Georg Landauer

Georg Landauer (born November 17, 1895 in Cologne ; died February 5, 1954 in New York ) was a Zionist politician and colonizer .

Georg Landauer (1950)

origin

Landauer's parents were the Jewish Cologne merchant Josua Landauer (d. 1914) and his wife Emilie geb. Salomon (d. 1938), who emigrated to Palestine in 1935 . His paternal grandfather was Rabbi Gabriel Landauer, who had officiated in Korbach and Kassel . Georg Landauer had three sisters: Paula (1890–1968), Ulla (1891–1968) and Helene (1893–1971). From 1923 he himself was married to Lou Levi (* 1897), a photographer from Cologne who became a teacher at an arts and crafts school in Jerusalem after the couple emigrated .

Life

Germany

Landauer, who was a passionate violinist in his youth , loved music and theater. After his Abitur in 1913, he started in Cologne a study of Indo-European Studies . After the outbreak of World War I in 1914, he volunteered for the army. He served on the Eastern Front , where he learned about the living conditions of Jews in Eastern Europe . From 1919 he studied in Bonn and Cologne Law and Economics , and in 1923 received his doctorate he with the work "The existing Jewish minority rights, with particular emphasis in Eastern Europe" for Doctor of Law . He was a member of the Zionist Wanderbund "Blau-Weiß", later in the cartel of Jewish connections . He was one of the founders of the German section of the socialist-Zionist organization " HaPoel HaZair " ("The Young Worker"), which aimed at an understanding with the Arab population of Palestine early on , and when Chaim Arlosoroff went to Palestine in 1920, Landauer became its leader the German section. In 1920/21 he worked professionally as a syndic of an industrial company in Düsseldorf , and in 1923/24 he headed the Berlin branch of the Cologne company Snoek & Moser.

From 1924 he devoted himself only to the Jewish settlement in Palestine . From 1924 to 1925 he was the first head of the Palestine Office in Berlin, the central office for the preparation and implementation of emigration to Palestine. During these two years he made his first trips to the Holy Land . From 1926 to 1929 he worked in Jerusalem under Yosef Sprinzak as secretary of the labor department of the WZO executive , where he was particularly responsible for the settlement of mostly destitute Polish Jews. In 1929 he returned to Germany, where he was again head of the Palestine Office in Berlin from 1929 to 1933 and a member of the executive committee of the Zionist Association for Germany . In 1933 he was one of the co-founders of the Reich Representation of German Jews and the “ Ha'avara ” transfer organization , which enabled Jewish emigrants from Palestine to take part of their property with them despite the currency restrictions in force .

Palestine

On the decision of the 18th Zionist World Congress in Prague in autumn 1933 , Landauer became manager of the Jerusalem office of the Central Bureau for the Settlement of German Jews, the so-called German department of the Jewish Agency for Palestine . Landauer then emigrated to Palestine at the beginning of 1934 and held this position until 1954. He saw his main tasks in the organization and support of the children and youth alijah , the capital transfer of immigrants from Germany and the medium-sized agricultural settlement. His office supported the self-help organizations of the immigrants, as well as the "Rural and Suburban Settlement Company" (Rassco) founded in 1934 on the initiative of the German Department, the purpose of which was to set up agricultural settlements and industrial companies to accept German emigrants, the Palestinian Agricultural Settlement Society PASA founded in 1936 (Palestine Agricultural Settlement Association) and the “ Mekorot ” water supply company founded in 1937 .

Landauer looked after the youth with great commitment. In 1933 he became a co-founder, with Henrietta Szold and Recha Freier , and treasurer of the children and youth Alijah . Against Arthur Ruppin's resistance, he pushed through the immigration of orphaned children and young people. Henrietta Szold headed the office of the child and youth Aliyah attached to the "German Department", while Landauer took care of the organization and financing; so he negotiated u. a. Successful in 1934 in New York for financial support from Hadassah . He and Henrietta Szold brought a total of around 20,000 children and young people into the country in this way.

