Richard Robinow

Richard Robinow (born June 14, 1867 in Hamburg , † November 16, 1945 in London ) was a German lawyer .

Life and work

Richard Robinow was a son of Johannes Adolph Robinow (1838-1897), who, like his grandfather Siegmund Robinow, belonged to the upper Jewish bourgeoisie in Hamburg. Both were members of the Hamburg Parliament . Richard Robinow attended the Johanneum and then studied law at the University of Göttingen . There he received his doctorate in 1892. He then went to the University of Berlin , where he passed the second state examination in law in 1895. He then returned to his hometown, where he founded a partnership with Paul Rauert . He worked as a lawyer until November 30, 1938, when he was banned from practicing his profession. Since he had done military service during the First World War and the firm had already existed since 1895, he received an exemption based on the law on admission to the bar , which, however, provided for Paul Rauert to be excluded from the firm in 1936.

As part of the November pogroms in 1938 , Richard Robinow was arrested on November 10, 1938 and imprisoned in Sachsenhausen concentration camp . Thanks to Gerd Bucerius's efforts , he was able to leave the concentration camp. Robinow, who was torn and meanwhile penniless, left Hamburg with a wife and one of his sons in June 1939 for England. He died there in November 1945.

Volunteering

Robinow was involved in professional organizations and worked early with the United Liberals . In addition, he did voluntary work in leading positions in the Society of Hamburg Bibliophiles, in the Public Library Association, Association of Intellectual Workers, in the tenants 'association, in the Hohenfelde Citizens' Association, in the Gotthold Salomon Scholarship Foundation and the Henriette Salomon Foundation. Robinow also collected art from Edvard Munch and Hamburg painters. Together with Gustav Schiefler and Henry P. Newman , he initiated the graphic exhibition , which took place in the Hamburger Kunsthalle in 1904 .

From 1918 to April 18, 1933, Robinow was a member of the board of directors of the Hanseatic Bar Association and was chairman of the Hamburg Bar Association for many years until April 1933. He was also secretary of the German Lawyers' Association and chaired the Legal Reading Society. He had to resign from the bar association and bar association immediately after the seizure of power .

Robinow worked on the board of the Father City Foundation from 1905 and initially participated in its building committee and later as a legal representative. The foundation comprised 20 residential pens, 13 of which were only available for members of the Jewish community. After the seizure of power, Robinow was initially able to prevent new taxes that endangered the existence of the residential pens. However, he could not prevent the apartments from being gradually "Aryanized". In October 1938 Robinow had to leave the board.

In addition, Robinow was involved in the Reich Association of Christian-German citizens of non-Aryan or non-Aryan descent .

Honors

Since the early 1950s, a memorial plaque on the Martin Brunn-Stift in Frickestrasse 24 in Hamburg-Eppendorf has been commemorating Richard Robinow.

literature

• Ina Lorenz : Robinow, Richard . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 3 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2006, ISBN 3-8353-0081-4 , p. 315-316 .
• Federal Bar Association (Hrsg.): Lawyer without law. Fate of Jewish lawyers in Germany after 1933. Berlin 2007, pp. 225/226