Hans W. Hertz

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Hans Wilhelm Hertz (born March 24, 1903 in Hamburg ; † August 16, 1993 there ) was a German lawyer , genealogist and monument protector .

Life

Hans W. Hertz was a son of the lawyer Wilhelm Hertz (1873-1939), who was the first youth judge in Hamburg and worked from 1923 to 1933 as director of the youth authority. After attending the boys' preschool with Gustav Bertram Thoma from 1909 to 1912, he switched to the Heinrich-Hertz-Gymnasium , which he left with the Abitur. He studied law and history at universities in Heidelberg, Munich and Hamburg from 1921 to 1925 in the summer of 1926 with the first state examination in law. He then worked as a trainee lawyer in Hamburg until 1930 and passed the second state examination in the same year. He then switched to the state service of the City of Hamburg as an assessor on probation. He initially worked for the Hamburger Feuerkasse , later in particular for the State Archives . Here he wrote legal reports that quickly earned him reputation.

Hertz's work at the State Archives ended with the seizure of power . According to the law for the restoration of the civil service , he was considered a "full Aryan", but had a great-grandfather named Adolph Jacob Hertz (1800–1866), who was of Jewish faith. After an anonymous report of this matter to Curt Rothenberger , proceedings lasted for almost a year. In the meantime, Hertz joined the National Socialist Lawyers' Association, presumably because of this process . In addition, he created a list for the archive with archival holdings on the history of Judaism in the city, which was intended for an expert on racial research in the Reich Ministry of the Interior . Due to his probationary period, his employment with the State Archives ended on July 30, 1934, formally due to general cuts in civil servant positions.

Pillow stone (right below the column) for “Hans Wilhelm Hertz”, family grave, Ohlsdorf cemetery

In the same year, Hertz filed an application for registration as a lawyer. He dealt in particular with basic research and negotiations with authorities that were necessary due to the parentage certificates to be provided. The judicial authorities mistakenly regarded him as a “non-Aryan” and therefore refused him a license as a notary in 1935 and 1936. Since there was a shortage of staff after the outbreak of World War II , he got a job as assistant judge at the district court in 1940. In 1943 he was dismissed due to "unreliability". He then worked as a notary representative in the prestigious law firm Bartels, Crasemann and Biermann-Ratjen and was licensed as a notary in 1946. Since that year he has been working on a private assignment for the State Archives within the framework of precisely defined tasks. In 1973 he retired. Henning Voscherau took over his office .

In the area of ​​the Adolph Hertz family grave , Ohlsdorf cemetery in Hamburg, grid square Y 11 (south of the north pond ), there is a pillow stone for “Hans Wilhelm Hertz”.

Working in monument protection

In addition to his work as a notary, Hertz has been concerned with the material transmission of Hamburg's history and its security since the 1920s. Since 1924 he was a member of the Association for Hamburg History . In 1934 he first appeared in public as a monument protector when the Dammtor cemeteries were closed. Hertz was committed to 250 gravestones of well-known Hamburg personalities that were brought to the Ohlsdorf cemetery . This created an open-air museum for tombs and the Althamburg Memorial Cemetery. He also campaigned for the preservation of tombstones from the Mennonite cemetery in Altona, which was cleared in 1936, and the Jewish cemetery in Glückstadt . From 1939 to 1941 he was able to save historically significant gravestones from the Ottensen Jewish cemetery , which can now be found in the Ohlsdorf Jewish cemetery .

In 1939, Hertz, together with Leo Lippmann and Max Plaut , decided to photograph all gravestones in Jewish cemeteries. Since 1943 he has worked extensively with the Reich Institute for the History of the New Germany to “secure the historical and anthropological material of the Jewish cemeteries in Germany”. The questionable cooperation earned him the support of the SS; a collaboration with the preservationist Hans Bahn gave him an official contract. By the end of the war, they photographed around 16,000 graves. Hertz was able to complete the project, which was subsequently interrupted, between 1954 and 1960.

After the end of the war, Hertz was said to have played a leading role in the relocation of graves from the Jewish cemetery on Grindel to Ohlsdorf. In fact, he had little part in it. In addition, in 1938/39 he made a significant contribution to bringing the archives of the Jewish communities from Altona, Hamburg, Harburg and Wandsbek to the Hamburg State Archives and thus protecting them from being brought to Berlin. There is no evidence for this either; it would not have been necessary to transport the holdings since the documents came to Berlin in film.

After Operation Gomorrah , Hertz began in the winter of 1943, together with the Patriotic Society , to store important, privately owned cultural assets in a bunker . He also asked Hellmuth Becker to protect important church furnishings and museum pieces and art in public buildings in the same way. Until April 1945 he cooperated with the architects Hopp & Jäger and deployed prisoners of war.

After the end of the war, Hertz continued to be involved in the protection of monuments and cultural assets. Based on the employment contract, he arranged the documents of the Jewish and Mennonite communities in the state archive. He also sorted and expanded the holdings of the Hamburg City Hall's picture collection . At the request of the Hamburg Senate, he took part in the specialist committee for structural design of the Lichtwark committee in 1948. In 1958 he worked in the regional committee of experts for archived material. From 1946 to 1973 he was a member of the Hamburg Monument Council, which he chaired in 1971.

Hertz continued to work together with the Patriotic Society in 1943. From 1946 to 1959 he was a secretary of their board, from 1960 to 1962 the advisory board and from 1962 as an elder again on the board. In 1958 he co-founded the culture commission in the organization, which he chaired from 1962. In 1984 he campaigned for a working group to be founded for monument protection.

In 1953, Hertz founded a working group to research the history of Hamburg's Jews. Together with the chairman Fritz Fischer , Jacob Jacobson , Jürgen Bolland , a working group was created that developed into the Institute for the History of German Jews . Hertz raised the necessary funds and was a member of the institute's board of trustees from 1966.

Honors

Hertz received numerous honors for his work. In addition to an honorary doctorate from the University of Hamburg in 1984, these included:

literature

personal data
SURNAME Hertz, Hans W.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hertz, Hans Wilhelm (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer, genealogist and monument protector
DATE OF BIRTH March 24, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH August 16, 1993
Place of death Hamburg