog posts about the Neisser branch of my extended family. Among Elfriede’s pictures are a few she took of Dr. Albert Neisser (1855-1916) (Figure 20) and his wife, Toni Neisser, a patron of the arts. Dr. Neisser was a German physician who discovered the pathogen that caused gonorrhea, a strain of bacteria that was named in his honor (Neisseria gonorrhoeae).

 

Figure 20. Dr. Albert Neisser (1855-1916), a member of my extended family, who along with his wife Toni Neisser, were subjects of Elfriede Reichelt’s photographs

 

Part of the pleasure I derive in doing forensic genealogy are finding connections among the people I research and write about even when the people are not blood relatives. Often these connections are trivial but nonetheless interesting. Case in point. After elementary school, Dr. Paul Erhlich attended the secondary school Maria-Magdalenen-Gymnasium (high school) in Breslau where he became friends with Dr. Alfred Neisser, who would later become a professional colleague. Coincidentally, Dr. Albert Neisser is a remote “link” between both of Renate Bruck’s two godmothers, though there is no evidence to suggest either knew Dr. Neisser. Since Elfriede Reichelt and Stephanie Erhlich were born, respectively, in 1883 and 1884, and Renate’s mother was born in 1884, it seems more likely all were schoolmates and friends growing up.

POST 102: DR. WALTER BRUCK, HIS SECOND WIFE JOHANNA GRÄBSCH & HER FAMILY

 

Note: In this post, I discuss and present a series of photos of Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck’s second wife, Johanna Elisabeth Margarethe Bruck née Gräbsch, and some of her immediate family. While Johanna Bruck was identifiable in most photos, I was aided at times by captions provided by Johanna and Walter’s daughter, Renate Bruck. In a few instances, I arrived at the conclusion of who some of Johanna’s family members were by logical deduction.  

 

Related Posts:

POST 68: DR. JULIUS BRUCK AND HIS INFLUENCE ON MODERN ENDOSCOPY

POST 68, POSTSCRIPT: DR. JULIUS BRUCK, ENGINEER OF MODERN ENDOSCOPY-TRACKING SOME OF HIS DESCENDANTS

POST 99: THE ASTONISHING DISCOVERY OF SOME OF DR. WALTER WOLFGANG BRUCK’S PERSONAL EFFECTS

POST 100: DR. WALTER WOLFGANG BRUCK, DENTIST TO GERMANY’S LAST IMPERIAL FAMILY

POST 101: DR. WALTER WOLFGANG BRUCK: HIS DAUGHTER RENATE’S FIRST HUSBAND, A “SILENT HERO”

 

 

The seven photo albums left to me by my father, Dr. Otto Bruck (1907-1994), covering the period from his early childhood during the 1910’s until he came to America in 1948, were the inspiration for researching my family and ultimately developing this family history Blog. I distinctly remember a comment from a Jewish audience member when I gave my first translated talk in Tiegenhof, today Nowy Dwór Gdański, Poland, the town in the Free State of Danzig where my father had his dental practice between 1932 and 1937, remarking on how fortunate I was to have my father’s collection of photos; he remarked he had only three surviving images of his Jewish ancestors, a not uncommon circumstance among descendants of Holocaust victims. For this reason, I consider it quite fortuitous that Dr. Tilo Wahl, the German doctor who purchased the medals that once belonged to my esteemed ancestor, Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck, chanced upon my Blog and shared pictures of Walter’s personal effects. I have experienced the same thrill and used the same forensic techniques in examining Walter’s pictures and documents as I have in studying my father’s papers, often with comparable success. In the ensuing post, I will discuss one such enthralling find involving Walter and Johanna’s daughter.

 

 

Figure 1. Johanna Gräbsch as a young lady (photo courtesy of Dr. Tilo Wahl)
Figure 2. Johanna Gräbsch as a debutante (photo courtesy of Dr. Tilo Wahl)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are only a few pictures among Walter Bruck’s surviving photos showing Johanna Gräbsch prior to his marriage to her (Figures 1-2), and none, insofar as I can tell, that show her as a child or young girl. Prior to obtaining copies of Walter’s papers and photos, I had found Johanna’s marriage certificate to her first husband, Dr. Med. Alfred Friedrich Karl Kurt Renner, showing they had gotten married on the 6th of May 1905 in Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland]. The certificate listed her date and place of birth, the 10th of April 1884 in Breslau. As sometimes occurs on marriage certificates, a notation was added later showing they divorced on the 8th of March 1917. (Figures 3a-c; 4)

 

Figure 3b. Page 2 of Johanna Gräbsch and Dr. Alfred Renner’s April 1905 marriage certificate with the names of witnesses, including Dr. Renner, Johanna Gräbsch, Paul Gräbsch, and Paul Renner
Figure 3a. Page 1 of Johanna Gräbsch and Dr. Alfred Renner’s April 1905 marriage certificate

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 3c. Notation on Johanna Gräbsch and Dr. Alfred Renner’s April 1905 marriage certificate dated the 28th of March 1918 showing they got divorced on the 8th of March in 1917

 

 

Figure 4. Translation of Johanna Gräbsch and Dr. Alfred Renner’s April 1905 marriage certificate including notation from March 1918

 

There is one particularly joyful picture in Walter Bruck’s photo album that Renate Bruck, who later captioned some photos, rather vaguely titled. (Figure 5) The subjects were identified according to how they were related to her three children rather than herself, which initially confused me. Regardless, while only five people were identified I was eventually able to work out who all six of the people in the photo are likely to have been through logical deduction. (Figures 6a-f) I am convinced the photo was taken at the marriage or celebration of Johanna’s wedding to Dr. Alfred Renner in 1905. Renate Bruck who was the offspring of Johanna’s second marriage in 1923 to Dr. Bruck was born in 1926 and probably never met her mother’s first husband, thus would have been unlikely to recognize him; she in fact has a question mark above his picture. There appears to be a level of intimacy between the unidentified subject and Johanna which suggests to me this was her first husband, Dr. Renner.

 

Figure 5. Joyful photo of Gräbsch family gathering I think may have been taken at the dinner celebrating Johanna Gräbsch and Dr. Alfred Renner’s April 1905 marriage with Renate Bruck’s identifying captions (photo courtesy of Dr. Tilo Wahl)

 

Figure 6a. Johanna’s older sister, “Tante Leni,” Helene Emma Clara Gräbsch (b. 1876-d. unknown)
Figure 6b. Johanna’s father, Karl Paul Otto Reinhold Gräbsch

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 6c. Johanna’s mother, Friederike Emma Gräbsch née Nerche (b. 1854-d. unknown)
Figure 6d. Johanna’s brother-in-law, “Onkel Willi,” Alfred Wilhelm Kurt Steinberg (1865-1909)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 6e. Unidentified man I think is Johanna’s first husband, Dr. Med. Alfred Friedrich Karl Kurt Renner
Figure 6f. Johanna Gräbsch (1884-1963)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As to the other subjects in this photo, on Johanna’s 1905 marriage certificate her parents, misidentified on the caption as great-grandfather and great-grandmother, are named as Paul Gräbsch and Emma Gräbsch née Nerche. I found their marriage certificate on ancestry.com indicating they got married on the 26th of July 1873 in Dresden, Germany. The “Tante Leni” in the photo was Johanna’s older sister, Helene Emma Clara Gräbsch, born on the 7th of March 1876, and “Onkel Willy” was her husband, Alfred Wilhelm Kurt Steinberg. I found his death certificate showing he was only 43 years old when he died on the 12th of February 1909 in Berlin.

As an aside, I mentioned to readers in Post 99 the existence of old annual periodicals that Dr. Tilo Wahl told me about (e.g., “Handbuch für den Preußischen Hof und Staat” (a printed guide of the Royal Prussian court and administration); “Ranglisten der Königlich Preußischen Armee” (rank lists of the Prussian Army)) that were once published for persons in official positions and/or of higher rank listing the decorations they were awarded. For personalized medal groups Tilo purchases that come without attribution, these handbooks are most useful in identifying the person to whom the medals were awarded. Coincidentally, Tilo found a listing for Alfred Steinberg, Johanna’s brother-in-law, in a 1908 Prussian Ranklist showing he had been given the “Roter Adler Orden Kreuz 4.Klasse (1861-1918) (ehrenzeichen-orden.de)” (Red Eagle Order Cross 4th Class (1861-1918)) that year. (Figures 7a-b) The Order of the Red Eagle was a Prussian order of merit, the second highest Prussian award. It is providential that my research into Johanna’s family members also wound up overlapping with Tilo’s interest in phaleristics.

