Margarete Sommer

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Memorial plaque for Margarete Sommer on Laubacher Strasse 15 in Berlin-Friedenau

Margarete (Grete) Sommer (* July 21, 1893 in Berlin ; † June 30, 1965 there ) was a Catholic social worker and lay Dominican . During the Holocaust she helped persecuted Jewish citizens and saved many from deportation to extermination camps . In 2003 she was posthumously awarded the title of Righteous Among the Nations .

Life

Gravestone on the St. Matthias cemetery Berlin-Tempelhof, Dept. 13 W 009/010

She was born the daughter of a railway accountant. In 1914 she graduated from the Werner-Siemens-Realgymnasium in Berlin-Schöneberg , studied philosophy, economics, history and law at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin and the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg , received her doctorate in 1924 with valde laudabile ('very praiseworthy ') on prisoner welfare, a criminalistic-socio-economic study .

Sommer taught at the welfare school of the Catholic German Women's Association (KDFB), at the youth home and at the social women's school. In 1927 she became a full-time lecturer at the welfare seminar of the Pestalozzi-Froebel House in Berlin-Friedenau . In 1932 she joined the Dominican lay community . When she refused to teach the forced sterilization of disabled people in the summer of 1934 , Margarete Sommer was compelled to submit her resignation. Due to the resulting financial situation, she gave up her apartment in Berlin and moved with her mother and sister to a house in Kleinmachnow .

In 1935 she became managing director of the Catholic welfare association for women, girls and children, and in 1939 she became diocesan director for pastoral care in the Episcopal Ordinariate in Berlin under Bishop (later Cardinal) Konrad Graf von Preysing . In September 1941 she took over the management of the relief organization founded in 1938 at the Episcopal Ordinariate Berlin (HBOB) as the successor of the Provost Bernhard Lichtenberg , the outwardly converted Jews to Catholicism , but actually also other Jewish citizens looking for accommodation and work as well as emigrating from Germany helped. When Jews were neither allowed to work nor to emigrate, the summer relief organization tried to find food, clothing and money for them.

During the time of National Socialism in Germany, Sommer helped hide Jews in hiding in the Herz-Jesu-Kirche at Fehrbelliner Strasse 98 and other places in Berlin. A twelve-year-old girl was hidden under her protection in various children's homes until 1945 and survived. Sommer had the affected families warned by pastors about planned deportations. She obtained her information from an extensive network, which also included informants at the Gestapo .

She wrote detailed reports on the Holocaust for the German church leadership and the Pope: Her first report from September 1941 concerned the “ Star Ordinance ”, the second from February 1942 on the situation of “ Jewish mongrels ” and “ mixed marriages ”, the third from August 1942 on Fate of deported Jews in the extermination camps. In it she documented atrocities and mass shootings. The fourth report from November 1942 dealt with statements made at the second Wannsee follow-up conference . In it, Sommer repeatedly called for the Catholic bishops to stand up for the human right to life and freedom.

At the beginning of March 1943 Margarete Sommer succeeded in persuading Cardinal Adolf Bertram, as chairman of the Bishops' Conference, to object to the arrest of Jewish spouses from so-called mixed marriages. According to the historian Ursula Büttner , "this intervention by the otherwise extremely cautious Cardinal [...] at least contributed to the fact that those in power backed away, as did the demonstrations by relatives in Rosenstrasse , which are now much noticed and perhaps overestimated in their effect ."

On August 22 and 23, 1943, Sommer wrote two drafts for the German bishops in favor of the Jews. In it she expressed concern about efforts to dissolve mixed marriages even without legal regulation. She criticized the partly already implemented labor assignment of non-Aryans living in mixed marriage , which could lead to permanent separation. In January 1944, Bishop Bertram protested against the now fully developed plans to concentrate non-Aryan spouses from mixed marriages in special work columns of the Todt Organization .

After 1945, Sommer worked in the Catholic women's pastoral care and was one of the first members of the Society for Christian-Jewish Cooperation in Berlin . In 1950 she fled the communists from Kleinmachnow to Berlin (West). She retired in April 1960. Her grave is in the cemetery of the St. Matthias Congregation in Berlin.

Awards

Margarete-Sommer-Platz in Kleinmachnow

Pope Pius XII awarded Margarete Sommer 1946 the Order of Merit Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice . In 1953 she was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit 1st Class. In 1961, the Berlin Senate put her on the list of "Unsung Heroes". The Israeli Holocaust Memorial Yad Vashem awarded her posthumously in 2003 with the honorary title Righteous Among the Nations. In 1993 the former Werneuchener Strasse in the Berlin district of Prenzlauer Berg was named after Margarete Sommer, and on May 8, 2014 in Kleinmachnow a place with a memorial stele for survivors of the National Socialist terror and the helpers described as "silent heroes".

