Berthold Geiger

Berthold August Michael Geiger (born January 6, 1847 in Breslau ; † October 25, 1919 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a German lawyer and politician .

Life

Geiger belonged to a Jewish family that had lived in Frankfurt since around 1600. His father was the rabbi Abraham Geiger (* May 24, 1810 in Frankfurt am Main; † October 23, 1874 in Berlin) and his wife Emilie nee Oppenheim (* December 7, 1809 in probably Bonn; † December 6, 1860 in Breslau ). He married on September 20, 1872 in Frankfurt am Main Pauline born Auerbach (* July 31, 1850 (or 1849?) In Frankfurt am Main; † May 10, 1919 ibid), the daughter of the teacher, preacher and philosopher in Frankfurt am Main Dr. phil. Jakob Auerbach (born November 24, 1810 in Emmendingen / Baden, † October 31, 1887 in Frankfurt am Main) and his wife Sarah Katz.

Geiger studied law and became a lawyer and later a notary in Frankfurt am Main around 1871. He was a well-known criminal defense attorney and became the first chairman of the Frankfurt Bar Association . He was honored with the title of Privy Councilor of Justice. His son Rudolf Geiger (born July 25, 1873 in Frankfurt am Main; † August 3, 1956 in New York) became a partner in the law firm Fuld-Bearwald-Geiger in his place.

politics

In 1874 he was co-founder and later secretary of the Frankfurt Association of the Progressive Party and later belonged to the Progressive People's Party . From 1880 to 1904 he was a city councilor in Frankfurt am Main. From 1898 to 1918 he was a member of the Nassau Municipal Parliament of the Prussian administrative district of Wiesbaden and the Provincial Parliament of the Prussian Province of Hesse-Nassau . In the state parliament he was a member of the finance, auditing, nomination, civil servants and submission committee, until 1918 a member of the provincial committee.

He was a member of the Jewish religious community and was involved in the "anti-baptism committee", which campaigned for liberal Judaism.

literature

• Nassau parliamentarians. Part 2: Barbara Burkardt, Manfred Pult: The municipal parliament of the Wiesbaden administrative district 1868–1933 (= publications of the historical commission for Nassau. 71 = prehistory and history of parliamentarism in Hesse. 17). Historical Commission for Nassau, Wiesbaden 2003, ISBN 3-930221-11-X , pp. 96–97.
• Barbara Dölemeyer : Short biographies of lawyers of Jewish origin in the Frankfurt Higher Regional Court district; in: 125 years: Frankfurt am Main Bar Association, pp. 149–150.
• Wolfgang Klötzer (Hrsg.): Frankfurter Biographie . Personal history lexicon . First volume. A – L (=  publications of the Frankfurt Historical Commission . Volume XIX , no. 1 ). Waldemar Kramer, Frankfurt am Main 1994, ISBN 3-7829-0444-3 , p. 242 .

Web links

• Geiger, Berthold August Michael. Hessian biography. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).