Helmut Goldschmidt

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Helmut Goldschmidt (born October 16, 1918 in Magdeburg ; † August 6, 2005 in Cologne ) was a German architect and gained notoriety as a builder of synagogues in Germany.

Life

Helmut Goldschmidt grew up in Cologne during the Weimar Republic . Due to the racial laws of the National Socialists , as a Jew, after 1933 he was unable to learn his dream job as an architect. He attended lectures at the university under a different name and trained with several architects. Both became impossible from 1941 onwards. Goldschmidt was finally arrested and first deported to Auschwitz and then to the Buchenwald concentration camp .

After the liberation by the Americans in May 1945, Goldschmidt opened his first architectural office in Mayen (Eifel). With the reconstruction of the Israelite Asylum on Ottostraße in Cologne-Neuehrenfeld , he got his first big order in 1948. He finally moved to Cologne in 1950. He worked with Oswald Mathias Ungers as a partner for four years . Joint buildings during this period are the Jobi clothing factory on Aachener Strasse in Cologne-Braunsfeld and the “Moulin Rouge” on Maastrichter Strasse in Cologne.

Grave of the Goldschmidt family in the Bocklemünd Jewish cemetery

However, the autodidact Helmut Goldschmidt gained national fame as the architect of several synagogues and Jewish community centers. Under his direction, the Jewish community centers in Koblenz (1950), Dortmund (1956), Bonn , Münster (both 1959/60), Wuppertal (1962) and Mönchengladbach (1967), but also buildings such as the Dr.-Ernst-Schwering -Seniorenzentrum in Cologne-Sülz.

On the initiative of Konrad Adenauer , he became the architect for the reconstruction of the Cologne synagogue in Roonstrasse, which Pope Benedict XVI. Visited in August 2005.

Goldschmidt died in 2005 at the age of 86 and was buried in the family grave in the Jewish cemetery in Cologne-Bocklemünd (hall 12 no. 11).

literature

  • Ruth Mader: "We exchanged horse manure for stones". The Jewish architect Helmut Goldschmidt and the reconstruction of Mayen . In: Mayener contributions to local history . No. 10. 2001, pp. 63-79

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Goldschmidt, Helmut
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German architect
DATE OF BIRTH October 16, 1918
PLACE OF BIRTH Magdeburg
DATE OF DEATH August 6, 2005
Place of death Cologne