Leo Lippmann

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Portrait of Leo Lippmann in the tax office
Leo Lippmann's memoirs
Stumbling block for Leo Lippmann in front of the tax authorities
Stumbling blocks for Anna and Leo Lippmann in front of their house at Böttgerstraße 5
The gravestone of Anna and Leo Lippmann in the Jewish cemetery in Ilandkoppel
The tax authority
The tax authority
The former cash desk, renamed in 1993 after Leo Lippmann
Entrance to the Leo Lippmann Hall

Leo Lippmann (born May 26, 1881 in Hamburg ; † June 11, 1943 ibid) was a Hamburg lawyer and state councilor in the tax authority. During the Weimar Republic, he made great contributions to Hamburg's finances. Lippmann was given leave of absence without a legal basis in March 1933 and dismissed from civil service in April 1933 on the basis of the law for the restoration of the civil service. From 1935 he was on the board of the Jewish community. After he learned that his deportation to the Theresienstadt ghetto was imminent, and when the Jewish communities in the German Reich had been dissolved by the Nazi regime on June 10, 1943, he took the night of June 11, 1943 together with his wife Anna Josephine with a sleeping pill, a conscious and long-planned step that he had communicated to his friends and relatives. In a suicide note, he stated that he would be cremated in Ohlsdorf and buried on the family grave of his in-laws north of Cordesallee (location P19). In 1984 the two urns were reburied by Anna and Leo Lippmann in the neighboring Ohlsdorf -Ilandkoppel Jewish cemetery (field N3).

Live and act

Leo Lippmann came from a wealthy family and spent his childhood and youth in Hamburg. He had two brothers, Franz and Arthur. His father, Joseph Bär Lippmann, was temporarily chairman of the Liberal Israelite Temple Association . Leo Lippmann, on the other hand, had little knowledge of the Hebrew language, little knowledge of the Jewish tradition and was internally far removed from the Jewish faith. But he refused to convert all his life.

Leo Lippmann went to the Johanneum , which he successfully completed in 1899 with the Abitur. In the same year he enrolled in Munich for law . After working in Berlin and Kiel , he successfully completed his studies in Jena with a doctorate . From 1903 to 1906 he completed his legal clerkship in Hamburg. On October 10, 1906, at the special request of Mayor Johann Georg Mönckeberg , Lippmann was hired in a newly established department in the finance deputation. Mönckeberg assured the hesitant Lippmann that “in Hamburg people are only judged on performance and merit, but never on their descent.” In 1909, Lippmann was promoted to government councilor. Until the outbreak of the First World War , he was mainly responsible for expropriating land for the construction of the subway .

During the war, Lippmann was appointed to the War Supply Commission, which became the War Supply Office from 1916. He was the highest official there and headed the office. These institutions coordinated the entire food supply in Hamburg during the war. Lippmann worked there mainly under Senator Arnold Diestel , who gave him great support over the next few years. Lippmann also got to know other Hamburg politicians who were to play an important role in the future, including Senator Justus Strandes , the former members of the Bundestag Carl Wilhelm Petersen , Emil Krause and the union official Karl Hense . These politicians , influential after the November Revolution, made it possible for Lippmann to continue his career.

After the war, Lippman was appointed to the Upper Government Council in June 1919 and was elected Senate Secretary on March 12, 1920 and was a member of the Senate who was not entitled to vote (→ Hamburg Senate 1919–1933 ). Lippmann is the first Jew who has not converted to Christianity and is unbaptized to receive this office, and so far the only one. With the new Hamburg constitution of January 7, 1921, the title of Senate Secretary was abolished. Lippmann himself became a state councilor on June 24, 1920 ; he held this office until his dismissal in 1933. It was mainly thanks to Lippmann that Hamburg's finances did not collapse completely during the global economic crisis ; he also conducted the financial negotiations in the Reichsrat . Lippmann was in charge of the opera and was considered a “passionate sponsor” of all ten Hamburg theaters.

