Richard Siegmann

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Stumbling stone in Rostock
Stumbling block in Berlin

Richard Siegmann (born June 17, 1872 in Berlin ; †  October 8, 1943 in the Theresienstadt concentration camp ) was a member of the board of Rostocker Straßenbahn AG for over 30 years and a city councilor for Rostock several times .

Life and work

Siegmann was one of nine children of a wealthy Jewish factory owner originally from Danzig . He was born in 1872 and grew up on Friedrich-Wilhelm-Strasse in Berlin-Tiergarten . He attended the grammar school in the gray monastery and did military service after leaving school. He then became a banker and worked in this profession until 1898. In that year he moved to Rostock and on June 13th became the second member of the board of the Mecklenburgische Straßen-Eisenbahn-Aktien-Gesellschaft , which operated the Rostock tram . As early as October 1898 he was appointed to the first and then sole director. Siegmann married Margarete Salomon (1881–1943) from Schwerin in 1902 . The couple had three children: Melanie (1903–1993; 1938 Ludwig Litten), Hans (* 1905) and Hedi (1906–1944). From 1910 the family lived in a villa on Schillerplatz in Rostock.

In addition to being a member of the board, Siegmann was also a volunteer. In January 1910, he founded the Rostock Tourist Association and was on the board of the association for a long time. In May 1911 he was also involved in founding the Mecklenburg Transport Association. He was also the first chairman of this association. He was also on the board of the Bund Deutscher Verkehrsvereine as well as several transport associations in the Baltic Sea region. In 1926, the Israelite State Assembly (legislative body of the communities represented) of the Israelite State Community of Mecklenburg-Schwerin s (State Association of Jewish Communities) elected Siegmann as its President. After the National Socialists came to power, he was dismissed from all board positions in the associations in April 1933. He finally had to vacate his post as a member of the board of Rostocker Straßenbahn AG at the end of 1935.

Siegmann then moved back to Berlin with his family in early 1936, which is why he resigned the chairmanship of the Israelite State Assembly in the same year. From Berlin he was on 17 March 1943 by the Gestapo abducted and concentration camp Theresienstadt deported . He starved to death there that same year. His wife, who died a few weeks after him, and his youngest daughter Hedi, who was murdered in Auschwitz in 1944, were also deported . Siegmann's two older children had fled abroad and survived the Holocaust.

Political activity

At first Siegmann was a member of the Progressive People's Party . From July 1913 he was a member of the Rostock Citizens Council for this party. Siegmann was already campaigning for democratization at this time. In November 1918 he was elected to the board of the citizens' council. He joined the German Democratic Party in January 1919 and was a member of the city council for this party until July 1920. After he became the first deputy head of the city council from September 1919, he resigned his post as board member of the Rostock tram, but took it up again in May 1921. During this time he took over the management of the EMSA works for his friend Max Samuel , while he was recovering from a car accident.

In the mid-1920s, Siegmann switched to the Reich Party of German Middle Classes and was again a city councilor in Rostock in 1927. In the course of the Gleichschaltung , he had to resign in April 1933.

Honors

1992 in Reutershagen the Richard Siegmann street named after him. Siegmann's then 89-year-old daughter Melanie Litten was present at the ceremony. In addition, stumbling blocks were laid in Berlin and Rostock to commemorate him. In 2004 the Rostocker Straßenbahn AG (RSAG) established the Richard Siegmann Foundation .

Siegmann's writings

  • 1912: The formation and tasks of traffic associations in our day .
  • 1934: “Wood gas drive in regular bus transport. Operating experience of the Rostock tram ". In: Verkehrstechnik: Zentralblatt für den entire Landverkehr und Straßenbau , No. 6 (1934, vol. 51), p. 147ff

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jan-Peter Schulze, Richard Siegmann:… but we were Germans , Max-Samuel-Haus / Foundation Meeting Center for Jewish History and Culture in Rostock (Ed.), Redieck & Schade, Rostock 2011, p. 95, ISBN 978-3 -942673-08-2

Web link

personal data
SURNAME Siegmann, Richard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German industrialist and politician
DATE OF BIRTH June 17, 1872
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin , Germany
DATE OF DEATH October 8, 1943
Place of death Theresienstadt concentration camp