Ebo Rothschild

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Ebo Rothschild (born November 4, 1902 in Londorf ; † August 2, 1977 in Rechovot ) was a German-Israeli lawyer. As a Jew, he was banned from working in April 1933 and first emigrated to Spain. In 1939 he and his family managed to escape to Chile via France. In 1955 they immigrated to Israel. Rothschild worked in Darmstadt in a law firm with Friedrich Moritz Mainzer and Hermann Wolf .

The years 1902 to 1933

Ebo Rothschild was the son of the early deceased businessman ("fruit trader" according to Ebo's birth certificate) Markus Rothschild from Londorf and his wife Emma.

After attending the Realgymnasium in Gießen, today's Herderschule , Ebo Rothschild passed the final exam there on February 25, 1921 and studied law from May 1, 1921 at Ludwigs University in Gießen, today's Justus Liebig University in Gießen . In November 1924 he completed his studies with the grade “overall good” and began his legal clerkship, which led him to the local court in Grünberg (Hesse) , to lawyers in Gießen and to the local court there. In April 1928 he passed the state examination with the grade "good" and was appointed court assessor on June 22, 1928. A few days later he was appointed to act as a lawyer at the local courts of Bensheim , Fürth (Odenwald) , Lampertheim and Wald-Michelbach . At the same time he was sworn in as an official.

On October 6, 1928, he asked the Ministry of Justice in Darmstadt “to refrain from using me for the next 6 weeks, because during this time I was working in the office of Dr. Mainzer and Dr. Wolf am employed in Darmstadt ”. Three quarters of a year later, on July 15, 1929, the Darmstadt Ministry of Justice informed the district court president that the court assessor Ebo Rothschild had applied for “admission to the bar at the Darmstadt district court and the Chamber of Commerce in Offenbach”. Approval was granted on September 3, 1929. Shortly thereafter, Rothschild joined the office of Mainzer and Wolf.

The position in which he worked in this law firm is controversial. In a letter dated March 17, 1952, Friedrich Mainzer expressly referred to Ebo Rothschild as "my partner and colleague" in connection with his removal from the list of lawyers. This is no longer mentioned in another letter three years later, because now it says: “As far as I can remember, Mr. Rothschild initially worked for me as a court assessor and then worked for several years in my law firm as a permanently paid lawyer. “In the dispute over the goodwill of this law firm in the context of reparations for injustices suffered during the Nazi era, Grete Rothschild, as her husband's heir, insisted that Ebo Rothschild was not only Mainzer's employee, but also his partner.

By means of a court settlement proposal of August 26, 1960, which was accepted by all parties involved, the Rothschild and Wolf parties were awarded a portion of compensation of DM 15,720, the payment of which was made in full to Irene Wolf. 30,000 DM went to the Mainz party.

Ebo Rothschilds career as a prosecutor ended with the seizure of power by the Nazis. On April 7, 1933, the Law on Admission to the Bar was passed, banning most Jewish attorneys from practicing their profession. Since Ebo Rothschild did not take part in the First World War and therefore could not claim the front fighter privilege for himself, he was banned from working on May 1, 1933. “After that, he did some work for me for a short time, for which he received remuneration. [..] It was maybe 3-4 months. ”But that was not the only misery that was inflicted on him.

  • On March 5, 1933 “I moved out of my office, Darmstadt, Bismarckstr. 48, taken out by SA men and forced to scrape off old election posters of the left-wing parties in the immediate vicinity of the office using a caustic solution, together with lawyer Dr. Fritz Freund , who later perished ”.
  • On March 10, 1933, he narrowly escaped an attack on his home. Rothschild suspected that a former opponent who was now SA-Sturmbannführer was responsible for this.
  • Shortly after his license as a lawyer was withdrawn, late in the evening at the beginning of May 1933, SA men together with Friedrich Mainzer and another person in Mainzer's private house in Osannstrasse. 11 arrested. Fortunately for the three arrested, a policeman was also involved in the action, who made sure that they were taken to a regular police prison instead of the Braune Haus , the Darmstadt Nazi headquarters.

