Gerhart M. Riegner

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Grave of Gerhart Moritz Riegner in Geneva

Gerhart Moritz Riegner (born September 12, 1911 in Berlin ; died December 3, 2001 in Geneva ) was a German religious philosopher and Jewish association official.

Life

Riegner grew up as a Jew in Berlin and studied law here as well as in Freiburg, The Hague and Heidelberg. In Berlin in 1933 “Aryan” fellow students threw him out of a window at Berlin University, to which the law professors (with the exception of canon lawyer Rudolf Smend ) and the other fellow students remained silent. During World War II he was the resident of the Geneva Office of the World Jewish Congress (JWK).

Significant reports on the extermination camps come from Riegner, including the so-called Riegner Telegram . It was part of the information network between the JWK, the Czechoslovak government in exile in London, the Jewish communities in Switzerland and other countries and the International Red Cross ( ICRC ). He organized direct help through aid packages for concentration camp prisoners, for Theresienstadt, for example with Portuguese sardines. In 1944 he was one of the organizers of the rescue operations for the Hungarian Jews together with Saly Mayer . It is one of his merits that the ICRC dealt critically with the situation in the camps. Most recently, he managed to ensure that representatives of the ICRC could stay in the camps at all times, which saved the lives of many prisoners.

In the post-war period, he coordinated Jewish emigration from Arab countries and the Soviet Union. From 1965 to 1983 Riegner was general secretary of the JWK. In the Geneva bodies of the UN and UNESCO he participated in the drafting of the human rights convention.

Awards

Fonts

  • The relationship of the Red Cross to Theresienstadt in the final phase of the war. In: Theresienstadt studies and documents. No. 3, 1996.
  • Never Despair - Sixty Years for the Jewish People and Human Rights. Bleicher, Gerlingen 2001, ISBN 3-88350-669-9 .

literature

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.deutsche-biographie.de/pnd122210697.html
  2. ↑ Biography ( Memento from January 8, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ Neues Deutschland , November 9, 1988, p. 2
  4. ^ Honorary doctorates - University of Lucerne. Retrieved July 9, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Riegner, Gerhart M.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Riegner, Gerhart Moritz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German religious philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH September 12, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH December 3, 2001
Place of death Geneva