Category: Hermann Göring

POST 160: UPDATE ON COMPENSATION CLAIM AGAINST THE FRENCH MINISTRY OF CULTURE INVOLVING NAZI-CONFISCATED FAMILY ART

Note: In this post, I update readers on a compensation and restitution claim I filed with the French Ministry of Culture in October 2014 related to family works of art seized by the Nazis at the Port of Bordeaux in December 1940. The paintings and etchings had been consigned for sale to an art gallery in New York City by my father’s first cousin, Fedor Löwenstein, when they were confiscated. I recently attended a meeting in Paris where the Ministry discussed my longstanding case

 

Related Posts:

POST 105: FEDOR LÖWENSTEIN ‘S NAZI-CONFISCATED ART: RESTITUTION DENIED

POST 131: AN “EXEMPLARY” RESTITUTION WITH CURT GLASER’S HEIRS INVOLVING AN EDVARD MUNCH PAINTING

 

My wife Ann and I recently attended a meeting in Paris of the French Ministry of Culture’s (Premier Ministre) Commission pour la restitution des biens et l’indemnisation des victimes de spoliations antisemites (CIVS), Commission for the restitution of property and compensation for victims of anti-Semitic spoliation. This French agency is tasked with processing claims from Jewish heirs requesting restitution for and repatriation of works of art that were confiscated from their ancestors by the Nazis in France during World War II. The CIVS is specifically responsible for dealing with works of art that wound up in the possession of the Centre Pompidou, France’s Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, following the end of the war. After learning the origins of some of their holdings, the museum now tacitly acknowledges it does not have legal entitlement to the surviving works of art and is seeking to repatriate these artifacts and compensate rightful owners.

In 2014, I inadvertently discovered that three paintings seized by the Nazis at the Port of Bordeaux in December 1940 that were rendered by my father’s first cousin, Fedor Löwenstein (variously also spelled Lowenstein, Loewenstein, Loevenstein) (Figures 1-2), survive at the Centre Pompidou. It so happens that in 2014, the summer my wife and I spent 13 weeks in Europe visiting places stretching from Poland to Spain associated with my Jewish family’s diaspora, serendipitously these three painting were exhibited at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Bordeaux.

 

Figure 1. Fedor Löwenstein in the late 1930s or early 1940s when he was in hiding in Mirmande in Drôme, the southernmost department of France

 

Figure 2. A charcoal self-portrait of Fedor Löwenstein

 

In reviewing online materials discussing this show, I learned that Ms. Florence Saragoza was the curator of this museum exhibit. At the time Ms. Saragoza was coincidentally the director of an archaeological museum, the National Prehistoric Museum in Les Eyzies-de-Tayac, France (Figure 3); I say coincidentally because I too once worked as an archaeologist. In any event, I set out to contact Florence, and within two days after reaching out to her she responded with very moving words telling me, and I paraphrase, that it brought tears to her eyes to learn that Fedor Löwenstein has a living descendant. Florence and I are still in contact after ten years.

 

Figure 3. Ms. Florence Saragoza, former Director of the Musée Crozatier in le Puy-en-Velay, France, and the current director of the Toulouse-Lautrec Museum in Albi, France

 

Acutely aware of my ancestral lineage, I quickly realized I’m Fedor’s closest surviving blood relative. Upon learning this, Ms. Saragoza asked me whether I wished to file a claim with the CIVS. I told her I did, and Florence graciously assisted me in doing so in October 2014. Because of Florence’s in-depth knowledge of Fedor’s personal history and artworks, I learned the consignment of art destined for New York the Nazis seized in December 1940 in Bordeaux included not only the three surviving paintings but also 22 other etchings and paintings that are believed to have been destroyed. For these no longer existing pieces of art, my claim requested restitution. Below I will explain in more detail the history of the artworks confiscated by the Nazis in France.

As many readers may know, claims from Jewish heirs whose ancestors had their artworks and personal property confiscated by the Nazis elsewhere typically take decades to resolve because the artworks and such are strewn around the globe and/or the heirs encounter stiff resistance from museums and purported owners who acquired the artworks under dodgy circumstances or with no provenance. Unlike such claims, as mentioned above, the French Ministry of Culture acknowledges its responsibility to repatriate seized items housed in the Centre Pompidou and, where the items are thought to have been destroyed, compensate heirs. That said, this does not mean the process is expeditious. To date my claim has been under review for ten years. Let me update readers on the status of my claim begun in 2014 though I hasten to add it has not yet been resolved to my satisfaction.

I first reported on the status of my claim in Post 105 published in 2021. Let me review what I disclosed at the time. At the outset, it is very important to point out that the CIVS did not initiate contact with me and the heirs to Fedor’s estate. Rather, I initiated contact with them and submitted my claim based on publicly available information I uncovered claiming the CIVS is searching for family to whom to repatriate looted art. This is significant as to where things stand today and the reason I seemingly have the Commission’s attention.

In 1940, while hiding out in a town called Mirmande in Drôme, the southernmost department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of Southeastern France (Figure 4), Fedor traveled to Paris. There he selected small format works as well as six watercolors that he brought to be shipped to New York City. There is little information about the circumstances surrounding this project, but the paintings were sent to a harbor warehouse in Bordeaux for shipment to an American gallery. Unfortunately, the crates never left Bordeaux but were instead “requisitioned” by German military authorities on the 5th of December 1940, the date of a major seizure operation.

 

Figure 4. Mirmande in Drôme in southern France, where Fedor Löwenstein went into hiding during part of WWII

 

A special commando unit affiliated with the “Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR)” (Reichsleiter Rosenberg Taskforce) raided the warehouse where Fedor’s crates were stored, seized them, and had them shipped to Paris where they were stored at the “Jeu de Paume.” The ERR was a Nazi Party organization dedicated to appropriating cultural property during WWII and was led by the chief ideologue of the Nazi Party, Alfred Rosenberg, ergo its name. The Jeu de Paume was the seat of ERR’s processing of looted art objects confiscated from Jewish-owned collections in France. (Figure 5)

 

Figure 5. Historic picture of Hermann Göring visiting the Jeu de Paume; he is reported to have visited 21 times to select looted paintings to add to his private collection

 

Owing to the abstract cubist nature of Löwenstein’s works, the ERR staff at the Jeu de Paume deemed them as “degenerate” and consigned them to the store room for condemned art, the “Salles des Martyrs,” Martyrs’ Hall. (Figures 6-7) They were marked for destruction, in German “vernichet.” In total, 25 paintings by Fedor were seized and brought to the Jeu de Paume to be disposed of for ideological reasons.

 

Figure 6. Historic photograph of the Jeu de Paume’s “Salle des Martyrs,” the hall where paintings slated for destruction by the Nazis were stored

 

Figure 7. Another historic photograph of the Jeu de Paume’s “Salle des Martyrs”

 

Almost seventy years after the Liberation of Paris in August 1944 three of the purportedly destroyed Löwenstein paintings resurfaced at the Centre Pompidou. French Ministry of Culture officials were able to match the resurrected paintings with information contained in the ERR database for three works labeled by the Germans as Löwenstein 4 (“Composition (Paysage)” or Landscape) (Figure 8), Löwenstein 15 (“Peupliers” or Poplars) (Figure 9), and Löwenstein 19 (“Les Arbes” or The Trees). (Figure 10) In the official catalogue of unclaimed works and objects of art known as “Musée Nationaux Récupération (MNR),” the works are assigned MNR numbers R26, R27, and R28. These three paintings correspond to Löwenstein’s works of art that were displayed at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Bordeaux in 2014. All three paintings were signed “Fedor Loevenstein,” though possibly the “v” was actually a “w.” (Figure 11) I would later learn from a French reader of my Blog, who purchased several of his works at auction, that Löwenstein also signed some with his initials in reverse, “LF.”

 

Figure 8. Fedor Löwenstein’s 1939 painting “Composition (Paysage)” or Landscape which survives to the present day

 

Figure 9. Fedor Löwenstein’s 1939 painting “Peupliers” or Poplars which also still survives

 

Figure 10. Fedor Löwenstein’s 1939 painting “Les Arbes” or The Trees which is the last of his surviving paintings

 

Figure 11. Fedor Löwenstein’s signature on the painting known as “Peupliers,” seemingly signed “Loevenstein”

 

In connection with researching and writing the catalog for the 2014 exhibit of Fedor Löwenstein’s three resurrected paintings, Florence Saragoza and her colleagues uncovered the notes of the curatorial attaché at the Jeu de Paume, Rose Valland. (Figure 12) Her notes from July 20, 1943, confirm the fate of artworks destined for destruction: “Scholz and his team continue to choose from among the paintings in the Louvre’s escrow and stab the paintings they do not want to keep. This is how they destroyed almost all of Masson’s works and all of Dalí’s. The paintings in the Loewenstein, Esmont (sic), M[ichel]-G[eorges] Michel collections are almost all shredded. . .” On July 23rd, she added “The paintings massacred in the Louvre’s sequestration were brought back to the Jeu de Paume. Five or six hundred were burned under German surveillance in the museum garden from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. . . . The paintings that remained in the Louvre were classified by category. . .”. It appears that Löwenstein’s three works that escaped destruction had been classified by the Louvre as “paintings of lesser importance,” while his remaining works were likely stabbed, shredded and/or incinerated. More on this below.