Stations of exile

Spain

Ebo Rothschild did not want to emigrate unprepared and tried to find representations for German companies abroad. The most promising was an offer from Deutsche Milchwerke AG from Zwingenberg (Bergstrasse) for their representation in Spain, which he had been brokered by Julius Bloch, their head of sales for international business, from Frankfurt. Rothschild took Spanish lessons and traveled to Holland in December 1933 and from there to Paris in January 1934. At both stations he tried to get further representation jobs, but apparently without success.

On February 8, 1934, Ebo Rothschild left Paris and traveled to Barcelona, ​​where he tried for more than a year to sell the Fissan products of Deutsche Milchwerke AG to doctors. Rothschild described this as a difficult undertaking, presumably also due to his inadequate language skills, which prompted him to continue taking language lessons. But then the matter fell apart for a far more banal reason: Bloch's daughter had married to Spain and as a result Bloch transferred the representation for Spain to his son-in-law.

Rothschild came into contact with the Benavent y Marx company in Barcelona , which represented several German companies in Spain, including Eisenwerke Meurer, which manufactured a gas stove called Prometheus , Vaillant from Remscheid, a manufacturer of hot water storage tanks, and Haller from Altona, which Made kerosene stoves. In order to acquire the necessary specialist knowledge for the sale of such products, Benavent y Marx sent him back to Germany for about 5 weeks in August 1935, where Rothschild interned at the individual companies.

The marriage with Grete Ostwald

After his return to Barcelona at the end of September, Ebo Rothschild was appointed to represent the company Benavent y Marx for Valencia with effect from December 1, 1935 . This was accompanied by a private change: in November 1935 he married Grete Ostwald.

Grete Ostwald was the daughter of Siegmund Ostwald (* October 16, 1865 in Dortmund-Aplerbeck ; † October 24, 1942 in Ghetto Theresienstadt ) and his wife Helene (also called Hetty, née Mayer, * September 7, 1867 in Leutershausen an der Bergstrasse) ; † May 12, 1929 in Koblenz). Siegmund Ostwald ran the company “O.” in Koblenz together with his brother Otto (born January 3, 1864 in Dortmund ; † July 30, 1941 in Cologne ). & S. Ostwald, Mehl- u. Legumes, groceries, canned goods, etc. Tropical fruits ". Otto Ostwald's wife Johanna (née Herzberg, born July 24, 1878 in Altena ) was deported from Cologne, where the couple had last lived, to the Litzmannstadt ghetto on October 30, 1941 , and from there to the Kulmhof extermination camp , where they moved in May Was murdered in 1942.

The couple Siegmund and Helene Ostwald had five children:

  • Luzie (Lucie), born January 21, 1896 in Koblenz.
  • Franz Otto, born April 14, 1897 in Koblenz, died on July 9, 1918 in Koblenz of a war injury sustained in 1915.
  • Walther Leopold, born December 27, 1900 in Koblenz; † January 22, 1959 in Tel Aviv . Walther enrolled in Bonn on October 14, 1918, specializing in medicine. On April 22nd, 1925, he signed off in Koblenz and moved to Frankfurt am Main. It was here that his dissertation was written in 1928 under the title Clinical Contributions to Williams' Tracheal Tone . In 1929 he lived in Mannheim , where he also met Käthe David, his future wife. At the beginning of the 1930s he established himself as a doctor in Berlin-Charlottenburg. Their daughter Renate was born here (born July 1, 1933). The family emigrated from Berlin-Charlottenburg to Tel Aviv on March 5, 1934.
  • Käthe, born July 25, 1902 in Koblenz; † August 9, 1902.
  • Grete Franziska, born November 29, 1906; † October 8, 1986 in Israel.

Grete had attended Hilda-Gymnasium in Koblenz before moving to Berlin in November 1930. About herself she reported that until 1933 she was an employee of an advertising company ("Propaganda Company"), the TW Textile Advertising Service, which produced children's journals mainly for department stores. In 1933 "all employees were given notice due to the political situation and the entire company was subsequently closed". In 1933 she went alone to Spain, where she met and married Ebo Rothschild.

