Alfred Wiener (publicist)

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Alfred Wiener (born March 16, 1885 in Potsdam ; † February 4, 1964 in London ) was a German Jew who devoted a large part of his life to documenting anti-Semitism and racism in Germany and Europe as well as investigating the crimes of the Nazi regime. Among other things, he was the founder of the Wiener Library and its long-term director.

Life

Alfred Wiener was born as the son of the businessman Karl Wiener. The family originally came from Upper Silesia. Wiener attended the Viktoria-Gymnasium Potsdam from 1896 to 1905 , from 1905 to 1910 he studied history, philosophy, Jewish theology and oriental languages at the University of Berlin and at the same time at the College for the Science of Judaism . He spent the years 1909 to 1911 in the Middle East, and after another year of study in Heidelberg , he did his doctorate there on a topic from Arabic literature. During the First World War he was a soldier and was awarded the Iron Cross2nd class awarded. From 1919 he was a high-ranking representative of the Central Association of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith (CV) and identified the NSDAP as the main threat to Jews in Germany as early as 1925.

In 1928 he played a leading role in setting up the CV's " Wilhelmstrasse Office ", which documented the activities of the Nazis and published anti-Nazi material until 1933. After the seizure of power of Hitler in 1933 Wiener and his family fled to Amsterdam, where he and Dr. David Cohen founded the Jewish Central Information Office (JCIO). In 1939 Wiener fled to London with his collection. Wiener spent most of the war years in the USA, collecting material for the JCIO, but also working for the British and American governments. He returned to London in 1945 where he converted the JCIO into a library and research center.

Wiener's first wife Margarethe died in 1945, shortly after the liberation of Bergen-Belsen , on the way to Switzerland. In 1953 he married his second wife Lotte Philips.

In the mid-1950s, Wiener reduced his work at the Wiener Library and traveled regularly to Germany to give lectures for young people and to establish contacts with church organizations. In 1955 he was awarded the Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany .

Quote

Alfred Wiener had already written in 1925:

“We [...] know how to deal with the enemy. For each of their speakers we need two, for each of their leaflets we need ten [...] We have to explain the danger to the German citizens [...] Fight against the nationalist movement , not for the sake of the Jews, but for the sake of the fatherland, the under a Wulle or Hitler will sink into a sea of ​​blood and tears. "

literature

  • Ben Barkow : Alfred Wiener and the making of the Holocaust Library . Vallentine Mitchell, London 1997, ISBN 0-85303-328-5 .
  • Avraham Barkai : Defend yourself! The Central Association of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith (CV) 1893–1938 . CH Beck, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-406-49522-2 ( books.google.de ).
  • Hermann Schroeder: Title A library against Nazism: 50,000 books and mountains of magazines in London. In: Börsenblatt for the German book trade. Volume 127, 1960, p. 414, DNB 1030675562 , from: The other newspaper. 6. 1960 ( The Wiener Library , founded by Alfred Wiener in 1939).
  • Michael Hagemeister : The "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" in court. The Bern Trial 1933–1937 and the “Anti-Semitic International” . Zurich: Chronos, 2017, ISBN 978-3-0340-1385-7 , short biography p. 582

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Alfred Wiener in the Munzinger Archive , retrieved from the Internationales Biographisches Archiv 13/1964 on March 16, 1964 ( beginning of the article freely accessible)
  2. ↑ Broder : Jewish calendar 2009–2010 / 5770. February 4th / 20th Schewat
personal data
SURNAME Wiener, Alfred
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German publicist
DATE OF BIRTH March 16, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Potsdam
DATE OF DEATH 4th February 1964
Place of death London