 

Figure 12. Picture of Rose Valland from an unknown source in the Salle des Martyrs

 

Florence Saragoza and her colleagues, using the notes left behind by Rose Valland, were able to attribute most of the paintings exhibited there. They did this using a detailed digitization of the negatives, work by work, accompanied by a process of so-called “anamorphosis.” Suffice it to say about this process that since the paintings in the contemporary photos from the Jeu de Paume look somewhat distorted (see Figures 6-7), some digital manipulation was required to identify and attribute the works of art.

Beyond Löwenstein’s painting known as “Composition (Paysage)” which survives and is one of the objects of my claim, two other paintings by Löwenstein are partially or completely visible in the contemporary photos from the Jeu de Paume; one cannot be identified, and the second is titled “The Modern City.” Their status is unknown, but they are presumed to have been destroyed by the Nazis in the manner described above by Rose Valland.

As previously alluded to, Fedor Löwenstein’s 25 paintings were seized from État-major administratif du port, hangar H, Bordeaux, the “Port Administration Headquarters, Hanger H, Bordeaux.” They were confiscated at the same time as a set of Dali’s works were taken from another collector, which were described under the acronym “unbekannt,” “unknown.” This was intended to indicate that the history of the works had been lost during the various transfers from their seizure in Bordeaux to their shipment to Paris, the inventories being drawn up only belatedly by the historians of the ERR. Again quoting from the exhibition catalog, “But the fact that these collections were made anonymous was also part of the ideological policy of the Third Reich, which aimed at cultural appropriation, an affirmation of superiority inscribed in a historical connection and a rewriting of art history.” As in the case of Dali’s works, the provenance of the three orphan paintings by Löwenstein was lost and they were described as having been donated anonymously in 1973. Only in 2011 were they reclassified as stolen works. This brings me to what I had learned by the time I filed my claim in 2014. 

Following submission of my claim in October 2014 and acknowledgement of such by the CIVS in November of that year, no further action was undertaken by them until I was contacted in February 2017 by a forensic genealogist they contracted with. Having essentially already done all the genealogical fact-finding on my own, I turned over a copy of my research. The next time I corresponded with the Premier Ministre’s office was in June 2021 when they sent me an initial letter rejecting my claim.

I vented my bitterness and disappointment about this determination in Post 105, so I refer readers to that post. However, I will briefly review the basis for the French Ministry of Culture’s decision, and actions I have subsequently taken to attempt to right this perceived wrong.

Inasmuch as I can ascertain, I’m a “victim” of France’s legal system, which follows civil law rather than common law. Under civil law, codified statutes and ordinances are followed. In common law, past legal precedents or judicial rulings are used to decide cases at hand.

Historians believe the Romans developed civil law in around 600 C.E., when the emperor Justinian began compiling legal codes. Current civil law codes developed around the Justinian tradition of codifying laws as opposed to legal rulings.

The United States, Canada, England, India, and Australia are generally considered common law countries. Because they were all once subjects or colonies of Great Britain, they have often retained the tradition of common law. The state of Louisiana uses bijuridicial civil law because it was once a colony of France. Civil law countries include all of South America (except Guyana), almost all of Europe (including Germany, France, and Spain), China, and Japan.

Common law dates to the early English monarchy and began when the courts began collecting and publishing legal decisions. Later, those published decisions were used as the basis to decide similar cases.

Today the difference between common law and civil legal tenets lies in the actual source of law. While common law systems refer extensively to statutes, judicial cases are considered the most important source of law, allowing judges to actively contribute to rulings. For consistency, courts abide by precedents set by higher courts examining the same issue.

In the case of civil law systems, codes and statutes govern all eventualities and judges have a more limited role of applying the law to the case in hand. Past judgements merely provide loose guidelines.

What this means in terms of my claim against the French Ministry of Culture is that the rights to Fedor Löwenstein’s estate are determined by the civil code governing inheritance in France. Thus, the people whom Fedor specifically named in his will and their named heirs are deemed to be the rightful legatees. So, since Fedor left his estate to his sister Jeanne Goff, née Löwenstein (1902-1986) (Figure 13) and brother Heinz Löwenstein (1905-1979) (Figure 14) and neither of them had children, Fedor’s siblings left their estates to unrelated friends who in turn left their property to their heirs. Unlike me, these individuals are not blood relatives of Löwenstein.

 

Figure 13. Fedor Löwenstein with his sister Jeanne Goff, née Löwenstein

 

Figure 14. Fedor Löwenstein with his brother Heinz Löwenstein, known after he immigrated to Israel as “Chanoch Avinari”

 

France considers property left in a will a “universal legacy,” and a person who inherits the rights, obligations, possession, and debts of a testator’s title in property through a testamentary disposition is called a “universal legatee.” CIVS concluded these heirs, these so-called “universal legatees,” have a legal claim to Löwenstein’s property and damages that supersedes mine; this concept of universal legatees is an element of civil law.

The forensic genealogist identified two universal legatees to Fedor Löwenstein’s estate, one for each of Fedor’s siblings, making me a third-tier heir. Following the identification of these two universal legatees, the CIVS contacted both. They agreed to subrogate my claim, that’s to say, to substitute their names for mine on the compensation claim. How magnanimous of them!

In layman’s terms, then, it was on this basis that my claim for restitution and repatriation of Fedor’s paintings has been rejected.

Following publication of Post 105, I was contacted by one of my distant cousins. She and her extended family are involved in their own long-running case for compensation and repatriation of works of art stolen from one of her ancestors by the Nazis or the sales of which were forced at a much-reduced value. (See Post 131) My cousin suggested I contact her New York-based lawyer, who put me in touch with an American-trained French lawyer, who in turn referred me to a French lawyer specializing in cases like mine. Feeling I had nothing to lose I hired this lawyer.

Based on what I’ve detailed above, French civil law is clear as to my rights or the lack thereof to compensation and restitution related to Fedor Löwenstein’s estate. Thus, my lawyer was compelled to find another way to obtain some measure of justice on my behalf. The argument we made to the CIVS is that I should be eligible for a finder’s fee. Absent my discovery and hard work, neither of the universal legatees would have been aware that the CIVS had any Löwenstein paintings to repatriate, nor compensation to mete out. Insofar as I’m aware, neither of the universal legatees was even aware of Fedor Löwenstein’s existence prior to my endeavors. Furthermore, given the CIVS’ extreme workload it is highly unlikely they would have prioritized dealing with Fedor Löwenstein’s estate; absent my claim, the case might have languished for many more years, long after the legatees were dead.

The Latin term and legal theory quantum meruit applies and translates to “as much as he has earned,” and refers to the actual value of services rendered. It is defined as “payment for the value of goods or services as partial fulfillment of a contract, or when there is no contract specifying a price in the transaction.” Vis a vis my case, the universal legatees are receiving services from me (i.e., my research; submission of a claim application) on an unexpected basis from which they stand to benefit (i.e., repatriation of valuable paintings and monetary restitution). While they obtained these benefits without signing a contract for payment, or without obtaining a price for those services, given that we were previously unaware of one another’s existence, a reasonable person would know that payment is expected. As such there can be no doubt that I deserve to be paid for the services rendered and the benefits the legatees stand to receive.

The CIVS had seemingly agreed I should receive a finder’s fee, which, if true, would have been ground-breaking in terms of the previous claims that have come before the committee. This would have been unprecedented.

This pretty much brings readers up to date with where things stood prior to my recent trip to Paris.

Shortly before an upcoming vacation my wife and I already had planned to Spain and Portugal, my lawyer asked us whether we could come to Paris to attend a full CIVS committee meeting scheduled for April 26th. Among other business, my claim was to be discussed and hopefully resolved. My lawyer and I agreed that my attendance might be valuable.

One of the universal legatees resides in Haifa, Israel, the other in the environs of Nice, France. Neither legatee attended nor had a representative at the meeting. However, both have expressed their desire to committee liaisons that Fedor Löwenstein’s three paintings remain together in France and their apparent willingness to share a portion of the restitution. While I would prefer the paintings remain united, it is my preference they come to the United States as Fedor himself had wanted and be donated to an appropriate museum in America. However, as a non-universal legatee, I have no leverage to dictate this outcome.

Complicating matters in this regard is that the Premier Ministre has made it clear they consider these paintings to be part of France’s historical legacy and want them to stay in France. All three paintings which my wife and I had an opportunity to view (Figure 15) and handle during our recent visit to Paris, have evidence of large red “Xs” (Figure 16) Nazis scrawled across the canvases, indicating they were slated for immolation. Interestingly, the modest valuation of Löwenstein’s artworks is augmented by this desecration of the paintings.

 

Figure 15. My wife Ann and I viewing one of Fedor Löwenstein’s surviving paintings from the “Salle des Martyrs,” entitled “Composition”

 

Figure 16. Readers can vaguely make out part of the red “X” the Nazis scrawled atop one of Löwenstein’s canvases, indicating it was slated for destruction

 

Following the meeting in Paris, my lawyer and I requested an opportunity to contact the universal legatees, something we’d been discouraged from doing previously, to allow time to negotiate a fair agreement on restitution and repatriation. They supposedly agreed. Upon my return to the states, I wrote letters to both legatees, though neither has gotten back to me. Bewilderingly, amid these efforts, just as I was putting the final touches on this blog post, the CIVS rendered their “final” decision. Apparently, what the CIVS considers a “fair” finder’s fee is splitting the not insubstantial restitution money between the two universal legatees and “giving” the universal legatees and myself one painting each with an expectation that the paintings remain in France.

