Elise Höfler

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Elise Höfler (* 1912 in Ramsen SH ; † 1991 ) and her husband Josef were honored as Righteous Among the Nations . They lived in the Swiss-German border area near Konstanz .

Life

Elise Höfler was born in Ramsen, Switzerland. It was there that she met the German Josef Höfler, who was born in Bietingen on September 25, 1911 and who was trained as a blacksmith . The two married and moved to Gottmadingen . The couple had a daughter.

Josef Höfler initially worked as a locksmith and from 1941 at the Singen aluminum works , which is why he was not drafted into military service during the Second World War .

Escape aid Berlin - Switzerland

As a patient of the village doctor in Ramsen, she met his deputy, the Jewish doctor Nathan Wolf, who had fled from Germany . It was presumably through him that the contact with Luise Meier , who had started in 1942 to help German Jews to flee to Switzerland, came about. Over time, Luise Meier and the couple Josef Höfler and Elise Höfler formed a network that succeeded in bringing around 28 Jews across the green border into Switzerland between 1943 and 1944. Lotte Kahle's escape was organized like this: On the train with a forged passport accompanied by Luise Meier from Berlin to Singen. Picked up there in the evening by master electrician Willy Vorwalder. He walked about 100 meters ahead with a lit cigarette as a guide through the forest to Gottmadingen. Lotte Kahle spent the night in cramped conditions in a double bed with Josef and Luise Höfler. The crossing over the green border was disguised as a Sunday walk to Randegg . Lotte Kahle and Josef Höfler separated from the group. Josef Höfler led Kahle to a clearing through which she could get into the canton of Schaffhausen. Höfler repeatedly varied the escape routes. So he showed z. B. Kahles later husband, Herbert A. Strauss , the way across the open fields at Spiesshof across the border.

Arrest / escape

In May 1944, a woman was arrested who wanted to flee with another Jew, but had attracted attention because of her large luggage. She revealed the names of her escape helpers. Luise Meier and Josef Höfler were arrested on May 24, 1944. As a Swiss citizen and thanks to her local knowledge, Elise Höfler was able to escape secretly with her daughter at Buch SH in Switzerland one day later and lived with her parents in Ramsen in the canton of Schaffhausen until the end of the war, tolerated by the Swiss authorities . SS members moved into the Höfler's house .

There was no trial against Luise Meier and Josef Höfler after the case was submitted to the People's Court in July 1944 and the investigation was completed in January 1945. The files burned in February 1945 in the bombing of the People's Court. Josef Höfler was liberated in mid-May 1945.

Return to Gottmadingen

In June 1945 the Höflers got their house back, which had been plundered. They were compensated for it only after years. After the end of the war, the Höfler family could easily continue to live in Gottmadingen. Josef Höfler worked as a postman and was a co-founder of the local SPD association. Elise Höfler died in 1991, her husband on January 1, 1994.

Rescued refugees

  • Lotte Kahle, later married Lotte Strauss
  • Herbert A. Strauss , founder of the Berlin Center for Research on Antisemitism

Honors

  • In 1984 Josef Höfler received the Federal Cross of Merit .
  • In 2001 Elise Höfler, her husband and Luise Meier were posthumously honored as Righteous Among the Nations. At the ceremony, the couple's daughter, Gertrud Eisele, accepted the certificates and medals.

See also

Singen escape route

literature

  • Meier, Luise; Höfler, Josef; Höfler, Elise . In: Daniel Fraenkel, Jackob Borut (Ed.): Lexicon of the Righteous Among the Nations. Germans and Austrians . Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2005, pp. 194–195 ISBN 3-89244-900-7
  • Claudia Schoppmann : Switzerland as an escape destination. The aid network around Luise Meier and Josef Höfler. In: Wolfgang Benz (Hrsg.): Survival in the Third Reich. Jews in the underground and their helpers. CH Beck, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-406-51029-9 , pp. 205-219
  • Klaus A. Heiliger: Rescuers and Rescued - Refugee Help for Jews in the Gottmadingen border area during the Second World War by Josef and Elise Höfler and others , lecture at the Friends of Culture and Local History Gottmadingen on March 14, 2003.
  • Claudia Schoppmann: Luise Meier (1885-1979) and Josef Höfler (1911-1994) - escape aid between Berlin and Singen. In: Angela Borgstedt et al. (Ed.): Courage proven. Resistance biographies from the southwest (= writings on political regional studies of Baden-Württemberg , published by the State Center for Political Education Baden-Württemberg, vol. 46), Stuttgart 2017, ISBN 9783945414378 , pp. 239–248.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Her name is in the garden of the righteous . In: Südkurier from September 6, 2002
  2. ↑ a b Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe (ed.): Baden and Europe 1918 to 2000 , p. 30
  3. ^ Carsten Arbeiter: Small people as great heroes. In: Südkurier from April 4, 2015. A detailed description of this border crossing with the help of the Höfler couple can be found in: Lotte Strauss (née Kahle), Over the green hill - memories of Germany , Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-926893-37- 0 , pp. 155-168.
  4. ↑ Josef Höfler (born 1911 - died 1994) .
  5. ↑ Herbert A. Strauss, Over the Abyss - A Jewish Youth in Germany 1918-1943 , Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-548-33238-2 , pp. 333-335.
  6. ^ Carsten Arbeiter: Small people as great heroes. In: Südkurier from April 4, 2015.
  7. ^ Carsten Arbeiter: Small people as great heroes. In: Südkurier from April 4, 2015.
  8. ↑ [1]
  9. ^ Carsten Arbeiter: Small people as great heroes. In: Südkurier from April 4, 2015.
personal data
SURNAME Höfler, Elise
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss-German Righteous Among the Nations
DATE OF BIRTH 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Ramsen SH
DATE OF DEATH 1991