Julio Goslar

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Julio Goslar (born August 10, 1883 in Siegen (Westphalia), † January 22, 1976 in Cologne ) was a church musician in Cologne who was dismissed and disenfranchised during the Nazi era because of his Jewish descent.

Life

Until 1933

The Luther Church in Cologne-Nippes

Born into a Jewish family as the son of the cloth and clothes dealer Israel Goslar and the writer, piano and singing teacher Emma Goslar , he left his parents' house while still at school, moved to his sister in Cologne and passed his Abitur examination there in 1903 at the Dreikönigsgymnasium . He initially complied with his parents' wish to become a rabbi by studying philosophy, German, history and modern languages ​​in Berlin for six years. However, his love for music made him move to Cologne in 1909 to devote himself to musicological studies. In 1914 Julio Goslar converted to Christianity. He was a soldier at the front in World War I , as a result of which he was decorated with the Front Fighter Medal. In 1921 Goslar was hired by the Evangelical Church Community of Cologne-Nippes as organist of the Luther Church there and director of the church choir. He was also an orchestra conductor, concert pianist, musicologist, composer, teacher for piano and music theory, and director of the Cologne People's Choir .

In the time of National Socialism

When the National Socialists came to power , the Jewish-born Julio Goslar found himself in distress, at the latest when an article in the magazine Musik und Kirche read in 1933 : “The Third Reich of the Germans demands a commitment from everyone”, which is not just “put on your mouth” ", But that one must also live and that" also apply to the church and to church music in it ". In 1934 the Reichsmusikkammer Goslar excluded the only “fully Jewish” Protestant church musician in Germany from its ranks. A year later, the same magazine described the fact that "in Germany on Sundays and public holidays and in services for German people of Christian denominations full-blooded Jews have been playing the organ for years" as "shameless betrayal of Christianity". The battle and advertising leaflet of the SS Das Schwarze Korps took up the topic and denounced the “race scandal on German organ benches”.

Julio Goslar's situation was exacerbated by the fact that he was a social democrat and friends with the “red pastor” Georg Fritze . The presbytery of the Evangelical Church Community in Cologne-Nippes was requested in September 1935 by the Vice President of the Old Prussian Evangelical High Church Council in Berlin to leave Julio Goslar on leave. The presbytery immediately complied with this request. The leave of absence was lifted again for formal reasons by the upper church council, because it perceived the interference of the Reichsmusikkammer in church affairs as an encroachment on a non-church authority. At the same time, however, the presbytery in Cologne-Nippes, which apart from its chairman consisted of Nazi-minded German Christians , declared its solidarity with the decisions of the Reich Chamber of Music, which is why it declared the leave of absence of the "non-Aryan" as "binding for us".

Julio Goslar was subsequently slandered. He was charged with the charge that he was "out of wedlock with a German lady", which since the introduction of the Nuremberg Laws was punished as " racial disgrace " with prison. At the latest when Der Stürmer wrote about the “Goslar case”: “Jud remains Jud - even baptism does not help”, the suspension could no longer be averted, the anonymously published article claimed that Martin Luther too had “Goslar with the whip out of the Evangelical Church ”.

Julio Goslar anticipated this by submitting his resignation on October 22, 1936 after 15 years of work for the community. Julio Goslar's wife Christel Josephine b. Waimann (born August 16, 1886; † July 8, 1947) was considered to be " Jewish ". An official request from the church that she should divorce her husband was rejected in her letter to her church superiors in Düsseldorf and Berlin in 1936: “Our church marriage was concluded in 1916, and now we are counted among the Jews? Understand who can! Not me! [...] My 16-year-old son is a Halbarian [...], he was confirmed in 1933 [...]. But my husband, who [...] has to feed this evangelical Christian, is made breadless. Understand who can, I don't! "

Julio Goslar had to work as a forced laborer in the Jewish column in Cologne. He was only allowed to work once again as an “assistant for the municipal office” for a short time. Goslar's son Hans Günter was assigned to work on the Siegfried Line. In May 1943, the apartment of Julio Goslar and his family was completely destroyed in a bomb attack, which is why the Gestapo assigned Goslar and his wife Christel a "reception apartment" on the corner of Zülpicher Strasse and Universitätsstrasse. The couple was able to escape from this in July 1944 during another bomb attack and, with the help of friends, went into hiding until the end of the war. First the couple hid with Heinrich and Anna Schieffer, farmers on the Röttenhof in Feldkassel , then in an apartment at Siebachstrasse 86 in Nippes, directly opposite their destroyed previous apartment and not far from the Luther Church of the Evangelical Church Community in Cologne-Nippes.

post war period

After the end of the war, Julio Goslar demanded that the Evangelical Church Community of Cologne-Nippes be reinstated, which the presbytery initially rejected. Only after pressure from the Allied military government did the parish give way and in 1945 reinstated Goslar in his old rights as organist and choirmaster. Together with Robert Görlinger and Hans Böckler , Julio Goslar re-established the Cologne SPD in May 1945. Until the end of 1951 he enjoyed and successfully remained a church musician in his parish in Cologne-Nippes. Even after retiring, he remained musically active, founded popular choirs and led mass choirs at May celebrations, and played the organ at church services. For many years to come, he framed the Abitur release from his Dreikönigsgymnasium, often with Chopin lectures.

Goslar died in Cologne in 1976 at the age of 92.

Honors

Julio Goslar was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit on Ribbon by Federal President Gustav Heinemann in 1969. In Cologne-Neu-Ehrenfeld there is a street and in Cologne-Nippes the parish hall of the Luther Church has been named after Julio Goslar since 1989.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Death certificate No. 126 from January 26, 1976, registry office Cologne North. In: LAV NRW R civil status register. Retrieved June 27, 2018 .
  2. ↑ fuehlingen.de
  3. ↑ Helmut Fußbroich: The Lutheran Church Nippes. Cologne 1989, p. 5.
  4. ↑ Homepage of the Luther Church in Cologne-Nippes. ( Memento of the original from July 1, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.lutherkirche-nippes.de
personal data
SURNAME Goslar, Julio
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German church musician
DATE OF BIRTH August 10, 1883
PLACE OF BIRTH Wins
DATE OF DEATH 22nd January 1976
Place of death Cologne