My quest for justice must continue.

REFERENCES

“Civil Law vs Common Law.” Diffen.com. Diffen LLC, n.d. Web. 12 Jun 2024. Civil Law vs Common Law – Difference and Comparison | Diffen

Fédor Löwenstein (1901-1946) trois œuvres martyres. 16 May-24 Aug. 2014. Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux, Bordeaux.

“Quantum Meruit.” Legal Dictionary.net. Quantum Meruit – Definition, Examples, Cases, Processes (legaldictionary.net)

 

 

POST 120: FAMILY PHOTOS, DISCOVERING & DECODING THEM

 

Note: In this post, I discuss “stashes” of family photos I’ve uncovered, and the efforts I’ve undertaken with the help of near and distant relatives to identify people in some of those images even absent captions. In a few instances the photos are significant because they illustrate individuals renowned or notorious in history. In other cases, a good deal of sleuthing was required, including comparing the pictures of people in captioned versus uncaptioned images. On other occasions, I recognized portrayals of family members I knew growing up. And, in rare instances, I was able to determine a photographed person based on an educated guess.

 

Related Posts:

POST 15: BERLIN & MY GREAT-AUNTS FRANZISKA & ELSBETH BRUCK

POST 17: SURVIVING IN BERLIN IN THE TIME OF HITLER: MY UNCLE FEDOR’S STORY

POST 31: WITNESS TO HISTORY, “PROOF” OF HITLER’S DEATH IN MY UNCLE FEDOR’S OWN WORDS

POST 33: FINDING GREAT-UNCLE WILLY’S GRANDCHILDREN

POST 34: MARGARETH BERLINER, WRAITH OR BEING?

POST 41: DR. OTTO BERGER & OTHER “SILENT HEROES” WHO HELPED MY UNCLE DR. FEDOR BRUCK SURVIVE THE NAZI REGIME

POST 45: HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE: RECALLING MY PAULY ANCESTORS

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

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

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

 

The antisemitic and racist laws enacted by the Nazis short-circuited my father’s career as a dentist. Pursuant to his formal training at the University of Berlin, followed by an apprenticeship in Danzig (today: Gdansk, Poland), my father, Dr. Otto Bruck (Figure 1), opened his own dental practice in Tiegenhof in the Free City of Danzig (today: Nowy Dwór Gdański, Poland) in April 1932; by April 1937, my father was forced to flee Tiegenhof, and by March 1938 he had left Germany altogether, clearly seeing the handwriting on the wall. As an unmarried man with few family ties, this was an option open to him. My father would never again legally practice dentistry.

 

Figure 1. My father Dr. Otto Bruck as a dental apprentice in Danzig in 1931

 

My father considered the five years he spent in Tiegenhof to be the halcyon days of his life. Judging from the numerous photos of his days spent there, including those illustrating his active social life, his professional acquaintances, and recreational pursuits, I would be hard-pressed to argue otherwise.

I originally intended in this post to briefly discuss with readers the history of Polish Mennonites because Tiegenhof, the town where my father had his dental practice, was largely Mennonite when my father lived there. The Mennonites arrived in the Żuławy Wiślane region (i.e. “the Vistula fens,” plural from “żuława”), the alluvial delta area of the Vistula in the northern part of Poland, in the 17th century. They came to escape religious persecution in the Netherlands and Flanders. I have instead decided to devote the subsequent Blog post to discussing the history of Polish Mennonites, and briefly explore how the Mennonites, who are committed to pacifism, inexplicably, became strong adherents of Hitler. I intend in the following post to use photos from my father’s collection to focus on one Mennonite family, the Epp family, with whom my father was acquainted and friends with. They have a dark history related to their connection to the Nazi regime.

Getting back on track. Curious whether the office building where my father had both his dental practice and residence still existed (Figure 2), in 2013 my wife Ann Finan and I visited Nowy Dwór Gdański. We quickly oriented ourselves to the layout of the town, and promptly determined that his office and residential building no longer stands. I would later learn that the structure had been destroyed by Russian bombers when Nazi partisans shot at them from this location.

 

Figure 2. The office building in Tiegenhof in the Free City of Danzig in October 1934 where my father had his dental practice and residence, which no longer exists. Note the swastikas festooning the building

 

During our initial visit to Nowy Dwór Gdański, we were directed to the local museum, the Muzeum Żuławskie. The museum docent the day we visited spoke English, so I was able to communicate to her that my Jewish father had once been a dentist in the town and had taken many pictures when living there of Tiegenhof and the Żuławy Wiślane region. I offered to make the photos available, which I in fact did upon my return to the States.

In 2014, my wife Ann and I were invited to Nowy Dwór Gdański for an in-depth tour and a translated talk. Naturally, during my presentation, I used many of my father’s photos. There was a question-and-answer period following my talk, and one Polish gentleman of Jewish descent commented on how fortunate I am to have so many photographs of my father, family, and friends. I agreed. In the case of this gentleman, he remarked he has only seven family pictures, which I think is often true for descendants of Holocaust survivors. In my instance, my father’s seven albums of surviving photos, covering from the 1910’s until 1948 when my father came to America, are the reason I started researching and writing about my family.

Given the importance pictures have played in the stories I research and write about, and the development of this Blog, I thought I would highlight a few of the more interesting and historically significant pictures in my father’s collection, as well as discuss other “stashes” of photos I’ve uncovered. Obviously, it’s impossible and would be of scant interest to readers to discuss all the photos.

My father was a witness to the rise of National Socialism from the window of his dental office in Tiegenhof. On May 1, 1933, my father photographed a regiment of “SA Sturmabteilung,” literally “Storm Detachment,” known also as “Brownshirts” or “Storm Troopers,” marching down the nearby Schlosserstrasse, carrying Nazi flags, framed by the “Kreishaus” (courthouse) on one side. (Figure 3)

 

Figure 3. Father’s photograph of Nazis marching down Schlosserstrasse in Tiegenhof on May 1, 1933, taken from his dental office

 

Again, a year later to the day, on May 1, 1934, my father documented a parade of veterans and Brownshirts following the same path down Schlosserstrasse led by members of the Stahlhelm (“Steel Helmet”), a veterans’ organization that arose after the German defeat of WWI.  (Figures 4a-b) In 1934, the Stahlhelme were incorporated into the SA Sturmabteilung, the original paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party.

 

Figure 4a. A year later May 1, 1934, Nazi Storm Troopers and WWI veterans again marching down Schlosserstrasse in Tiegenhof

 

Figure 4b. WWI veterans, “Stahlhelme,” at the head of the Nazi parade on May 1, 1934, in Tiegenhof

 

Then again, the following year, on April 5, 1935, there was another Nazi parade. On this occasion Field Marshall Hermann Göring visited and participated in the march through Tiegenhof. The day prior, on April 4, 1935, Hermann Göring had visited the Free City of Danzig to influence the upcoming April 7th parliamentary elections in favor of Nazi candidates.  The visit to Tiegenhof the next day was merely an extension of this campaign to influence the Free City’s parliamentary elections.  In the photos that my father took on April 5th there can be seen a banner which in German reads “Danzig ist Deutsch wenn es nationalsozialistisch ist,” translated as “Danzig is German when it is National Socialist.”  (Figures 5a-b) It appears that along with everyday citizens of Tiegenhof and surrounding communities, members of the Hitler Youth, known in German as Hitlerjugend, also lined the street in large number.

 

Figure 5a. Nazi Field Marshall Hermann Göring standing in his open-air limousine on March 5, 1935, as he parades through Tiegenhof

 

Figure 5b. A Nazi banner reading “Danzig ist Deutsch wenn es nationalsozialistisch ist” (translated as “Danzig is German when it is National Socialist”) hung across the street that Field Marshall Hermann Göring traveled down on March 5, 1935, as he paraded through Tiegenhof

 

Students of history know about Hermann Göring but for those who are unfamiliar with him, let me say a few words. He would evolve to become the second-highest ranking Nazi after the Führer. Unlike many of Hitler’s sycophants and lieutenants, Göring was a veteran of WWI, having been an ace fighter pilot, a recipient of the prestigious Blue Max award, and a commander of the Jagdgeschwader a fighter group that had previously been led by the renowned Red Baron, Manfred von Richthofen. Göring was drawn to Hitler for his oratorical skills and became an early member of the Nazi Party. He participated with Hitler in the failed Beer Hall Putsch of 1923, during which he was wounded in the groin. During his recovery he was regularly given morphine to which he became addicted for the remainder of his life.

Göring oversaw the creation of the Gestapo, an organization he later let Heinrich Himmler run. He was best known as the commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe, although after the Nazi victory over France, he was made Reichsmarschall, head of all the German armed forces. He amassed great wealth for himself by stealing paintings, sculptures, jewelry, cash, and valuable artifacts not only from Jews and people whom Nazis had murdered but also by looting museums of defeated nations.

Towards the end of the war, following an awkward attempt to have Hitler appoint him head of the Third Reich and thereby drawing Hitler’s ire, he turned himself in to the Americans rather than risk being captured by the Russians. He eventually was indicted and stood trial at Nuremberg. The once obese Göring, who’d once weighed more than three hundred pounds, was a shadow of his former self at his trial. Expectedly, he was convicted on all counts, and sentenced to death by hanging. His request to be executed by firing squad was denied, but he was able to avoid the hangman’s noose by committing suicide using a potassium cyanide pill that had inexplicably been smuggled to him by an American soldier.

