Max Samuel

Max Samuel (born January 9, 1883 in Argenau , † September 2, 1942 in Blackburn ) was a German entrepreneur and community chairman of the Jewish community in Rostock .

Life

Max Samuel's professional training began in a relative's shoe shop in Güstrow, Mecklenburg . Here he was given the opportunity to develop his own inventions in a small workshop. The result of this work was the development of orthopedic articles and shoe accessories, with the help of which he founded the EMSA-Werke company in 1906 . He developed a patented brush for suede shoes, which ensured him good sales: he initially delivered throughout Germany, later also to Russia, Scandinavia, England and the USA. In 1906 Max married Samuel Berta Geßner, the daughter of a Bavarian parish cantor. The son Herbert (1907–1992) and the daughter Käte (1910–1987) were born in Güstrow .

House on Schillerplatz Rostock

The conditions for the expanding company were not favorable in the small town of Güstrow, so Max Samuel bought a large piece of land in the port city of Rostock on Friedrichstraße and built his factory there, in which he temporarily employed over 150 people and which he managed with modern methods and directed. In 1921 he bought the villa at Schillerplatz 10 as a residential building , which was built in 1912 by the Laager architect Paul Korff on behalf of the physiologist Hans Winterstein .

In 1923 Max Samuel became the head of the Jewish community in Rostock. In this function, he knew how to involve strictly religious members of the community and moderate people equally in community life and to prevent a division of the community, as happens in many other communities. Rostock was the largest Jewish community in Mecklenburg and with this argument, Max Samuel managed to move the state rabbinate and the senior council from Schwerin to Rostock. In 1930 he took over the chairmanship of the Upper Israelite Council of Mecklenburg-Schwerin.

Max Samuel was socially active as a member of the corporation of merchants and as a member of the State University Society. After the Nazis came to power in 1933, he was no longer able to perform these functions and limited his activities to community leadership. Here he ensured the security of the Jewish cemeteries in Mecklenburg and tried to strengthen the spiritual self-assertion of the community members. He took particular care of social work in the Jewish communities, which became more and more important and necessary. He employed many workers sacked for their beliefs in his factories and arranged for exit papers or travel money.

Herbert Samuel emigrated to Blackburn in England in 1934 to found a branch of the EMSA-Werke, his sister Käthe followed in 1936. Berta Samuel died in 1937 and after the confiscation of his plant in the spring of 1938, Max Samuel followed his son to Blackburn, although he often did had declared that she did not want to leave Germany. He tried to work in the son's company, but continued to take care of persecuted Jews. Not long after the birth of his second grandson, George Kaiser , Max Samuel died in Blackburn.

The Rostock painter Egon Tschirch created a portrait of Max Samuel in oil in 1920. In 2016 this was shown to the public for the first time in 65 years.

literature

• Frank Schröder u. a .: 100 Jewish personalities from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Published by the Foundation Meeting Center for Jewish History and Culture in Rostock, Rostock 2003.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Ostsee-Zeitung , September 16, 2016: Max Samuel comes home .