Willy Cohn

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Willy Cohn (born December 12, 1888 in Breslau ; died November 29, 1941 in Kaunas ) was a German historian and teacher.

Life

Until 1933

Willy Cohn came from a wealthy Jewish merchant family in Breslau. From 1906 he studied history in Breslau and Heidelberg and completed his studies in 1909 with a dissertation published in 1910 in Breslau on the Norman-Sicilian fleet. Cohn made the state examination for the higher teaching post, although he aspired to an academic career at the University of Breslau ; he was unable to implement the plan because of reservations about Jewish scientists. Efforts to obtain a professorship at the new pedagogical university were also unsuccessful. In 1919 Cohn became a teacher at the Johannesgymnasium in Breslau . He was a good teacher and popular with his students. One of his students was the historian Walter Laqueur , who drew attention to the chronicler Cohn in 1996. Cohn was a soldier in World War I and was awarded the Iron Cross .

In the time of National Socialism

Despite increasing reprisals, Cohn, who still felt connected to Germany, tried at the beginning of National Socialism with his second wife Gertrud, geb. Rothmann and two daughters in Breslau (two children from the first marriage and one child from the second marriage emigrated by 1940) and documented life under National Socialism and with it the downfall of his family and the Jewish community of Breslau at that time in his diaries third largest in the German Empire. When the persecution of Jews in Germany got worse, the Cohns considered emigrating. In 1937 he and his wife went on a trip to Palestine . However, there was no work opportunity in Palestine for Cohn, who was not healthy enough to do hard physical work. The kibbutz that Cohn would have liked to join refused to accept the Cohns. Furthermore, since Cohn's wife was not at all impressed by the conditions in Palestine, the couple rejected their emigration plans. When they wanted to flee after the Reichspogromnacht in 1938 , it was too late; After the outbreak of the Second World War, the National Socialists did not allow further emigrations. Now the Cohns were forced to survive the National Socialist reign of terror in Breslau.
Finally the family was arrested on November 21, 1941 and deported to Kaunas in occupied Lithuania . Only a few days later, on November 29th, Willy Cohn, his wife Gertrud (born 1901) and their two daughters Susanne (born 1932) and Tamara (born 1938) were born in the IX. Fort along with 2,000 Jews from Breslau and Vienna shot.

Willy-Cohn plaque at the Rynek in Breslau

Cohn's diaries are now archived in the "Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People" in Jerusalem and were first published in December 2006 as a witness to Jewish history.

Along with Victor Klemperer, Cohn is considered to be one of the most important chroniclers of the crimes of the National Socialists against the Jewish population, but above all of everyday Jewish life in Germany after 1933 under the conditions of gradually increasing economic, social and cultural oppression. In 2010 a commemorative plaque was unveiled in his memory on the Great Ring in Wroclaw.

Scientific fields of work

As a historian, Willy Cohn mainly dealt with the Middle Ages and published important articles on the history of the Hohenstaufen Empire in Sicily (12th / 13th centuries) and the Jews in the Middle Ages. In addition, he published short biographies of various founding figures of German social democracy as well as of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels .

Works (selection)