When the office of the so-called German Department in London was closed after the start of the Second World War, all work fell on the office in Jerusalem, which now also supported immigration from other Central European countries.

Landauer was one of the Zionists who, in the spirit of the German section of HaPoel HaZair, strived for a harmonious coexistence with the Arabs, but had to learn that every new wave of Jewish immigration provoked resistance on the Arab side. Trusting in the balancing power of Great Britain in the Jewish-Arab conflict of interests, he campaigned for the continuation of the British League of Nations mandate for Palestine . The claim propagated by David Ben-Gurion at the Biltmore Conference in May 1942 that the British-controlled Palestine should become Jewish property, he rigorously rejected, since the aim was to establish a Jewish state and thereby perpetuate the conflict with the Arabs would have. With Max Kreutzberger he remained a proponent of a bi-national state. In 1942 he was one of the founders of the "Aliyah Chadascha" ("New Immigration"), which was the third largest party in the 1944 elections for the 4th Assembly of the Parliament of Palestine at the time of the mandate with 18 of 171 members. Landauer was its spokesman in the Jewish National Council (JNC) ( Hebrew ) from 1942 to 1948, when Palestine was divided and the State of Israel was proclaimed and the Aliyah Chadascha broke up over it and was largely absorbed into the Progressive Party ועד לאומי, Wa'ad Le'umi ). He himself became and remained a member of the Central Committee of the Mapai Workers' Party and the Executive Committee of the General Hebrew Union of Histadrut until 1953 .

Israel

Landauer made great contributions to the so-called reparation after the war . As early as 1943, when Siegfried Moses, in his article The Compensation Demands of the Jews in the newsletter of Irgun Olej Merkas Europa, coined and legally substantiated the term compensation in relation to claims of Jewish citizens against the German state, Landauer encouraged the collection of materials for future compensation claims against Germany on. In 1945 he participated in the founding of the "Council of Jews from Germany". When the Jewish Agency set up an office in Munich to process reparation claims in 1946, Landauer became its head. In 1947 he was again actively supported by Max Kreutzberger, head of the department for the restitution of German-Jewish property at the Jewish Agency. In this position he led u. a. the first talks with West German government agencies about global compensation, which led to the Luxembourg Agreement in September 1952 .

At the same time, he was chairman of the Irgun Olej Merkas Europa , the aid organization for immigrants from Central Europe, member of the Central Committee of the Mapai, member of the executive committee of the Histradut and board member of both the Palestinian Agricultural Settlement Society, PASA, founded in 1936, and the water company Mekorot, until 1953 .

United States

Disappointed with the political development, he turned to charitable and social tasks again in his last years, in particular the restitution and compensation claims of the Holocaust victims and their heirs. He cultivated his linguistic and cultural-historical interests, often traveled to Paris, which he loved, and finally moved to New York in May 1953. He died there in February 1954.

Fonts (selection)

• The current Jewish minority law: with special consideration of Eastern Europe. BG Teubner (Sources and Studies. 1st Department, Law and Economics (Eastern European Institute in Breslau); Issue 9), Leipzig, 1924.
• (Ed.): Palestine: 300 pictures. Meyer & Jessen, Munich, 1925.
• (Ed.): Palestine, 188 pictures along with an overview map and a description in four languages. Berlin: Jewish Book Association, Berlin, 1935.
• Yishuv, World Judaism and Zionism: Lecture given at the Hogoa Landtag in Kfar Shmarjahu on October 31, 1942. Aliyah Chadascha, Tel Aviv, 1942.
• Between Two Revolutions: Zionist Considerations on Some Issues of the Transitional Period. Hitachduth Olej Germania we Olej Austria, Tel Aviv, 1942.
• Aliyah chadasha: a new political formation. Bitaon, Tel Aviv, 1944.
• Aliya hadasha: a new political grouping. Bitaon, Tel Aviv, 1944.
• Problems of the transition period: new tasks and new ways of democracy: Presentation given at the second state conference of Aliyah Chadasha. Bitaon, Tel Aviv, 1945.
• A call to the Yishuv. Jewish Agency for Palestine, Department for Child and Youth Immigration, Jerusalem, [1947?].
• Zionism in the course of three decades (Selected Writings). Edited and introduced by Max Kreutzberger. Bitaon, Tel Aviv, 1957.

