Karl Strauss (teacher)

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Teaching staff 1930 with Karl Strauss (standing right at the back)

Karl Strauss (* 16 July 1883 in Bad Durkheim , † (probably in October) 1942 in the Auschwitz concentration camp ) was a German high school teacher , religious officials and local politicians , who because of his Jewish origins in the era of National Socialism persecuted and finally murdered has been. In the former Neustadt an der Haardt, today Neustadt an der Weinstrasse , where he worked for 13 years, he is considered the most prominent victim of the Holocaust ; That is why the first Stolperstein in the Palatinate city ​​was dedicated to him in 2002 .

family

Strauss was born into a religiously very active family. His parents were Ludwig Strauss (* 1855) and his wife Klara geb. Neumann (* 1856). The father was a teacher at the Bärmannsche Realschule in Bad Dürkheim as well as a member of the city ​​council and held high offices within the Jewish religious community: head of cult of Bad Dürkheim (from 1907), treasurer of the Association of Israelite religious communities in the Palatinate (from 1917) and chairman of the rabbinical district Bad Dürkheim-Frankenthal (from 1920). He gave up the offices after 1935 when the Nuremberg Laws were passed. On October 22, 1940, he and his wife were deported to the Gurs internment camp in southern France during the Wagner-Bürckel campaign ; both died there in the winter of 1940/41.

Karl Strauss was married to Florentine, called Flora, geb. Behr (* 1895). The couple had at least one daughter, Margarete, born in 1922 .

education and profession

After graduating from high school, Karl Strauss studied mathematics and physics in Erlangen and Munich for teaching at grammar schools and earned his doctorate . During his first years as a teacher he taught in Munich and Aschaffenburg . As a volunteer, he took part in the First World War and was awarded the Iron Cross 1st Class. From 1922 Strauss was a teacher at the Humanist Gymnasium , today Kurfürst-Ruprecht-Gymnasium , in Neustadt an der Weinstrasse. Like his father, he was also religious and political and was head of the synagogue in Bad Dürkheim and a member of the city council.

Persecution and assassination

Stolpersteine ​​in Neustadt an der Weinstrasse in memory of Karl Strauss and his wife Flora

In 1935 Strauss, who had meanwhile been promoted to university professor , was removed from service by the Nazi rulers . On October 22, 1940, he and his wife (as well as his parents, see section Family ) were deported from Mannheim to Gurs. In October 1942 he was taken to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp on a collective transport and died there - presumably immediately after arrival - in the gas chamber .

Quotes

" (I just can't believe) that in a cultural nation like Germany, to whose development the Jews have also made their contribution and to which they feel they belong, the lives of the Jews could be endangered."

- Karl Strauss in the late 1930s

Commemoration

Of the family, only daughter Margarete, later Margaret Berman , survived the persecution. After she was excluded from the school where her father had taught in 1937, her parents sent her to the United States in February 1938 . There she completed an apprenticeship as a microbiologist . After the Second World War , she visited Germany at least twice: in the mid-1950s, she stayed in Neustadt privately, and was formally invited as a guest by the city administration in 1998. In memory of her father, the Kurfürst-Ruprecht-Gymnasium hosted the first Neustadt stumbling block by Cologne artist Gunter Demnig laid.

literature

  • Eberhard Dittus: Jewish New Town on the Wine Route . Invitation to a tour. Verlag Medien und Dialog, Haigerloch 2009, ISBN 3-933231-40-X .
  • Karl Zeitlinger: Overview of the history of the school . In: Kurfürst-Ruprecht-Gymnasium (Hrsg.): Festschrift for the inauguration of the new building, June 3, 1969 . Neustadt 1969.
  • Hilde Schmidt-Häbel: The family of Dr. Karl Strauss . Teacher's fate in the 3rd Reich. In: District group Neustadt in the Historical Association of the Palatinate (ed.): Over - it's never over . Contributions to the history of the Jews in Neustadt an der Weinstrasse, series of publications. Neustadt 2005.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Alemannia-judaica.de :: Bad Dürkheim (district town) with places in the area. Retrieved January 24, 2010 .
  2. ^ A b c d Eberhard Dittus: Jewish New Town on the Wine Route . 2009, p. 29 f .
  3. ↑ Neustadt an der Haardt. In: Bayerische Israelitische Gemeindezeitung . August 15, 1929, accessed January 21, 2010 .
  4. ^ Karl Zeitlinger: Overview of the history of the school . 1969, p. 26 .
  5. ↑ Hilde Schmidt-Häbel: The family of Dr. Karl Strauss - Fate of Teachers in the Third Reich . 2005, p. 197 .
  6. ↑ Personal information on January 24th, 2010 from user Mundartpoet to user Chronicler 47 .
personal data
SURNAME Strauss, Karl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German high school teacher and victim of the Holocaust
DATE OF BIRTH July 16, 1883
PLACE OF BIRTH Bad Dürkheim
DATE OF DEATH uncertain: October 1942
Place of death Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp