Karin Mylius

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Karin Mylius (born January 11, 1934 in Münster as Karin Loebel ; † December 13, 1986 in Halle ) was chairwoman of the Jewish community in Halle (Saale) from 1968 to 1986 .

Life

Karin Mylius was born in Münster (Westphalia) to non- Jewish parents and came to Halle (Saale) in the late 1930s. Her father, Paul Loebel, was a police sergeant in the Nazi regime . Mylius attended elementary school and worked as a stenographer. In 1955 she temporarily moved to Stuttgart illegally, but returned to the GDR in 1957 . She successfully posed as the daughter of a Jewish family. She later became secretary of the President of the Association of Jewish Congregations in the GDR and chairman of the Jewish Congregation in Halle (Saale), Hermann Baden . On February 20, 1961, she converted to Judaism, which was recognized by the regional rabbi Martin Riesenburger . On October 9, 1968, Mylius was elected to succeed Franz Kowalski as chairwoman of the Jewish community in Halle (Saale). The choice of a woman sometimes led to contradictions in the traditionally oriented Jewish communities of the GDR.

Karin Mylius' administration was controversial. It was also criticized that she had her non-Jewish father buried in the Jewish cemetery in 1974 (he was later transferred to the Christian grief cemetery). In addition, it turned out that Mylius' information about her own biography - she claimed, for example, that she was only an adopted child , but actually came from a Jewish family and had been in a concentration camp - were contradictory or incorrect.

After Mylius was initially sponsored by the SED regime and the Ministry for State Security , since 1984 the interest of state authorities in the removal of Karin Mylius has increased. On September 8, 1986, the chairman of the Association of Jewish Communities in the GDR, Helmut Aris , finally released her from her position. Aris also filed a criminal complaint against Mylius.

After her death, the Association of Jewish Congregations refused to participate in the funeral service, but allowed her to be buried in the Jewish cemetery.

Karin Mylius was married to the Indologist Klaus Mylius . The marriage resulted in the son Frank and the daughter Gloria. In the 1970s, Klaus Mylius was a member of the Halle (Saale) Jewish community chaired by his wife.

Scientific processing

The case of Karin Mylius, which has not only been mentioned in memorial literature since the 1990s, but has also become the subject of several scientific studies, is attributed by Hartewig and Horstkotte to over-identification with the fate of persecuted Jews in the Third Reich and shows similarities with the Binjamin Wilkomirskis case on. The historian Frank Hirschinger summarized his detailed analysis of the Mylius case in such a way that it was the “fake biography of Karin Mylius, who posed as a survivor of the Holocaust since the end of the fifties, and her father during the war on Jewish massacres should have participated ”, was a“ particularly blatant example ”that could only endure“ with the support of the MfS and government agencies ”.

Other offices and awards

Since 1984 Mylius was a city councilor in Halle (Saale). She was the bearer of the Patriotic Order of Merit .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Karin Hartewig: Returned. The history of the Jewish communists in the GDR. Böhlau, Köln / Weimar / Wien 2000, ISBN 3-412-02800-2 , p. 191. (Habilitation thesis Universität Essen 2000, 646 pages).
  2. ^ Frank Hirschinger: "Gestapo agents, Trotskyists, traitors." Communist party purges in Saxony-Anhalt 1918–1953. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2005, ISBN 3-525-36903-4 , here p. 383 f. with notes 152 and 153.
  3. ^ Gunther Helbig: The development of the Jewish community in Halle from 1962 to the present. In: Volker Dietzel (Ed.): 300 years of Jews in Halle. Life - achievement - suffering - reward. Festschrift for the 300th anniversary of the Jewish community in Halle. Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle 1992, pp. 287-291, here pp. 288 f.
  4. ↑ Mitteldeutsche Zeitung, May 23, 2016.
  5. ↑ See Helmut Eschwege : Strange among my own kind. Memories of a Dresden Jew. Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-861-53023-6 , here pp. 162–165, with sometimes incorrect data according to later scientific knowledge. On the author Eschwege cf. Peter Maser : Helmut Eschwege. A historian in the GDR. In: Listen and Look. Journal for the critical reappraisal of the SED dictatorship. Issue 44, 2003, pp. 21-23.
  6. ↑ Erica Burgauer: Between memory and repression. Jews in Germany after 1945. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1993, ISBN 3-499-55532-8 , here pp. 215–222
  7. ↑ Enquete Commission "Processing the History and Consequences of the SED Dictatorship in Germany" (Ed.): The role and importance of ideology, integrative factors and disciplining practices in the state and society of the GDR. Nomos, Baden-Baden 1995 (Materials from the Enquete Commission “Working up the history and consequences of the SED dictatorship in Germany”, Volume 3.2), ISBN 3-789-04035-5 , here pp. 1572–1574.
  8. ↑ Michael Brenner : After the Holocaust. Jews in Germany 1945–1950. CH Beck, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-406-39239-3 , here p. 220 f. with note 37.
  9. ↑ Karin Hartewig: Returned. The history of the Jewish communists in the GDR. Böhlau, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2000, ISBN 3-412-02800-2 , p. 192, note 284.
  10. ↑ Silke Horstkotte : Afterimages. Photography and memory in contemporary German literature. Böhlau, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2009, ISBN 978-3-412-20321-4 , pp. 149–151.
  11. ↑ Lothar Mertens : A Christian as a "rabbi": Karin Mylius. In: Irene Dieckmann, Julius H. Schoeps (Ed.): The Wilkomirski Syndrome. Imagined memories or the longing to be a victim. Pendo, Zurich 2002, ISBN 3-85842-472-2 , pp. 262-272.
  12. ↑ Frank Hirschinger: Forgery and instrumentalization of anti-fascist biographies. The example of Halle / Saale 1945–2005. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2007 ( Hannah Arendt Institute for Totalitarian Research , Reports and Studies, Volume 53), ISBN 3-899-71354-0 , here Chapter 4: Karin Mylius: A impostor as chairwoman of the Jewish community in Halle. , Pp. 113-136.
  13. ↑ Frank Hirschinger: Forgery and instrumentalization of anti-fascist biographies. The example of Halle / Saale 1945–2005. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2007 (Hannah Arendt Institute for Totalitarianism Research, Reports and Studies, Volume 53), ISBN 3-899-71354-0 , here p. 11 (source of quotation); in his detailed chapter on Mylius, he calls her “impostor” (p. 113).
personal data
SURNAME Mylius, Karin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German secretary, chairwoman of the Jewish community in Halle (Saale)
DATE OF BIRTH January 11, 1934
PLACE OF BIRTH Muenster
DATE OF DEATH December 13, 1986
Place of death Halle (Saale)