Grete Rothschild also mentioned a cousin Hugo Lindheim , who owned a furniture factory in Kahl am Main , where she deposited her furniture before she left Germany. This “Jewish furniture factory in Lindheim in Kahl” was the “factory in Kahl am Main, which the Jewish owner had to sell under pressure from the National Socialists” - in 1937 to the entrepreneur Karl Kübel from Worms . In the same year, he turned it into 3K Möbelwerke . After selling his factory, Hugo Lindheim was able to emigrate to Belgium with his wife Mathilde and daughter Laura and settled in Mechelen . There the family was surprised by the advancing German Wehrmacht in 1940 and was taken to the SS assembly camp in Mechelen . On January 15, 1943, they were deported from there to Auschwitz , where they were murdered.

Escape from Spain

Grete Rothschild reported that beyond Ebo Rothschild's above-mentioned representation for the Benavent y Marx company, the couple had made further economic commitments: "We had invested both of our assets as a partial investment in an already existing gas stove factory." But the hopes associated with this were dashed with the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War : Gas stove production had to be converted to war production and the Rothschilds lost their invested assets.

Mario Francisco Rothschild was born in Valencia on October 6, 1936, and his brother Michael on October 2, 1937. The family lived in great fear in the face of the worsening military and political situation and feared that the road between Valencia and Barcelona would be blocked by Franco's troops. Therefore, she moved to Barcelona at the end of November 1937, from where Ebo Rothschild returned to Valencia for a few days in March 1938 to hand over the apartment to a subtenant. In the further course of the civil war, this apartment was then looted and completely robbed. While still in Valencia, Rothschild learned about the Anschluss of Austria from the radio , which then strengthened the family's feeling that Europe, and especially Spain, could no longer be a safe place for them. With a tourist visa, the Rothschild family was able to leave Spain on April 10, 1938 and go to France, where they first settled in Cavalaire-sur-Mer . About the time there, Gretel Rothschild reported: "Our stay in France from April 1938 to the beginning of September 1939 was a constant struggle for a temporary stay and postponement of the repeated expulsion orders and at the same time a constant effort to obtain a visa to a country outside Europe." The Rothschilds were looking for especially after the opportunity to enter a South American country, because they hoped to be able to settle in there without language difficulties, and both said it was a miracle that they were able to get a visa for Chile on August 31, 1939. It was granted to them with the help of a French company and they were required to present a booked return journey. A day later they also received the Argentine transit visa.

Escape to Chile

Ebo Rothschild was briefly arrested as an enemy foreigner after September 1, 1939 - following the outbreak of war - but on September 9, 1939 the Rothschilds were able to leave France from Le Havre on the French damper "Jamaique". On October 9, 1939, they reached Buenos Aires and traveled from there by train to Santiago de Chile . The entire trip was financed by a loan from the Jewish aid organization HICEM / HIAS , which the Rothschilds later repaid from Chile on a dollar basis.

There is hardly any information about the early days of the Rothschilds in Chile. The compensation file only contains the affidavit of a Juan Weinlaub from Concepcion , who presented himself as a “free contador” (free accountant, also auditor) and assured on October 6, 1955: “Mr. Ebo Rothschild, previously in Concepcion, was in the From July 1, 1942 to December 31, 1954, he was an active partner in the company 'ARTEX Rothschild y Tichauer Soc.Com' in Concepcion, Barros Arana No 777. According to Paragraph 6 of the articles of association of August 31, 1942, Mr. Rothschild was obliged to carry out all his activities to devote to the trading company to the exclusion of any other activity. [..] According to paragraph C of the articles of association of April 26, 1955, Mr. Ebo Rothschild left the trading company on December 31, 1954 with a capital of Pesos 2,084,054.14. "

Immigration to Israel

The affidavit quoted earlier was obviously already part of the preparations for the move to Israel. There is no information about the reasons for this step. A certificate from Irgun Olej Merkas Europa , the association of Israelis of Central European origin , dated September 30, 1956 only confirms that Ebo Rothschild immigrated to Israel on October 18, 1955 and lives in Kfar Argentina . He did not have any income, but tried hard to build up a living as a farmer and had made great commitments to acquire a farm.

