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The talk Red Baron listened to on the evening of October 20, 2020 |
The 19th Century
In 1807, thanks to Napoleon‘s rule, Jews in Baden were recognized as citizens, and their religion was tolerated. They “enjoyed” protected citizenship but were denied local rights. Besides, they were allowed to settle only in communities where Jews were already residents. Within Freiburg‘s city boundaries, only temporary daily stays were permitted.
With the advent of a constitutional monarchy in Baden in 1818, the state parliament's two chambers again discussed the Jews' emancipation. During the “Jewish debates” in the Second Chamber in 1821, resistance was stirring. Freiburg's Karl von Rotteck made himself the spokesman for the members of parliament who demanded of Jews to earn their civil rights through increased integration.
Freiburg put up fierce resistance against freedom of movement. For fear of competition, the merchants wanted to retain the prohibition on Jews, the ban that had existed since 1424, and the city council had once more confirmed in 1809. A petition addressed to the Baden parliament stated, “Wir werden zum Judennest (We shall become a Jewish nest.”)
With such hospitality, it is not unsurprising that the first Jewish family settled in Freiburg as late as 1850, and in 1861 only 37 Jews were counted within the city boundaries.
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| 35 Jewish families and a preliminary synagogue Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums of September 6, 1864. (©Jewish Communities) |
Initially, the Jewish community had only a small prayer room
on Münsterplatz that the Catholic Freiburgers regarded with
suspicion.
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| Looking for a kosher butcher, Ad in the journal Der Israelit on July 11, 1877. (©Jewish Communities) |
At the time of the formation of the Second Reich in 1871, 1.3% or 330 of
Freiburg‘s citizens were Jews. This number increased to a maximum of 1399 or
1.6% in 1925.
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| ©Stadtarchiv Freiburg |
The Third Reich
With the advent of the Third Reich in January 1933, Jews started to leave the city so that in June, the census gave their number as 1138. In May 1940, at the beginning of the Second World War, only 600 Jews still resided in Freiburg. Following the Wagner-Bürckel Aktion in October 1940 (see below), their number dropped to 41; most of the remaining were living in mixed Jewish-Christian marriages.
Already in late March 1933, Freiburg’s Nazi newspaper Der Alemanne called for a national boycott of Jewish businesses, which was officially organized on a national scale for April 1.
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In the future, no German will buy from Jews! Remember well! Judah wanted to annihilate Germany! |
The Freiburgers only moderately followed the boycott of Jewish shops.
Other measures against Jewish citizens hurt more. On April 7, the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service came into force. The Arierparagraph stated: “Civil servants who are not of Aryan descent are to be retired.” The Nuremberg Race Laws of September 1935, i.e., the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor, as well as the Reich Citizenship Law, followed the primitive logic of 1920 NSDAP's party program: ”Citizens can only be those who are Volksgenossen (comrades of the people). A Volksgenosse is of German blood, without regard to creed or denomination. No Jew can therefore be a Volkgenosse.”
The German Jews now fell under the Aliens Act. Thus all civil service was closed to them.
The persecution of Jews reached its spectacular climax on November 9, 1938, in the so-called Reich Pogrom Night, also known as Reichskristallnacht (Night of the Broken Glass).
SS-Standartenführer Walter Gunst was identified as the arsonist of the Freiburg synagogue. On the night of November 9-10, 1938, Gunst ordered gasoline, smashed the door of the building, and with his helpers, emptied the canisters in the synagogue, while at the same time the Gestapo searched the basement for documents.
When the fire broke out between three and four in the morning, it came to a
violent verbal exchange between the unsuspecting Gestapo men and the kindling SS men. In a perfidious impulse, the SS had Rabbi Siegfried
Scheuermann, Cantor David Ziegler, and teacher Loeb David Maier got out of bed and forced them to watch the synagogue fire.