 

Figure 7a. Cover of the 1908 “Ranglisten der Königlich Preußischen Armee” (rank lists of the Prussian Army) listing Alfred Wilhelm Kurt Steinberg’s name
Figure 7b. Page 46 of the 1908 “Ranglisten der Königlich Preußischen Armee” (rank lists of the Prussian Army) with Alfred Wilhelm Kurt Steinberg’s name, rank, and award

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In studying the picture of Johanna Gräbsch and her immediate family, I realized there appeared to be other pictures in the same folio Dr. Tilo Wahl had not photographed. Knowing Dr. Walter Bruck’s personal papers and photos are now in the possession of his twin granddaughters, Francesca and Michele Newman, following the death of their brother in 2015, I asked them if they could scan and send me the accompanying images. They graciously agreed. While most people in the group pictures they sent are unknown to me, even though several are named (Figure 8), Johanna’s older brother Paul Gräbsch is identified on a separate picture (Figure 9); though not labeled, I think his wife Irene Elisabeth Klar née Gräbsch may be standing next to him in two of the group photos. In all, I now have images of Johanna Gräbsch, her parents, her siblings, and her brother- and sister-in-law. Finding images of people I discuss in my Blog posts is always enormously satisfying as it brings these people to life in some small way.

 

Figure 8. Two group photos of Johanna Gräbsch’s family with marginalia; Johanna’s brother is second from the right on the top picture (dated 2nd of June 1921), and his wife, Irene Elisabeth Klar, all in white, is believed to be to his left (looking at the picture) (photos courtesy of Francesca and Michele Newman)

 

Figure 9. From left to right, Johanna’s parents, Paul and Emma Gräbsch, and her brother, Paul Gräbsch (photo courtesy of Francesca and Michele Newman)

 

 

Another thing that completes the circle, so to speak, is finding primary source documents that substantiate events that may have taken place in the lives of the people I write about. In the case of Johanna Gräbsch, who is the primary subject of this post, I found her listed in a 1919 Breslau Address Book under the name “Johanna Renner née Gräbsch” (Figure 10); clearly, following her divorce from her first husband in 1917, she retained her married name until she remarried my esteemed ancestor.

 

Figure 10. Page from 1919 Breslau Address Book listing Johanna Renner née Gräbsch

 

 

Included in Dr. Walter Bruck’s surviving personal effects is a business card sized document dated the 13th of December 1923 announcing his upcoming marriage to Johanna Gräbsch. (Figure 11) Regular readers know I constantly harp about relying on primary source documents in support of dating vital events but even these are not infallible. Case in point. Included among Dr. Bruck’s surviving papers are two hand-drawn family trees I believe were developed by someone other than Dr. Bruck; one tree states Walter and Johanna got married on the 22nd of December 1922, NOT 1923 as the wedding announcement clearly indicates; obviously, the family tree is in error. (Figure 12) The date of their marriage is interesting for another reason. Walter and Johanna’s first child, Hermine, who died at less than two months of age, was born on the 18th of January 1924, less than a month after her parents got married.

 

Figure 11. Walter Bruck and Johanna Gräbsch’s wedding announcement dated the 13th of December 1923

 

Figure 12. Section of family tree found among Dr. Walter Bruck’s surviving papers erroneously showing he and Johanna married on the 22nd of December 1922 rather than in December 1923 as their wedding announcement suggests

 

Surviving photos show that Johanna and Renate lived a charmed life before the National Socialists came along. (Figures 13-17)

 

Figure 13. Photograph Dr. Walter Bruck took in September 1925 in Doorn, Netherlands of his wife Johanna standing with the last German Kaiser, Wilhelm II, and the Kaiser’s family and entourage (photo courtesy of Dr. Tilo Wahl)

 

Figure 14. Johanna on vacation in Brioni, Croatia in 1927 (photo courtesy of Dr. Tilo Wahl)
Figure 15. Johanna reading to Renate when she was a young child (photo courtesy of Dr. Tilo Wahl)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 16. Johanna Bruck at the helm of her Adler automobile with her daughter and husband (photo courtesy of Dr. Tilo Wahl)
Figure 17. Johanna Bruck with her husband and daughter in Breslau (photo courtesy of Dr. Tilo Wahl)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Breslau address books following the death of her second husband, Dr. Walter Bruck, in 1937, continue to list Johanna Bruck until 1941 (Figure 18), whereupon her name disappears from the directory. Until I tracked Johanna and Renate Bruck to England relying on documents I obtained through the United Kingdom’s General Register Office, I was uncertain whether they had survived WWII or where they may have landed. I have detailed the results of my forensic investigations in Posts 68 and 68 Postscript so will not repeat them here.

 

Figure 18. Page from 1941 Breslau Address Bruck showing the widow, designated as “wwe,” Johanna Bruck living at Oranienstrasse 4, the last year in which Johanna is listed in Breslau address books

 

Once I determined that Johanna and Renate Bruck survived WWII, I next wondered whether Johanna and Renate had made their way to England before or after the war. This question was eventually answered by Renate Bruck’s lifelong friend, Ms. Ina Schaesberg (Figure 19), born the same year as Renate in 1926, and still alive today.

 

Figure 19. Renate Bruck’s lifelong friend, Ms. Ina Schaesberg, born in 1926, the same year as Renate

 

 

Inadvertently, I never thought to ask Ina this question until Walter and Johanna Bruck’s twin granddaughters, Michele and Francesca Newman, recently told me they had found their grandmother and mother’s Tagebuch, the journal or diary. It was at this moment Ina confirmed that Renate and her mother lived in Berlin after they left Breslau in an apartment building that survived Allied bombing during WWII. Following the war, the Berlin sector they lived in came under British occupation, which is likely how Renate met the Berlin-born British officer, Henry Ernest Graham (1904-1959) (Figure 20), who became her second husband in 1948. Several photos exist of Johanna in England following her immigration there. (Figures 21-23)

 

Figure 20. Renate Bruck with her second husband, Henry Ernest Graham (1904-1959), who was born in Berlin as Heinrich Ernst Gardenwitz and immigrated to England; Renate met him in Berlin when he was deployed there following WWII (photo courtesy of Dr. Tilo Wahl)
Figure 21. Undated photo of Johanna and Renate Bruck in England (photo courtesy of Dr. Tilo Wahl)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 22. Johanna Bruck (photo courtesy of Dr. Tilo Wahl)
Figure 23. Johanna Bruck (photo courtesy of Dr. Tilo Wahl)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The twins have shown great faith in sending and entrusting me with the original of their mother and grandmother’s journal, which I have since converted into a PDF and sent off to one of my cousins for transcription. (Figure 24) The journal covers the five-year period between the 1st of January 1940 and the 24th of December 1944. The memoir confirms that Johanna and Renate Bruck moved from Breslau to Berlin in February 1942. Transcription of the diary is ongoing as we speak and the major contents and findings will be the subject of a future Blog post.

 

Figure 24. Frontispiece of Johanna and Renate Bruck’s 5-Year “Tagebuch,” diary, which I am currently having transcribed and translated

 

Absent the transcription of Johanna and Renate’s years in Berlin, I was still able to learn a little bit about their time there from Ms. Bettina Mehne who I introduced to readers in Post 101. To remind readers, Renate’s first husband was Matthias Eugen Walter Mehne to whom she was only briefly married. Bettina is Matthias Mehne’s daughter by his second marriage. Knowing Matthias had been a “Geigenbauer,” a violin maker, in Berlin and aware Renate and Matthias had met or become reacquainted with him there (i.e., Matthias and Renate may have known one another from Breslau) after her arrival in February 1942, I wondered whether Renate and her mother had lived with his family when Matthias was a British prisoner-of-war during WWII. (It is still not entirely clear to me which year Renate and Matthias got married.) Bettina explained that her Mehne family had no relatives living in Berlin at the time, so as Ina Schaesberg explained, Johanna and Renate lived independently. It was only after Matthias was released that all three briefly lived together. According to Bettina, Johanna was a major drain on her father’s financial resources because of her love of chocolate, which was enormously expensive in the post-war period!

