Siegfried Gumbel

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Siegfried Gumbel
Siegfried Gumbel with his wife Ida and their sons Erich and Otto, around 1910

Siegfried Gumbel (born September 22, 1874 in Heilbronn ; † January 27, 1942 in the Dachau concentration camp ) from the Gumbel family was a lawyer , community council member ( DDP ) and a leading member of the Heilbronn Jewish community . After 1933 he was head of the Israelite Council for Württemberg in Stuttgart .

family

Siegfried Gumbel's grandfather, Abraham Gumbel, came from Bruchsal to Stein am Kocher, where he married in 1821. He was a "trader" and an Adler host. He had six children, two of whom lived in Heilbronn from 1858. On July 12, 1860, Moses (Max) Gumbel received citizenship, and in 1861 Abraham's eldest son Isaac received citizenship in Heilbronn. Max Gumbel married Lina Kiefe in Heilbronn in 1865. The Gumbel-Kiefe banking and exchange business operated by the couple since 1880 was operated by two sons - Wilhelm and Gottfried - from 1900. From 1885 they lived at Uhlandstrasse 11 in Heilbronn, later at Gartenstrasse 50.

The youngest child of Max Gumbel and Lina Kiefe was Siegfried Gumbel, who attended the humanistic Karlsgymnasium and was the best of his class when he graduated in 1892. He studied law at the University of Tübingen , where he did his dissertation. From 1901 he worked as a lawyer in Heilbronn. He married Ida Rosenthal in 1904 and had two children with her: Otto and Erich. Since Ida was paralyzed from multiple sclerosis , Siegfried had an elevator installed in his house to make her stay in the garden easier. When he often returned home from official work late at night, he would read her difficult philosophical and poetical works for hours.

With Ida Siegfried had two sons, Erich and Otto. Both sons left Germany on the day of the boycott of the Jews , April 1, 1933.

Otto Gumbel married an ultra-Orthodox , Polish Jew , which was rejected by Siegfried Gumbel. Otto's liberal father had distanced himself from the so-called " Eastern Jews ". Otto and his wife emigrated to France on April 1, 1933, where Otto took the name Abraham Guivol and from there emigrated to Israel , where he lived in Jerusalem.

Erich was involved in the Jewish youth movement "Bund" in Heilbronn together with Max Victor (* 1905), Lutz Rosengart, Erwin Rosenthal, Ernst Rosenberg and Georg Schwarzenberger . He left Germany on April 1, 1933. 1934 emigrated from Switzerland to the League of Nations mandate for Palestine . Shortly before emigrating, he paid his parents a visit. In 1936 he visited his parents again at the Olympic Games. He had traveled to Heilbronn from Prague, where he had attended a congress of psychoanalysts. Erich was the first candidate for training in psychoanalysis at the Jerusalem Institute of the CPI and, with brief interruptions, headed the “Chewrah Psychoanalytith b'Erez Israel” (CPI) for over 20 years from the mid-1950s and had a major influence on the development of the CPI.

After the death of his wife in October 1936, Siegfried visited his son Erich in Jerusalem in spring 1937, who married Lidia Deutsch in Jerusalem in April 1938.

Siegfrieds' colleague Julius Wissmann said that Goethe's statement must rightly be written about Gumbel's life, because Gumbel followed him all his life:

"Let man be noble, helpful and good"

Life and works

Gumbel was chairman of the Heilbronn Bar Association, headed the Central Association of German Citizens of Jewish Faith and also played an important role in the German Democratic Party . In Wuerttemberg Gumbel became involved from 1920 as a member of the constituency of Heilbronn in the constituent church assembly and from 1924 as deputy chairman of the finance committee.

Speech for the 50th anniversary of the synagogue in 1927

Gumbel's disillusionment can be felt in the celebratory speech on the anniversary of the synagogue:

“This is how people felt in 1877 [...] in our circles they were convinced that the times were finally over when the Jew was treated as having no rights or had been treated with inferior rights and was mistreated. The constitution stated that the exercise of civil rights did not depend on the creed, and at that time we had the confidence that equality based on the law, insofar as it had not yet been granted to us by the administration, would gradually prevail. People lived in the hope that the prejudices still existing against us would gradually disappear and that social disregard would eventually cease. But not all blooming dreams have come true, many frosts and weather setbacks have poisoned the atmosphere, and we have had to fight hard for our rights and our validity [he concluded that] it is a hard fate to be the scapegoat should give up for the guilt of others, it is a terrible fate if one is to become the victim of racial conceit and racial madness. "

President of the Herder Lodge

Gumbel was the chairman of the founding of the Herder Lodge , formerly: " Israelitische Lodge ". This belonged to the order " B'nai B'rith " (בני ברית, Sons of the Covenant), a Jewish organization founded in New York in 1843.

Founder of the Central Association in Heilbronn

Gumbel was chairman of the founding of the Heilbronn local group of the Central Association of German Citizens of Jewish Faith . This association had the defense of anti-Semitism and the emancipation of Judaism on the basis of German citizenship as its goal.

City council member as a member of the DDP

Siegfried Gumbel just barely made it as the 6th candidate of the DDP to get into the city parliament. On August 5, 1932, after the death of Ludwig Heuss, the parliamentary group leader of the DDP, Gumbel came to the Heilbronn municipal council by way of a replacement procedure. Before Gumbel was committed to the DDP as a city councilor on October 13, 1932, three NSDAP city councilors, VALID , Kölle and Faber , responded with protest: " As a member of the Jewish race, Gumbel was not allowed to hold any public office at a German authority ".

