Michael Siegel

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Picture from March 10, 1933

Michael Siegel (born September 14, 1882 in Arnstein ; † March 15, 1979 in Lima ) was a German lawyer in Munich who emigrated to Peru in 1940 as a persecuted Jew.

Life

Michael Siegel graduated from high school in Schweinfurt in 1902. He then studied law at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich until 1906 . In 1907 he received his doctorate.

In 1920 he married Mathilde Waldner. The children Hans-Peter (1921-2010) and Maria Beate (* 1925) emerged from the marriage. The family lived on Possartstrasse in Munich's Bogenhausen district from 1920 to 1939. On January 17, 1939, they had to move into a collective flat for expropriated Jews (" Judenhaus ") at Lindwurmstrasse 125, the last address of the Israelite religious community in Munich. In the same year both children emigrated to England. The daughter Beate with a Kindertransport and the son Hans-Peter with a study visa. Under the title "Once I was a Münchner Kindl" the history of the Siegel family and Beates' experiences during the transport of the children and afterwards are vividly documented.

By chance, Michael Siegel and his wife received visas for Peru because their Spanish teacher, whom they visited to prepare for emigration, was the nephew of the Peruvian interior minister.

In August 1940 Michael Siegel and his wife left Germany from Berlin on the Trans-Siberian Railway via Moscow, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Harbin to Korea and Japan across the Pacific Ocean and then via Los Angeles to Peru .

The photo

Barefoot Jewish lawyer Dr. Michael Siegel under SS surveillance with a sign ( "I will never complain to the police again" ) walking across Munich's Bahnhofplatz

The Jewish lawyer Michael Siegel became known worldwide through two photographs from March 10, 1933 when he was driven by SS troops in Munich from Ettstrasse, via Neuhauser Strasse and Stachus and from there via Prielmayerstrasse to the main station.

In an interview with a contemporary witness on April 18, 1983, the professional photographer Heinrich Sanden identified himself as a photographer. Heinrich Sanden describes the processes as follows: He used a roll film camera with a 9 × 12 photo plate. When he offered the two photos to the local newspapers, the local newspapers refused to publish the photos. Fearing that the pictures would put him in danger, he decided to get rid of the photographic plates. He phoned the American press agency International News Photographic Service , which had a branch in Berlin, sold the negatives to them and immediately sent them to Berlin. From there the pictures were sent to Washington, DC . On March 23, 1933, the Washington Times published the images on its front page for the first time.

On the other hand, Michael Siegel said that when he got into a taxi at the main train station, an English-speaking journalist (English or American) approached him and informed him about the creation of the photos he wanted to publish (reported in interviews with contemporary witnesses with his daughter Michael Siegel and in a typescript authorized by Michael Siegel's brother Siegmund in the Munich City Archives).

The pictures are still shown today in the media - for example in school textbooks, exhibitions and on television - as documents of the persecution of the Jews .

Hein points out that the perpetrators belonged to the SS under the then Police President Heinrich Himmler and not, as was falsely claimed until recently, to the SA . In the meantime, the corresponding images in the digitized database of the Federal Archives have also been corrected accordingly .

prehistory

On behalf of his client Max Uhlfelder , the owner of the Uhlfelder department store , who was also a Jew, Michael Siegel went to the main police station to report that the windows of the shop had been destroyed by the Nazi storm troops the night before . Once there, the SS took him to the cellar and beat him so badly that his teeth fell out and his eardrum burst. Then his pants were cut and he was rushed barefoot through the center of Munich by the SS with a large sign hanging around his neck that read “I will never complain to the police again” .

Award

In September 1971 Michael Siegel received the Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany on the occasion of his 89th birthday in recognition of his services to improve the relationship between the German-Jewish refugee community in Lima and the German post-war republic and also for his services as a legal advisor to the German embassy in Peru in relation to Peruvian law.

Web links

literature

  • Anja Salewsky: " Old Hitler should die!" Memories of the Jewish Kindertransport to England. Econ Ullstein List Verlag, Munich, 2002, ISBN 3-548-60234-7 . In June 1999, a “Reunion of the Kindertransport” took place in London for the second time since 1989. The journalist Anja Salewsky took part at her own expense and without commissioning and held talks with the participants. From these conversations, the one-hour program "Once I was a Münchner Kindl" emerged, which was broadcast several times by the Bavarian radio. As a result, this richly illustrated book was created, which reproduces twelve of the original 33 biographies.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Anja Salewsky: "The old Hitler should die!"  , Pp. 24–47
  2. ^ Reprint of the tape interview conducted by Diethart Krebs and Brigitte Walz-Richter in: Kerbs, Diethart u. a. (Ed.): The synchronization of images. Press photography 1930-36. Berlin 1983, p. 122 ff.
  3. ↑ Bastian Hein: Elite for people and leaders? The General SS and its members 1925-1945 , Oldenbourg, Munich 2012, p. 75.
  4. ↑ Barbara Link: A desperate cry gave the title of twelve fates , Die Welt, April 21, 2001
personal data
SURNAME Siegel, Michael
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer
DATE OF BIRTH September 14, 1882
PLACE OF BIRTH Arnstein
DATE OF DEATH March 15, 1979
Place of death Lima