Martha Mosse

Martha Mosse on February 26, 1948 during her testimony in the Wilhelmstrasse trial .

Martha Mosse (born May 29, 1884 in Berlin , † September 2, 1977 in Berlin) was a German lawyer and the first female police officer in Prussia . Due to her Jewish origins, she was banned from working under National Socialism and deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto in 1943 . Mosse survived the Holocaust and was a witness in the Nuremberg trials .

Life

Mosse was the eldest of the five children of the married couple Lina and Albert Mosse and Rudolf Mosse's niece . In February 1886 the family moved to Japan , as Albert Mosse accompanied the reorganization of the Japanese administration in an advisory capacity at the request of the Japanese government. After returning in 1890, the family moved from Berlin to Königsberg the following year . Mosse was first taught privately and then went to a secondary school for girls . After finishing school in 1902, Mosse went on extensive trips with her family. The family returned to Berlin in 1907, where Mosse began studying singing in the same year. However, due to lack of talent, she broke off her music studies in 1910. She then did voluntary work at the “German Center for Youth Welfare” and completed a course at the “Social Women's School”. Most recently she ran the organization for the protection of unsupervised children and was awarded the Civil Merit Cross.

In 1916 she left the "German Center for Youth Welfare" and initially attended legal lectures in Heidelberg and Berlin as a guest student . However, since she did not have a high school diploma , she could not achieve a regular degree. Nevertheless, it was allowed in Heidelberg, with the dissertation education claim the child in August 1920, Dr. jur. to do a PhD . With a special permit, she was then able to sit in at the Berlin-Schöneberg District Court for six months and then worked as a legal assistant in the Prussian Ministry of Welfare .

In August 1922 she was appointed to the Berlin police headquarters by Carl Severing . Mosse initially worked in the theater department, where she was responsible for monitoring compliance with child protection regulations for theater performances, film recordings and other public performances. Due to her good performance, she was promoted to police advisor in 1926. Mosse was thus the first police officer of the higher service (police council) in Prussia. This promotion went hand in hand with an increase in competence, so Mosse was now also responsible for supervising employment agencies in the theater, the showman, film and circus industries and also for monitoring compliance with Sunday and holiday rest times. The monitoring of compliance with the law on trash and dirt control and the "fight against disgusting expenses" were now the responsibility of Mosse.

Mosse had lived together with her non-Jewish partner Erna Sprenger in Berlin-Halensee since the mid-1920s .

time of the nationalsocialism

Soon after the “ seizure of power ” by the National Socialists, she was suspended from the police force due to her Jewish origin under the Professional Civil Service Act. She then received no pay and was dismissed on January 1, 1934. She then got involved full-time in the Jewish Community of Berlin (JGB), where she was ultimately entrusted with advising dealers who had to inform her about job restrictions, as well as with other tasks such as legal advice. From 1939 she headed the housing advice center, where Jewish citizens who had lost their accommodation were given new quarters, often Jewish houses . After the deportations began , Mosse increasingly asked for restitution for her clients and tried to avert greater disaster. At the beginning of October 1941 Martha Mosse, Moritz Henschel and Philipp Kozower had been informed by the Berlin Gestapo that the "resettlement" of Berlin Jews would now begin and that the JGB would have to help. Despite serious reservations, the JGB functionaries decided to participate in the forced resettlement measures, as they threatened to let the SA and SS carry out this measure otherwise . The JGB had to have its members fill out questionnaires, from which the Gestapo then put together deportation transports. From October 1942 to January 1943, Alois Brunner from Eichmannreferat carried out the deportation of Berlin's Jews in the most brutal way with a task force. From January 1943 the Berlin Gestapo was again responsible for the deportations.

On June 17, 1943, Mosses was deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto. Due to an intervention by the widow of a former ambassador in Japan, a deportation to the Auschwitz extermination camp was averted. In Theresienstadt, Mosse was "investigating judge" in the "detective department", from the beginning of 1945 in the court of the "Jewish self-administration" and from May 1945 until her release on July 1, 1945 in the management of the "Zentralevidenz", the most important administrative office in the camp. active. The offenses to be investigated and negotiated included theft, minor break-ins and brawls.

