Ludwig Sinsheimer

Ludwig Sinsheim (* 23. October 1873 in Mannheim , † the thirtieth March 1942 at the detention center at Noé / Haute-Garonne , Southwest France) was a German lawyer with Jewish religious tradition, in the era of National Socialism was persecuted as a so-called enemy of the state, and finally as a victim of the Holocaust died. His younger brother was the journalist, theater critic and writer Hermann Sinsheimer .

family

Sinsheimer came from a Jewish family whose father's side goes back to the town of Sinsheim in Kraichgau in northern Baden . His parents Samuel († 1928) and Fanny Sinsheimer initially lived in Mannheim and in 1874 moved to the small town of Freinsheim in the western part of the Palatinate, 20 kilometers to the west , where their mother came from. Ludwig Sinsheimer was the oldest child from the father's first marriage, his siblings were Karl (1875–1953), Eugenie Ida (1879–1942), August (1880–1911) and Hermann (1883–1950). Soon after his birth, the mother died. With his second wife Mina Reuter († 1917), the father also had the daughter Emma (1888–1963). Ludwig Sinsheimer remained unmarried throughout his life.

education and profession

Ludwig Sinsheimer first attended the Latin school in Bad Dürkheim , then the grammar schools in Speyer and Neustadt an der Haardt (today Neustadt an der Weinstrasse ) for two years . After graduating from high school in Neustadt in 1891, he studied law at the universities of Strasbourg , Würzburg and Munich . Following the first state examination , he was drafted into military service, so that he was only able to take the second state examination with a delay. On May 1, 1901, he settled as a lawyer in Grünstadt , where he worked in Zeppelinstrasse in 1928. 14 also bought a house. During his more than thirty years of professional activity, he made a name for himself in the field of wine law and published extensive commentaries on the 1918 Wine Tax Act and the 1909 and 1930 Wine Acts. In 1910 he was also active as a local writer : De Derkemer Worschdmarkt . Life and goings-on at the Palatinate folk festival . Towards the end of the First World War , Sinsheimer, now 44 years old, was seconded to the Neustadt Military Court as clerk. In 1922 he was given the honorary title of “ Councilor of Justice ”.

politics

Until 1914, Sinsheimer was a passive member of the National Liberal Party (NLP) . Less than a year after the National Socialists “ seized power ” , he was arrested on January 13, 1934 and accused of “insidious attacks against the government of the national insurrection” because from November 1933 he had written 47 letters to Alsatian newspapers describing the beginning of discrimination against Jews in Germany . Right at the start of his 23-month pre-trial detention, in February 1934 he was forced to "voluntarily" return his license to practice as a lawyer.

The charge was that Sinsheimer had

" ... written reports about the political and economic conditions and allegations in Germany, which are based on an extraordinarily hostile attitude towards the National Socialist state , its government , the NSDAP and its subdivisions as well as against other public institutions of today's Germany and in some cases extremely hateful and Incorporating a series of untrue or grossly distorted claims about the conditions and events in Germany in 1933. In several reports he dealt with the measures taken against the Jews ... "

- Extract from the indictment (1935)

In the criminal trial, however, all witnesses attested Sinsheimer an impeccable repute . A lawyer colleague who had known him for decades made the following statement about the defendant:

“ During the long time I have had only excellent experiences with Sinsheimer. His interests were mostly directed towards the ideal ... He had an exemplary high conception of the profession of lawyer ... Selflessness was an essential trait of his character ... He was quietly very charitable, he also worked a lot for his fellow men free of charge ... You can to say rightly that Sinsheimer was a splendid person. "

- District Court Judge Friedrich Henrich, Grünstadt; Extract from the trial files (1935)

Nevertheless, the 3rd Senate of the People's Court in Berlin sentenced Sinsheimer to one year in prison on December 20, 1935 in a closed hearing. The sentence was considered to have been served by almost two years in pre-trial detention, and the convict was released. The now 62-year-old was mentally broken from imprisonment and could no longer pursue a job. In the summer of 1936 he sold his house in Grünstadt and moved to Mannheim, the city of his birth.

holocaust

Sinsheimer and his sister Eugenie were deported to France as part of the Wagner-Bürckel campaign of October 22, 1940. In the Mannheim registration card you can find the stamp after Sinsheimer's name:

" Deported to internment camp in France on October 22nd, 1940 "

- Card index of the Mannheim residents' registration office (1940)

Initially, the siblings were held in the Gurs internment camp . After being transferred to the Noé camp a good 100 kilometers to the east, which primarily had to take in the old and the sick, Sinsheimer died in 1942, and his sister as well. Sinsheimer's name is recorded on the memorials for Nazi victims in Noé and Mannheim . A memorial in Grünstadt, where Sinsheimer spent 35 years, his entire professional life, is missing so far.

Web links

• Literature by and about Ludwig Sinsheimer in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h} Josef Kaiser: “A splendid person” . In: The Rhine Palatinate . Ludwigshafen (Rhine) November 20, 2010.