Edgar Weil

Edgar Weil, around 1938

Edgar Weil (born July 7, 1908 in Frankfurt am Main ; † September 17, 1941 in Mauthausen concentration camp ) was a German dramaturge and businessman .

Family and friends

He was the second child of the pharmacist and chemical-pharmaceutical entrepreneur from Frankfurt, Richard Weil (1875–1917) and his wife Paula (1885–1970), born. Hochstetter. His brother Hans Joseph Weil (1906–1969), who was two years older than him, studied medicine , later became a doctor in Frankfurt am Main and did research in the family business Endopharm Frankfurter Arzneimittelabrik .

Hans Joseph and Edgar Weil grew up mostly in Frankfurt am Main; they were friends with Walter Jockisch there . She and Jockisch spent a lot of time together with their grand cousin Grete Dispeker in their family's country house in Egern am Tegernsee . It was there that they met their friend Doris von Schönthan .

On July 26, 1932 Edgar Weil married his grand cousin Grete (1906–1999), née Dispeker, who was two years older. The marriage remained childless.

In exile in the Netherlands, the couple met their friends who had also emigrated to the Netherlands, for example the painter Max Beckmann , the writer Albert Ehrenstein and the conductor Bruno Walter .

education

Edgar Weil studied German and did his doctorate on the subject of Alexander von Sternberg (Peter Alexander Freiherr von Ungern-Sternberg) - a contribution to the literary and cultural history of the 19th century .

Professional development

Weil worked as a dramaturge at the Münchner Kammerspiele when his career prospects and plans were suddenly stopped by the transfer of power to the National Socialists on January 30, 1933. As a Jew , he was immediately released. The baiting of Jews and the Nazi laws that were passed, which were supposed to gradually push Jews out of public life in Germany , made it clear that what mattered was existence, initially primarily the economic fundamentals. Many professions were blocked by Jews. In March 1933, Weil was arbitrarily arrested by the SA and taken into so-called "protective custody", which was another indication for him and his family of what to expect in the future.

The preservation of his father's pharmaceutical company was also threatened by the state-run " Aryanization ", so the family decided to send Edgar to the Netherlands to set up a branch there that would provide the company and thus the economic support of the family Should secure access of the National Socialists. Edgar Weil emigrated in 1933 to set up Endopharm in Amsterdam .

His wife Grete followed him after training as a photographer in 1935 in the Netherlands, where the couple lived in Amstelveen .

In 1938 Edgar Weil's mother Paula and his mother-in-law Isabella Dispeker also emigrated to the Netherlands, the latter with the support of Erika Mann's partner Signe von Scanzoni , while his father-in-law died that same year and his brother Hans Joseph emigrated to Switzerland, from where he later moved to the United States emigrated.

In the late summer of 1938 the couple traveled to Sanary-sur-Mer in the south of France , where they got in touch with Lion Feuchtwanger , Alma Mahler-Werfel and Franz Werfel through the secretary Lola Humm-Sernau and got to know them. At the end of August 1939 Edgar and Grete Weil returned from a trip together from Switzerland to Amsterdam, shortly before the German invasion of Poland .

When the Wehrmacht on 10 May 1940 with the invasion and the occupation of the Netherlands made clear that Germany's neighbors were not a safe haven for the persecuted, the couple through the port of trying Ijmuiden in vain to escape by ship to the UK, where it Grete older brother, the lawyer Fritz Dispeker (1895–1986), hoped to meet. This ended Weil's entrepreneurial plans.

Persecution and deportation

The Reichskommissariat Netherlands quickly made sure that the Nuremberg Laws were extended to the occupied territories, a circumstance that directly affected the Weils and Dispekers. The Weil couple wanted to leave the Netherlands in the summer of 1941 with a Cuban tourist visa. While his wife had already been given hers, Edgar Weil picked up his on June 11, 1941 in Rotterdam. On the same evening, he was accidentally arrested on the street during a raid aimed at reprisaling 300 Jewish men.

He was taken to an internment and concentration camp in the dunes of Schoorl in North Holland , which served as a transit camp . Weil's business partners from Endopharm tried in vain to get him free by submitting information to the German authorities.

He was deported to the Mauthausen concentration camp . On July 15, 1941, Grete Weil received a pre-printed postcard informing her of this. Finally, on August 3rd, she received a first letter from her husband in which she was asked in encrypted form not to commit suicide. On August 31, 1941, she received Edgar Weil's last written sign of life. He was pronounced dead on September 17, 1941 at the age of 33. Grete Weil only found out about this at the beginning of October 1941 through the Joodsche Raad in Amsterdam.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Edgar Weil . From: joodsmonument.nl, accessed on July 23, 2017.
2. ↑ Because Edgar . From: juedisches-leben-in-ingenheim.de, accessed on July 23, 2017.
3. ↑ Because Richard . From: juedisches-leben-in-ingenheim.de, accessed on July 23, 2017.
4. ↑ Because, Paula . From: juedisches-leben-in-ingenheim.de, accessed on July 23, 2017.
5. ↑ Because Hans Joseph . From: juedisches-leben-in-ingelheim.de, accessed on July 23, 2017.
6. ↑ Endopharm Frankfurt pharmaceutical factory limited liability company . From: moneyhouse.de, accessed on July 23, 2017.
7. ↑ Edgar Weil: Alexander von Sternberg (Peter Alexander Frhr von Ungern-Sternberg) - A contribution to the literary and cultural history of the 19th century . Ebering, Berlin 1932 (reprint: Kraus, Nendeln / Liechtenstein 1967).
8. ↑ Christel Berger: Anna Seghers and Grete Weil - Witnesses of the Century . From: luise-berlin.de , accessed on July 15, 2017.
9. ↑ Grete Weil: Portrait photography by Franz Werfel (1938). on: kuenste-im-exil.de , accessed on July 15, 2017.
10. ↑ Imre Schaber: I'm ashamed of my eyes, my freedom, my better clothes, I'm ashamed of my Leica and still take pictures (interview with Grete Weil). In: Photo history. Issue 60, Jonas Verlag, Marburg 1996, pp. 42-48.
11. ^ Edgar Weil: Letter to Grete Weil (August 31, 1941) . From: kuenste-im-exil.de, accessed on July 23, 2017.
12. ↑ Peter Ahrendt: A bad hater. On the 10th year of the death of the writer Grete Weil. In: Glarean Magazine. July 25, 2009. From: glareanverlag.wordpress.com , accessed July 15, 2017.
13. ↑ Grete Weil - uncomfortable, compelling to think. In: Exile Research: An International Yearbook. Volume 11, 1993, pp. 156-170.