 

VITAL STATISTICS OF JOHANNA BRUCK NÉE GRÄBSCH & SOME IMMEDIATE RELATIVES

 

 

NAME EVENT DATE PLACE SOURCE
         
Johanna Elisabeth Margarethe Gräbsch (self) Birth 10 April 1884 Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] Breslau marriage certificate
  Marriage (to Dr. Alfred Renner) 6 May 1905 Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] Breslau marriage certificate
  Divorce (from Dr. Alfred Renner) 8 March 1917 Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] Notation on 1905 Breslau marriage certificate
  Marriage announcement (to Walter Wolfgang Bruck) 13 December 1923 Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] Wedding announcement among Walter Bruck’s personal effects
  Marriage (to Walter Wolfgang Bruck) 22 December 1923 Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] Family tree among Walter Bruck’s personal papers
  Death 5 March 1963 Elstree, Hertfordshire, England United Kingdom death certificate
Alfred Friedrich Karl Kurt Renner (first husband) Birth 20 June 1873 Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] Breslau 1905 marriage certificate
  Marriage (to Johanna Gräbsch) 6 May 1905 Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] Breslau marriage certificate
  Divorce (from Johanna Elisabeth Margarethe Gräbsch) 8 March 1917 Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] Notation on 1905 Breslau marriage certificate
  Death Unknown    
Walter Wolfgang Bruck (second husband) Birth 4 March 1872 Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] Walter Bruck’s personal biography
  Marriage announcement (to Johanna Gräbsch) 13 December 1923 Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] Wedding announcement among Walter Bruck’s personal effects
  Marriage (to Johanna Gräbsch) 22 December 1923 Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] Family tree among Walter Bruck’s personal papers
  Death 31 March 1937 Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] Walter Bruck’s Breslau death certificate
Hermine Bruck (daughter) Birth 18 January 1924 Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] Family tree among Walter Bruck’s personal papers
  Death 10 March 1924 Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] Family tree among Walter Bruck’s personal papers
Renate Stephanie Gertrude Bruck (daughter) Birth 16 June 1926 Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] Family tree among Walter Bruck’s personal papers
  Death 3 March 2013 Ramsholt, Suffolk, England United Kingdom death certificate
Karl Paul Otto Reinhold Gräbsch (father) Birth UNKNOWN    
  Marriage 26 July 1873 Dresden, Germany Dresden, Germany, Weekly Church Reports of Births, Marriages, and Deaths, 1685-1879
  Death UNKNOWN    
Friederike Emma Nerche (mother) Birth 2 June 1854 Dresden, Germany Dresden, Germany, Weekly Church Reports of Births, Marriages, and Deaths, 1685-1879
  Baptism 18 June 1854 Dresden, Germany Dresden, Germany, Weekly Church Reports of Births, Marriages, and Deaths, 1685-1879
  Marriage 26 July 1873 Dresden, Germany Dresden, Germany, Weekly Church Reports of Births, Marriages, and Deaths, 1685-1879
  Death UNKNOWN    
Paul Karl Hermann Gräbsch (brother) Birth 28 July 1874 Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] Hamburg, Germany death certificate
  Marriage (to Irene Elisabeth Klar) 9 April 1920 Belgard (Persante), Pomerania, Germany [today: Białogard, Koszalin, Poland] Eastern Prussian Provinces, Germany (Poland), Selected Civil Vitals, 1874-1945
  Death 31 March 1946 Hamburg, Germany Hamburg, Germany death certificate
Irene Elisabeth Klar (sister-in-law) Birth 17 April 1898 Belgard (Persante), Pomerania, Germany [today: Białogard, Koszalin, Poland] 1920 Belgard, Prussia marriage certificate
  Marriage (to Paul Karl Hermann Gräbsch) 9 April 1920 Belgard (Persante), Pomerania, Germany [today: Białogard, Koszalin, Poland] 1920 Belgard, Prussia marriage certificate
  Death UNKNOWN    
Helene Emma Clara Gräbsch (sister) Birth 7 March 1876 Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] Breslau birth certificate
  Marriage (to Alfred Wilhelm Kurt Steinberg) UNKNOWN    
  Death UNKNOWN    
Alfred Wilhelm Kurt Steinberg (brother-in-law) Birth 15 September 1865   MyHeritage Germany Deaths & Burials, 1582-1968
  Marriage (to Helene Emma Clara Gräbsch) UNKNOWN    
  Death 12 February 1909 Brandenburg, Berlin, Germany Berlin death certificate
  Burial 17 February 1909 Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] Germany, Lutheran Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials, 1500-1971

 

 

POST 101: DR. WALTER WOLFGANG BRUCK: HIS DAUGHTER RENATE’S FIRST HUSBAND, A “SILENT HERO”

 

POSTSCRIPT ADDED ON MAY 18, 2021 IN RED AT THE BOTTOM

 

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

—Edmund Burke—  

“Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.”

—Edmund Burke—

 

Note: This post is about a non-Jewish instrument maker named Matthias Eugen Walter Mehne, the first husband of Renate Bruck, daughter of my famed ancestor, Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck. Matthias’ courage during the era of the National Socialists rightfully entitles him to be called a “silent hero.” Silent heroes are Jewish men and women who resisted National Socialist persecution, and those who helped them to do so.

 

Related Posts:

POST 68: DR. JULIUS BRUCK AND HIS INFLUENCE ON MODERN ENDOSCOPY

POST 68, POSTSCRIPT: DR. JULIUS BRUCK, ENGINEER OF MODERN ENDOSCOPY-TRACKING SOME OF HIS DESCENDANTS

POST 99: THE ASTONISHING DISCOVERY OF SOME OF DR. WALTER WOLFGANG BRUCK’S PERSONAL EFFECTS

POST 100: DR. WALTER WOLFGANG BRUCK, DENTIST TO GERMANY’S LAST IMPERIAL FAMILY

 

There is a lot of “connective tissue” to this Blog post, so to speak. I draw upon information collected mostly in the last few months that occasioned incremental discoveries about Matthias Eugen Walter Mehne, who I will henceforth refer to as “Matthias Mehne.” He was Renate Bruck’s (1926-2013) first husband; she was the sole surviving daughter of my famed ancestor, Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck (1872-1937), and his wife, Johanna Bruck née Gräbsch (1884-1963). (Figure 1) As a result of my recent findings, I am compelled to revise Blog Post 68 to rectify conclusions I came to springing from incomplete information or erroneous inferences.

 

Figure 1. Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck (1872-1937) with his wife, Johanna Elisabeth Margarethe Bruck née Gräbsch (1884-1963), and daughter, Renate Stephanie Gertrude Bruck (1926-2013) in their Adler automobile, in the early 1930’s (photo courtesy of Dr. Tilo Wahl)

 

Given the gradational way by which I typically learn about various of my ancestors, it is often impossible for me to recall what I learned when. Nevertheless, I will try in the case of Matthias Mehne.

Ironically, I initially became aware of Renate Bruck’s first husband about two years ago upon obtaining a copy of her marriage certificate to her second husband, Henry Ernest Graham. Renate married Henry on the 18th of October 1948 in Willesden, Middlesex, England, and their marriage certificate identified both of their previous spouses. At the time, I misread Renate’s first husband’s name simply as “Eugen Walter Mehne,” failing to clearly see his first name was “Matthias.” (Figure 2) As readers will see, this was a grave oversight.

 

Figure 2. Renate Bruck’s highly informative 1948 marriage certificate to her second husband Henry Ernest Graham giving the name of her first husband, which I initially misread as simply “Eugen Walter Mehne”

 

Knowing that Renate Bruck had been born in 1926 in Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] and that she was already on her second marriage at 22 years of age, I assumed she had met and gotten married to Matthias Mehne in Breslau at a young age. In retrospect, given the disruptions wrought by WWII and Renate’s status as half-Jewish, this is not necessarily a given and in fact appears not to have been the case.

In Breslau address books I found a “Eugen Mehne” listed between 1908 and 1934 (Figures 3a-b), and a “Eugen Walter Mehne” for 1935, 1936, and 1939; I assumed they were the same person. I also found a birth certificate for an “Albert Eugen Mehne” (Figures 4a-b) but since he was born in 1883 and would have been 43 years Renate’s elder, I ruled him out as her husband. Given the trend to incorporate father’s forenames into their son’s name, I falsely concluded that Eugen Mehne was the son of Albert Eugen Mehne, and Renate’s first husband. This made sense at the time since I could not find information on a Eugen Walter Mehne, i.e., Matthias Mehne, or so I thought.

 

Figure 3a. 1908 Breslau Address Book listing “Eugen Mehne”
Figure 3b. 1934 Breslau Address Book, the last year I could find a listing for Eugen Mehne in Breslau

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 4a. Cover page from ancestry.com of Albert Eugen Mehne’s birth certificate indicating he was born on the 1st of October 1883 in Dresden, Germany
Figure 4b. Albert Eugen Mehne’s 1883 birth certificate

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I would eventually learn that Eugen and Albert Eugen were the same person. This should have been obvious to me from the start given I found a 1907 marriage certificate for Albert Eugen Mehne (Figures 5a-c), meaning the Breslau address book listings for Eugen Mehne from 1908 until at least the mid-1930’s would have been those for the father born in 1883. Regardless, I did not initially make the connection. As mentioned above, Breslau address books for 1935 (Figure 6a), 1936 (Figure 6b), and 1939 (Figure 6c) list a “Eugene Walter Mehne” who, I thought was the father Eugen Mehne, but now realize was the son Matthias Eugen Walter Mehne. This was in fact the first documentation I found on the son, although I did not realize it at the time. None of the Breslau address books list both the father and son in the same directory; what to make of this is unclear. I forgive readers for being as confused as I was. Let us move on.

