Georg Hornstein
Georg Hornstein (born December 8, 1900 in Berlin , † September 3, 1942 in Buchenwald concentration camp ) was a German-Jewish resistance fighter during the Nazi era . His commitment to Judaism , which he made in 1942 during one of his interrogations by the Gestapo , was discussed several times in the literature on Jewish resistance to the Nazi regime and is considered to be outstanding.
Life
Georg Hornstein was born as the son of a businessman in Berlin and grew up in Düsseldorf , where his family moved in 1902. In Düsseldorf, his parents ran a shop on the posh Königsallee . Hornstein graduated from high school and attended the Cologne Commercial College for a short time until he volunteered as a volunteer at the end of the First World War in January 1918. He first came to Vienna and served as an ensign in Krakow until his release in November 1918 .
He then continued his studies in Cologne, Paris , London and Buenos Aires and returned to Düsseldorf in 1926. After the takeover of the Nazis Hornstein emigrated to Amsterdam and stood there with a leather shop an existence. When the Spanish Civil War broke out , he volunteered at the recruitment office of the Spanish army in Barcelona . In the fighting around Madrid he was seriously wounded by a shot in the jaw, but from September 1937 he was again active as a liaison officer in Albacete until April 1938 .
He then went back to business in Amsterdam. When the National Socialists occupied the Netherlands during the Second World War in May 1940 , he managed to liquidate his business that same month and buy jewelry and other valuables for the proceeds. However, he was no longer able to leave the Netherlands and flee abroad. Hornstein was arrested by the security police and taken to the Düsseldorf police prison, where he was initially detained and also tortured. During one of his interrogations by the Gestapo in January 1942, Hornstein made a commitment to his Judaism:
“I have German citizenship and, according to the letters of the law, I am a German citizen. As a Jew, however, I have practically lost all rights in Germany and tried to find a new home for myself ... [...] ... As a Jew, I fought for my convictions and my rights to life [in Spain]. Under the circumstances, I no longer consider myself a German citizen and would use every opportunity given to acquire a new citizenship, just as, as a Jew, I would be ready at any time to fight for my rights to life. I don't have to provide any further information. "
Based on the interrogations and assessments of the German rulers at the time, Hornstein was taken into protective custody level three (classified as a "particularly dangerous opponent") with a protective custody order of March 6, 1942 and transferred to the Buchenwald concentration camp, where he arrived on May 7, 1942. There he was under constant observation and was not allowed to be employed in the work of the outside commandos. In the meantime, his mother Hulda Hornstein from Düsseldorf was deported to Theresienstadt on July 21, 1942 .
On September 3, 1942, Georg Hornstein was killed in Buchenwald by members of the SS .
literature
- Hans Erler, Arnold Paucker , Ernst Ludwig Ehrlich (eds.): “Against all futility.” Jewish resistance against National Socialism . Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2003, ISBN 3-593-37362-9 , p. 311.
- Arno Lustiger : To the struggle to the life and death. The Book of the Resistance of the Jews 1933–1945 . Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1994, ISBN 3-462-02292-X , pp. 73-75.
- Konrad Kwiet , Helmut Eschwege : Self-assertion and resistance. German Jews in the struggle for existence and human dignity 1933–1945 . 2nd edition, Hans Christians Verlag, Hamburg 1986 (= Hamburg contributions to social and contemporary history, Vol. 19), ISBN 3-7672-0850-4 , pp. 107-108.
- Joachim Schröder: Searching for traces. The Jewish Spanish fighter Georg Hornstein from Düsseldorf. Biographical sketch and documentation, in: Düsseldorfer Jahrbuch 87 (2017), pp. 295–312.
Individual evidence
- ↑ See e.g. B .: Arno Lustiger : To the struggle to the death. The Book of the Resistance of the Jews 1933–1945 . Kiepenheuer & Witsch , Cologne 1994, p. 74. (Quote: “The following part of the unsung hero Georg Hornstein is the uniquely formulated in this form and under these murderous circumstances a resistance fighter who expresses his readiness at any time for his rights and to fight his dignity as a person and a Jew. ")
- ^ Quote from an interrogation report by the SS, January 24, 1942, Düsseldorf. Excerpts from: Arno Lustiger: For the struggle for life and death. The Book of the Resistance of the Jews 1933–1945 . Cologne 1994, p. 74.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Hornstein, Georg |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German fighters in the Spanish Civil War and victim of National Socialism |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 8, 1900 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Berlin |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 3, 1942 |
| Place of death | Buchenwald concentration camp |