My uncle, Dr. Fedor Bruck, has been the subject of multiple previous posts (i.e., Post 17, Post 31, Post 41). My uncle, like my father was a dentist. He was educated at the University of Breslau (today: Wrocław, Poland) and had his dental practice in Liegnitz, Germany (today: Legnica, Poland) until around 1933 when he was forced to give it up due to the “Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service” passed by the Nazi regime on the 7th April 1933, two months after Adolf Hitler had attained power.  My uncle’s life is of interest because he miraculously survived the entire war hidden in Berlin by friends and non-Jewish family members. His story has also been of interest because he counted among his friends a woman named Käthe Heusermann-Reiss, who had been his dental assistant in Liegnitz.

Following the loss of his business my uncle relocated to Berlin hoping the anonymity of the larger city would afford him the possibility to continue working under the auspices of another dentist, which it did for a time. Käthe Heusermann also moved to Berlin and opportunistically landed herself a job as a dental assistant to Hitler’s American-trained dentist, Dr. Hugo Blaschke. In this capacity, she was always present when Dr. Blaschke treated Hitler. Following the end of the war, she was interrogated by the Russians and asked to identify dental remains which had been recovered in a burn pit outside the Reichstag. The bridgework performed by Dr. Blaschke on Hitler was outmoded so Käthe was easily able to recognize Blaschke’s work and Hitler’s teeth, a fact Stalin kept hidden from the world. Following Russia’s capture of Berlin at the end of the war, my uncle who’d temporarily been hiding in Käthe’s apartment learned from her that Hitler had committed suicide. This dangerous information resulted in Käthe being imprisoned in the USSR for many years, and my uncle barely escaping the same fate. Surviving among my father’s photographs is a noteworthy picture taken in Liegnitz of my uncle and Käthe Heusermann. Though uncaptioned, I have been able to compare it to known pictures of Käthe to confirm it is her. (Figure 6)

 

Figure 6. My uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck in his dental office in Liegnitz, Germany with his dental assistant Käthe Heusermann-Reiss who would later go on to become the dental assistant for Dr. Hugo Blaschke, Hitler’s dentist. Following the war, she would identify Hitler’s dental remains, a fact the Russians hid for many years

 

As I have told readers in multiple earlier posts my father was an active sportsman, and an excellent amateur tennis player. Among my father’s belongings I retain multiple of the prizes he was awarded for his achievements, including many newspaper clippings documenting his results. In August 1936, my father attended an International Tennis Tournament in Zoppot, Germany (today: Sopot, Poland), located a mere 32 miles from Tiegenhof. During his attendance there, he photographed the great German tennis player, Heinrich Ernst Otto “Henner” Henkel (Figure 7), whose biggest success was his singles title at the 1937 French Championships. Interestingly, Henkel learned to play tennis at the “Rot-Weiss” Tennis Club in Berlin. My father was a member of the “Schwarz-Weiss” Tennis Club in Berlin, so perhaps my father and Henner played one another and were acquainted. Henner Henkel was killed in action during WWII on the Eastern Front at Voronezh during the Battle of Stalingrad while serving in the Wehrmacht, the German Army.

 

Figure 7. The famous German tennis player, Henner Henkel, in August 1936 at the International Tennis Tournament in Zoppot, Germany

 

As I mentioned above, my father left Germany for good in March 1938. He was headed to stay with his sister Susanne and brother-in-law, then living in Fiesole, a small Tuscan town outside Florence, Italy. During his sojourn in Italy, before eventually joining the French Foreign Legion later in 1938, my father visited some of the tourist attractions in Italy, including the Colosseum in Rome. One of the images that my father took there has always stood out to me because of the paucity of people around what is today a very crowded and visited venue. (Figure 8)

 

Figure 8. The Colosseum in Rome in August 1938

 

My father’s collection of photos number in the hundreds but I’ve chosen to highlight only certain ones because they illustrate a few personages or places that may be known to readers. My father’s collection is merely one among several caches of images I was able to track down through family and acquaintances. I want to call attention to a few pictures of family members that grabbed my attention from these other hoards.

In Post 33, I explained to readers how I tracked down the grandchildren of my grandfather’s brother, Wilhelm “Willy” Bruck (1872-1952). Based on family correspondence, I knew my great-uncle Willy wound up in Barcelona after escaping Germany in the 1930’s and theorized his children and grandchildren may have continued to live there. Official vital documents I procured during a visit there convinced me otherwise, that at least his son returned to Germany after WWII. I was eventually able to track down both of my great-uncle’s grandchildren, that’s to say my second cousins Margarita and Antonio Bruck, to outside of Munich, Germany. (Figure 9) I have met both, and they’ve shared their family pictures, which again number in the hundreds.

 

Figure 9. My second cousins Margarita and Antonio Bruck from near Munich, Germany in May 2022, source of many family photos

 

The cache included many images of family members, but there are two pictures I was particularly thrilled to obtain copies of. My uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck (1895-1982), previously discussed, fought in WWI on the Eastern Front. (Figure 10) Among the family memorabilia I retain is a postcard he sent to his aunt Franziska Bruck on the 3rd of September 1916 coincidentally from the Ukraine announcing his promotion to Sergeant. (Figures 11a-b) The ongoing conflict between the Ukraine and Russia makes me realize how long the Ukraine has been a staging area for wars.

 

Figure 10. My uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck in his WWI uniform

 

Figure 11a. The front side of a postcard my uncle Fedor mailed to his aunt Franziska Bruck during WWI from the Eastern Front in Ukraine on the 3rd of September 1916

 

Figure 11b. The backside of the postcard my uncle mailed from the Ukraine on the 3rd of September 1916

 

Regular readers may recall that my father was born in Ratibor, Germany (today: Racibórz, Poland), in Upper Silesia. The family hotel there, owned through three generations between roughly 1850 and the early 1920’s, was known as the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel. Among my second cousins’ photos is a rare image of the entrance to this hotel, which no longer stands. (Figure 12)

 

Figure 12. The entrance to the family hotel in Ratibor, Germany (today: Racibórz, Poland), Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel circa. 1914. The hotel is no longer standing

 

I introduced readers to two of my grandfather’s renowned sisters, my great-aunts Franziska and Elsbeth Bruck, way back in Post 15. Their surviving personal papers are archived at the Stadtmuseum in Spandau, the westernmost of the twelve boroughs of Berlin; these files have been another source of family photographs. Franziska Bruck was an eminent florist, and it is reputed that one of her clients was the last German Kaiser, Wilhelm II (1859-1941). One undated photograph taken in my great-aunt’s flower shop shows Duchess Cecilie Auguste Marie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (1886-1954), the last Crown Princess of Germany and Prussia, who was married to Kaiser Wilhelm II’s son, Wilhelm, the German Crown Prince. (Figure 13)

 

Figure 13. Duchess Cecilie Auguste Marie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (1886-1954), the last Crown Princess of Germany and Prussia, married to Kaiser Wilhelm II’s son, visiting my great-aunt Franziska Bruck’s flower school in Berlin

 

My second cousins Margarita and Antonio Bruck introduced me to one of my third cousins, Andreas “Andi” Pauly, also living part-time in Munich, Germany. (Figure 14) The Pauly branch of my extended family, which originally hailed from Posen, Germany (today: Poznan, Poland) has been the subject of multiple blog posts, including Post 45 on Pauly family Holocaust victims and reflections in Post 56 by the paterfamilias, Dr. Josef Pauly (1843-1916), Andi Pauly’s great-grandfather. Josef Pauly and his wife Rosalie Pauly née Mockrauer (1844-1927) had eight daughters and one son born between 1870 and 1885; thanks to photos provided by Andi Pauly, not only was I able to obtain images of all nine children but also some of Pauly cousins I knew of by name.

 

Figure 14. My third cousin Andreas “Andi” Pauly, source of many family photos

 

Again, it is not my intention to boggle readers’ minds by showing all these photos but I want to focus on one particular picture I originally obtained from Andi Pauly that was the subject of Post 65. The photo was taken in Doorn, Netherlands on the 28th of May 1926, and shows a then-unknown Bruck family member standing amidst a group that includes the last German Kaiser, Wilhelm II, his second wife, Princess Hermine Reuss of Greiz (1887-1947), and her youngest daughter by her first marriage, Princess Henriette of Schönaich-Carolath (1918-1972), and the Royal Family’s entourage. (Figure 15) At the time I wrote Post 65, I was unable to determine who the Bruck family member was, nor whom the initials “W.B.” stood for.

 

Figure 15. Postcard of the last German Emperor Wilhelm II, his second wife Princess Hermine Reuss of Greiz (1887-1947), and her youngest daughter by her first marriage, Princess Henriette of Schönaich-Carolath (1918-1972), taken in 1926 in Doorn, the Netherlands. A then-unknown member of the Bruck family is surrounded by the Royal Family’s entourage

 

Fast forward. In early 2021, I was astonished to receive an email from a Dr. Tilo Wahl, a doctor from Köpenick in Berlin, who stumbled upon my Blog and contacted me. He shared copies of the extensive collection of personal papers and photographs he had copied from the grandson of one of my esteemed ancestors, Dr. Walter Bruck (1872-1937), from Breslau, Germany (today: Wrocław, Poland) Again, this relative and my findings related to Dr. Walter Bruck have been chronicled in multiple earlier posts. The very same image discussed in the previous paragraph I had obtained from Andi Pauly was included among Dr. Bruck’s images. It was then I realized the unidentified Bruck family member standing with Kaiser Wilhelm II, his family, and his entourage was none other than Dr. Bruck’s second wife, Johanna Elisabeth Margarethe Gräbsch (1884-1963). (Figure 16) I discussed these findings in Post 100.