literature

• Franz Menges: Landauer, Georg. In: New German Biography. 13 (1982), pp. 489-491 [online version]; URL: [1]
• Werner Röder, Herbert A. Strauss (ed.): Biographical manual of German-speaking emigration after 1933. Politics, economy, public life. (Institute for Contemporary History Munich and Research Foundation for Jewish Immigration New York.) KG Saur, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-598-10087-6 , pp. 413-414.
• Max Kreutzberger: Georg Landauer: His world of ideas and his work. In: Max Kreutzberger (Ed.): Georg Landauer. Zionism in the course of three decades. Tel Aviv 1957.
• Barbara von der Lühe: The music was our salvation! The German-speaking founding members of the Palestine Orchestra. (Series of scientific papers by the Leo Baeck Institute Jerusalem No. 58) JVB Mohr (Paul Siebeck), Tübingen 1998, pp. 126–127.
• Landauer, Georg , in: Joseph Walk (ed.): Short biographies on the history of the Jews 1918–1945 . Munich: Saur, 1988, ISBN 3-598-10477-4 , p. 213

Remarks

1. ^ Suska Döpp: Jewish youth movement in Cologne 1906–1938. Lit Verlag, Münster 1997, ISBN 3-8258-3210-4 , p. 64 ff.
2. ↑ Chairman of the German Department, which had offices in London and Jerusalem, was Chaim Weizmann until 1939 . Arthur Ruppin was the nominal head of the Jerusalem office, which opened in October 1933, until his death in 1943 .
3. ↑ jta.org
4. ↑ Barbara von der Lühe: Music was our salvation! The German-speaking founding members of the Palestine Orchestra. (Series of scientific papers by the Leo Baeck Institute Jerusalem No. 58) JVB Mohr (Paul Siebeck), Tübingen 1998, pp. 126–127.
5. ↑ The name in Latin letters from 1932 to 1939 was Hitachduth Olej Germania ( Hebrew הִתְאַחְדוּת עוֹלֵי גֶּרְמַנְיָה Hit'achdūt ʿŌlej Germanjah , German 'Vereinigung der Olim Deutschlands' , HOG; as in the title of Hitachduth Olej Germania's bulletin ), between 1940 and 1942 Hitachdut Olej Germania we Austria ( Hebrew הִתְאַחְדוּת עוֹלֵי גֶּרְמַנְיָה וְאוֹסְטְרִיָה Hit'achdūt ʿŌlej Germanjah we-Ōsṭrijah , German 'Association of Olim Germany and Austria' , acronym: HOGoA; see. Bulletin of Hitachdut Olej Germania we Austria ), then from 1943 to 2006 Irgun Olej Merkas Europa ( Hebrew אִרְגּוּן עוֹלֵי מֶרְכַּז אֵירוֹפָּה Irgūn ʿŌlej Merkaz Ejrōpah , German 'Organization of the Olim Central Europe' ; as in their organ: MB - weekly newspaper of Irgun Olej Merkas Europe ), since then the association has been called the Association of Israelis of Central European Origin ( Hebrew אִרְגּוּן יוֹצְאֵי מֶרְכַּז אֵירוֹפָּה Irgūn Jōtz'ej Merkaz Ejrōpah , German 'Organization of those from Central Europe' ; see. Title of its organ Yakinton / MB: Bulletin of the Association of Israelis of Central European Origin ).