It is not known whether and how this agriculture continued. But Grete Rothschild indicated in her several times cited document that Ebo Rothschild soon got health problems. She spoke of several months of recurring depression that led to her husband being fired in Tel Aviv. It remains unclear what work he was doing there, but to help him, he was given a two-year contract for a job in the Frankfurt Central Office of the United Restitution Organization (URO). “In Germany, his condition continued to deteriorate, so his contract was reduced to one year. He was no longer able to make his or my justified reparations and if the corresponding deadlines were not met at the last minute through the urging and active help of a German (retired) high state official. ”This unfinished sentence does not contain precise dates; on September 3, 1962, however, Ebo Rothschild had informed the Darmstadt Regional Council that he would work for the URO in Frankfurt from November 1, 1962.

According to Grete Rothschild, the stay in Germany only lasted a few weeks because they returned to Israel that same year, where Ebo Rothschild's health deteriorated further. "He died on August 2nd, 1977, after years of severe suffering." He had lived in Herzliya , he died in the hospital in Rechovoth.

Grete Rothschild's old age was also marked by health and economic problems. Like her husband, she suffered from depression, had multiple operations and spent a lot of time in hospitals. Added to this was the fear of the widow's pension, which she was hoping for from the reparation proceedings that are still pending in Germany. “With my truthful report and the photocopies of my income you can judge for yourself that in my situation and my physical disability, that my income is out of proportion to my very large but inevitable expenses. Add to that the steadily growing inflation. So far I have been living alone in my apartment, but I am trying to get into an old people's home. All retirement homes are overcrowded, very expensive - even the simplest ones and you have to expect a long waiting time. The man responsible for occupational damage has promised me his advisory help and my report is also considered information for him. But I am also asking you whether, under the circumstances, an increase in the pension you have to pay is possible. "

Redress proceedings

When Grete Rothschild wrote the sentences quoted above, probably in 1985, the reparation proceedings had been pending for about 30 years, her husband had been dead for eight years and she had only a few months left to live.

At first, Ebo Rothschild's reparation proceedings were processed relatively quickly. He submitted his application under the Federal Compensation Act on June 11, 1954, and in a decision of November 27, 1956, he was awarded a pension of 591 DM for life and a lump sum payment of 7,092 DM. In a further notice of October 22, 1957, the pension was increased to DM 600 per month.

On January 29, 1958, Ebo Rothschild's legal representative, the government director Willy Behrend, was informed by the regional council that Rothschild had called "some time ago" because of a possible goodwill from the law firm run together with Friedrich Mainzer and Hermann Wolf. This started the above-mentioned legal dispute over goodwill, at the end of which the Rothschild and Wolf parties were awarded a portion of compensation of DM 15,720 and paid to Irene Wolf. Whether and how a division took place between the Rothschild and Wolf parties is not documented.

On December 11, 1961, Ebo Rothschild's pension was increased to DM 700 and he was granted an additional payment. The regional council reacted to the other claims asserted by Behrend for the first time with a decision of October 24, 1962 and awarded Rothschild 200 DM as compensation for his travels in preparation for his emigration and for transfer losses. Presumably because of Ebo Rothschild's health problems mentioned above, the process continued only hesitantly, not least because Rothschild allowed himself a lot of time to answer inquiries. It was not until September 21, 1966 that he was able to claim “emigration costs that arose from continuing to migrate to Chile”, that is, costs that exceeded the already granted DM 200.00.

The rejection notice of June 19, 1967 because of the so-called further migration costs was a prime example of the insensitive handling of the German authorities with the issue of emigration. The fear of possible dangers outlined by Ebo Rothschild due to the advancing victory of the Franco troops and the situation in Europe was dismissed as a subjective feeling, because there was no need for the onward migration via France to Chile, since "threatened National Socialist measures of violence [.. ] but neither in Spain in 1938 nor in France in 1939 ”. On December 2, 1967, Ebo Rothschild brought an action against this decision before the Darmstadt Regional Court against the State of Hesse, represented by the Darmstadt Regional Council. But it was not until October 8, 1969, that he submitted his statement of grounds and requested: "To order the defendant country to pay a fee, to reimburse me for the cost of moving on from Spain via France to Chile - the amount I leave at the discretion of the court."