 

Figure 5a. Cover page from ancestry.com of Albert Eugen Mehne’s marriage certificate showing he got married on the 26th of September 1907 in Breslau to Hedwig Gertrud Marie Göbel
Figure 5b. Page 1 of Albert Eugen Mehne’s 1907 marriage certificate

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 5c. Page 2 of Albert Eugen Mehne’s 1907 marriage certificate
Figure 6a. 1935 Breslau Address Book listing for the first time “Eugen Walter Mehne,” Albert Eugen Mehne’s son

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 6b. 1936 Breslau Address Book again listing Eugen Walter Mehne
Figure 6c. 1939 Breslau Address Book, the last year I find Eugen Walter Mehne listed in Breslau

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is where things stood until January of this year when I received two riveting emails following one upon the other. The first came from a Dr. Kate Kennedy, who is a writer and broadcaster, and the Associate Director for Oxford’s Centre for Life-Writing (Figure 7), after she stumbled upon Post 68 where I initially mentioned Albert Eugen Mehne. Kate proceeded to tell me a fascinating story. She is currently writing a book about a series of journeys she has taken across the globe following the trail of instruments that have a particular story to tell. One instrument Kate is researching is a missing cello that belonged to an Anita Lasker-Wallfisch that was taken from her before she was sent to Auschwitz when she lived in Breslau. Ms. Lasker-Wallfisch, born in 1925, survived the Holocaust, and is still alive as of this writing. According to Dr. Kennedy, the instrument maker Walter Matthias Mehne rescued the cello after Anita was arrested and may have given it to a judge to keep it safe for the duration of the war, although Anita is unsure of this. Regardless, to this day, the cello remains missing, and Dr. Kennedy is on a quest to track it down.

 

Figure 7. Dr. Kate Kennedy, Associate Director of Oxford’s Centre for Life-Writing

 

 

Setting aside my own confusion as to the Mehne names, Kate correctly presumed that Matthias Mehne was the son of Albert Eugen Mehne, as it was a father/son luthier business. She also told me they inhabited a shop on the corner of Tauentzien Platz in Breslau in the center of town with red violin-shaped signs inside their store, and that they refused to display a picture of Hitler, a most courageous act in the era of the National Socialists. I will return to the subject of the Mehne and Lasker-Wallfisch families below, but first I want to mention the second email I received in January.

This correspondence came from Dr. Tilo Wahl, the incredible findings of which have been the subject of my two previous posts, Posts 99 and 100. Buried within the album of photographs and documents once belonging to my esteemed ancestor, Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck, was a photograph (Figure 8) and article (Figures 9a-c) about Renate Bruck’s first husband, whom she did not identify by name. Still, the undated German newspaper article which I painstakingly retyped into my go-to online translator, DeepL, confirmed that he went by the name “Matthias Mehne” and at the time the article was written lived in the Berlin borough of Wilmersdorf; comparing his picture taken in Berlin in 1947-1948 with Renate to the one in the news article, it is clear it is the same person. Only at this moment did I reexamine Renate’s 1948 marriage certificate and realize that her first husband’s complete name had been “Matthias Eugen Walter Mehne” (see Figure 2) and that he went by the name “Matthias Mehne”; it became obvious then that Albert Eugen Mehne had to have been his father.

 

Figure 8. Renate Bruck and her first husband, Matthias Mehne, in Berlin in around 1947 or 1948 (photo courtesy of Dr. Tilo Wahl)

 

 

Figure 9a. Undated German newspaper article about Renate Bruck’s first husband, Matthias Mehne

 

Figure 9b. Transcription of newspaper article about Matthias Mehne

 

Figure 9c. Translation of newspaper article about Matthias Mehne

 

 

Having found virtually no other information on Matthias Mehne, I turned to my German friend, Peter Hanke, the “Wizard of Wolfsburg,” for help. (Figure 10) Peter did not disappoint. He found that Matthias’s father relocated to Gelsenkirchen, Germany in the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia, approximately 500 miles directly west of Wrocław, Poland, probably before or after WWII; Eugen Mehne is listed in a 1955 Gelsenkirchen Address Book. (Figure 11) I would later learn Albert Eugen Mehne died in Gelsenkirchen in 1963. As for Matthias Mehne, Peter discovered that he was born in 1908, had supposedly died in 1960, and was also known as “M.E.W. Mehne.” Knowing Matthias had once lived in Berlin, I did an Internet search trying to confirm his death but came up empty.

 

Figure 10. My friend, Peter Hanke, whom I kindly refer to as the “Wizard of Wolfsburg” because of his extraordinary ancestral research skills and his connection to Wolfsburg, shown in May 2020 with his latest grandson Tom (photo courtesy of Peter Hanke)
Figure 11. 1955 Gelsenkirchen Address Book listing Eugen Mehne as a “Geigenbaumeister,” violin maker

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aware of the connection between the Mehne and Lasker families from before the war, I shifted my attention to researching Anita Lasker. Not surprisingly, given Anita’s incredible journey as a world-renowned cellist and Holocaust survivor, I uncovered a biography she wrote in 2000 entitled “Inherit the Truth” in which she acknowledged Walter Matthias Mehne’s courage on Kristallnacht, November 9-10, 1938. Quoting: 

“. . .My father [Alfons Lasker] escaped arrest on that notorious Kristallnacht (night of the shattered glass), as it became known, on 9th November thanks to the courage of a great friend of ours, Walter Matthias Mehne, a violin-maker in Breslau. He was not a Jew, and he deliberately ignored the fact that the streets were crawling with members of the Gestapo looking for Jews. He climbed the stairs to our flat, took my father with him, and drove him around the town in his car for the rest of the day. He could easily have been stopped and found himself in an embarrassing and highly dangerous position. The courage of a man like Mehne is all the more noteworthy since he was a well-known figure in Breslau. His premises—it was a ‘father and son’ business—were situated on the first floor of a building on the Tauentzien Platz, right in the centre of town. It was at once recognizable from its red violin-shaped signs which hung in the windows. It was much more a meeting point for musicians than a mere shop, and a great many of those musicians were committed Nazis. Notwithstanding this, the Mehnes were steadfast in their refusal to hang up a picture of Hitler inside, although that was expected of every good citizen.

They also refused to hang out a swastika on the various ‘flag days.’ It all made them instantly suspect. But they would not yield an inch. They disapproved of what was happening and were not afraid to show it. Both father and son conducted themselves in a manner which can only be called exemplary. They were some Germans—sadly not enough of them—whose behavior was beyond reproach.

At that particular moment I was not at home but in Berlin, where I had been sent to study the cello. . .”

To some, Matthias Mehne’s actions on Kristallnacht may seem like a “little” gesture in the context of Edmund Burke’s quote cited at the outset of this post, but if other Germans had acted as heroically as Matthias Mehne acted who knows how many more Jews would have been saved from the Holocaust. Unquestionably, Matthias Mehne was a “silent hero” during the Nazi era.

In acknowledging Matthias Mehne’s courage, I was reminded of a visit my wife and I made to the “Munich Documentation Centre for the History of National Socialism.” The museum opened in 2015 as a place to learn about the crimes of the Nazi era and how Hitler’s party rose to power. It is built on the site of the Brown House, which was the Nazi’s Munich headquarters. In any case, there are many memorable pictures on display there, including one I will not forget. It shows an enormous crowd of people at a speech being delivered by Hitler all giving the Nazi or Sieg Heil salute except for one bold individual standing in this sea of ardent fascist supporters with his arms down. Bravery can be a lonely odyssey.

In researching this post. I stumbled upon an article from “The Observer,” dated the 9th of November 2013, marking the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht. Entitled “Cellist’s tribute to the ‘unsung hero’ who saved his grandfather on Kristallnacht,” the article documents a friendship that remarkably continues today between the Mehne and Lasker-Wallfisch families. In 2013, the retired cellist Anita Lasker-Wallfisch joined her renowned cellist son, Raphael Wallfisch, in Austria to play an assortment of music that was regarded as taboo by the Nazis, ranging from Felix Mendelssohn to Erich Korngold; the selection of Vienna, Austria as the site of the concert was no accident because, as Anita said, “. . .Austria has been slower than Germany to come to terms with its part in the Nazi atrocities.” Incredibly, the program coordinator for the concert event was Bettina Mehne (Figure 12), Matthias Mehne’s daughter by his second marriage!