 

Figure 16. Same photograph as Figure 15 that Dr. Walter Bruck took of his wife Johanna and the Kaiser’s entourage in September 1925 with identifications (photo courtesy of Dr. Tilo Wahl)

 

Dr. Walter Bruck’s collection of papers and photos yielded images of multiple family members about whom I was aware, including one of Dr. Walter Bruck’s three siblings. However, one that stands out amongst all these photos was the one of Dr. Walter Bruck’s grandfather Dr. Jonas Julius Bruck (1813-1883). (Figure 17) Dr. Jonas Bruck is buried along with his son, Dr. Julius Bruck, in the restored tombs at the Old Jewish Cemetery in Wrocław, Poland. (Figure 18) Dr. Jonas Bruck was a brother of my great-great-grandfather Samuel Bruck (1808-1863), the original owner of the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel in Ratibor, Germany (today: Racibórz, Poland) I previously discussed.

 

Figure 17. Dr. Walter Bruck’s grandfather, Dr. Jonas Julius Bruck (1813-1883)

 

Figure 18. The restored gravestones of Dr. Jonas Julius Bruck, his son Dr. Julius Bruck, and their respective wives interred in the Old Jewish Cemetery in Wrocław, Poland

 

In various places, I found fleeting references that Dr. Walter Bruck and Johanna Elisabeth Margarethe Gräbsch had both previously been married. I eventually found historic documents, my gold standard, confirming this. Using educating guesses based on incomplete captions and estimating the timeframe a few pictures in Dr. Walter Bruck’s collection were taken, that’s to say during WWI and before, I was even able to find pictures of both of their previous spouses among his photos.

Dr. Walter Bruck’s album also contain multiple pictures of his daughter, Renate Bruck (1926-2013). She was married three times, with images of two of her husbands included. Thanks to Post 99 Renate’s twin daughters, whom I knew about but had no expectation of ever finding since they’d left England years ago, instead found me. From this, I learned that Walter Bruck’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren live in Sydney, Australia.

I suspect the story I’m about to relate may resonate with some readers, the topic of missing or incomplete captions on pictures of one’s ancestors. Let me provide some context. During the time that my uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck was a dentist in Liegnitz, Germany he carried on an illicit affair with a married non-Jewish woman, Irmgard Lutze (Figure 19), with whom he had two children, my first cousins Wolfgang (Figure 20) and Wera Lutze. During the Nazi era time when it was prohibited and dangerous for an Aryan to have an affair with a Jew, the cuckolded husband nonetheless raised the children as his own. Therefore, they had the Lutze rather than the Bruck surname.

I knew both first cousins well, though both are now deceased. In any case, included among my cousin’s photographs was one that left me perplexed. It showed three generations, the eldest of whom was identified as “Tante Grete Brauer (mother’s sister).” (Figures 21a-b) The “Brauer” surname reverberated only because when perusing my great-aunt Elsbeth Bruck’s papers at the Stadtmuseum I discovered multiple letters written by Brauers. At the time I had no idea this represented another branch of my extended family.

 

Figure 19. My uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck standing next to Irmgard Lutze, the married Aryan woman with whom he fathered two children

 

Figure 20. My uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck’s now-deceased son and my first cousin, Wolfgang Lutze (1928-2014), in Hurghada, Egypt in October 2005

 

Figure 21a. Photo found among my first cousin’s pictures of my grandmother’s sister, Margarethe Brauer née Berliner (1872-1942) who was murdered in the Holocaust

 

Figure 21b. Caption on backside of Figure 21a.

 

As I discussed in Post 34, I would eventually work out that “Tante Grete Brauer” was my grandmother Else Bruck née Berliner’s sister, Margarethe Brauer née Berliner (1872-1942) who was murdered in the Holocaust. Prior to finding this isolated picture of my great-aunt, I was completely unaware of her existence. I’ve repeatedly told readers that my father had scant interest in family and rarely spoke of them to me growing up, so I was not surprised by this discovery.

I will give readers one last example of caches of family photos I’ve been able to recover by mentioning my third cousin once-removed, Larry Leyser (Figure 22), who very sadly passed away in 2021 due to complications from Covid. Over the years, Larry and I often shared family documents and photos. Several years ago, he borrowed and scanned a large collection of photos from one of his cousins named Michael Maleckar which he shared with me. As with any such trove, I found a few gems, including one of my own parents at a party they attended in Manhattan the early 1950’s. My father literally “robbed the cradle” when he married my mother as she was 22 years younger than him. This age difference is particularly pronounced in the one picture I show here. (Figure 23)

 

Figure 22. My third cousin once-removed, Larry Leyser, another source of many family photos

 

Figure 23. From left to right, my father (Dr. Otto Bruck), my mother (Paulette Bruck), my uncle (Dr. Fedor Bruck), and one of father’s cousins (Franz Kayser) at a party in Manhattan in the early 1950’s

 

I will merely say, in closing, that I am aware of other caches of family photos that unfortunately I have been unable to lay my hands on. I completely understand that some of my cousins are busy leading their lives and don’t share my passion for family history, so they are excused. One other thought. The longer I work on my family’s history, the more I realize how much I regret not talking with my relatives when they were alive about some of our ancestors as my stories would be broader and would then be grounded in truths rather veiled in so much conjecture.

 

 

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 

Sussman, Jeffrey. Holocaust Fighters: Boxers, Resisters, and Avengers. Roman & Littlefield, 2021.

 

 

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 78: MY FATHER’S FRIEND, KURT LAU, JAILED FOR “INSULTING THE NAZI GOVERNMENT”

Note: In this post, I discuss an article published in the Nazi Party’s newspaper in May 1935 describing a run-in my father’s friend from Tiegenhof, Kurt Lau, had with the Nazis that resulted in him being incarcerated for 30 days for “insulting the National Socialist government.”

 

Related Posts:

Post 8: Dr. Otto Bruck & Tiegenhof: National Socialist Parades

Post 71: A Day in The Life of My Father, Dr. Otto Bruck—22nd of August 1930

Post 76: My Father’s Friend, Dr. Franz Schimanski, President of Tiegenhof’s “Club Ruschau”

 

 

Figure 1. Kurt Lau, Managing Director of the “Tieghenhofer Oelmühle,” the rapeseed oil mill, in Tiegenhof in 1943

 

My father met Kurt Lau, the Managing Director of the “Tieghenhofer Oelmühle,” the rapeseed oil mill, in 1932 after he moved to Tiegenhof [today: Nowy Dwór Gdański, Poland] (Figure 1); unlike other people whom he befriended there they remained lifelong friends. (Figure 2) By the time my father left the area in 1937, Kurt and his wife Käthe were among the few people who still spoke to him, despite the pressure Germans were under to dissociate themselves from and isolate Jews. When I first started my forensic investigations into my family, reminded that Kurt and Käthe’s son and daughter-in-law are still alive, I reached out to Juergen “Peter” (b. 1923) and Hannelore “Lolo” Lau (b. 1925) (Figure 3) for help identifying some of the people in my father’s photos. They were helpful and gracious beyond all measure. Connecting with Kurt and Käthe’s descendants has allowed our families to continue a friendship that now spans four generations, really five, taking the youngest great-great-grandchildren into account.

 

Figure 2. Kurt and Käthe Lau on the far right in Deggendorf, Germany in June 1963, with, from left to right, my mother, Paulette Brook, Lolo Lau, Christian Lau, and Beatrice Lau
Figure 3. Kurt and Käthe Lau’s son and daughter-in-law, Peter and Lolo Lau, in Oberhausen, Germany in 2012

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Among the items Peter shared with me when we first connected in 2012 was a poor-quality xerox of a newspaper article he thought dated to 1935 or 1936 about his father running afoul of the National Socialist government (Figure 4); written in elaborate German Gothic font, the text was naturally indecipherable, but according to Peter the article describes judicial proceedings the Nazi authorities launched against his father for “defaming the government.” At the time, I was not so interested in the specifics of the case.

 

Figure 4. Article from the Nazi Party’s newspaper, “Der Danziger Vorposten” (The Outpost), from mid-to-late May 1935 describing legal encounter Kurt Lau had with the Nazi government

 

 

Fast forward. Readers will recall that Mr. Peter Hanke, affiliated with “forum.danzig.de,” recently found newspaper clippings in old Danzig [today: Gdansk, Poland] dailies of people I’ve lately written about. This includes my great-uncle Rudolf Löwenstein, subject of Post 71, and, Dr. Franz Schimanski, subject of Post 76. Thinking Peter Hanke might be interested and able to read the article Peter Lau had once given me, I sent it to him, asking if he could transcribe it. He not only did that, but he also translated it. The article gives a glimpse into the mindset of the Nazi overlords and describes Kurt Lau’s arrest and trial. Below is a transcription and translation of the article (a few words are illegible), followed by a discussion of the historical context of the events described.