The Lord Mayor Beutinger reprimanded the three city councilors with a call to order: “ According to German law, such a statement is a serious insult. I call you to order! "

In conclusion, Gumbel made a statement himself, pointing out on the one hand that his ancestors had lived in Germany for centuries, and on the other hand that he himself was a German citizen and, as a lawyer, also defended and complied with German law. Not he, but the constitution, which gives him this right of citizenship, is being objected to here and should therefore be clarified elsewhere.

"If, however, it is countered to me in this hall that I am not worthy and unable to sit here in the municipal council, then this goes against my honor also against those of his voters, who have given me the honor of electing me."

The Heilbronn press described the actions of the three city councilors of the NSDAP as “a comedy” (Neckar-Echo) or “cultural shame” (evening newspaper).

On March 16, 1933, the NSDAP submitted the application, which was rejected “ the Jewish city councilor and lawyer Dr. To exclude Gumbel from the council ”. Nevertheless, Gumbel gave up his mandate that day.

Senior Councilor of the Israelite Religious Community Württemberg

In 1936, Siegfried Gumbel was elected President and legally qualified member of the Upper Council of the Israelite Religious Community of Württemberg . In his position as "Oberrat" Siegfried Gumbel tried to ease the situation of the community members by advocating the school system, pastoral care, adult education and emigration. It is interesting to note here that " contrary to many other opinions [...] he advised emigration ... " Gumbel is said to have said himself: " ... the imagination in general is insufficient to foresee what will now follow [Rath's murder]! "

Deportation and murder

After the November pogroms of 1938 he was sent to the Welzheim protective custody camp , and in 1941 to the Dachau concentration camp , where he was murdered on January 27, 1942.

Honors

The Heilbronn municipal council decided on October 19, 1961 to name the new street to be laid out at the foot of the Wartberg "Siegfried Gumbel-Straße".

At the initiative of schoolchildren, three stumbling blocks were laid in Heilbronn in May 2009 , one of which in front of the house at Gartenstrasse 50 reminds of Siegfried Gumbel.

literature

  • Martin Uwe Schmidt: Siegfried Gumbel (1874-1942): Humanity against barbarism . In: Heilbronner Köpf IV (Small series of publications by the Heilbronn City Archives 52), Heilbronn 2007, pp. 51–68.
  • Peter Wanner: Siegfried Gumbel. In: Maria Magdalena Rückert (Ed.): Württembergische biographies including Hohenzollern personalities. Volume II. On behalf of the Commission for Historical Regional Studies in Baden-Württemberg. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2011, ISBN 978-3-17-021530-6 .
  • Hans Franke: History and Fate of the Jews in Heilbronn . Heilbronn City Archives, Heilbronn 1963 (Publications of the Heilbronn City Archives, 11) ( here as PDF with 1.2 MB) p. 201ff.
  • Wolfram Angerbauer (arrangement): Museum for the history of the Jews in the district and city of Heilbronn. Catalog. Heilbronn district, Heilbronn 1989, ISBN 3-9801562-2-2 .
  • Uwe Jacobi : The missing council minutes: records of the search for the unresolved past , Heilbronn 1981.
  • German Jew. Freundeskreis Heilbronn eV (Ed.): Why the synagogues burned ... A local historical documentation to remember the Jewish communities in Heilbronn and the surrounding area and their destruction after 1933. Heilbronn 1993.
  • Horst Göppinger : Jurists of Jewish descent in the “Third Reich” . 2nd, completely revised edition. Beck, Munich 1990, ISBN 3-406-33902-6 , p. 245.
  • Erich Gumbel: Psychoanalysis in Israel. Psyche 20 , 1966, 67-73 [F]

Archival material

  • Stadtarchiv Heilbronn, database HEUSS , experts search + icon magnifier go
    • Call number: ZS-16142: Gumbel, family
    • Signature: ZS-12951
    • Signature: L006-Hz Sta KR-52.
    • Signature: F001-M-2728: Heilbronn, Siegfried-Gumbel-Straße
    • Signature: D100-100: Jews Auslandsheilbronner: Letters from Siegfried Gumbel to his son Erich + poem for Erich's 4th birthday on August 7, 1912, 2 letters from March 12 and April 16, 1937 (before the trip to Palestine and on the return journey) Stock D100 - Small Foundations

Individual evidence

  1. Schmidt 2007, pp. 51-68.
  2. Schmidt 2007, p. 62.
  3. Franke 1963, p. 357.
  4. Schmidt 2007, p. 58.
  5. Franke 1963, p. 241f.
  6. PEP Web-Obituary: Erich Gumbel (1908-1994)
  7. ^ Psychoanalysis in Israel
  8. ^ Letters from Wissmann dated June 17 and September 27, 1962, cited by?
  9. a b Why the synagogues burned ... 1993, p. 11.
  10. Jacobi 1981, p. 18.
  11. Jacobi 1981, p. 16.
  12. Why the synagogues burned ... 1993, pp. 14, 44.
  13. Schmidt 2007, p. 51.
  14. Gertrud Schubert: Stumbling blocks in everyday life . In: Heilbronn voice . May 28, 2009 ( from Stimme.de [accessed on August 20, 2009]).

Web links

Commons : Siegfried Gumbel  - Collection of images, videos and audio files