 

Figure 12. Matthias Mehne’s daughter by his second marriage, Bettina Mehne, continues the family’s involvement in classical music on the artistic management side as an entrepreneur in the platform “HELLO STAGE” and as co-author of the book “How to be your own manager”

 

In the 2013 news article, Anita Lasker-Wallfisch acknowledged wanting the concert event to be a tribute to the “unsung hero” [Matthias Mehne] who protected her father on Kristallnacht. She is quoted: “Mehne did not flinch. He was very nice, a family friend, and was totally against the establishment. He didn’t even have a picture of Hitler in his lovely shop–a meeting place in Breslau—which everyone was supposed to have. His reaction that night was all the more remarkable because he was so well known in town.” As for Bettina Mehne, she grew up hearing the story of how her father had protected Anita’s father, Alfons Lasker, on Kristallnacht.

Thinking Bettina Mehne might have some prominence, I learned she is associated with an entity known as “Keynote Artist Management,” and found her email on their website. Hoping I might reach her and learn more about her father’s first wife, I sent her a note. Fortunately, my email caught Bettina’s attention and she graciously responded the following morning. She recognized Renate Bruck’s name and mentioned that Matthias had spoken highly of her. Bettina told me her father passed away in 1991, not in 1960 as I had been led to believe.

A “Vogelsdorff Family Tree” I found on ancestry claims Renate and Matthias Mehne got married in 1945; Vogelsdorff was Renate’s paternal grandmother’s surname so the source is credible. (Figure 13) Since Renate married her second husband in 1948, her marriage to Matthias Mehne would not have lasted long, a fact Bettina confirmed. According to Bettina, Renate and Matthias were engaged before the war. The German news article about Matthias states he was a prisoner of war in England. Bettina promised to ask her mother, still living, whether she might know more about her father’s first marriage and get back to me.

 

Figure 13. Renate Bruck’s paternal grandmother, Bertha Bruck née Vogelsdorff (1844-1917) (photo courtesy of Dr. Tilo Wahl)

 

Given that Dr. Walter Bruck played the cello, it is likely he was acquainted with the Mehnes’ music store and would have met his daughter’s future first husband before he died in 1937. We may never know.

A potential future source of information about Renate’s life is her own diary that Dr. Walter Bruck’s twin granddaughters, Francesca and Michele Newman (Figure 14), incredibly just discovered and are sending me. Once translated, this should make for a fascinating read; I have recently learned from Renate’s lifelong friend Countess Ina Schaesberg (Figure 15) that Renate and her mother spent the entire war in Germany, not in England as I had initially surmised, in a building that survived Allied bombing. Since Renate was apparently engaged to Matthias Mehne before the war, the possibility exists that Renate and her mother lived with the Mehne family in Berlin during the war. Stay tuned!

 

Figure 14. Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck’s twin granddaughters, Francesca and Michele Newman (photo courtesy of Francesca & Michele Newman)

 

Figure 15. Renate Bruck’s lifelong friend, the German Countess Ina Schaesberg, who has been the source of valuable information about Renate and her family

 

In conclusion, I will simply say the fact that Renate Bruck’s first husband was alternately known as “Eugen Walter Mehne,” “Matthias Eugen Walter Mehne,” “M.E.W. Mehne,” and “Matthias Mehne” complicated my investigations.

 

REFERENCES 

“Junger Meister des Geigenbaues.” Nacht-Despeche, 1950.

 Lasker-Wallfisch, Anita. Inherit the Truth: A Memoir of Survival and the Holocaust. Thomas Dunn Books, 2000.

 Thorpe, Vanessa. “Cellist’s tribute to the ‘unsung hero’ who saved his grandfather on Kristallnacht.” The Guardian, 2013 November 9.

 

POSTSCRIPT

Almost immediately after publishing this post, I was rewarded with some new information.

I sent the link of my post to Ms. Bettina Mehne. The timing was fortuitous because she had just spoken with her mother in Berlin about Renate and Matthias. Sadly, while her mother could not add anything new, she reminded Bettina of two silver trinkets Matthias Mehne had received from Dr. Walter Bruck, along with a small silver goblet bearing Renate’s name, dated 1927. These items are now in Bettina’s possession, but it is her intention to give them to Renate’s twin daughters. I think this is very touching.

This indirectly answers another question I had, namely, whether Matthias ever met Dr. Walter Bruck. Walter died in 1937 when Renate was only 11 years old, clearly before Renate and Matthias became engaged. Possibly the trinkets were given to Matthias during professional dealings he had with Walter, or Matthias acquired the items from Renate after they got married. Regardless, it is remarkable that after all these years, these personal items will wind up with Walter’s descendants. I think this would make him happy.

Bettina also told me that none of her father’s family lived in Berlin during the war, so clearly Renate and her mother Johanna did not live with them at the time. It was only after the war when Renate and Matthias were married that all three briefly lived together.

Figure 16. Dr. Regina Stein, provenance researcher in Berlin, who generously went through Berlin address books looking for residential information for Matthias Mehne for the years 1943 -1990

My Blog post about Matthias Mehne caught the attention of Dr. Regina Stein (Figure 16), a provenance researcher (mostly for museums) in Berlin. Regina is currently doing a lot of research in Berlin address books. Voluntarily and generously, she searched through them for the violin maker Matthias Mehne, and put together two pages of address information for him for the years 1943-1990. Among the listings Regina found is one for Renate Mehne in a 1949 Berlin address book, shown living in the Wilmersdorf borough of Berlin at the same address as her husband. (Figures 17a-b) The 1949 address book listings must reflect the prior year’s residence because by late 1948 Renate was already married to her second husband and living in England.

 

Figure 17a. Listing for Renate Mehne née Bruck from a 1949 Berlin address showing her living at Xantener Strasse 24 in Berlin-Wilmersdorf

 

Figure 17b. Listing for Renate’s husband, Matthias Mehne, from the 1949 Berlin address book shown at the same address

As to the newspaper article about Matthias Mehne, Dr. Stein told me it comes from the “Nacht-Despeche,” an illustrated evening newspaper in Berlin that appeared from 1950 onwards. Regina thinks the article may have been published in 1950, but “after lockdown” will confirm this by consulting microfilm.

I cannot emphasize strongly enough how helpful and generous people whom I have never personally met have been in furthering my ancestral investigations. I am enormously grateful for their contributions and assistance.

 

 

 

 

POST 100: DR. WALTER WOLFGANG BRUCK, DENTIST TO GERMANY’S LAST IMPERIAL FAMILY

 

Note: In this post, I explore and document the connection between my renowned ancestor, Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck, and Germany’s last imperial family, that of Kaiser Wilhelm II.

Related Posts:

POST 65: GERMANY’S LAST EMPEROR, WILHELM II, PICTURED WITH UNKNOWN FAMILY MEMBER

POST 99: THE ASTONISHING DISCOVERY OF SOME OF DR. WALTER WOLFGANG BRUCK’S PERSONAL EFFECTS

 

When formulating my Blog posts, I am acutely aware I am writing about people connected to or associated with members of my family to whom most readers are unrelated. For this reason, I try and frame the stories within a broader historical and cultural context which may be of greater interest to subscribers. Even though many of the events I write about involve people who lived during the Nazi era, which narrowly includes the period from 1933 to 1945, I hope followers will agree this tragic period in history is endlessly fascinating and obviously transcends my own family’s stories.

 

Figure 1. Painting purchased by Dr. Tilo Wahl of Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck shown wearing the medals that once graced his stately home in Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] (photo courtesy of Dr. Tilo Wahl)

 

In perusing the photos of the personal effects belonging to Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck (Figure 1), my second cousin twice removed, given to me by Dr. Tilo Wahl, I came upon a surprising array of materials chronicling a friendship between Walter and the family of Kaiser Wilhelm II (1859-1941), Germany’s last emperor. I decided to investigate this connection by having the documentary evidence translated and researching when the bond may have begun and how long it continued. As readers will be able to judge for themselves, some of my findings are conjecture, others are more firmly grounded in the records I found.