After the end of the war

After the liberation, Mosse took up a job twice in Berlin, which she lost again due to allegations about her former job in the housing advice center of the JGB. Mosse, already exonerated by the Allied authorities and classified as a victim of fascism , faced an honorary court case by the Jewish community. There she was not found guilty of the collaboration , but also not clearly exonerated. Since Mosse could not emigrate to the USA with her partner because she did not receive a visa, the couple decided to continue living in Berlin. Mosse advised the American military government on the Nuremberg Trials and worked as a translator in this context. She testified in February 1948 as a witness in the indictment against Gottlob Berger in the Wilhelmstrasse trial .

From August 1948 until her retirement in 1953 she worked for the Berlin criminal police and the traffic department in the police headquarters. After that she was still involved in the Berlin Women's Association until the 1970s and was temporarily deputy chairwoman. There she devoted herself in particular to the committee for old age aid of the women's movement. Your “Memories”, attachment: The Jewish Community in Berlin 1934–1943 , appeared in July 1958.

Fonts

• Memories (1884–1953). Berlin 1963 (?). (Manuscript.) Online

literature

• Gudrun Maierhof: Assertion in Chaos: Women in Jewish Self-Help 1933–1943 ; Campus Verlag, 2002; ISBN 9783593370422
• Esriel Hildesheimer: Jewish self-government under the Nazi regime ; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1994; ISBN 9783161461798
• Elisabeth Kraus: The Mosse family: German-Jewish bourgeoisie in the 19th and 20th centuries ; Munich: CH Beck, 1999; ISBN 9783406446948
• Peter Reinicke: First “Police Council” in Prussia and work in the Jewish community under the supervision of the Gestapo: Martha Mosse (1884–1977). In: Sabine Hering (Ed.): Jewish welfare in the mirror of biographies. Writings of the Working Group on the History of Jewish Welfare in Germany, 2; ISBN 9783936065800 .
• Javier Samper Vendrell: The Case of a German-Jewish Lesbian Woman: Martha Mosse and the Danger of Standing out . In: German Studies Review, vol. 41, 2018, issue 2, pp. 335–353.
• Peter Reinicke : Mosse, Martha , in: Hugo Maier (Ed.): Who is who of social work . Freiburg: Lambertus, 1998 ISBN 3-7841-1036-3 , pp. 407f.

Web links

• Mosse, Martha The Theresienstadt Lexicon - with picture and short biography in the "Prominentenlexikon"
• Jens Dobler: Biography Martha Mosse (1884–1977) on www.lesbengeschichte.de

Individual evidence

1. ^ Gudrun Maierhof: Self-Assertion in Chaos: Women in Jewish Self-Help 1933–1943 ; P. 269 f.
2. ^ ^{A b c} Elisabeth Kraus: The Mosse family: German-Jewish bourgeoisie in the 19th and 20th centuries ; P. 572 f.
3. ^ Mosse, Martha The Theresienstadt Lexicon
4. ^ Jens Dobler: Biography Martha Mosse (1884–1977) on www.lesbengeschichte.de
5. ^ Gudrun Maierhof: Self-Assertion in Chaos: Women in Jewish Self-Help 1933–1943 ; P. 272 ​​f.
6. ^ Hans Günther Adler: Theresienstadt. The face of a coercive community 1941–1945 ; Epilogue Jeremy Adler; Göttingen 2005; P. 782 ff.
7. ^ Elisabeth Kraus: The Mosse family: German-Jewish bourgeoisie in the 19th and 20th centuries ; P. 581 f.
8. ^ Elisabeth Kraus: The Mosse family: German-Jewish bourgeoisie in the 19th and 20th centuries ; P. 584 f.
9. ^ Gudrun Maierhof: Self-Assertion in Chaos: Women in Jewish Self-Help 1933–1943 ; P. 340.
10. ↑ Christoph Dieckmann, Birthe Kundrus , Beate Meyer: The deportation of the Jews from Germany: Plans-Practice-Reactions 1938-1945 ; Wallstein Verlag, 2004; ISBN 9783892447924 ; P. 67.