Adolf Altmann

Adolf Altmann (born September 8, 1879 in Huncovce , Austria-Hungary ; died June 1944 in Auschwitz ) was an Austro-German rabbi . From 1920 to 1938 he was Chief Rabbi of Trier .

Life

Adolf Altmann, son of Max and Hena Altmann, attended the yeshiva in Hunsdorf from 1893 to 1899 , then from 1900 to 1902 the state rabbinical school in Pressburg . He was a staunch Zionist and worked as a journalist , including from 1904 for the Hungarian weekly . In 1903 he married Malwine Weisz (born September 17, 1881), with whom he had five children ( Alexander , Erwin, Hilde, Manfred and Wilhelm).

After a brief activity as a religion teacher at a Jewish school, he studied philosophy , history and German at the University of Bern from 1906 to 1910 and received his doctorate on March 1, 1912 with a thesis on the history of the Jews in the city and state of Salzburg , which he expanded significantly in 1913 published in book form. From August 1907 he was a rabbi in Salzburg , where he made a significant contribution to the establishment of an independent Jewish religious community in 1911. Before that, Salzburg belonged to the Linz municipality. In 1914 he became rabbi in Merano and then served as a field rabbi in the Austrian army from 1915 to 1918 .

In 1920 Altmann was called to Trier as a rabbi and was in charge of the almost 1,000 members of the Jewish community. He maintained good contacts with the Christian clergy, including the Trier bishop Franz Rudolf Bornewasser . He was also friends with the center politician Ludwig Kaas . In April 1938 he and his family had to flee the anti-Semitic reprisals of the National Socialists to the Netherlands . Until September 1940 he held in Scheveningen on, then in Groningen and from March 1943 in the ghetto of Amsterdam . From there he was transferred between stations in the concentration camps Westerbork finally and Theresienstadt on May 16, 1944 in the concentration camp Auschwitz deported. There he died of exhaustion within a few weeks. His wife and two of their children were also killed in the extermination camp.

In 1958 the Dr.-Altmann-Straße was opened in Trier, as was the Dr. Adolf Altmann-Strasse, named after him. His son Alexander was also a rabbi.

On July 2, 2014, Gunter Demnig laid a stumbling block in front of the Salzburg synagogue in Lasserstraße .

Works

Stumbling stone in Salzburg in front of the synagogue .

• Zionism and Anti-Zionism. 1903.
• History of the Jews in the city and state of Salzburg from the earliest times to the present.
  • Vol. 1, 1913.
  • Vol. 2, 1930.
  • New edition (in one volume): Otto Müller Verlag, Salzburg 1990, ISBN 3-7013-0749-0 .
• Robert Hamerling's worldview, an optimism. Historical-critical, literary-philosophical study. 1914.
• Jewish world and life perspectives. 1926.
• From struggling worlds. Seals, 1930.
• The earliest occurrence of Jews in Germany. 1932.
• Sermons to Judaism today. 1935.
• People on the move - diaspora on the move. 1936.
• The Jewish people's soul. 1937.

literature

• Gerald Steinacher : Rabbi Adolf Altmann: Salzburg, Meran, Trier, Auschwitz. In: Thomas Albrich (Ed.): Jewish life stories from Tyrol. From the Middle Ages to the present. Innsbruck 2012, 235-259.
• Trier biographical lexicon. Landesarchivverwaltung Rheinland-Pfalz, Koblenz 2000, pp. 3–4 (article by Gerd Mentgen).
• Alexander Altmann : Adolf Altmann (1879–1944). In: Year-book of the Leo Baeck Institute. 26: 145-167 (1981).
• Dr. Adolf Altmann in memory. Press and Information Office of the City of Trier, 1980.
• Altmann, Adolf. In: Lexicon of German-Jewish Authors . Volume 1: A-Benc. Edited by the Bibliographia Judaica archive. Saur, Munich 1992, ISBN 3-598-22681-0 , pp. 134-137.
• E. Adunka:  Altmann, Adolf . In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 . 2nd revised edition (online only).

Web links

• Literature by and about Adolf Altmann in the catalog of the German National Library
• Entry in the Central Database of the Names of Holocaust Victims at the Yad Vashem Memorial
• Entry on Adolf Altmann in the Rhineland-Palatinate personal database