Ludwig Wilhelm von Gans

Ludwig Wilhelm von Gans (born August 6, 1869 in Frankfurt am Main , † 1946 in Copenhagen ) was a German chemist, industrialist and was a victim of National Socialism due to his Jewish origins .

family

Ludwig Wilhelm von Gans was born as the youngest son of the industrialist Friedrich Ludwig von Gans and his wife Auguste Ettling (1839–1909). Friedrich Ludwig Gans was raised to hereditary nobility in 1912 as Fritz von Gans. Ludwig Wilhelm was the grandson of Cassella co-founder Ludwig Aaron Gans . He was the youngest of three children. His sister Adele (1863-1932) later lived with her second husband in London, his older brother Paul von Gans (1866-1915) died relatively early. Like his entire family, Ludwig Wilhelm Gans converted from Judaism to Protestantism in the 1880s.

Ludwig Wilhelm von Gans was married to Elisabeth, née Keller, whose father Charles Keller was a famous landscape designer. Charles Keller studied in Kew Gardens / England and was then responsible for gardens, parks and facilities in Monaco . Elisabeth Keller was also born in Monte Carlo . The children Herbert, Armin, Marguerite and Gertrude emerged from the marriage.

The eldest daughter Marguerite von Gans (1902–1979) married the wealthy Wroclaw banker Ernst-Heinrich Heimann (1896–1957), son of the banker Georg Heimann , in 1922 . This couple also had to flee to Switzerland almost penniless after 1933.

life and work

Ludwig Wilhelm von Gans studied chemistry and worked in his father's company after graduating. He later founded his own chemical company in 1897, Pharma-Gans and SIRIS-Gesellschaft mbH (meat extract factory), based in Frankfurt on Gutleutstrasse. In 1910 he moved with his family to Oberursel , where he had the famous architect Otto Bäppler build the Villa Gans (which later became the house of the union youth - now a hotel project). The property was given to him by his father-in-law. The villa was built in the Tudor style of an English country house with a stable building, greenhouse, servants' house, riding arena and porter's and hunter's house. The villa itself was over 30 meters long and 21 meters deep. The surrounding park covered about 10 hectares including a large chestnut grove. The chemical company also moved to Oberursel, where in 1911 he also had the “Pharmaceutical Institute LW Gans” built in Oberursel on Zimmermühlenweg. The company was successful and produced serums for vaccines and insulin , among other things . After just 18 years, the Gans family moved from Oberursel back to Frankfurt at Kettenhofweg 125 in 1928. The villa and park were sold to a bank and the inventory was auctioned. The chemical company also had to cease operations. The reasons for this were on the one hand a lost patent dispute with the Cassella works and on the other hand the global economic crisis .

engagement

Like his father, Ludwig Wilhelm von Gans also attached great importance to social benefits for his employees. From 1912, his employees received a profit share . From 1913 to 1919 he was a member of the city council of Oberursel. As a member of the Evangelical Christ Church Parish in Oberursels, he turned out to be a donor.

time of the nationalsocialism

Even if he had been a Christian for more than 50 years, he was considered a Jew according to the National Socialist racial ideology. In 1938 he therefore had to emigrate to Switzerland . While visiting a friend in Denmark, he was arrested in April 1940 after the country was occupied. As a result, he was unable to flee to Sweden as part of the rescue of the Danish Jews and was brought to the Theresienstadt ghetto on October 6, 1943 at the age of 74 . His cousin Arthur von Weinberg and his cousin Emma Bonn were also held in the Theresienstadt ghetto.

Ludwig Wilhelm von Gans survived the time in Theresienstadt. After the liberation, however, Ludwig von Gans was half starved and mentally confused by the prison conditions. After the liberation he was taken to Sweden and then to Denmark. In 1946 Ludwig von Gans died by suicide .

swell

• Angelika Rieber: "Denmark trip will be fatal"; in: Frankfurter Rundschau from January 26, 2010

literature

• Angela von Gans, Monika Groening: The family Gans 1350-1963. Verlag Regionalkultur, Heidelberg 2006, 464 pages, ISBN 978-3-89735-486-9 .