 

TRANSCRIPTION: 

“Freistadtgebiet
Unerlaubte Kritik
Drei Monate Gefängnis wegen Beleidigung der Regierung


Der Direktor der Tiegenhöfer Ölmühle, Kaufmann Kurt L., hatte am Dienstag eine eilige Reise nach Danzig vor und wollte sich noch schnell rasieren lassen. Als er um 8 Uhr früh das Friseurgeschäft F. in Tiegenhof betrat, war nur der Lehrling da. Im angrenzenden Damensalon saß jedoch eine Kundin, Frau B. aus Tiegenhof, was jedoch Direktor L. nicht wusste. Als nach kurzer Zeit der Kaufmann Gustav Kr. den Herrenraum betrat, knüpfte er mit dem ihm bekannten Direktor L. ein Gespräch an, das fortgesetzt wurde, während der Gehilfe K. Direktor L. rasierte.

L. und Kr. kamen in ein Gespräch über die Guldenabwertung. Aus der Unterhaltung war zu entnehmen, dass L. wie Kr. durch den Guldensturz erhebliche Verluste beim Warenverkauf erlitten hatten, die durch den Zuschlag von 20 Prozent nach Ansicht der Geschäftsleute nicht ausgeglichen werden könnte. Hierauf wandte sich dei Unterhaltung zwei Strafprozessen gegen zwei Kaufleute in Tiegenhof und Neuteich zu. L. war der Meinung, dass der Jude ??? in Neuteich zu Unrecht verurteilt worden wäre und erging sich dabei in einer unpassenden Kritik über die Regierung. Er bemängelte zunächst, dass abgeblich keine Wirtschaftler gehört worden seien, es es könne auch mit Aufrufen allein nichts geschafft werden. Hierbei fielen von ihm die Worte ‘Das grenzt an Betrug.’! Als sich Direktor L. verabschiedete, machte er eine drastische Bemerkung, in der das bekannte Wort vom Grundeis vorkam.

Die Kundin im Damensalon war namentlich über die letzten Worte empört und erkundigte sich nach dem Namen des Sprechers; sie erstattete dann Strafanzeige gegen L. Dieser wurde noch am selben Tage in einem Danziger Café festgenommen und in Schutzhaft überführt. Er hatte sich am Mittwoch vor dem Tiegenhofer Amtsgericht wegen Verleumdung der Regierung zu verantworten. Insbesondere wurden ihm der Ausdruck “Das grenzt an Betrug!” und der letzte Satz seines Gesprächs zur Last gelegt.

Bei der Beweisaufnahme bestritt der Angeklagte, sich irgendwie schuldig gemacht zu haben. Er habe nicht das Gespräch angefangen, sondern der Kaufmann Kr. Ferner habe er es eilig gehabt und könne bei einer Rasur sich philosophische Reden gehalten haben.

Als Belastungszeugen waren Frau B., die Friseuse R. und der Gehilfe K. geladen worden. Ihre eidlichen Aussagen ergaben, dass die Unterhaltung in der eingangs beschriebenen Form statt gefunden haben musste und die inkriminierten Worte gefallen waren. Auch der Kaufmann Kr. musste die Möglichkeit der Ausdrücke zugeben.

Der Verteidiger, Rechtsanwalt M., glaubte zunächst an Hand von Presseberichten feststellen zu können, dass ‘überall geschimpft’ worden sei. Ferner war er der Ansicht, dass auch der Wert der Zeugenaussagen problematisch sei. Es könne in der heutigen Zeit von keinem Kaufmann Begeisterung über die schwierigen Wirtschaftslage verlangt werden.

Der Angeklagte habe ‘nicht die Absicht gehabt, zu provozieren,’ sondern sich nur im Rahmen der Allgemeinheit verhalten. Die Vorsätzlichkeit einer Beleidigung sei zu verneinen, der letzte Satz ist als zulässiger Herrenwitz zu werten.

Der Vertreter der Anklagebehörde sah dagegen einen Verstoß gegen die Strafparagraphen ??? und 105a als gegeben an. Eine Kritik über die Abwertung des Guldens dürfe nicht zur Beleidigung der Regierung ausarten. Der Beschuldigte als gebildeter Mensch und Parteigenosse hätte vielmehr die Pflicht gehabt, beruhigend zu wirken und als Wirtschaftler seine Bedenken an geeigneter Stelle vortragen können.

Desgleichen legte das Gericht dar, dass der Angeklagte als Wirtschaftsführer sich über die Folgen seiner Handlungen hätte bewusst sein müssen.

Die Provokation verlange schwere Sühne, strafmildernd sei nur, dass der Angeklagte sich bisher einwandfrei geführt hatte. Das Urteil lautete auf drei Monate Gefängnis.

Der Strafprozess,hatte in Tiegenhof verständlicherweise großes Aufsehen erregte, der überfüllte Zuhörerraum musste schon vor der Verhandlung ??????????”

 

TRANSLATION: 

“Free city area
Unauthorized criticism
Three months in prison for insulting the government

 

The director of the Tiegenhöfer Oelmühle, businessman Kurt L., was planning an urgent trip to Danzig on Tuesday and wanted to have a quick shave. When he entered the F. hairdresser’s shop in Tiegenhof at 8 a.m., only the apprentice was there. However, a customer, Mrs. B. from Tiegenhof, was sitting in the adjacent ladies’ salon, but Director L. did not know this. When the merchant Gustav Kr. entered the gentlemen’s room after a short time, he started a conversation with director L., whom he knew, which was continued while the assistant K. was shaving director L.

L. and Kr. got into a conversation about the devaluation of the Gulden. From the conversation, it could be gathered that L. and Kr. had suffered considerable losses in the sale of goods as a result of the fall of the Gulden, which in the opinion of the businessmen could not be compensated by the surcharge of 20 percent. The conversation then turned to two criminal proceedings against two merchants in Tiegenhof and Neuteich. L. believed the Jew ??? had been wrongly convicted in Neuteich, and in doing so he made an inappropriate criticism of the government. First, he criticized that no economists had been heard, and that nothing could be achieved even with appeals alone. Here he used the words ‘This borders on fraud!’ When director L. said goodbye, he made a drastic remark in which the well-known f***-word was mentioned.

The customer in the ladies’ salon was outraged by the last words and inquired about the name of the speaker; she then filed charges against L. He was arrested in a café in Danzig and transferred to protective custody the same day. On Wednesday he had to appear at the Tiegenhof District Court for defamation of the government. In particular, he was charged with the expression ‘That borders on fraud!’ and the last sentence of his conversation.

At the hearing of evidence, the accused denied having been guilty in any way. He had not started the conversation, but the businessman Kr. Furthermore, he had been in a hurry and couldn’t have made any philosophical speeches while being shaved.

Ms. B., the hairdresser R. and the assistant K. had been summoned as witnesses for the prosecution. Their sworn statements showed that the conversation must have taken place in the form described at the beginning and that the incriminating words had been spoken. The merchant Kr. also had to admit the possibility of the expressions.

The defense counsel, attorney M., initially believed that he could establish from press reports that ‘everyone bitches.’ Furthermore, he believed the value of the witness statements was also problematic. Nowadays, no businessman can be expected to be enthusiastic about the difficult economic situation.

The accused had ‘not intended to provoke’ but had only behaved in the context of the general public. The willfulness of an insult was to be denied, the last sentence was to be regarded as a permissible joke.

The representative of the prosecuting authority, however, considered it a violation of the penal clauses ??? and 105a as given. A criticism about the devaluation of the Gulden should not be allowed to degenerate into an insult to the government. The accused, as an educated person and party comrade, should rather have had the duty of have a calming effect and, as an economist, should have voiced his concerns in a suitable place.

Similarly, the court stated that as an economic leader, the accused should have been aware of the consequences of his actions.

The provocation demanded severe atonement, the only mitigating factor being that the defendant had previously conducted himself impeccably. The sentence was three months in prison.

The criminal trial understandably caused a great stir in Tiegenhof, and the crowded auditorium had to be ????? before the hearing.”

 

Peter Hanke thinks the article appeared in the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP or “Nazi Party”) newspaper, “Der Danziger Vorposten” (The Outpost), towards the middle to the end of May 1935. The Nazis had halted publication of the “Danziger Allgemeine Zeitung” in 1934 and placed a five-month ban on the “Danziger Volsstimme” on April 10th, three days after the Volkstag parliamentary election on the 7th of April 1935, making “Der Danziger Vorposten” the likely source of the article.

 

One thing to note about the original article is that only the forename and first one or two letters of the surname appear; there can be no doubt locals would have known who was being discussed, although it’s unclear to me why the need to partially mask identities. Even so, with access to Tiegenhof Address Books and a list of local businesses of the time, I have been able to identify some of the parties. The defendant is obviously “Kurt Lau.” “Gustav Kr.,” I was able to determine referred to the businessman Gustav Kretschmann, Manufaktur und Kurzwaren, manufacturing and haberdashery. (Figure 5) Similarly, the friseur, hairdresser, initial “F.” refers to Sally Folchert (Figure 6), and the defense attorney, initial “M.,” can only be the Rechtsanwalt und Notar, lawyer and notary, “Markfeldt,” as he’s the only lawyer in Tiegenhof at the time whose surname begins with an “M.” (Figure 5)

 

Figure 5. Listings from the 1942 “Amtliches Fernsprechbuch für den Bezirk der Reichspostdirektion” (Official telephone directory for the district of the Reichpostdirektion Danzig 1942) with the names of the businessman Gustav Kretchmann (= “Gustav Kr.”) and the lawyer Markfeldt (= “M.”) circled
Figure 6. The hairdresser “F.,” Sally Folchert, one of the hairdressers in business in Tiegenhof (Source: “Tiegenhof und der Kreis Großes Werder in Bildern” by Gunter Jeglin, 1985: p. 174)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Before describing the historical context leading to Kurt Lau’s legal troubles, let me say a few words about the Free City of Danzig, in German, Freie Stadt Danzig. It was a semi-autonomous city-state created according to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles following WWI, that existed between 1920 and 1939. It consisted of the Baltic seaport of Danzig along with nearly 200 towns in the surrounding area, including Tiegenhof where my father briefly had his dental practice; Tiegenhof was about 25 miles SE of Danzig. The Free City was not an independent state, but rather was under the protection of the League of Nations. The Free City’s population was 98% German, and by 1936 a majority of the Senate, the Free City’s governing body, was composed of Nazis who agitated for reunification with Germany.