On March 14, 1933, six days after the change of power, the National Socialist Mayor Carl Vincent Krogmann let him know that he saw it as intolerable for a Jew to hold a high office in the state and was awaiting Lippmann's request for leave. Lippman followed this request, referring to his 26 years of service and stressing that he had not received his office for political reasons. On June 24, 1933, he learned from the newspaper that he had been dismissed the day before due to the law to restore the civil service of April 7, 1933. Lippmann's report reveals his fatal misjudgment when he believed the assurances of prominent National Socialists before the "seizure of power" and worked with them in a trusting manner:

"When describing my dismissal from the civil service, which only happened because I am a Jew, and which was justified in that way, I explained how I had always advocated defending the National Socialists in the Hamburg authorities, especially in to give the finance deputation unlimited opportunity to participate in state life. I mentioned how leading men of National Socialism in Hamburg, especially Ahrens and von Allwöhren, worked together with me on a trusting basis. [...] In doing so, they expressed their trust in her and her party and repeatedly stated that they expected my willingness to remain in office [...] they were convinced that their party would later weaken their attitude to the Jewish question. "

Lippmann worked for the Hamburg Jewish Community from November 1935 , was a member of its board and was responsible for finance there. In 1937 he was elected deputy chairman of the Hamburg Jewish Community. After the community had to transform itself into a Jewish religious association in 1938, Lippmann took on a managerial role under its chairman, Max Plaut . In all that time Lippmann refused the opportunity to emigrate . He witnessed the deportations of the majority of the members of his community. On June 10, 1943, the Gestapo occupied the offices of the Jewish Religious Association and informed him of his planned deportation to Theresienstadt for the following day. He then committed suicide, prepared by him, together with his wife Anna Josephine (1881–1943), née von Porten . In a letter from March 1943, he wished a modest burial and "that any Jewish-religious treatment of the corpses [...] would cease."

The text below the portrait of Leo Lippmann at the entrance to the Leo Lippmann Hall summarizes:

"DR. LEO LIPPMANN L. LIPPMANN WAS BORN IN HAMBURG ON MAY 26, 1881. AFTER STUDYING LEGAL AND ECONOMIC SCIENCES AND THE REFERENDARIAT IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION IN HAMBURG, IN 1906, HE JOINED THE FINANCIAL DEPUTATION: THERE HE WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE LAND NEGOTIATIONS IN CONNECTION WITH THE SUBWAY.
FROM 1916, AS HEAD OF THE WAR SUPPLY OFFICE, HE ENSURED THAT ENOUGH FOOD AND ENERGY WAS AVAILABLE FOR THE HAMBURG POPULATION. In 1920 he was elected to a council of state. HIS TIRE AND EXPERT WORK IN FINANCIAL, TAX AND CORPORATE ADMINISTRATION HAS BEEN APPRECIATED AND RECOGNIZED IN ALL DEMOCRATIC PARTIES.
AS A REPRESENTATIVE OF THE SENATE, HE HAS SUCCESSFULLY REPRESENTED THE AFFAIRS OF THE HANSEAL CITY IN SUPER-REGIONAL COMMITTEES AND STRENGTHENED HAMBURG'S PRESENCE. AT A TIME OF DEEP POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC CHANGES, IT WAS ESSENTIAL MERIT THAT THE BURDEN ON CITIZENS WERE LESSED AS POSSIBLY AND THE VITALITY OF THE CITY CONTINUED.
LEO LIPPMANN WAS DISCHARGED FROM THE HAMBURG STATE SERVICE BY THE NATIONAL SOCIALISTS. FROM 1935 ON THE BOARD OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY. HE DIVED LIFE WITH HIS WIFE IN HIS HOME TOWN ON JUNE 11, 1943, TO ESCAPE THE IMMEDIATE DEPORTATION TO THERESIENSTADT. "

Honors

  • In 1931 Leo Lippmann was honored on the occasion of his 25th anniversary of service and his 50th birthday as the “most deserving official of our finance deputation” (see My life and my official activities . P. 611 f.)
  • The big hall, the former “big ticket hall” of the Hamburg tax authorities on Gänsemarkt , was renamed the Leo-Lippmann-Saal in 1993 - during the tenure of Finance Senator Wolfgang Curilla .
  • In May 2007, in memory of Leo Lippmann, a stumbling block was laid in front of the tax authorities on Gänsemarkt .
    Stumbling blocks have also been set for Anna and Leo Lippmann in front of the (new) house at Böttgerstrasse 5.