 

Figure 2. Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck in his WWI military uniform (photo courtesy of Dr. Tilo Wahl)

 

Let me start by reviewing what I have been able to establish of Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck’s military service during WWI (Figure 2), at which time I surmise a relationship between Dr. Bruck and Kaiser Wilhelm II may have begun. According to contemporary newspaper accounts published in 1925 on Walter’s 25th year anniversary as dental lecturer at the University of Breslau, “During WWI, from October 1914 to August 1917, Walter headed a dental department at the fortress hospital in Breslau, and in 1917 went to Bucharest, where he worked as a consulting dentist for the Romanian military administration and later in the same capacity worked at the high command of the so-called von Mackensen Army Group.” Multiple photographs from Walter personal papers confirm his presence on the Eastern Front during WWI (Figures 3-4) and show him socializing with members of Germany’s high command.

 

Figure 3. Dr. Walter Bruck on the Eastern Front during WWI being chauffeured about (photo courtesy of Dr. Tilo Wahl)

 

Figure 4. Dr. Walter Bruck on the Eastern Front during WWI with his army comrades (photo courtesy of Dr. Tilo Wahl)

 

There is a suggestive account in one of the articles I translated as to Walter’s administrative acumen and dental skills which may explain how he came to the attention of upper echelon German military officers and the German Kaiser, “If the suggestions made by Walter in his writings as early as 1900 had succeeded, things would have been better at the beginning of the war for the dental supply of our army. For three years in a large dental department in the Wroclaw hospital, Bruck was able to prove that dental care, as he always thought it should be provided, can be carried out very well.”

Another quote from a contemporary news account alludes to Walter’s cutting-edge dental practices, “He [the speaker] particularly emphasized his [Walter’s] contribution to the introduction of porcelain filling and mentioned that the book Bruck wrote about it had been translated into Russian and English. The speaker also remembered Bruck’s numerous efforts to introduce dental care in the army, including oral hygiene, and mentioned that one of his works had been translated into no less than eight languages. Prof. Euler also mentioned that Bruck had been active as a writer in other fields such as prosthetics and dentistry with success and announced that he intended to hold lectures in the future in the fields of social dentistry and the history of dentistry.” Sadly, I know, from having visited a museum exhibit in Essen, Germany, that the horrific injuries sustained by soldiers during WWI led to the development of advanced prosthetics and facial and maxillary reconstructions following the war.

Regardless of when Dr. Bruck’s dental skills came to the attention of the German government and military command, he would certainly have been known to them because he was at the forefront of his field and in demand.

Let me tell readers a little about Walter’s personal life. In researching when and where Walter’s older sister, Margarethe Prausnitz née Bruck (Figure 5), was born and died, I found an ancestral tree showing Walter had been married before he married Johanna Bruck née Gräbsch, the mother of his two children. This came as quite a surprise to me. According to this source, the name of Walter’s first wife was purportedly Margarethe STUTSCH.

 

Figure 5. Walter’s older sister Margarethe Bruck as a young lady (photo courtesy of Dr. Tilo Wahl)

 

I have repeatedly told readers that unless I can locate primary source documents, I am hesitant to believe what I find in other people’s trees. Case in point. While I was eventually able to confirm Walter had indeed previously been married, I learned his first wife’s maiden name was SKUTSCH not Stutsch, complicating my search. Sadly, I found that Margarethe Skutsch, born the same month and year as Walter, was murdered in Theresienstadt in 1942.

I unearthed two primary source documents confirming Margarethe’s connection to Walter Bruck. The first was her Theresienstadt death certificate (Figure 6), very rarely completed post-mortem for Jews who died there, giving her married name. The second was the 1907 death certificate for Margarethe’s mother, Berta Skutsch née Grosser, at which Walter was a witness. (Figure 7) A picture from around 1917 shows Margarethe and Walter seated at an outside picnic table with the Grand Duke of Oldenburg and his wife (Figure 8), indicating they were still married at the time. Walter’s biography which abruptly ends around 1894-94 gives no indication he was married before he left for America to attend the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery, so the duration of his first marriage is unknown.

 

Figure 6. Theresienstadt Ghetto death certificate for Walter Bruck’s first wife Margarethe Bruck née Skutsch giving her married name and showing she was murdered there on the 22nd of September 1942 (from holocaust.cz)

 

Figure 7. The February 1907 death certificate for Walter’s first mother-in-law, Berta Skutsch née Grosser (1842-1907), showing she died at 64 years 5 months of age, and that Walter Bruck reported her death

 

Figure 8. A picture from around 1916-1917 of Margarethe and Walter Bruck seated with the Grand Duke of Oldenburg and his wife (photo courtesy of Dr. Tilo Wahl)

 

Let me briefly digress and tell readers a few relevant facts about Kaiser Wilhelm II to provide context for some of the documents and photos found among Dr. Walter Bruck’s papers. Wilhelm II reigned as the German Emperor from the 15th of June 1888 until he was forced to abdicate on the 9th of November 1918, following some crushing defeats on the Western Front during WWI that led to the collapse of Germany’s war efforts. Following his abdication, on the 10th of November, Wilhelm went into exile in the Netherlands, which had remained neutral throughout WWI. He purchased a country house in the municipality of Doorn, known as Huis Doorn, and moved there in May 1920. This was to be his home for the remainder of his life.

Wilhelm was first married in February 1881 to Princess Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein, with whom he had seven children. She died in April 1921. The following year Wilhelm met Princess Hermine Reuß of Greiz. It happened when one of her sons sent birthday wishes in January of 1922 to the exiled German Emperor Wilhelm II, who then invited the boy and his mother to Huis Doorn. Wilhelm found Hermine extremely attractive, greatly enjoyed her company, and found they had much in common, both having been recently widowed. By November 1922, they got married in Doorn over the objections of Wilhelm’s monarchist supporters and children.

Hermine had five children from her first marriage to Prince Johann George Ludwig Ferdinand August of Schönaich-Carolath (1873-1920) but upon her marriage to Wilhelm it was decided that only the youngest, Princess Henriette of Schönaich-Carolath, would come live with them. Wilhelm developed a genuine fondness for Henriette whom he affectionately dubbed “the general.” He officially announced her engagement and walked her down the aisle when she got married in 1940 to Wilhelm’s grandson, Prinz Karl Franz of Prussia.

I will briefly return to Wilhelm and Hermine later. First, however, I want to mention a few vital events in the lives of Walter and his second wife, Johanna Bruck née Gräbsch.  Then, I will discuss the documents and photos among Walter’s personal effects that establish there existed a bond between he and the last German monarch and his family.

Dr. Walter Bruck married his second wife, Johanna Bruck née Gräbsch, on the 22nd of December 1922. On the 18th of January 1924, Johanna gave birth to their first daughter who sadly passed away less than two months later, on the 10th of March. This daughter was named Hermine, and it is believed and reasonable to assume she was named after Kaiser Wilhelm II’s second wife.

Walter and Johanna’s second daughter, Renate Stephanie Gertrude Bruck (Figure 9), was born on the 16th of June 1926. Among the personnel effects belonging to Walter that Dr. Tilo Wahl acquired from Walter’s grandson is a children’s book, entitled “Alpenblumenmärchen” (Alpine Flower Fairy Tales) by Ernst Kreidolf. The book was given to Renate by Princess Hermine Reuß with the dedication: “Meinem lieben Renatchen/zu Weihnachten 1928/Hermine” (i.e., To my dear Renatchen/for Christmas 1928/Hermine). (Figures 10a-b)

 

Figure 9. Touching photo of Johanna Bruck reading to her daughter Renate (photo courtesy of Dr. Tilo Wahl)

 

Figure 10a. Cover of children’s book, entitled “Alpenblumenmärchen,” given to Renate Bruck at Christmas 1928 by Princess Hermine Reuß (photo courtesy of Dr. Tilo Wahl)

 

Figure 10b. The dedication on the frontispiece of the children’s book given by Princess Hermine Reuß to Renate Bruck (photo courtesy of Dr. Tilo Wahl)

 

Other documents and photos pre-dating 1928 prove an earlier connection between Wilhelm and Walter’s families. Dr. Wahl purchased two of Walter’s guest books where visitors signed, dated, and often left personal messages upon their departure from Walter’s stately home at Kaiser Wilhelm Platz 17 (later Reichpräsidentenplatz/Hindenburg Platz). (Figure 11) In carefully perusing these guest registers, I noticed that “Hermine Kaiserin (Empress) Wilhlem II” signed one of them on “23 IV 23” (23rd April 1923). (Figures 12a-b)

 

Figure 11. Aerial photograph of Dr. Bruck’s home and dental practice at Kaiser Wilhelm Platz 17, destroyed during WWII

 

Figure 12a. Cover of Walter Bruck’s guest register recording Princess Hermine Reuß’s visit in 1923 (photo courtesy of Dr. Tilo Wahl)
Figure 12b. Page of Walter Bruck’s guest register with Princess Hermine Reuß’s signature and date of visit, the 23rd of April 1923 (photo courtesy of Dr. Tilo Wahl)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Dr. Bruck’s 25th year anniversary as dental lecturer at the University of Breslau, the former Kaiser sent a personal congratulatory “Brieftelegramm” (i.e., mail telegram) on the 14th of February (Figures 13a-d), followed by a personal note from Empress Hermine on the actual date of the event, the 25th of February 1925. (Figures 14a-d) The latter message naturally acknowledged Walter Bruck’s lengthy tenure, but also indicated an intent to come to Silesia for dental treatment.