 

Figure 7. Office building at Markstrasse 8 in Tiegenhof in 1934 where my father had his dental practice and living quarters, festooned with Nazi flags

 

 

In Post 8, I described Nazi parades my father documented that took place, respectively, in 1933, 1934 and 1935, along the street that fronted the building where he lived and had his dental practice. (Figure 7) On the 5th of April 1935, Hermann Göring (Figure 8), a German political and military leader as well as one of the most powerful figures in the Nazi Party, participated in that parade in support of the slate of Nazi candidates running for parliament in the Free City. Göring’s appearance would have occurred just before these elections on the 7th of April 1935, cited above. These were assuredly very scary times for my father.

 

Figure 8. On April 5, 1935, Field Marshall Hermann Göring parading through Tiegenhof in front of the building where my father lived and had his dental practice

 

 

Figure 9. Headline from New York Times article dated the 3rd of May 1935 announcing the devaluation of the Danzig Gulden

Returning now to Kurt Lau’s run-in with the law. Based on events reported in the New York Times on the 3rd of May 1935 (Figure 9), on May 2nd the Free City’s Senate devalued the Danzig Gulden by 42.37 percent. However, according to Peter Hanke, the Nazi government judiciously avoided use of the term “devaluation,” and instead referred to it euphemistically as a “revaluation.” The local populace did not react as the Nazis had expected and wanted. Most people immediately withdrew their savings and purchased any available goods before prices were increased. Less than a week after the devaluation of the Gulden, prices for almost all goods were increased. This is the context in which Kurt Lau and Gustav Kretschmann complained about the considerable losses they’d suffered and caused Kurt Lau to “insult the Nazi government.” Rich indeed. As to the victims of Nazi “insults,” they never received retributive justice.

POST 54: “I DECIDE WHO IS A JEW”

Note: In this post, I discuss Wilhelm Pauly, the only son of Josef and Rosalie Pauly. The account of his survival during WWII provides some insight into the relationship between Germans of Jewish heritage and the German nation.

Figure 1. Wilhelm “Willy” Pauly as a young boy (photograph courtesy of Daniel Alejandro Sandler)

I’ve recently been writing about the fate of some of my great-great-uncle and aunt Josef Pauly and Rosalie Pauly née Mockrauer’s nine children, several of whom were victims of the Holocaust. Their only son, Wilhelm “Willy” Pauly (Figure 1), eighth born, survived the war and I became curious how he managed this. I asked one of his grandchildren, Andi Pauly, whose name readers may recall, and his response led in an unexpected direction.

 

Figure 2. Painting of Willy Pauly (1883-1961)

Willy Pauly (Figure 2) was a trained agronomist, and a veteran of WWI. Apparently, when it became clear his Jewish ancestry might eventually lead to his deportation to a concentration camp, he sought the help of his military comrades from WWI; they were instrumental in having him assigned to an agricultural research facility near the small town of Felgentreu, 34 miles SW of Berlin, that for inexplicable reasons was off-limits to the Gestapo.

 

Figure 3. Map of Felgentreu, situated 34 miles SW of Berlin, and 15 NNW of Jüterbog

 

Felgentreu (Figure 3) is only a short distance northwest of the military training ground once located at Jüterbog, referred to in German as Truppenübungsplatz Jüterborg. Beginning in the 1860’s, the German military began acquiring property around Jüterbog so that by the 1930’s this was the largest military training facility in Germany, more than 27,000 acres in size. By 1936, most inhabitants of Felgentreu had been displaced by the military facility and forced to relinquish their homes. Following the reunification of Germany in 1989, this military training ground, which had been used by the Soviet and German militaries after WWII, was converted to civilian use. Today, it is a nature reserve, although contaminated remains abound.

Whether the intercession of Willy Pauly’s military colleagues was enough to have him stationed in Felgentreu is unclear. It was suggested that a man named Erhard Milch may also have played a role in protecting Willy Pauly. Suffice it for now to say the Pauly and Milch families are related by marriage, a topic I’ll return to below. However, the mention of Erhard Milch’s name is where this story takes an unexpected twist.

Figure 4. Field Marshall Erhard Milch (far left) with Hitler and Hermann Göring (white uniform) (photograph by Heinrich Hoffmann, available at www.audiovis.nac.gov.pl, copywritten by the State Treasury of Poland)

 

Erhard Milch (Figure 4), I learned, was a German field marshal who oversaw the development of the Luftwaffe as part of the re-armament of Nazi Germany following WWI. He was supposedly the son of Anton Milch, a Jewish pharmacist, and a Clara Milch née Vetter, and was investigated in 1935 by the Gestapo on account of his Jewish heritage. When Hermann Wilhelm Göring, who was Erhard Milch’s mentor and personal friend, got wind of this ongoing investigation, he put a halt to it; Göring produced a signed affidavit he’d apparently forced Milch’s mother to sign stating that his actual father was her uncle, making her guilty of adultery and incest.

Regardless, with the signed affidavit in hand Hitler then issued Milch a “German Blood Certificate” (German: Deutschblütigkeitserklärung). Basically, this was a document provided by Hitler to people with partial Jewish heritage, termed Mischlinge, declaring them deutschblütig, of German blood, and exempting them from most of Germany’s racial laws. Such events were apparently the backdrop for Göring’s cynical claim, “I decide who is a Jew.” Though widely attributed to him, the statement apparently originated with Karl Lueger (Figure 5), Mayor of Vienna, Austria from 1897 until his death in 1910. Karl Lueger, founder of Austria’s Christian Social Party, exploited prevalent antisemitic and nationalistic currents for political gain. This is particularly interesting because Hitler moved to Vienna in 1908 when Lueger was at the apex of his power there; Hitler clearly approved of Lueger’s methods and praised his charisma and popular appeal in Mein Kampf and elsewhere. Some claim the populist and antisemitic politics of Lueger’s Christian Social Party were the model for Adolf Hitler’s Nazism, though their brands of anti-Semitism differed.

Figure 5. Karl Lueger ca. 1897, the year he was elected Mayor of Vienna, Austria (photograph by Ludwig Grillich)

 

In any case, the issue of Jews serving in the German military during the Nazi era is what I found intriguing. I discovered a 2002 book on the subject by Cambridge University researcher Bryan Mark Rigg, entitled “Hitler’s Jewish Soldiers, the Untold Story of Nazi Racial Laws and Men of Jewish Descent in the German Military.” Rigg’s book was the first study of its kind to document the history of Jews and Mischlinge who fought in the German armed forces during WWII, a number estimated to have been as high as 150,000 that included more than 1,200 officers; the author provides demonstrable evidence that Hitler played a central role in allowing Mischlinge to serve in the armed forces. The “half-Jew” Field Marshall Erhard Milch was the highest-ranking officer found to be of Jewish parentage.

Figure 6. Willy Pauly’s two sons, Klaus and Peter, as young boys (photograph courtesy of Daniel Alejandro Sandler)

Willy Pauly may also have wanted his two sons, Klaus and Peter (Figure 6), to pursue a military career to increase their odds of survival and facilitate upward mobility. According to a story Andi’s father told him, Willy enrolled his two sons in an elite military training school in Potsdam, a town bordering Berlin. When Hitler came to power, the school was transformed into a “NaPolA,” Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalten, officially abbreviated NPEA, or a National Political Institute of Education, a secondary boarding school for the elite in Nazi Germany. Students were required to provide proof of their Aryan descent, something Willy could not provide for his sons, so both were forced to leave the academy. Interestingly, they ended up in a boarding school in Niesky, Germany, which was run by the Herrnhuter Brüdergemeinde, a Christian fraternity.

Some brief history. The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 were the anti-Semitic laws introduced in Germany following the takeover of power by Hitler in 1933. It defined a “Jew” not as someone with specific religious beliefs but, instead, as anyone with three or four Jewish grandparents regardless of whether the person self-identified as a Jew or belonged to the Jewish religious community. Germans who had long ago given up practicing Judaism or converted, or even those whose grandparents had converted to Christianity, were nonetheless “racially” categorized as Jewish and victimized by the Nazis. Two additional “racial” categories were created with the passage of the Nuremberg Laws: the “half-Jew” (Jewish Mischling first degree), and the “quarter-Jew” (Jewish Mischling second degree); a half-Jew had two Jewish grandparents, and a quarter-Jew one.