Works

  • Lippmann, Leo: My life and my official activity. Memories and a contribution to the financial history of Hamburg. From the estate, ed. by Werner Jochmann , Publication of the Association for Hamburg History Vol. IX, Christians Verlag, Hamburg 1964. Contains a 15-page introduction by W. Jochmann with Leo Lippmann's curriculum vitae.
  • Leo Lippmann, Various articles in Leo Lippmann: ... that I feel and act like a good German. see literature section

literature

  • Leo Lippmann: ... that I feel and act like a good German: On the history of the German-Israelite community in Hamburg from autumn 1935 to the end of 1942. - Two reports - with contributions by Wolfgang Curilla and Gabriele Fenyes, ed . on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the death of the Council of State a. D. Leo Lippmann on June 10, 1993 from the Hamburg tax authority, Hamburg 1993, ISBN 3-926174-80-3 .
  • Linde Apel in collaboration with the Research Center for Contemporary History in Hamburg and the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial (ed.): Sent to death - The deportations of Jews, Roma and Sinti from Hamburg, 1940 to 1945 . Metropol Verlag, Hamburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-940938-30-5 .
  • Matthias Andrae: The expulsion of the Jewish doctors of the General Hospital Hamburg St. Georg under National Socialism , dissertation. August 2003, ISBN 3-8330-1040-1 u. a. about the emigrated to Australia Dr. Arthur Lippmann, one of Leo Lippmann's two brothers.
  • Ina Lorenz : Leo Lippmann - A German Jew. In: Joist Grolle, Matthias Schmoock (Hrsg.): Spätes Gedenken. A history society remembers its excluded Jewish members. Bremen 2009, ISBN 3-8378-2000-9 (pp. 99-136).
  • Sebastian Merkel: Leo Lippmann, lawyer. In: Olaf Matthes / Ortwin Pelc : People in the Revolution. Hamburg portraits 1918/19. Husum Verlag, Husum 2018, ISBN 978-3-89876-947-1 , pp. 123-126.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Research Center for Contemporary History Hamburg (Ed.): Hamburg in the "Third Reich." Göttingen 2006, ISBN 3-89244-903-1 , p. 156.
  2. ↑ Data from Lippmann: My life.
  3. ^ Matthias Andrae: The expulsion of the Jewish doctors from the General Hospital Hamburg-St. Georg under National Socialism. Selbstverlag Hamburg, 2003, ISBN 978-3-8330-1040-8 , p. 53 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  4. ^ Ina Lorenz: Leo Lippmann - A German Jew . In: Joist Grolle, Matthias Schmoock (Hrsg.): Spätes Gedenken. A history society remembers its excluded Jewish members. Bremen 2009, ISBN 3-8378-2000-9 , pp. 101-102.
  5. ^ Ina Lorenz: Leo Lippmann - A German Jew . In: Joist Grolle, Matthias Schmoock (Hrsg.): Spätes Gedenken. A history society remembers its excluded Jewish members. Bremen 2009, ISBN 3-8378-2000-9 , p. 105.
  6. ↑ Lippmann: Mein Leben, p. 260 and p. 289.
  7. ^ Institute for the history of the German Jews (ed.): Das Jüdische Hamburg. Göttingen 2006, ISBN 3-8353-0004-0 , p. 168.
  8. ^ Ina Lorenz: Leo Lippmann - A German Jew . In: Joist Grolle, Matthias Schmoock (Hrsg.): Spätes Gedenken. A history society remembers its excluded Jewish members. Bremen 2009, ISBN 3-8378-2000-9 , p. 120.
  9. ↑ Lippmann: My life. P. 620–624 / Ina Lorenz: Leo Lippmann - A German Jew . In: Joist Grolle, Matthias Schmoock (Hrsg.): Spätes Gedenken. A history society remembers its excluded Jewish members. Bremen 2009, ISBN 3-8378-2000-9 , p. 120.
  10. ↑ Lippmann: My life. P. 638.
  11. ↑ Götz Aly : The persecution and murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933–1945 . Volume 2: German Reich 1938 - August 1939 , Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-486-58523-0 , p. 799.
  12. ^ Ina Lorenz: Lippmann, Leo . In: The Jewish Hamburg. A historical reference work
  13. ^ Ina Lorenz: Leo Lippmann - A German Jew . In: Joist Grolle, Matthias Schmoock (Hrsg.): Spätes Gedenken. A history society remembers its excluded Jewish members. Bremen 2009, ISBN 3-8378-2000-9 , p. 135.
  14. ↑ The artist who made the lithograph was not named.
  15. ↑ Leo-Lippmann-Saal (tax authority). ( Memento from September 4, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) hamburg.de
  16. ↑ Stumbling block for Leo Lippmann. (No longer available online.) In: hamburg-nachrichten.de. May 9, 2007, archived from the original on November 30, 2015 ; accessed on January 11, 2015 . 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.hamburg-nachrichten.de
personal data
SURNAME Lippmann, Leo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Hamburg lawyer, State Councilor of the tax authorities
DATE OF BIRTH May 26, 1881
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH June 11, 1943
Place of death Hamburg