Ernst Berliner (cycling manager)

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Ernst Berliner with his mother Eva after winning a race on the Stadtwaldbahn Cologne (c. 1920)
Berliner (2nd from right) at a race

Ernst (Isidor) Berliner (born January 25, 1891 in Cologne ; died August 19, 1977 in Miami ) was a German - American cycling manager and sports journalist.

biography

Ernst Berliner was born as Isidor Berliner in Cologne. He was the son of the shoemaker Isaac (also Isaak ) Berliner and his wife Eva, née Levi, and had six or seven siblings. He grew up on Alexianerstraße in the so-called " Greeks Market Quarter", which at the time was an almost entirely Jewish quarter in downtown Cologne . Later - the exact time is unknown - he took the first name "Ernst". Until after the First World War he was active as a cyclist; the first race he started was around Cologne . In 1912 he became city ​​champion on the Stadtwaldbahn in Cologne. After the end of his active racing career, Berliner also worked as a cycling manager and journalist.

During the First World War, Berliner served as a soldier and suffered a war trauma . The main occupation was a Berlin upholsterer and from the mid-1920s had a workshop with up to eleven employees at 25 Sternengasse , where the Jabacher Hof was located until 1900 . A specialty of the small company was the manufacture of sofa beds . On May 27, 1927 he married Erna Schwarz (born 1897), two years later their daughter Dorothea, called Doris, was born.

As a manager, Berliner looked after the best drivers from Cologne and beyond, including Gottfried Hürtgen , Viktor Rausch , Mathias Engel and Paul Krewer as well as the Swiss Suter brothers . After the Cologne amateur world champion from 1932, Albert Richter , turned professional shortly after his World Cup victory , he also took over his support. A father-son relationship developed between the two men.

After the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists and the subsequent conformity of the Association of German Cyclists in April 1933, it was no longer possible for Berliner to work as a cycling manager in Germany because, as a Jew, he did not receive a license from the association. However, Richter stuck to his connection to Berlin, both privately and professionally.

In September 1937 the Berliner family fled to the Netherlands and initially lived in Hulsberg in Limburg . Ernst Berliner had previously transferred part of his savings to the Netherlands as a precaution. He looked after local cyclists and worked again as an upholsterer. In August 1938 he moved with his wife and daughter to Amsterdam , where Doris Berliner attended the same school class as Anne Frank . For some time Berliner's single sister Auguste lived with the family.

From the Netherlands, Berliner continued to manage Albert Richter at launches outside of Germany. At the UCI track world championships in 1938 , in the Olympic Stadium in Amsterdam , they appeared together, although this could have been disadvantageous for judges. Richter was found dead in his cell in Lörrach prison on January 2, 1940, after he had been arrested for foreign currency smuggling on the border with Switzerland , presumably murdered by the Gestapo . In 1959, Berliner wrote in a letter to the GDR sports journalist Adolf Klimanschewsky : “What I [...] had to endure in the shameful years of distress and persecution by the unfortunate regime was nothing to compare to the almost physical pain I suffered from Murder of Albert Richter was inflicted. "

After the German Wehrmacht invaded the Netherlands in May 1940, the Berliner family had to go into hiding; she found shelter in Amsterdam and Zaanstad . She had to change her hiding place several times and the daughter was housed separately from her parents. Ernst Berliner got involved in the resistance with false papers and supported other persecuted people, whether Jewish or not, also financially; the black-haired Doris Berliner, who by appearance could have come from the Dutch East Indies , distributed leaflets. As the front drew nearer, Berliner became increasingly anxious and depressed due to his own memories from World War I, left the hiding place and wandered around. The man who housed him once thrust his pipe into Berliner's back and, out of concern for him, pretended to shoot him if he did not return.

Ernst Berliner's sister Auguste, who had temporarily lived with the family in Amsterdam, was murdered in Majdanek on November 30, 1943 . With the exception of one brother, Theodor, the entire von Berliner family - his mother, siblings, nieces and nephews - were killed in concentration and extermination camps . Father Isaac Berliner died in 1939 and is buried in the Jewish cemetery in Cologne-Bocklemünd .

Ernst, Erna and Doris Berliner survived the occupation and moved back to Amsterdam. Although they were Jewish and persecuted, they were classified as "enemy nationals" (vijandelijke onderdanen) and their accounts blocked. Eventually the family emigrated to the United States in 1947 ; before that, Ernst Berliner visited the family from whom he had been hidden. He wrote to Albert Richter's parents: “It is a great loss for you to have to do without Albert now, but also a great loss for Germany, I mean for the free new Germany, because none other than your son Albert would have been better appointed to restore sporting relationships internationally. [...] ”Richter's“ free, anti-fascist view ”is appreciated by racing drivers from other countries. During a visit from Berliner's parents to Richter’s parents, he took papers from the back of their sofa bed, which had been made for him; the judges suspected that these were the plans for the construction of the couches.

In the United States, the Berliners lived in and around New York , then the family moved to Miami. Berliner's only surviving brother, Theodor, whose wife and two small sons had been murdered during the Nazi era, also emigrated to the USA via Shanghai after the war . After Ernst Berliner first found work in a factory, he built up an existence as an upholsterer again and soon managed racing cyclists again, such as the Swiss Hugo Koblet and Walter Diggelmann at their six-day starts in the USA. He also worked as a sports journalist for the German Herold newspaper . Since he spoke four languages ​​- German, English, Dutch and Hebrew - the US American Cycling Federation sent him to meetings of the World Cycling Federation UCI .

Ernst Berliner died in Miami in 1977, seven years after his wife Erna. Doris Berliner, born in 1929, married Markus, died at the age of 80 in California . In the 1990s she returned to Cologne for the first time to be interviewed for research on the book The Forgotten World Champion . Stolpersteine ​​were laid in Cologne for Berliner's sister Rosa Herz and her husband Martin (Friedrichstrasse 40) and for his sister-in-law Meta (Alexianerstr. 34) .

