Richard Wiener

Richard Wiener

Richard Wiener (born August 7, 1927 in Wittenberg ) is a German-American patent attorney and honorary citizen of Lutherstadt Wittenberg.

childhood

The son of the Wittenberg shoe manufacturer Robert Wiener (1900–1973) and his wife Mariem (née Glückmann) come from a Jewish family that settled in Wittenberg after the First World War . His grandfather Baruch Wiener established a shoe factory there, which his sons Robert and Max Wiener later ran. Richard Wiener grew up in carefree circumstances until he was five. This changed in 1933, the year he started school, when the National Socialists took over political power in Germany. Soon he felt the increasing anti-Semitism of the German population and in school the effects of the Nuremberg race laws . As this made life in Germany more and more difficult for the Jews, his parents decided in 1936 to apply to leave the United States. In 1937 he moved to the old Melanchthon grammar school in Wittenberg, where he suffered attacks by his classmates. At the same time, Jews were increasingly excluded from public life in the city. After the Reichskristallnacht , the situation came to a head: his father was arrested and the family's furnishings were destroyed. During this time, the family lived under house arrest with practically no rights.

Departure to England

At the beginning of 1939 he was lucky enough to be able to travel to England as one of 10,000 children on the Kindertransport. He only came to live with relatives in London and at the beginning of the Second World War he was housed in a small English town to protect him from air raids. Shortly before the start of the World War, his parents were also able to flee from Germany to England. In the summer of 1940 the family received the longed-for visas for the USA. There she lived first in Brooklyn . Wiener attended Brooklyn Technical High School, completed his military service in the US Army, and then spent months wandering the western United States. There he worked a. a. on the railroad, in the Anaconda smelter in Montana, on plantations and ranches. In 1947 he began studying at Columbia University, where he received his Bachelor of Arts in 1950. He briefly continued his studies in 1951 at the Princeton Graduate School. In 1958, he began studying law at New York University Law School. Since his company made him head of the Washington DC branch when he was 32, he moved to the George Washington University Law School, received his Bachelor of Laws in 1963 and then worked as an independent patent attorney and later as a senior partner in a partnership. He married at the age of 39 and had a son and a daughter. The marriage ended in divorce after twenty years.

Return to Wittenberg

After several trips to the Federal Republic of Germany, he came to his old hometown for the first time in 1990, after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Here he saw how run down the houses were; Wiener also familiarized himself with the life stories of his former classmates. A second visit in 1993, to mark the 700th anniversary of the founding of the city of Wittenberg, showed him the changes brought about by German reunification . During the anniversary celebrations, he met the President of Wittenberg University from Springfield, Ohio . He interpreted for him when it came to bringing about a student exchange between his university and the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg . Ultimately, a center for US studies was established at the Wittenberg Leucorea . On another visit in 1997, he met his former classmates personally. In personal struggle, he learned to forgive those who had caused him and his family so much suffering. Out of this experience, he opened a workshop in America under the motto The Power of Forgiveness . Since then he has toured several American cities and gave lectures for reconciliation and international understanding.

Honorary citizen

In 2010, the Wittenberg city council decided by a majority to make Wiener an honorary citizen for his outstanding and diverse achievements and services to Lutherstadt Wittenberg. On October 3rd of the same year, the mayor of Wittenberg, Eckhard Naumann, presented him with the honorary citizenship certificate during a ceremony to mark the 20th anniversary of German reunification. He expressed that the city of Wittenberg bestowed its highest honor on Vienna for his work for reconciliation, but that the city wanted to apologize for the injustice inflicted in the past. "By campaigning for reconciliation and understanding, Viennese serve Wittenberg as an ambassador and practice an attitude that is extremely beneficial for the city's reputation."

literature

• Ronny Kabus: Jews of Lutherstadt Wittenberg in the III. Rich. 3. edit again. and exp. Ed., Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2012, ISBN 978-3-8448-0249-8 .
• Richard Wiener: The Benefit of Need. In: 2004 home calendar of Lutherstadt Wittenberg and the Wittenberg district. Drei Kastanien Verlag, Wittenberg, 2004, ISBN 3-933028-78-7 , 7th year, p. 46.
• Richard Wiener: My father, the concentration camp inmate. In: 2005 home calendar of Lutherstadt Wittenberg and the Wittenberg district. Drei Kastanien Verlag, Wittenberg, 2005, ISBN 3-933028-88-4 , p. 36.
• Richard Wiener: Return from exile. In: Home calendar 2006 of Lutherstadt and the district of Wittenberg. Drei Kastanien Verlag, Wittenberg, 2006, ISBN 3-933028-96-5 , 9th year, p. 63.
• Die Neue Brücke - The Official Gazette of Lutherstadt Wittenberg. September 10, 2010, vol. 17, no. 18, p. 7, decision no .: I / 158-14-10.
• Wolfgang Gorsboth: Ambassador of Reconciliation - Honorary Citizenship on the Day of German Unity. In: Wochenspiegel - The weekly newspaper for Wittenberg, Jessen and Graefenhainichen. Wochenspiegel-Verlags-Gesellschaft, Wittenberg, 2010, 20th year, No. 38, 22nd September 2010, p. 1 and 3.
• Stephanie Hommers: healing act for both sides. In: Mitteldeutsche Zeitung - Elbe Courier. October 4, 2010, p. 10.
• Laudation by Mario Dittrich for Richard Wiener. In: Home calendar 2011 of Lutherstadt Wittenberg and the district of Wittenberg. Drei Kastanien Verlag, Wittenberg, 2011, p. 28.
• Comments on the award of honorary citizenship by Richard Wiener. In: Home calendar 2011 of Lutherstadt Wittenberg and the district of Wittenberg. Drei Kastanien Verlag, Wittenberg, 2011, p. 32.

Web links

• Irina Steinmann: Richard Wiener will be Wittenberger again. In: Mitteldeutsche Zeitung . online from September 3, 2010.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ there was only one abstention