  • “No right, nowhere.” Diary of the fall of Breslau Jewry 1933–1941 (= New Research on Silesian History. Volume 13, 1–2). Edited by Norbert Conrads . 2 volumes. Böhlau, Cologne a. a. 2006, ISBN 3-412-32905-3 .
    • Excerpt: "No right - nowhere". Breslau Diaries 1933–1941. A selection (= Federal Agency for Political Education. Series of publications. Volume 768). Edited by Norbert Conrads. Federal Agency for Civic Education , Bonn 2009, ISBN 978-3-89331-945-9 .
    • Excerpt: "No right - nowhere". Breslau Diaries 1933–1941. A selection. Edited by Norbert Conrads. Böhlau, Cologne a. a. 2008, ISBN 978-3-412-20139-5 .
    • As a Jew in Breslau, 1941. (From the diaries of Willy Israel Cohn). Published by Joseph Walk . Attali Print-Office, Jerusalem 1975 (2nd edition. Bleicher, Gerlingen 1984, ISBN 3-88350-011-9 ).
  • Blown tracks. Memories of the Wroclaw Judaism before its fall (= New Research on Silesian History. Volume 3). Böhlau, Cologne a. a. 1995, ISBN 3-412-10394-2 .
  • The history of the Sicilian fleet. 1060-1266. Combined reprint of three treatises from the years 1910–1926 with appendix: The Basel Council Fleet of 1437. The Significance of Sea Power in History . Scientia, Aalen 1978, ISBN 3-511-00859-X .
  • The Basel council fleet of 1437 . In: Basler Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Altertumskunde , Vol. 12, 1913, pp. 16–52. ( Digitized version )
  • Jews and Hohenstaufen in southern Italy and Sicily. Essays on the history of the Jews in the Middle Ages, their relationship to the Staufer emperors and the kings of Sicily, as well as the general history of the Staufer. A collection of scattered publications from the years 1919–1936. Scientia, Aalen 1978, ISBN 3-511-09060-1 .
  • Hermann von Salza (= treatises of the Silesian Society for Patriotic Culture. Spiritual Science Series, Volume 4, ZDB -ID 501806-7 ). M. & H. Marcus, Breslau 1930 (reprint. With attachment: Did Hermann von Salza enter the Teutonic Order? Scientia-Verlag, Aalen 1978, ISBN 3-511-00860-3 ).
  • Kaiser Friedrich II. (= Teubner's collection of sources for history lessons . 4th series, Volume 14, ZDB -ID 1107813-3 ). BG Teubner, Leipzig a. a. 1930.
  • Wilhelm Liebknecht. A picture of life. Telling the youth. Volkswacht bookshop, Breslau 1930.
  • The history of the Jews in Silesia . In Erwin Hintze: Judaism in the history of Silesia . Catalog of the exhibition organized by the Wroclaw Jewish Museum in the premises of the Silesian Museum of Applied Arts and Antiquities. Wroclaw 1929.
  • A picture of August Bebel's life. Telling the youth. Volkswacht bookstore, Wroclaw 1927.
  • Capistrano, a Breslau Jew enemy in a monk's habit. In: Menorah. Jewish family journal for science, art and literature. Vol. 4, No. 5, May 1926, ZDB -ID 529344-3 , pp. 262–265, online in the digital library of the 110 most important German-language Jewish magazines Compactmemory , which was financed by the DFG and which can be found on the Goethe University Frankfurt website is located. Online here: sammlungen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de . (Select May 1926 and access the PDF by the author Cohn, p. 262 below). Treatise on the conduct of a pogrom-like trial by the itinerant preacher and persecutor of the Jews, Johannes Capistranus, against the Jews of Breslau in 1543, in which 42 people died and all of the approx. 300 Jews were expelled from Breslau. The reason for the charge was a fabricated crime, a host sacrilege . Capistranus was canonized in 1690 and still is today (2014).
  • The history of the Sicilian fleet under the reign of Frederick II (1197–1250). Priebatsch, Breslau 1926 (reprinted in: The history of the Sicilian fleet. 1060–1266. 1978).
  • The age of the Hohenstaufen in Sicily. A contribution to the emergence of the modern civil service state (= studies on German state and legal history. Issue 134, ISSN  0083-4572 ). Marcus, Breslau 1925 (2nd reprint. Scientia-Verlag, Aalen 1995, ISBN 3-511-04134-1 ).
  • A portrait of Friedrich Engels' life. Telling the youth. Volkswacht bookstore, Breslau 1925
  • A picture of the life of Karl Marx. Telling the youth. Volkswacht bookstore, Wroclaw 1923.
  • A portrait of Ferdinand Lassalle's life. Telling the youth. JHW Dietz Nachf., Stuttgart 1921.
  • The age of the Normans in Sicily (= library of culture and history. Volume 6, ZDB -ID 541504-4 ). Schröder, Bonn a. a. 1920.
  • The history of the Sicilian fleet under the reigns of Conrad IV and Manfred. (1250–1266) (= Treatises on traffic and maritime history , Volume 9). Curtius, Berlin 1920, ZDB -ID 501643-5 ), Textarchiv - Internet Archive (Neudruck. Scientia-Verlag, Aalen 1978, ISBN 3-511-03739-5 ).
  • The history of the Norman-Sicilian fleet under the government of Rogers I and Rogers II (1060–1154) (= historical studies. Issue 1, ZDB -ID 500550-4 ). Marcus, Breslau 1910 (reprinted in: The history of the Sicilian fleet. 1060–1266. 1978).

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Willy Cohn: “No right, nowhere.” Diary of the fall of Breslau Jewry 1933–1941 (= New Research on Silesian History. Volume 13, 1). Edited by Norbert Conrads. Volume 1. Böhlau, Cologne a. a. 2006, ISBN 3-412-32905-3 , pp. X f.
  2. ^ Walter Laqueur : Three Witnesses: The Legacy of Victor Klemperer, Willy Cohn and Richard Koch. In: Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Volume 10, No. 3, ISSN  8756-6583 , pp. 252-266, doi: 10.1093 / hgs / 10.3.252 .
  3. ↑ See: Wolfram Wette : Karl Jäger. Murderer of the Lithuanian Jews (= Fischer 19064 The time of National Socialism ). Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2011, ISBN 978-3-596-19064-5 , p. 124 ff.
  4. ↑ Review notes on No Right, Nowhere. Diary of the fall of Wroclaw Jewry 1933–1941. at perlentaucher.de
personal data
SURNAME Cohn, Willy
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German historian and teacher
DATE OF BIRTH December 12, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Wroclaw
DATE OF DEATH November 29, 1941
Place of death Kaunas , Lithuanian SSR