 

Figure 13a. Congratulatory mail telegram Kaiser Wilhelm II sent Dr. Walter Bruck on the 14th of February 1925 from the Haus Doorn on his 25th anniversary as dental lecturer at the University of Breslau (photo courtesy of Dr. Tilo Wahl)
Figure 13b. Photo of Kaiser Wilhelm II accompanying mail telegram he sent Dr. Walter Bruck (photo courtesy of Dr. Tilo Wahl)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 13c. Transcription of mail telegram Kaiser Wilhelm II sent Dr. Walter Bruck

 

Figure 13d. Translation of Kaiser Wilhelm II’s mail telegram

 

Figure 14a. Page 1 of congratulatory letter Princess Hermine Reuß sent Dr. Walter Bruck on the 25th of February 1925 from the Haus Doorn on his 25th anniversary as dental lecturer at the University of Breslau (photo courtesy of Dr. Tilo Wahl)
Figure 14b. Page 2 congratulatory letter Princess Hermine Reuß sent Dr. Walter Bruck on the 25th of February 1925 from the Haus Doorn on his 25th anniversary as dental lecturer at the University of Breslau (photo courtesy of Dr. Tilo Wahl)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 14c. Transcription of letter Princess Hermine Reuß sent Dr. Walter Bruck

 

Figure 14d. Translation of letter Princess Hermine Reuß sent Dr. Walter Bruck

 

 

It is not clear whether Walter was also Wilhelm’s personal dentist though this is a reasonable assumption. An entire page of photos in Walter’s scrap book indicates Walter and Johanna visited the Emperor and Empress at Huis Doorn in September 1925 (Figure 15), possibly to attend to Wilhelm’s dental needs. During this visit Walter took a photo of his wife Johanna surrounded by Wilhelm, Hermine Reuß, two of Hermine’s daughters, Princess Henriette of Schönaich-Carolath and Princess Hermine Caroline of Schönaich-Carolath, Major General Konrad Wilhelm Gustav Hermann Graf Finck von Finckenstein (1862 – 1939), and others. (Figures 16a-b, 17)

 

Figure 15. Page of photographs and postcards from Walter and Johanna Bruck’s visit to the Haus Doorn in September 1925 (photo courtesy of Dr. Tilo Wahl)

 

Figure 16a. Photograph Dr. Walter Bruck took of his wife Johanna and the Kaiser’s entourage in September 1925 with identifications (photo courtesy of Dr. Tilo Wahl)

 

Figure 16b. Identifications on the back of the photograph Dr. Walter Bruck took of his wife standing amidst Kaiser Wilhelm II and his entourage (photo courtesy of Dr. Tilo Wahl)

 

Figure 17. Major General Konrad Wilhelm Gustav Hermann Graf Finck von Finckenstein (1862–1939), one of the individuals Walter Bruck photographed at the Huis Doorn in September 1925

 

 

Another brief digression. For regular readers, I owe you a huge “Mea Culpa!” In Post 65, I tried to work out who was the unnamed Bruck standing amidst the Kaiser, Hermine Reuß, and their entourage. Several years ago, I obtained the identical picture, captioned otherwise, from a different branch of my extended family so never worked out that the “W.B.” who initialed the photo was Walter Bruck and that his wife was in the photo. (Figures 18a-c) In this instance my powers of deduction abjectly failed me.

 

Figure 18a. Same picture as Figure 15a. obtained several years ago from a different branch of my family, showing a then-unknown Bruck standing with Kaiser Wilhelm II and his family and entourage in Doorn (photo courtesy of Andreas Pauly)

 

Figure 18b. Back of Figure 18a dated the 28th of May 1926 initialed by a then-unrecognized “W.B.,” now known to be Walter Bruck (photo courtesy of Andreas Pauly)
Figure 18c. Translation of caption on Figure 17b. It is now clear Johanna and Walter were expecting the birth of Renate Bruck, born on the 16th of June 1926, coincidentally, nine months after their visit to the Haus Doorn

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From a brief note dated the 4th of October 1925 sent from Huis Doorn, Walter had obviously sent a copy of the aforementioned photo to Wilhelm because his staff acknowledged receipt of the picture and said His Majesty had found the photo to be “excellent.” (Figures 19a-b) As an aside and as mentioned in Post 99, I have shared images of all of Dr. Bruck’s personal papers and photos with Ms. Renata Wilkoszewska-Krakowska, Branch Manager of the Old Jewish Cemetery in Breslau where Walter’s father and grandfather are interred. Renata noted the high quality of Walter’s photographs so checked a publication mentioning Walter Bruck written by professor of dentistry at the University of Wrocław, Prof. Barbara Bruziewicz-Mikłaszewska, and learned he had run the Photography Department at the University of Breslau. My esteemed ancestor was indeed a man of eclectic interests.

 

Figure 19a. Handwritten letter sent on the 4th of October 1925 by one of Wilhelm’s staff thanking Dr. Walter Bruck for sending the picture he took of the Kaiser and his entourage (photo courtesy of Dr. Tilo Wahl)
Figure 19b. Translation of the letter sent by Wilhelm’s staffer

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is unclear from Walter’s surviving papers how long the personal friendship between Kaiser Wilhelm’s family lasted nor how long he continued as Empress Hermine’s dentist before the rise of the National Socialists would have made this impossible. There is no indication in Walter’s personal biographical account that he was raised in a Jewish home; on the contrary, several passages from Walter’s memoir state he attended or was taught in Catholic or nondenominational schools and I have long suspected he converted to Christianity like many German Jews at the time did. As students of history know all too well, this would not have afforded him any protection in the Nazi era.

There is direct evidence the Nazis tried to remove Walter Bruck from his teaching post at the University of Breslau following their ascension to power in 1933. This proof does not come from Walter’s papers but from another source. I remind readers that in Post 99 I included a photo taken on the Eastern Front during WWI of Walter Bruck riding in an open car with General Field Marshall August von Mackensen and their respective wives. (Figure 20)

 

Figure 20. Dr. Walter Bruck riding with General Field Marshal August von Mackensen during WWI on the Eastern Front; Walter’s first wife, Margarethe Bruck née Skutsch (1872-1942), is thought to be seated next to him (photo courtesy of Dr. Tilo Wahl)

 

Dr. Tilo Wahl found the following passage in Mackensen’s biography, entitled “Zwischen Kaiser und ‘Führer’: Generalfeldmarschall August von Mackensen,” written by Theo Schwarzmüller, specifically discussing Walter Bruck and Mackensen’s intervention on his behalf:

GERMAN 

“. . . An Rust (Anmerkung: preußischer Kultusminister) wandte sich Mackensen auch im Fall von Professor Walther Bruck aus Breslau, eine internationale Kapazität der Zahnmedizin. Wegen jüdischer Abstammung wurde ihm die Lehrbefugnis entzogen, obwohl er sie seit Kaisers Zeiten besaß und schon sein Vater an der Universität Breslau gelehrt hatte. Bruck war evangelisch getauft, christlich erzogen, “immer national” und als Arzt am AOK [=Armeeoberkommando] Mackensen ausgezeichnet, wie er hilfesuchend versicherte. Zunächst lehnte Rust unter Hinweis auf die Gesetze ab, wonach Juden keine Beamten mehr sein dürften. Allerdings galten für Kriegsteilnehmer auf Wunsch Hindenburgs vorerst Ausnahmen. Nach “nochmaliger Prüfung” wurde nach mehreren Monaten Bruck die Lehrbefugnis wieder erteilt, was Mackensen ihm telegrafisch mitteilen konnte. Insgesamt verloren im Dritten Reich mehr als 1000 Hochschullehrer, vor allem Juden und Demokraten, ihre Stellung. Dadurch büßte Deutschland seine führende Position in den Naturwissenschaften ein. Auch der alte NS-Kämpfer Rust, von Hitler bald zum Reichsminister befördert, propagierte die arische Universität, was Gelehrte wie Albert Einstein und Fritz Haber vertrieb. Für Bruck engagierte sich Mackensen, weil dieser eine ihm nahe, deutschnationale Gesinnung vorweisen konnte.“