The Death of Albert Richter: Attempts at Enlightenment

In the years after the war, Ernst Berliner repeatedly traveled to his hometown of Cologne, primarily with the aim of investigating the death of his protégé Albert Richter. The daughter of his former racing driver colleague Jean Küster, Barbara Ostertag: “He was obsessed with it.” On December 31, 1939, Richter was at the while trying to bring money to Switzerland for a Jewish friend from Cologne named Schweizer Border arrested. Since, according to eyewitness reports, the customs officers had cut open the tires in which the money was hidden, the suspicion of denunciation was obvious. On January 2, 1940, he was found dead in his prison cell in Lörrach . Officially, it was said that he had committed suicide, but it was suspected that he was murdered by the Gestapo or that he was tortured into suicide.

In letters, Berliner suspected the racing drivers Peter Steffes and Werner Miethe of treason: “The only one other than me who knew that Richter had the amount […] was Peter Steffes, who, in my opinion, passed it on to Miethe out of chatty behavior. […] Steffes […] a former protégé and friend, he was later a traitor to me. I trust him to do the same to his friend Richter. ”During his research, Berliner found out that Miethe was an undercover agent of the Gestapo and that he and Steffes, who now lives on a large scale in Cologne, traded in smuggled goods and Jewish property. In Cologne, however, he received no support in his research, on the contrary: He was blamed for complicity in Richter's death from among the racing cyclists, as it was wrongly assumed that Richter was supposed to smuggle the money for Berliners; Berlin judges had warned against taking the money with them to Switzerland. These allegations made him "almost sick", so Ostertag, but he remained determined to clarify the circumstances of Richter's death.

In February 1966, Ernst Berliner filed a complaint from Miami against unknown persons because of a homicide "to the detriment of former cyclist Albert Richter". He named Peter Steffes as an informer. In November of that year, the responsible criminal investigator in Lörrach determined what had to be clarified: “Murder or forced suicide.” He also suggested more intensive witness surveys, since most of the files in Lörrach no longer existed. The interviewed witnesses could only testify on the basis of hearsay or, if it was a case of cover-up, would have been involved in it themselves. The investigating public prosecutor's office referred to the files from 1939 and 1940, whose findings that Richter had committed suicide without outside influence were confirmed by those involved at the time. On May 15, 1967, the preliminary investigation was closed because the alleged cause of death (death by hanging) was "the most likely".

Movie

2018, the film had leaping from Boaz Kaizman , Peter Rosenthal and Marcus Seibert premiere. The film, in the style of a graphic novel documentary , recreates Berlin's visits to post-war Cologne. The actor Jörg Ratjen gives Berliner a voice. Berlin's great-grandson Sam Alter, who had come to Cologne from the USA, was also involved in the preparations for the film. In October 2018 the film was awarded the Golden Crank at the International Cycling Film Festival in Herne . In addition, the Souvenir Albert Richter Prize was awarded to the best cycling film for the first time at this festival .

literature

Web link

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Berliner (Isidor) - Part 2. In: Joods Monument Zaanstrek. Accessed May 31, 2018 .
  2. ↑ Monika Grübel: Jewish life in the Rhineland. Böhlau Verlag Köln Weimar, 2005, ISBN 978-3-412-11205-9 , p. 175 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  3. ^ Franz, The forgotten world champion , p. 62 f.
  4. ^ Franz, The Forgotten World Champion , p. 60.
  5. ^ A b Franz, The Forgotten World Champion , p. 67.
  6. ↑ Franz, The Forgotten World Champion , p. 65.
  7. ^ Franz, The Forgotten World Champion , p. 105.
  8. ↑ Franz, The Forgotten World Champion , p. 136.
  9. ↑ a b c Berliner (Isidor). In: Joods Monument Zaanstrek. Accessed May 31, 2018 .
  10. ↑ Peter Squatting: Family Isaac Berlin. In: Familienbuch-euregio.de. Retrieved June 2, 2018 . The information on this website differs from information in the book The Forgotten World Champion . They are more current, but also contradicting other information about the Berliner family.
  11. ↑ Peter Squatting: Family Ernst Berlin. In: Familienbuch-euregio.de. Retrieved June 2, 2018 .
  12. ↑ Franz, The Forgotten World Champion , p. 172.
  13. ↑ Franz, The Forgotten World Champion , p. 147.
  14. ^ Berliner (Dorothea). In: Joods Monument Zaanstrek. Retrieved June 2, 2018 .
  15. ↑ Pink heart. In: NS Documentation Center Cologne. Retrieved June 3, 2018 .
  16. ↑ Martin Herz. In: NS Documentation Center Cologne. Retrieved June 3, 2018 .
  17. ^ Meta Reinhard. In: NS Documentation Center Cologne. Retrieved June 3, 2018 .
  18. ↑ Franz, The Forgotten World Champion , p. 142.
  19. ↑ Franz, The Forgotten World Champion , p. 139.
  20. ^ Franz, The Forgotten World Champion , p. 141 f.
  21. ^ Franz, The Forgotten World Champion , p. 153.
  22. ↑ a b Tiger Leaping the Film. In: tigersprung-der-film.de. Retrieved June 2, 2018 .
  23. ↑ "Tiger Leaping" wins the Golden Crank. In: International Cycling Film Festival - press release. October 22, 2018, accessed October 22, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Berliner, Ernst
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Berliner, Ernst Isidor (alternative name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German cyclist and cycling manager
DATE OF BIRTH January 25, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Cologne
DATE OF DEATH 19th August 1977
Place of death Miami