Leo Landau (lawyer)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Leo Landau (born September 13, 1880 in New York City , † September 19, 1960 in Kloten , Switzerland ) was a lawyer and Zionist .

Life

His ancestors came from Landau in the Palatinate . His parents were Flora geb. Baer and the businessman Gustav Landau. His father acquired German citizenship for his family, moved to Lübeck in April 1887 and worked in the banking and lottery business. In 1895 Gustav became a citizen of the Free State.

Leo attended the Katharineum in Lübeck and began studying philosophy , literature and the art of classical antiquity in Lausanne in 1890 . From the end of 1900 to 1902 he studied in Berlin , where he switched to the law faculty. In addition, he was interested in economics, history, literature and forensic psychiatry. He then moved to Kiel , where he passed his first legal exam in early 1904. As a trainee lawyer he began his preparatory service at the Lübeck Regional Court . In 1904 he was in Rostock with the dissertation “Is there a deviation from common rights in Section 389 of the Civil Code?” to the Dr. jur. PhD.

In 1897 the Viennese student Carl Grenzer reported to him and his father in Lübeck about Theodor Herzl and the Kadimah (student union) . When the Hamburg neurologist Ernst Kalmus (1864–1959) founded a local Zionist group in Lübeck in 1902, Leo immediately joined it and headed the Zionist library. There he met Charlotte , Siegfried Mühsam's daughter . On April 10, 1904, Landau and Ephraim Adler founded Germany's 62nd Esra Lodge in Lübeck, in which he served as president several times until he was elected a member of the Grand Lodge for Germany in 1912. From 1902 he was several times chairman of the Lübeck Zionist local group, took part in numerous European delegates' conferences and in several Zionist congresses.

Originally a conservative bourgeoisie, he sympathized with the socialist doctrines during the Weimar period, but remained non-partisan because "they often seemed to jeopardize the economy because of their wage and labor policy".

After taking the second legal exam at the Hamburg Higher Regional Court on January 15, 1908 , he was admitted to the bar by the Lübeck Senate and opened his own law firm on April 1. In December he married Charlotte, with whom he had the children Gustav (1909-2004, civil engineer), Hans Theodor (1912-2005, classical philologist and archaeologist) and Eva (1914-2009, teacher, oo Joel). In 1911 they bought a house at Moislinger Allee 20. On July 9, 1912 he was sworn in as a notary .

When the First World War broke out , he was only able to use the garrison and was entrusted with the management and renovation of the chemical factory founded in 1874 by the pharmacist Wilhelm Theodor Wengenroth (1843-1916) in Wilhelmshöhe, together with the authorized signatory Wilhelm Jöllenbeck. Fritz Wengenroth later took him on as a silent partner in the company. From 1912 he was also a legal advisor to the large Roman Catholic community in Lübeck. He enjoyed his work as a notary at the Reichsbank .

His mother had moved into the family house in December 1914. His wife was a member of the Jewish Women's Association from around 1925 and helped found the home of the Jewish Women's Association in Wyk auf Föhr .

After having worked as a Zionist for the reconstruction of Palestine as the home of the Jewish people from his youth, he traveled there in March 1924 and bought a piece of land on Mount Carmel near Haifa "for sentimental reasons" . When his wife accompanied him the next year on the trip via Trieste, Alexandria, Cairo and overland to Jerusalem, she was enthusiastic. However, because of the children's education, they stayed in Germany.

In 1928 he bought his house in the suburb of Lübeck-St. Jürgen , Kronsford Allee No. 10. After January 30, 1933, the political atmosphere became unbearable for the family, and they began to prepare for their emigration and paid the Reich flight tax . His brother-in-law Erich was killed in the summer of 1934. When Landau wanted to celebrate his 25th anniversary as a lawyer, Julius Streicher announced the boycott of the Jews for that day , whereupon Landau announced his decision to emigrate. His partner was entrusted with handling his real estate. The board of the Hanseatic Bar Association in Hamburg deleted him from the list of lawyers. From April 4th to 17th, the couple traveled to Haifa with Hans, Eva and his mother. Because of his exam, Gustav followed with his bride in October.

In Haifa, Leo Landau joined an office community as a lawyer, acted as a business advisor and founded the religious association Agudath Achim . After he died on a trip through Switzerland, he was buried in Haifa.

Works

  • Is there a deviation from common rights in Section 389 of the Civil Code? Lübeck: Werner & Hörnig 1904, plus Rostock, Jur. Fac., Ref. Bernhöft, Diss. Oct. 31, 1904

literature

  • Federal Bar Association (Ed.): Leo Landau in Lawyers Without Law , Berlin 2007, p. 240

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Charlotte Landau-Mühsam: My memories (writings of the Erich-Mühsam-Gesellschaft 34) BoD - Books on Demand, 2010 ISBN 9783931079437
  2. ↑ Peter Guttkuhn: Dr. Leo Landau lawyer between Lübeck and Erez Israel (2009); at luebeck-teatime.de
personal data
SURNAME Landau, Leo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Lawyer and Zionist
DATE OF BIRTH September 13, 1880
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City
DATE OF DEATH September 19, 1960
Place of death Kloten , Switzerland