Jacob Wolff

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The George Castle in Hamburg Spaldingstraße in 1910 as a tobacco factory and warehouses for L. Wolff built. Towards the end of the Second World War, the building temporarily served as a subcamp Hammerbrook .

Jacob Wolff (* 21st March 1869 ; † 4. December 1926 ) was a German producer of Jewish origin, owner of the cigar factory L. Wolff in Hamburg (not to be confused with the Berlin company Loeser & Wolff ) and fighter pilot in the First World War . He was the recipient of several war awards, including the Iron Cross 2nd and 1st class. His company was considered socially progressive and employed around 4,000 people.

Life

Wolff's father was the Jewish cigar manufacturer Levy (Louis) Wolff, who had made it from simple cigar worker to factory owner within a few years. Jacob Wolff attended the secondary school of Dr. Wichard Lange and probably completed a business apprenticeship.

With the aim of becoming a reserve officer, Wolff began his military service in 1890 as a one-year volunteer in the Royal Bavarian 11th Infantry Regiment "von der Tann" . Despite excellent assessments and exemplary performance during his training and the following exercises, Wolff was not considered in the selection of the officers. Without naming the reasons, he was removed from the list of applicants. The reason for this was his Jewish descent and the unsuitable origin of his parents. His experiences were published in 1904 in the magazine Im deutscher Reich using testimonials and letters in anonymized form .

In 1891 Jacob and his brother Eduard became partners in their father's cigar factory, and a few years later their youngest brother Wilhelm. L.Wolff developed under the leadership of the brothers into one of the best-known and best-selling cigar brands in the German Empire. Further factories were built in North Hesse and Thuringia and in 1910, the St. Georgsburg headquarters in Hamburg was opened in the Hammerbrook district . Jacob Wolff left the company in 1908. Although he remained a shareholder, he went into business for himself with Hamburger-Cigarren-Handels AG (HACIFA) and took care of the distribution of the cigars.

Aviation career in the First World War

As a result of his military service experience, Wolff was a staunch pacifist in the period before World War I and supported the peace movement financially. Wolff saw himself as a monist and a free thinker . He had resigned from the synagogue association in 1912, but not from other Jewish associations.

When the war began in 1914, he was disappointed by the ineffectiveness of the peace roll calls in the run-up to the First World War. Because of his age and his position as a major industrialist, Wolff was actually released from military service as indispensable, but on August 2, 1914, he volunteered for the army at the Hamburg district command and was rejected because of his age. Thereupon he got involved in the Hamburg war volunteer welfare organization, which took care of the pre-military training of the prospective recruits in order to make good use of the waiting time until the draft.

Dissatisfied with his situation, he took flight lessons from Karl Caspar in Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel at his own expense and volunteered with the aviation replacement department in Berlin-Adlershof in the spring of 1915, together with an airplane he had procured himself . Impressed by his demeanor, he was allowed to go and he was accepted into the air force in his old rank as Vice Sergeant.

He was transferred to Fighter Aviation Division I in Mannheim . From there he came to the Verdun front to the field aviation department in Cunel and was deployed as a restricted aviator, where he was supposed to prevent French airmen from penetrating the hinterland. Due to a navigation error and the subsequent crash landing, Wolff was withdrawn from the front again. Transferred to the stage, he managed to save a comrade from drowning while visiting a swimming pool. The commanding general not only honored him for the act, but also rehabilitated him as an aviator. As a result, he was transferred to the battle squadron in Metz-Frescaty , which was later renamed Jagdstaffel 17 . He first flew Fokker E.III monoplane , later Albatros D.III biplane . His teammates included Julius Buckler , Bruno Loerzer and Hermann Göring .

After successful deployment and kills enemy fliers you gave him in 1916 the pilot badge and a year later the "honor cup for the winner in aerial combat," as well as the Iron Cross II. And First Class. On May 6, 1917, he was promoted to lieutenant in the Landwehr, more than 20 years after he was denied access as an infantryman. On his last flight to the front on July 27, 1917, he fell seriously wounded near the front line and was taken to the hospital. In 1918, Wolff returned to Hamburg, recovered, into civilian life. He had always refused a conversion to the Christian faith, which his superiors had suggested to him several times in order to accelerate his career as an officer.

Since September 1917 he was engaged to the gardener's daughter Elsa Schirmer, whom he married the following year. The marriage had three children. Wolff succumbed to the consequences of a serious motorcycle accident in the summer of 1926 in December 1926. His widow was married to the shipowner John T. Essberger for the second time .

Awards

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hartmut John: The Resserveoffizierskorps in the German Empire 1890-1914. A socio-historical contribution to the investigation of the social militarization in Wilhelminian Germany . Campus Verlag, Frankfurt / New York 1981, p. 201-202 .
  2. ↑ Anonymous: A German reserve officer aspirant of the Jewish faith . In: In the German Empire . No. 9 , 1904, pp. 459-465 .
  3. ^ Rita Bake: Elsa Wolff-Essberger. In: Database of women's biographies in Hamburg. Retrieved June 5, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Wolff, Jacob
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German entrepreneur and fighter pilot
DATE OF BIRTH March 21, 1869
DATE OF DEATH 4th December 1926