Jewish community of Laupheim
The Jewish community in Laupheim in Oberschwaben was established in 1724 by the settlement of several Jewish families from Illereichen and Buchau . In the middle of the 19th century it was the largest Jewish community in what was then the Kingdom of Württemberg . The community died out in the course of the persecution of the Jews during the National Socialist era .
history
18th to 20th century
The community goes back to some Jewish families from Illereichen and Buchau , who were settled in Laupheim in 1724 by imperial baron Damian Karl Franz Anton von Welden as protective Jews to revitalize the Laupheim market. The patron supported the building of houses for the first protective Jewish families, allowed with a few exceptions the trade in goods of all kinds and obliged Jews to wear special hats and clothes. As a Jewish settlement, an almost rectangular ghetto was built on the Judenberg in the northeast of Laupheim, separated from the market town , whose main street (the former Kapellengasse ) was soon called Judengasse . A first prayer room was set up in one of the houses made available by the rulers , and a Jewish cemetery was laid out in the northeast of the settlement .
After 1730, other Jewish families from Fellheim , Fischach and other places moved here. The first protection treaty of 1730 was 1,734 from the front Austrian Lehenhof in Freiburg confirmed and extended in 1754 to 30 years. At that time, the community already had 27 families. The next time the contract was extended in 1784 there were already 40. Since 1771 there was a synagogue on the Judenberg , which was replaced in 1822 by a new building elsewhere in the Jewish quarter .
The Jewish community was headed by two Parnassim elected by the community , who appointed rabbis , cantors and teachers. Rabbis, cantors and Schammes could be accepted beyond the agreed number of protected Jews without any obligation to pay protection. Parnassim and rabbis had limited minor jurisdiction over the Jewish community.
The community grew rapidly from the late 18th century to the middle of the 19th century and developed into the largest Jewish community in Württemberg . Laupheim had the highest number of Jewish residents around 1869 (the year the city was raised) with 843 people. After that, however, the size of the community decreased continuously due to emigration to cities such as Stuttgart , Ulm or Munich as well as emigration, especially to America. In 1900 there were still 443 people out of a total population of 7,319 inhabitants. In 1933, 235 Jewish residents were still registered.
Until the Wuerttemberg law on the public relations of Israelite co-religionists of April 25, 1828, Jews in Wuerttemberg were forbidden to pursue academic, manual and agricultural professions. After that, a career-finding program was launched, which was supposed to bring Jews into skilled trades, but the Laupheim Jews still lived mainly from trade until the middle of the 19th century . In 1856 there were 32 cattle and horse dealers and 57 peddlers . In the second half of the 19th century, some Jews from Laupheim later founded important companies such as the hair factory Josef Bergmann & Co. , the Laupheimer Werkzeugfabrik AG , the boys' clothing factory E. Heumann , the Heumann bank , the later Volksbank Laupheim and the hop wholesaler Simon H. Steiner . The economic power of these companies was so great that Jews were the city's main taxpayers until 1933. From 1867 Jews were represented in the Laupheim municipal council, they were also involved in local associations and made foundations for the common good, regardless of their denomination . The relationship between Jews and Christians before 1933 is described as amicable.
List of those killed in action in World War I.
The Jewish community in Laupheim suffered the following casualties after the First World War :
- Manfred Bernheimer (born January 26, 1894 in Laupheim; † July 24, 1915)
- Max Louis Einstein (born July 13, 1896 in Laupheim; † August 23, 1918)
- Private Fritz Kaufmann (born May 19, 1896 in Frankfurt am Main; † July 3, 1915)
- Leo Lewin (born October 10, 1882 in Schwetz; † October 9, 1915)
- Lieutenant Heinrich Steiner (born April 14, 1895 in Laupheim, † April 25, 1918)
- Private Jakob Weiler (born May 3, 1896 in Laupheim, † November 17, 1916).
- Sergeant Julius Regensteiner (born January 27, 1897 in Laupheim, † September 25, 1915).
time of the nationalsocialism
The community died out in the course of the persecution of the Jews in Württemberg at the time of National Socialism . The first riots took place on April 1, 1933, when the shop windows of the Einstein department store were thrown in during the “ Jewish boycott ”. Jewish companies, factories and shops fell victim to " Aryanization " by the end of 1938 ; the synagogue burned down during the 1938 Reichspogromnacht . In 1939 the Jewish religious community was dissolved. Those Jews who had not emigrated were moved from the Jewish quarter to barracks in the Wendelinsgrube after the outbreak of World War II, while the former Jewish quarter was occupied by the former barracks residents. Later forcibly resettled Jews from Stuttgart and other places were quartered in the barracks settlement. In the course of the deportation of German Jews in 1941 and 1942, over 60 Jews from Laupheim were deported to the Jungfernhof , Theresienstadt , Izbica and Auschwitz camps. None of these survivors returned to Laupheim.
