Leo Glaser

Leo Glaser (born May 28, 1876 in Würzburg , † June 27 or 28, 1950 in New York City ) was a German chemist, pharmacist, entrepreneur and politician.

Life

Leo Glaser's father Max (Marx) Glaser (born April 4, 1844 in Thüngen ) was a businessman of Jewish origin. He moved in with his parents, Babette Glaser geb. Amson and the businessman Jakob Glaser, who went to Würzburg , were granted the right of home in 1874 and citizenship in 1892 . He worked here as a wine wholesaler and most recently owner of a real estate agency. Leo Glaser's mother Rosa Glaser geb. Regensburger was born on March 13, 1851 in Feuchtwangen . With her parents, Clara Regensburger geb. Cohn and the leather dealer Nathan Regensburger, Rosa Glaser later moved to Rothenburg ob der Tauber . There she married Max Glaser in 1874 and moved in with him.

Leo Glaser studied in Würzburg and received his doctorate in 1901 under Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen . He went to Bad Doberan in Mecklenburg and took over the technical management of Haliflor-Company GmbH , a chemical factory for perfumeries and cosmetics. When the owner, entrepreneur, newspaper publisher and city councilor a. D. Reinhold Rudloff died in 1904 and Leo Glaser became operations manager. In 1906 he married Rudloff's daughter, Elsa Bitt (1873–1947), and took over the company. Elsa Bitt already had two daughters, Annemarie and Käthe (Kate, 1900–1978). Kate Diehn-Bitt became a well-known painter. The Glaser couple had their daughter Lili together in 1910. Leo Glaser succeeded in increasing the success of the Haliflor company and further expanding international company relationships. The company relocated its headquarters to Rostock in the 1930s .

From 1924 to 1928 Leo Glaser was President of the Mecklenburg Chamber of Commerce in Rostock. The University of Rostock made him an honorary member. In 1919 he was one of the founders of the German Democratic Party in Mecklenburg.

After the seizure of power by the Nazis in 1938, the company was expropriated, the couple Glaser withdrew from public life and put themselves in touch with the non-Jewish family members in order not to endanger them. Leo Glaser escaped the deportations because his wife was not Jewish and mixed marriage offered a certain protection. In 1938 Leo Glaser was temporarily imprisoned. His daughter Lili Hahn, who was persecuted as a “ half-Jew ”, emigrated to the USA in 1941 with her husband.

After the end of the Second World War , Leo Glaser was appointed head of the tax office. He participated in the establishment of the Liberal Democratic Party of Germany (LDPD) in Mecklenburg. Glaser saw no future for himself in the Soviet occupation zone and gave up his position as Rostock City Councilor for Finance, which he had assumed in 1946 for the LDPD, and after the death of his wife in 1947 he moved to his daughter Lili in New York.

Web links

• Biography on www.juedische-pflegegeschichte.de
• Literature about Leo Glaser in the state bibliography MV