 

ENGLISH 

“. . .Mackensen also turned to Rust [NOTE: Prussian Minister of Culture, Bernard Rust] in the case of Professor Walther Bruck from Breslau, an international authority in dentistry. Because of his Jewish descent, his teaching license was revoked, although he had held it since the time of the Kaiser and his father had already taught at the University of Breslau. Bruck had been baptized a Protestant, had been raised a Christian, had ‘always been national,’ and had distinguished himself as a physician at the AOK [NOTE: Army High Command] Mackensen, as he helpfully asserted. At first, Rust refused, citing the laws that Jews could no longer be civil servants. However, at Hindenburg’s [NOTE: German general and statesman Paul von Hindenburg] request, exceptions applied for the time being to war veterans. After ‘reconsideration,’ after several months, Bruck was again granted the teaching license, which Mackensen was able to inform him of by telegraph. In total, more than 1000 university professors, mainly Jews and democrats, lost their positions in the Third Reich. As a result, Germany forfeited its leading position in the natural sciences. Even the old Nazi fighter Rust, soon promoted to Reich Minister by Hitler, propagated the Aryan university, which drove away scholars such as Albert Einstein and Fritz Haber. Mackensen became involved with Bruck because the latter could demonstrate a German-national outlook close to his own.”

There is another astonishing document included among Walter’s personal papers that Dr. Tilo Wahl brought to my attention. It is a letter sent by the University of Breslau’s curator, “Der Kurator de Universität und der Technischen Hochschule” (the curator of the university and the technical college) to Walter, dated the 24th of April 1936. (Figures 21a-c) The curator revoked an earlier ruling declaring Walter was no longer a Professor which had effectively removed him from his teaching position. As Tilo aptly points out, humiliatingly, the letter is lacking any form of salutation.

 

Figure 21a. Letter sent by the University of Breslau’s curator to Walter Bruck dated the 24th of April 1936 reversing an earlier decision to revoke his title as “Professor” (photo courtesy of Dr. Tilo Wahl)

 

Figure 21b. Transcription of the letter sent by the University of Breslau’s curator to Walter Bruck

 

Figure 21c. Translation of the letter sent by the University of Breslau’s curator to Walter Bruck

 

Notwithstanding Walter’s ties to the former Kaiser, August von Mackensen, and other high-ranking German officials, there can be no doubt that Walter would have seen their interventions as anything other than a temporary reprieve from Nazi persecution. Given Kaiser Wilhelm and Kaiserin Hermine’s well-known anti-Semitic views, it is highly unlikely either would have interceded on Walter’s Bruck’s behalf had he lived beyond 1937 and been arrested or deported. Wilhelm held the Jews responsible for the two world wars. As to Wilhelm’s views on Nazism, he hoped the Nazis’ early successes would lead to the restoration of the Hohenzollern monarchy, with his eldest grandson as the fourth Kaiser. Hermine actively petitioned the Nazi government for this on her husband’s behalf. For his part Hitler felt nothing but contempt for Wilhelm, blaming him for Germany’s greatest defeat, and the petitions were ignored.

Notwithstanding his disdain for the Kaiser, Hitler was not averse to using the occasion of Wilhelm’s death on the 4th of June 1941 several weeks before the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union for political advantage. Hitler wanted to bring Wilhelm’s body back to Germany for burial to demonstrate to the Germans the direct descent of the Third Reich from the old German Empire. However, Wilhelm had made it clear that he did not want his body returned to Germany until the monarchy was restored, and his wishes were respected.  However, Wilhelm’s request that the swastika and other Nazi regalia not be displayed at his funeral was ignored.

One final thought. Dr. Wahl purchased Walter’s appointment book from his grandson in 2013 and copied it for me. Walter’s calendar shows that in April 1937, the month following his death, Walter still had patients scheduled. (Figures 22a-b) Based on my own father’s experience in his dental practice in Tiegenhof [Nowy Dwór Gdański, Poland], also in 1937, as the Nazis ramped up their anti-Jewish measures, his clients disappeared. I have no doubt Walter saw his once amazing life rapidly slipping away. Barring an unknown medical condition, I am more convinced than ever that Walter took his own life on the 31st of March 1937 to protect his wife and half-Jewish daughter. (Figure 23)

 

Figure 22a. The cover of Dr. Walter Bruck’s appointment book (photo courtesy of Dr. Tilo Wahl)

 

Figure 22b. Dr. Walter Bruck’s appointment book covering the period of late March-early April 1937 showing he still had patients scheduled; Walter died on the 31st of March 1937 (photo courtesy of Dr. Tilo Wahl)

 

Figure 23. Dr. Walter Bruck’s death announcement

 

REFERENCE

 

Schwarzmüller, Theo. Zwischen Kaiser und ‘ Führer’. Generalfeldmarschall August von Mackensen. 2001. Munich: Schöningh (p. 278 footnote)

 

VITAL STATISTICS OF WALTER WOLFGANG BRUCK & SOME IMMEDIATE RELATIVES

 

 

NAME EVENT DATE PLACE SOURCE
         
Walter Wolfgang Bruck (self) Birth 4 March 1872 Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] Walter Bruck’s personal biography
  Marriage (to Margarethe Skutsch) Unknown    
  Marriage (to Johanna Gräbsch) 22 December 1922 Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] Family tree among Walter Bruck’s personal papers
  Death 31 March 1937 Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] Walter Bruck’s Breslau death certificate
Margarethe Skutsch (first wife) Birth 30 March 1872 Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] Theresienstadt Ghetto death certificate
  Death 22 September 1942 Theresienstadt Ghetto Theresienstadt Ghetto death certificate
Johanna Elisabeth Margarethe Gräbsch (second wife) Birth 10 April 1884 Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] Breslau marriage certificate
  Death 5 March 1963 Elstree, Hertfordshire, England United Kingdom death certificate
Hermine Bruck (daughter) Birth 18 January 1924 Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] Family tree among Walter Bruck’s personal papers
  Death 10 March 1924 Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] Family tree among Walter Bruck’s personal papers
Renate Stephanie Gertrude Bruck (daughter) Birth 16 June 1926 Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] Family tree among Walter Bruck’s personal papers
  Marriage (to Matthias Eugen Walter Mehne) 1945   Vogelsdorff Family Tree found on ancestry.com
  Marriage (to Henry Ernest Graham) 18 October 1948 Willesden, Middlesex, England United Kingdom marriage certificate
  Marriage (to Gary Newman) October 1956 Middlesex, England England & Wales, Civil Registration Marriage Index, 1916-2005
  Death 3 March 2013 Ramsholt, Suffolk, England United Kingdom death certificate

 

 

VITAL STATISTICS OF JOHANNA BRUCK NÉE GRÄBSCH & SOME IMMEDIATE RELATIVES

 

 

NAME EVENT DATE PLACE SOURCE
         
Johanna Elisabeth Margarethe Gräbsch (self) Birth 10 April 1884 Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] Breslau marriage certificate
  Marriage (to Dr. Alfred Renner) 6 May 1905 Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] Breslau marriage certificate
  Divorce (from Dr. Alfred Renner) 8 March 1917 Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] Notation on 1905 Breslau marriage certificate
  Marriage (to Walter Wolfgang Bruck) 22 December 1922 Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] Family tree among Walter Bruck’s personal papers
  Death 5 March 1963 Elstree, Hertfordshire, England United Kingdom death certificate
Alfred Friedrich Karl Kurt Renner (first husband) Birth 20 June 1873 Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] Breslau 1905 marriage certificate
  Marriage (to Johanna Gräbsch) 6 May 1905 Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] Breslau marriage certificate
  Death Unknown    
Walter Wolfgang Bruck (second husband) Birth 4 March 1872 Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] Walter Bruck’s personal biography
  Marriage (to Johanna Gräbsch) 22 December 1922 Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] Family tree among Walter Bruck’s personal papers
  Death 31 March 1937 Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] Walter Bruck’s Breslau death certificate
Hermine Bruck (daughter) Birth 18 January 1924 Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] Family tree among Walter Bruck’s personal papers
  Death 10 March 1924 Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] Family tree among Walter Bruck’s personal papers
Renate Stephanie Gertrude Bruck (daughter) Birth 16 June 1926 Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] Family tree among Walter Bruck’s personal papers
  Death 3 March 2013 Ramsholt, Suffolk, England United Kingdom death certificate