In the following pleadings, Ebo Rothschild described the stages of his escape from Europe described above and the reasons that prompted him and his family to do so. He was recognizable at the state of the scientific disputes about the civil war in Spain and the situation in Europe and came to the conclusion: "There was no longer any security for Jews in Europe." He found understanding judges. On March 18, 1970, the court submitted a settlement proposal, according to which the country should pay DM 2,223.00 to Ebo Rothschild. "The Chamber assumes with this settlement proposal that the claim of the plaintiff to reimbursement of his further migration costs is basically justified." "The plaintiff, who was already subjected to National Socialist persecution measures in Germany and had therefore already seen himself forced to flee, witnessed the civil war in Spain between the Republicans and the supporters of General Franco. The National Socialist German government actively supported Franco's struggle by providing military assistance to the general. ”The court therefore came to the conclusion:“ Given the political situation in Spain at the beginning of 1938, such an objective threat to the plaintiff and his family can hardly be denied. “Against the background of a looming victory for Franco“ it was not to be expected of the plaintiff, who was also responsible for his wife and his still very young children, to remain in Spain and to wait for the further course of events. ”“ That the The plaintiff's fears have not materialized later, and the Jews in Spain were not subjected to any persecution, and there were also no extraditions of Jews, cannot be held against the plaintiff, since the only decisive factor is how the situation is from the plaintiff's point of view at the time of his onward migration. "

Both sides agreed to this settlement proposal, which was officially announced on May 13, 1970. Previously, on October 12, 1967, a notice of 1,716 DM as compensation for life insurance had been issued, and the current pension was adjusted annually.

According to the decision of October 8, 1965, the Berlin Compensation Office did not award Grete Rothschild any compensation under the Federal Compensation Act for damage to body or health, as “there was no evidence of persecution-related damage to health”. In a decision of June 13, 1968, the Compensation Office revised its earlier decision and granted Grete Rothschild a pension of 851 DM per month and an additional payment of 51,120 DM. When measuring this pension, it was based on a classification as a civil servant of the senior Out of service. When Grete Rothschild applied for a widow's pension after the death of her husband, a decision dated September 6, 1978 granted her 18 DM per month from September 1, 1977. When she died on October 8, 1986, the regional council announced on November 3, 1986 that the pension payments had been suspended and demanded a repayment of DM 32 for November 1986. This amount shows that you were already quoted above The wish "whether under the given circumstances an increase in the pension you have to pay is possible" was not a great success.

swell

  • Hessian State Archives Darmstadt (HStAD):
    • Brief curriculum vitae with evidence of further holdings Signature HStAD inventory S 1 No. Proof 1.
    • Education and legal career up to professional ban. Signature G 21 B No. 5267 (completely digitized).
    • Lawsuit against the state of Hesse regarding travel expenses during emigration. Signature H 12 DA 8766.
  • Hessian Main State Archive Wiesbaden (HHStAW):
    • Compensation file (Section 518 No. 29002).
    • Refund procedure (Section 519 / A No. Gi 26004)
    • Refund procedure (Dept. 519 / N No. 18193)
  • City archive Koblenz, signature DB 6.