Demographic statistics
In the middle column, the table shows the absolute share of the Jewish population in relation to the respective year. The percentage is related to the total population of the city of Laupheim. In 1856 almost a quarter of the city's residents (22.6%) belonged to the Jewish denomination.
| year | Resident of the Jewish denomination | Percent of the total population |
|---|---|---|
| 1807 | 270 | 13.3% |
| 1824 | 464 | 17.3% |
| 1831 | 548 | 18.2% |
| 1846 | 759 | 21.7% |
| 1856 | 796 | 22.6% |
| 1869 | 843 | 21.1% |
| 1886 | 570 | 12.6% |
| 1900 | 443 | 9.1% |
| 1910 | 348 | 6.4% |
| 1933 | 235 | 4.5% |
| 1943 | 0 | 0.0% |
Laupheim rabbi
| year | Surname | Details |
|---|---|---|
| c. 1745 – c.1760 | Jacob Bear (Beer) | from Fellheim near Memmingen |
| 1763-1804 | Maier Laemmle | unknown |
| 1804-1824 | David Levi | possibly from Schnaitheim, today part of Heidenheim an der Brenz |
| 1825-1835 | Salomon Aquarius | (1780 in Oberdorf –1859 in Lauchheim ) previously rabbi in Ansbach , then rabbi in Bad Mergentheim until 1855 |
| 1835-1852 | Jakob Kauffmann | (1783 in Berlichingen –1852 in Laupheim) previously rabbi in Weikersheim and Bad Buchau |
| 1852-1876 | Abraham woods | (1809 in Rexingen –1876 in Laupheim) previously rabbi in Berlichingen |
| 1877-1892 | Ludwig Kahn | (1845 in Baisingen –1914 in Heidelberg ) previously rabbi of the Heilbronn Jewish community |
| 1895-1922 | Dr. Leopold Treitel | (1845 in Breslau –1931 in Laupheim) previously rabbi in Karlsruhe ; Jewish school |
Jewish buildings
| Building name | Use or image | Location and year of construction |
|---|---|---|
| Red Ox Inn | The inn built in 1776, originally the Schildwirtschaft Daniel Leopold Einstein, is now the restored Hotel Rother Ochsen. At that time the meeting point for the liberal public and associations such as the Concordia reading club, the Frohsinn Jewish choral society and the cycling club. Carl Laemmle stopped here on visits to his home country. | |
| Gasthof Zum Kronprinzen | Kosher inn in Laupheim | Opened in 1842 by Kronprinzenwirt Rödelheimer in Kapellenstrasse. Hall with space for weddings, Purim balls and bar mitzvah celebrations. 1935 " Aryanization " and renaming to Deutsches Haus . Family emigrated to Palestine. |
| Gasthaus Zum Rad | 1823 still dance hall and Jewish school. Later, the Laupheim tool factory was founded there by Joseph Steiner & Sons. | |
| Gasthof Zur Sonne | Former mikveh | The inn with a mikveh in the basement of the building was located below the castle hill from 1789 to 1971. |
| Jewish cemetery with a war memorial | War memorial from 1922 based on a design by Friedrich Adler for eight Jewish sons of Laupheim, killed in the First World War for the German fatherland. 1000 tombstones, the oldest from 1740. | |
| Baptist Church building (today) | synagogue | At the corner of Synagogenweg Bronnerstraße was the single-nave synagogue built in 1822, which was burned down and demolished in 1938. |
| Carl Laemmle's birthplace | Radstrasse 9 was inhabited by the Baruch Lämmles family, who were merchants, realtors and father of Laupheim's most famous son. | |
| Hertha Einstein-Nathorff's birthplace | Residential and commercial building | In 1872 Arthur and Mathilde Einstein erected the building on Marktplatz 4. It housed Arthur Einstein's cigar shop. The couple died in 1940. |
| Einstein department store | Erected in 1909 by the businessman Daniel Einstein. In 1938 the department store was "aryanized" and the owner was imprisoned in the Dachau concentration camp. He was able to emigrate to Switzerland in 1940. | |
| Textile dealer Max Bach | Living u. Warehouse | Rebuilt in 1909 in Kapellenstrasse with a four-storey gable facade and geometric stucco fields. |
| Business building of the Adler family | Built in 1905 by master confectioner Isidor Adler in Kapellenstrasse. Today there is the beautiful Cafe Hermes. | |
| Villa Bergmann | Built in 1911 by Marco Bergmann on Ulmer Strasse. In 1939 the company was "Aryanized" and all members of the family were able to flee abroad. |
Personalities
The most famous Jews from Laupheim include:
- Kilian von Steiner (1833–1903), who as a banker was involved in the founding of several important German banks
- Carl Laemmle (1867–1939), who emigrated from Laupheim to North America in 1884 and is considered the founder of Hollywood
- Simon H. Steiner , Laupheim hop wholesaler
- Siegfried Einstein (1919–1983), narrator, poet, essayist, journalist
- Gretel Bergmann (1914–2017), German-Jewish high jumper
- Heinz Säbel (1912–1986) was the last teacher at the Israelite elementary school in Laupheim
literature
- Paul Sauer : The Jewish communities in Württemberg and Hohenzollern. Monuments, history, fates . Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1966 ( Publications of the Baden-Württemberg State Archives Administration . Volume 18).
- Nathanja Hüttenmeister : The Jewish cemetery in Laupheim. A documentation , Laupheim 1998.
- Heinz Säbel: One hundred years of the Laupheim synagogue
- Cornelia Hecht (ed.): The deportation of the Jews from Laupheim. An annotated collection of documents , C. Hecht, Herrenberg, 2004, ISBN 978-3-00-013113-4
Web links
- Sabine Maucher: The Laupheim November Pogrom 1938
- Dr. Antje Köhlerschmidt and Karl Neidlinger (editing and publishing): The Jewish community of Laupheim and its destruction
Individual evidence
- ↑ Publications of the State Archives Administration Baden-Württemberg Vol. 18: The Jewish communities in Württemberg and Hohenzollern (1966) p. 118
- ↑ Baden-Württemberg State Statistical Office [1] ; Kurt Diemer: Laupheim. City history , pp. 215, 239, 292, 450.