Works

  • Care in criminal law: before the indictment, during the trial, after release. With a preface by Ignaz Jastrow . C. Heymann, Berlin 1925, OCLC 72276058 .

literature

  • Heinrich Herzberg: Service to the Higher Law: Dr. Margarete Sommer and the “Aid Organization at the Episcopal Ordinariate Berlin”. Servi, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-933757-02-9 .
  • Erich Klausener: Margarete Sommer. In: Wolfgang Knauft (Ed.): Co -builder of the Diocese of Berlin. Morus-Verlag, Berlin 1979, ISBN 3-87554-176-6 , pp. 153-180.
  • Jana Leichsenring:  Margarete Sommer. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 23, Bautz, Nordhausen 2004, ISBN 3-88309-155-3 , Sp. 1395-1399.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
  • Jana Leichsenring: Catholic women in NS. Between resistance and pastoral care. In: Jana Leichsenring (Ed.): Women and resistance. Münster 2003, p. 36 ff.
  • Jana Leichsenring, The Catholic Church and "its Jews". The "Aid at the Bishop's Office in Berlin" 1938–1945. Berlin 2007.
  • Antonia Leugers : Resistance or Pastoral Care of Catholic Women in the Third Reich? The example of Dr. Margarete Sommer (1893–1965). In: Irmtraud Götz von Olenhusen : Women under the Patriarchate of the Churches: Catholics and Protestants in the 19th and 20th centuries. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart / Berlin / Cologne 1995, ISBN 3-17-013906-1 , pp. 161-188.
  • Ursula Pruss: Margarete Sommer (1893–1965). In: Jürgen Aretz , Rudolf Morsey , Anton Rauscher (Eds.): Contemporary history in life pictures. From the German Catholicism of the 19th and 20th centuries. Volume 8. Mainz 1997, ISBN 3-402-06122-8 , 95-106.
  • Wolfgang Knauft: With the commitment of life. The relief organization at the Berlin Bishop's Office for Catholic “non-Aryans” 1938–1945. Episcopal Ordinariate Berlin West, Berlin 1988, DNB 881362336 .

Movies

  • Two days of many. Federal Republic of Germany, 1960 / 61–64, 65 min. First broadcast on ZDF : March 11, 1964. Screenplay: Paul Hans Rameau , Director: Ralph Lothar (in the film “the work of M. Sommer and the 'aid organization' was described in detail. Her name was not mentioned, she appears in the film as 'Frau Dr. Landmann'. ")

Web links

Commons : Margarete Sommer  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jana Leichsenring: The Catholic Church and "their Jews". The "Aid at the Bishop's Ordinariate Berlin" 1938–1945 (= Technical University Berlin. Center for Research on Antisemitism [Ed.]: Documents, texts, materials. Volume 67). Metropol, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-938690-58-1 (Zugl .: Berlin, Techn. Univ., Diss., 2005 a. D. T .: Jana Leichsenring: And take up your cross! The Catholic Church and its Jews ).
  2. ↑ Joachim Jauer : "Righteous Among the Nations": How Margarete Sommer and Elisabeth Schmitz saved numerous Jews. In: Deutschlandfunk Kultur . May 6, 2018, accessed April 12, 2019.
  3. ↑ Ursula Büttner: The other Christians. Your commitment to persecuted Jews and "non-Aryans" in National Socialist Germany. In: Beate Kosmala, Claudia Schoppmann (Hrsg.): Survival in the underground. Help for Jews in Germany 1941–1945 (= solidarity and help for Jews during the Nazi era. Volume 5). Metropol, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-932482-86-7 , pp. 127–150, here: p. 134.
  4. ↑ Document VEJ 11/72. In: Lisa Hauff (edit.): The persecution and murder of the European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933–1945 (source collection). Volume 11: German Empire and Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia April 1943–1945. De Gruyter Oldenbourg, Berlin / Boston 2020, ISBN 978-3-11-036499-6 , pp. 245–249.
  5. ↑ Document VEJ 11/111. In: Lisa Hauff (edit.): The persecution and murder of the European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933–1945 (source collection). Volume 11: German Empire and Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia April 1943–1945. De Gruyter Oldenbourg, Berlin / Boston 2020, ISBN 978-3-11-036499-6 , pp. 344–346.
  6. ↑ Graves of honor in the St. Matthias cemetery. In: st-matthias-berlin.de. Parish of St. Matthias , accessed on December 1, 2015 .
  7. ↑ Stefan Kaufer: How the Church Helped Many Persecuted Jews. Margarete Sommer bravely stood up for the persecuted with her Berlin aid organization. She has now posthumously received a high honor for this. In: Rheinischer Merkur . No. 32, August 7, 2003.
  8. ↑ Margarete Sommer on the Yad Vashem website , accessed on March 6, 2017 (English).
  9. ↑ Dr. Martin Höllen, Joernalist: Margarete Sommer alias “Frau Dr. Farmer ". Film screening and lecture about the co-founder of the Society for Christian-Jewish Cooperation on the 67th anniversary of the GCJZ Berlin. November 24, 2016. (No longer available online.) In: gcjz-berlin.de. Society for Christian-Jewish Cooperation in Berlin V., 2017, archived from the original on April 8, 2017 ; accessed on April 12, 2019 (section: November 2016 ).
personal data
SURNAME Summer, Margarete
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Summer, Grete
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Catholic social worker, Righteous Among the Nations
DATE OF BIRTH July 21, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH June 30, 1965
Place of death Berlin