literature

  • Federal Bar Association (Hrsg.): Lawyer without law. Fate of Jewish lawyers in Germany after 1933 , be.bra verlag, Berlin-Brandenburg, 2007, ISBN 978-3-89809-074-2 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Source: Education and legal career up to professional ban
  2. ↑ Letter from F. Mainzer of March 17, 1952, HHStAW: reparation proceedings Friedrich Moritz Mainzer, signature: HHStAW, Abt. 518, no. 23755
  3. ↑ a b Letter from Friedrich Mainzer to the Darmstadt Regional Council of February 16, 1955, source: HHStAW compensation file (Section 518 No. 29002)
  4. ↑ HHStAW: compensation proceedings Hermann Wolf, Signature: Abt. 518 No. 30,032th
  5. ↑ a b c Letter from Ebo Rothschild to the Darmstadt Regional Court (compensation chamber) of October 8, 1969, source: HStAD, lawsuit against the State of Hesse regarding travel expenses during emigration
  6. ↑ EHRI project : Julius Bloch (1877–1956)
  7. ↑ a b c Letter from Ebo Rothschild to the Darmstadt regional council of May 11, 1962, source: HHStAW compensation file Ebo Rothschild (Dept. 518 No. 29002)
  8. ↑ Eisenwerke Meurer
  9. ↑ Vereinigte Metallwarenfabriken AG vorm. Haller et al. Co., Altona-Ottensen
  10. ↑ The information about the Ostwald family is based on entries in the memorial book - Victims of the persecution of Jews under the National Socialist tyranny 1933-1945 and on written information from the Koblenz city administration, city archive, dated December 6, 2018, based on an excerpt from the " Resident List of the Jewish Inhabitants of Koblenz ”of the Koblenz City Archives (as of December 5, 2018, signature: StAK DB 6).
  11. ^ Jewish students at the University of Bonn
  12. ^ Proof of Walter Ostwald's dissertation in the catalog of the Frankfurt University Library
  13. ^ History of the Hilda High School
  14. ^ Presumably the company "Te-We-Textil-Werbedienst GmbH, advertising office (advertising), founded in 1930, liq .: 1939, Krausenstrasse 38/39 (Kreuzberg)" was meant. ( Jewish businesses in Berlin 1930–1945 )
  15. ↑ a b c d e f g Undated declaration by Grete Rothschild from 1985, source: HHStAW compensation file Ebo Rothschild (Dept. 518 No. 29002)
  16. ↑ Martin Broszat, Elke Fröhlich, Falk Wiesemann (eds.): “Bavaria in the Nazi era. Social situation and political behavior of the population as reflected in confidential reports ”, R. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich and Vienna, 1977, ISBN 3-486-48361-7 , p. 452.
  17. ^ Lilli Braun: Karl Kübel GmbH / AG on the website Economic History in Rhineland-Palatinate
  18. ↑ Rudolf Vierhaus (ed.): German Biographical Encyclopedia (DBE). 2nd Edition. Volume 6, KG Saur, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-598-25036-3 , p. 114.
  19. ^ The Lindheim family in the memorial book Victims of the Persecution of Jews under the National Socialist Tyranny in Germany 1933–1945
  20. ^ Passenger list of the ship JAMAIQUE arriving to Buenos Aires on Oct 09, 1939
  21. ^ Letter from Ebo Rothschild to the Darmstadt Regional Council of March 28, 1967, source: HHStAW compensation file Ebo Rothschild (Dept. 518 No. 29002)
  22. ↑ Juan Weinlaub's affidavit of October 6, 1955, source: HHStAW compensation file Ebo Rothschild (Dept. 518 No. 29002)
  23. ^ Association of Israelis of Central European Origin
  24. ↑ See the page in the English WIKIPEDIA: Nir Tzvi
  25. ↑ Letter from Irgun Olej Merkaz Europa dated September 30, 1956, source: HHStAW compensation file Ebo Rothschild (Dept. 518 No. 29002)
  26. ↑ HHStAW, Compensation File (Section 518 No. 29002)
  27. ↑ Assessment notice W 2231 of November 27, 1956, source: HHSAtAW compensation file (Section 518 No. 29002)
  28. ↑ a b Source: HHSAtAW compensation file (Dept. 518 No. 29002)
  29. ↑ a b c d source: HStAD lawsuit against the state of Hesse due to travel expenses during emigration
  30. ↑ The presiding judge in these proceedings was District Court Director Dr. Rosenthal, probably Dr. Fritz Rosenthal, whose identity has not been sufficiently clarified. ( DFG-VK Darmstadt: Fate of Jewish lawyers in the Darmstadt district court: Fritz Rosenthal ). The adjudicator Dr. According to the same source, Biehl was an SA and NSDAP member classified as a fellow traveler . There is no information available about the second assessor, court assessor Sattler.
personal data
SURNAME Rothschild, Ebo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Israeli lawyer, persecuted by the Nazi regime, emigrant
DATE OF BIRTH November 4, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Londorf
DATE OF DEATH 2nd August 1977
Place of death Rechovot