After the war, Wolf Middendorff, a student of law at the time, wrote about the arrival of the fire brigade accompanied by an agent because of the suspicion of arson, "At the scene of the fire, the accompanying detective recognized two high-ranking SS officers, who harshly rejected him, so he could not take up his work. A colleague who passed the scene between five and six observed that the fire brigade restricted itself to protecting the neighboring buildings. He is also chased away, but he announced the fire to the Freiburg public prosecutor's office. When the office, in turn, reported the obvious arson to the Attorney General in Karlsruhe, the latter said that the fire in the Freiburg synagogue is no news. Synagogues all over Germany are burning, and he added, ‘Leave the paragraphs at home, this is a political issue.’”
Middendorff reported as an eyewitness and took a photo too, "When I was on my way to the university on the morning of November 10, 1938, I saw the synagogue half-destroyed. Obviously, it had burned down. The partially blackened outer walls were still standing, the square around the synagogue was cordoned off by SS men who denied all access and took strict care that no one took photographs.”
Under the command of the city building inspector, SS-Untersturmbannführer,
and demolition expert Wilhelm Kunzmann, the synagogue was "laid down" the following day. During the next months, the foundations of the synagogue were razed to the ground.
During the same night and the following day, the Freiburg authorities arrested 137 male Jews over 18 years of age who were taken by train to the Dachau concentration camp north of Munich.
After the war, Wolf Middendorff, a student of law at the time, wrote about the arrival of the fire brigade accompanied by an agent because of the suspicion of arson, "At the scene of the fire, the accompanying detective recognized two high-ranking SS officers, who harshly rejected him, so he could not take up his work. A colleague who passed the scene between five and six observed that the fire brigade restricted itself to protecting the neighboring buildings. He is also chased away, but he announced the fire to the Freiburg public prosecutor's office. When the office, in turn, reported the obvious arson to the Attorney General in Karlsruhe, the latter said that the fire in the Freiburg synagogue is no news. Synagogues all over Germany are burning, and he added, ‘Leave the paragraphs at home, this is a political issue.’”
Middendorff reported as an eyewitness and took a photo too, "When I was on my way to the university on the morning of November 10, 1938, I saw the synagogue half-destroyed. Obviously, it had burned down. The partially blackened outer walls were still standing, the square around the synagogue was cordoned off by SS men who denied all access and took strict care that no one took photographs.”
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Freiburg's Synagogue on November 10, 1938, around noon.
Parts of the collapsed ceiling are clearly visible in the large window. A police officer guards the staircase but does not disturb the photograph. (©Stadtarchiv Freiburg). |
During the same night and the following day, the Freiburg authorities arrested 137 male Jews over 18 years of age who were taken by train to the Dachau concentration camp north of Munich.
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Schüblinge in Baden-Baden (©C. Kreutzmüller). Note that the Jewish men were forced to march bareheaded. In the 1930s, even for a Christian, walking hatless in the street was socially unacceptable. |
*about 30,000 Jews throughout the Reich
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Stolpersteine (stumbling blocks) |
Following November 15, 1938, Jews were no longer allowed to attend German schools and universities, and since January 1, 1939, they were prohibited from conducting businesses.
Freiburg was well ahead of this, for as early as April 1, 1937, the K.G. Fritz Richter operated the department stores of the Kaufhausjude (department store Jew) Sally Knopf.
Freiburg was well ahead of this, for as early as April 1, 1937, the K.G. Fritz Richter operated the department stores of the Kaufhausjude (department store Jew) Sally Knopf.
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Memorial in the form of a road sign at the Square of the Old
Synagogue |
As already mentioned, in 1940, about 600 Jews were still living in Freiburg. On October 22, 1940,
in the framework of the Wagner-Bürckel Aktion, they were deported, together
with other Jews from Baden, the Palatinate, and Saarland, to the Camp de
Gurs in the Pyrenees.