Figure 7. W. Dieter Bergman (1920-1997), Unteroffizier in the German Army during WWII, whose grandmother, Elly Landsberg née Mockrauer, was Jewish (photograph copywritten by JFC’s San Francisco Holocaust Center)

The sudden grouping of Mischlinge with Jews, seemingly, should have created a bond and mutual sympathy. It did not. Most Mischlinge did not consider themselves to be Jewish, and many had grown up as baptized Christians. And, in some cases, the Mischlinge were themselves deeply anti-Semitic. Ethnically, Mischlinge thought of themselves as Germans based on their language, their culture, and their schooling which had all been in German. Speaking to this issue, Bryan Rigg quotes from a letter written in 1940 by the “half-Jew,” Unteroffizier (Sergeant or Staff Sergeant) W. Dieter Bergman (Figure 7), to his Jewish grandmother, Elly Landsberg née Mockrauer, interestingly one of my relatives:

“Don’t you realize how much I’m with my whole being rooted in Germany. My life would be very sad without my homeland, without the wonderful German art, without the belief in Germany’s powerful past and the powerful future that awaits Germany. Do you think that I can tear that all out of my heart?. . .Don’t I also have an obligation to my parents, to my brother who showed his love to our Fatherland by dying a hero’s death on the battlefield. . .Someday, I want to be a German amongst Germans and no longer a second-class citizen only because my wonderful mother is Jewish.” (Rigg, p. 28)

To remind readers, Elly Landsberg née Mockrauer (Figure 8) was the niece of Rosalie Pauly née Mockrauer; Elly Landsberg’s father was Josef Mockrauer (Figure 9), brother of Rosalie Pauly née Mockrauer. (Figure 10)

Figure 8. Elly Landsberg née Mockrauer (1873-1944), Unteroffizier W. Dieter Bergman’s Jewish grandmother, who was murdered in Auschwitz
Figure 9. Josef Mockrauer (1845-1895), Elly Landsberg née Mockrauer’s father by his first marriage

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 10. Rosalie Pauly née Mockrauer (1844-1927)

 

Historically, one way for Jews to prove themselves to be good, loyal Germans was to fight for their country. Many Jews served in the German army during WWI, as this provided a way for them to gain greater acceptance and opportunity and prove their loyalty to the Vaterland. With Germany’s rearmament following Hitler’s ascension to power, Mischlinge faced a paradox, join the military to regain some of their lost pride and protect their families with the realization they would be serving Hitler. For those who were able to join, knowing they were trying to convince their comrades, officers and Nazi overlords to accept them as “normal” Germans, many fought with unparalleled bravery. The last thing a Mischling wanted was to be considered a “feiger Jude,” a cowardly Jew.

Because Mischlinge status obviously impeded upward mobility in German society and the army, such individuals sought to be recognized as German; one method was to obtain a legal waiver, Genehmigung, an official toleration of their standing as Mischling on account of their service and benefit to the Reich. The most sought-after designation was the one conferred on Field Marshall Erhard Milch, Deutschblütigkeitserklärung, a determination of pure German blood. Contrary to Göring’s assertion that he decided who was a Jew or not, in reality, this decision could only be granted by Hitler. Germany’s defeat was a fortunate outcome for Mischlinge because Hitler had planned to exterminate them all had Germany prevailed, completely cleansing the German blood line.

Josef and Rosalie Pauly’s only son, Willy Pauly, was born in 1883, and, as mentioned, served in the German army during WWI. Erhard Milch, born nine years later in 1892, also fought for Germany during the first world war. While I was able to find Erhard Milch’s WWI Personnel Register (Figure 11) on ancestry.com, I was unable to track down a similar document for Willy Pauly. Though both Willy and Erhard fought for Germany in WWI, likely on the Eastern Front, I can’t place them in the same theater during the war proving they met then.

Figure 11. Erhard Milch’s WWI Personnel Register with the names of his parents circled including that of his Jewish father “Anton M.”

 

Knowing that Pauly and Milch family members are related by marriage, I turned to ancestry.com to try and ascertain the possible relationship between Willy Pauly and Erhard Milch. Unfortunately, none of the ancestral documents nor family trees I located there contained enough detail to establish a connection.

Then, I remembered a Stammbaum, a family tree, for the Milch family Andi Pauly had found among his father’s surviving papers and sent me. Given the enormous detail in the Pauly Stammbaum, it was clear Klaus Pauly, Andi’s father, had communicated with an extensive network of near and distant relatives to create his tree. One such person was Dr. H.P. Kent from Saskatoon, Canada, who’d asked himself the same question developing his family tree in 1990 I was now asking myself, namely, “how exactly is Erhard Milch related to the Pauly family?” I found the answer in Dr. Kent’s tree (Figures 12a-b)—Erhard Milch is the second cousin once removed of a Ludwig Milch (Figure 13), the husband of one of Rosalie Pauly’s nieces. Theoretically, Erhard and Willy could have known or been aware of one another and their ancestral ties. Whether this would have been reason enough for Erhard to intercede on Willy’s behalf to shield him during WWII may never be known.

Figure 12a. First part of Dr. Kent’s Milch Family Tree with Anton & Erhard Milch’s names circled

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 12b. Second part of Dr. Kent’s Milch Family Tree with Ludwig Milch and his wife Else Milch née Kantorowicz’s names circled; Ludwig, who was a second cousin once removed of the “half-Jew” Field Marshall Erhard Milch, was married to Rosalie Pauly’s niece

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 13. Poor quality photo of Ludwig Milch (ca. 1925), second cousin once removed of Field Marshall Erhard Milch

 

In addition to Erhard Milch’s WWI Personnel Register, I was also able to find in ancestry.com a copy of his certificate of marriage to Käthe Patschke (Figures 14a-b), showing they were married on the 8th March 1917 in Berlin-Grunewald. The significance of these documents is that both specifically name Erhard Milch’s “racially” Jewish father, Anton Milch; obviously, at the time there was no anticipating the coming of Hitler barely 15 years later that would require “masking” one’s Jewish ancestry. The major takeaway is that because of the existence of such historic documents, the only sure way Göring could conceal his protégé’s “half-Jewish” status, make it go away that is, was to force Erhard’s mother to “claim” that his true father was her Aryan uncle, even if that made her guilty of incest and adultery.

Figure 14a. Cover form for Field Marshall Erhard Milch and Käthe Patschke’s marriage certificate, showing they were married on the 8th March 1917 in Berlin-Grunewald
Figure 14b. Field Marshall Erhard Milch and Käthe Patschke’s marriage certificate, showing they were married on the 8th March 1917 in Berlin-Grunewald and that Erhard’s father was Anton Milch (circled)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One final note of interest. While I’ve been unable to uncover the specific name of the agricultural research station in Felgentreu to which Willy Pauly was assigned during WWII, Andi provided a copy of one letter sent to his grandfather dated the 6th October 1945 (Figure 15); Felgentreu would eventually become part of the German Democratic Republic, but at the time was administered by the Soviet Military Administration. The Soviets approved the action outlined in this letter. It ordered Willy Pauly to hand over control of the research station to a Dr. Reinhold von Sengbusch, who was being transferred from the Kaiser Wilhelm Society for the Advancement of Science, later the Max Planck Society, to take over Willy’s responsibilities.

Figure 15. Letter dated 6th October 1945 announcing that Dr. Reinhold von Sengbusch would be replacing Willy Pauly as Director of the Felgentreu agricultural research station with the Soviet Military Administration’s approval

Following his dismissal, Willy turned to a man he knew, Mr. Rudolf Ersterer, who was the Director of the Bayerischen Verwaltung der staatlichen Schlösser, Bavarian Administration of State Castles; Mr Ersterer would eventually play an important role in rebuilding Munich after WWII. Following the war, it was difficult to find able German administrators who had not been members of the Nazi Party, but because Willy had not Ersterer appointed him to manage the world-renowned castle of Ludwig II, Herrenchiemsee (Figure 16), located on Herreninsel, the largest island in the Chiemsee lake, in southern Bavaria.

Figure 16. Ludwig II’s world-renowned castle Herrenchiemsee, which Willy Pauly once managed on behalf of the “Bavarian Administration of State Castles”

During Willy’s time on Herreninsel, the Constitutional Convention at Herrenchiemsee (German: Verfassungskonvent auf Herrenchiemsee) convened there. This was a meeting of constitutional experts nominated by the minister-presidents of the Western States of Germany, held in August 1948, as part of the process of drafting and adopting the current German constitution.

Ms. Anita Bunyan, a fellow at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, referencing Bryan Rigg’s book “Hitler’s Jewish Soldiers,” concludes that a significant number of Mischlinge appear to have been protected by fellow soldiers and superiors. While Rigg found many Aryan officers clearly motivated by racist ideology and ambition to turn them in, “. . .the discovery of a significant number of ‘sympathetic’ soldiers in the German army casts an interesting light on the relationship between ‘ordinary Germans’ and the Third Reich.” And, the apparent large number of Mischlinge and Jews in the German army would seem to support the notion the military may have afforded them some level of protection. Perhaps, this was the German army’s version of “Don’t ask, don’t tell”?

REFERENCES

Bergman, W. Dieter
1995 Between Two Benches. California Publishing Co., San Francisco

Bunyan, Anita
2003 Half-Shadows of the Reich, Hitler’s Jewish Soldiers. Queen’s University, Belfast

Klinger, Jerry
2011 Hitler’s Jewish Soldiers. The Jewish Magazine, September 2011

Rigg, Bryan Mark
2002 Hitler’s Jewish Soldiers, the Untold Story of Nazi Racial Laws and Men of Jewish Descent in the German Military. U. of Kansas, Lawrence, KS