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| The secret instruction leaflet of the Wagner-Bürckel-Aktion (©C. Kreutzmüller). |
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| The Warner-Brückle Aktion at Lörrach (©C. Kreutzmüller). |
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| A memorial plaque set up on the initiative of my friend Andreas Meckel at the Annakirchlein (St. Anna Church) in my part of town, the Wiehre. Jewish citizens who had to assemble here and to wait for their transport to Freiburg's train station. |
Citizens of the Jewish faith and those who were declared Jews according to the inhuman racial ideology were deported from Baden, the Palatinate,
and Saarland on October 22, 1949, under the Nazi rule of terror.
From this place in the Wiehre, the deportation of the women, men, and
children began in full view of everyone to Gurs concentration camp in
southern France.
Most of the deportees succumbed at Gurs to the inhuman camp conditions or were later murdered.;
A Freiburg eyewitness writes, “Throughout October 22, Jewish citizens were driven out of their apartments. They had to wait at assembly points such as the Hebel School's courtyard in the Stühlinger quarter for hours and sometimes the whole night before they were eventually put on trains to Gurs. Seven trains brought 6538 women, men, and children from all over Baden and the Palatinate to the camp in southern France.
Could such an event go unnoticed in Freiburg? Probably only by those who did not want to see. The Freiburg platforms were black with people ...
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To protect the “Catholic” Jews, Freiburg’s Archbishop Conrad Gröber asked the papal nuncio in Berlin for the pope's intervention. In vain, since in the Third Reich, being a Jew was not a question of religion but of race.
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| Numbers of deportees furnished by Dr. Heinrich Schwendemann, the known expert in the field (©BZ) |
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| The cruel transport by train through occupied and Vichy France to Gurs (©BZ) |
Here are the links to two articles in German about the shameful anniversary published in the Badische Zeitung on October 21, "Territoriale Endlösung" and 22, "Ort des Schreckens."
The Post War Period
After the end of the Second World War, just ten Jews married "in mixed marriages" had survived in the city, and only five Jews born in Freiburg returned home.
In September 1945, a Jewish service was held in Freiburg for the first time after the war. At the end of the same year, a new Jewish congregation was constituted, which was initially called the "Israelitische Landesgemeinde Südbaden" (Israelite community in the state of South-Baden). In the early 1950s,
the Freiburg congregation had about 60 members who used a prayer room at Holbeinstraße.
Due to the immigration of Russian Jews, the community's structure changed considerably. In 2007, more than 700 people belonged to the religious community.
In November 1987, a new community center with a synagogue was inaugurated on the corner of Nussmann-/Engelstraße close to the cathedral. In the building, designed by Karlsruhe architects, the two oak wings from the synagogue's main portal, which was destroyed in 1938, were inserted. The community center comprises a community hall with 120 seats, a ritual bath, an exhibition room, the synagogue itself with 150 seats, rooms for the young people, and a kosher kitchen.
Red Baron participated in some of the activities of Freiburg’s Jewish community as there were the commemoration of the burning of the Synagogue and the Kippa Day.
So far, so good. But trouble started in 2016 when Freiburg shaped its new center creating the
Square of the Old Synagogue. Red Baron blogged
about the remains of the Old Synagogue
and
what happened to its memorial.
P.S. For this blog, I borrowed some information from the website „On the History of Jewish Communities in the German Language Area.“
In November 1987, a new community center with a synagogue was inaugurated on the corner of Nussmann-/Engelstraße close to the cathedral. In the building, designed by Karlsruhe architects, the two oak wings from the synagogue's main portal, which was destroyed in 1938, were inserted. The community center comprises a community hall with 120 seats, a ritual bath, an exhibition room, the synagogue itself with 150 seats, rooms for the young people, and a kosher kitchen.
Red Baron participated in some of the activities of Freiburg’s Jewish community as there were the commemoration of the burning of the Synagogue and the Kippa Day.
Square of the Old Synagogue
P.S. For this blog, I borrowed some information from the website „On the History of Jewish Communities in the German Language Area.“
