Georg Hornstein (8 December 1900 – 3 September 1942) was a German-Jewish Resistance fighter during the period of National Socialism (nazism). His acknowledgement of his Jewish heritage, which he made in 1942 during one of his periods of captivity by the Gestapo, has been frequently proclaimed and used as an example of Jewish resistance to the National Socialist regime. [1]
Georg Hornstein was born in Berlin, the son of a shopkeeper and grew up in Düsseldorf, where his family moved in 1902. In Düsseldorf his parents operated a shop on the elegant Königsallee. Hornstein completed his Abitur and was enrolled briefly at the business school in Cologne, until he enlisted as a volunteer near the end of World War I in January 1918. He was first sent to Vienna and then served as an ensign in Kraków until his discharge in November 1918.
He then continued his studies in Cologne, Paris, London and Buenos Aires and returned to Düsseldorf in 1926. After the National Socialists seized power, Hornstein emigrated to Amsterdam and opened a leathergoods business. At the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, he volunteered for the Spanish Army in Barcelona, belonging to the German Thälmann Battalion of the International Brigades. [2] During the battle or siege of Madrid he was seriously wounded, nevertheless from September 1937 until April 1938 he served as communications officer in Albacete.
Then he returned to his business in Amsterdam. In May 1940, during World War II, as the National Socialists occupied the Netherlands, he was still able to liquidate his business and with the proceeds from the sale of his business to acquire jewelry and other valuables. However, he was not able to leave the Netherlands and flee abroad. Hornstein was captured by the security police ( Sicherheitsdienst or SD) and transferred to the prison in Düsseldorf, where he was first detained and then also tortured. During one of his periods of imprisonment by the Gestapo, Hornstein wrote the following declaration about his Jewish identity:
I possess German citizenship and according to the letter of the law I am considered a German citizen. However, as a Jew, I have, for all practical purposes, lost all rights in Germany, and was therefore forced to seek a new homeland … […] … As a Jew, I fought [in Spain] for my convictions and my rights. Under the present circumstances I no longer consider myself a German citizen and would use every opportunity that I might be given, to become a citizen of another country, where, as a Jew, I would be prepared, at any time, to fight for my rights. I have no further comments to make. Georg Hornstein, Interrogation report from the Gestapo, 24 January 1942. [3]
Based on the interrogation report and evaluations of those in power, on 6 March 1942, Hornstein was taken into protective custody at level three (as “especially dangerous”) and transferred to the Buchenwald concentration camp, where he arrived on 7 May 1942. There he was under constant surveillance and was not allowed to work. In the meantime, his mother, Hulda Hornstein, was deported from Düsseldorf to Theresienstadt on 21 July 1942.
Georg Hornstein was murdered by members of the SS in Buchenwald on 3 September 1942.
Bartholomäus (Barthel) Schink was a member of the Edelweiss Pirates, active in the Ehrenfeld Group in Cologne, which resisted the Nazi regime. He was among the 13 members of that group who were publicly hanged in Cologne by the Gestapo on 10 November 1944. Although they were not tried, the group was accused of killing five people and planning an attack on the EL-DE Haus, the local Gestapo headquarters.
SS-OberführerErnst Boepple was a Nazi official and SS officer, serving as deputy to Josef Bühler in occupied Poland during World War II and the Holocaust, who was executed for war crimes.
Louis Rudolph Franz Schlegelberger was State Secretary in the German Reich Ministry of Justice (RMJ) who served as Justice Minister during the Third Reich. He was the highest-ranking defendant at the Judges' Trial in Nuremberg.
Paulus Stephanus Cassel, born Selig Cassel, was a German Jewish convert to Christianity, writer, orator, and missionary to Jews.
Max Bense was a German philosopher, writer, and publicist, known for his work in philosophy of science, logic, aesthetics, and semiotics. His thoughts combine natural sciences, art, and philosophy under a collective perspective and follow a definition of reality, which – under the term existential rationalism – is able to remove the separation between humanities and natural sciences.
The Geschwister-Scholl-Preis is a literary prize which is awarded annually by the Bavarian chapter of the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels and the city of Munich. Every year, a book is honoured, which "shows intellectual independence and supports civil freedom, moral, intellectual and aesthetic courage and that gives an important impulse to the present awareness of responsibility".
Maximilian Hugo Bettauer was a prolific Austrian writer and journalist, who was murdered by a Nazi Party follower on account of his opposition to antisemitism. He was well known in his lifetime; many of his books were bestsellers and in the 1920s a number were made into films, most notably Die freudlose Gasse, which dealt with prostitution, and Die Stadt ohne Juden, a satire against antisemitism.
Israelitisches Familienblatt was a Jewish weekly newspaper, directed at Jewish readers of all religious alignments. Max Lessmann and Leo Lessmann founded the Familienblatt, which was published by the printing and publishing house Buchdruckerei und Verlagsanstalt Max Lessmann first in Hamburg, and then in Berlin (1935–1938). The Familienblatt was the only newspaper dealing with majorly Jewish issues in Germany which was run by a private business not aligned to a Jewish organisation of any kind. The editorial and printing offices were located in ABC-Straße 57 in Hamburg. The Hamburg agglomeration, consisting of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, the Danish-Holsteinian cities of Altona and Wandsbek as well as the Hanoverian city of Harburg upon Elbe, had been an important Jewish centre in Europe and in number with c. 9,000 persons, the biggest in Germany. Only by the first third of the 19th century did Berlin, Prussia's capital, overtake with Jews migrating from the former Polish provinces, which Prussia annexed in the Polish Partitions. Originally directed to readers in Hamburg's metropolitan area the Familienblatt gained more and more readers and spread nationwide in Germany. Israelitisches Familienblatt was prohibited to appear any further after the November Pogroms on 9–10 November 1938.
Inge Deutschkron was a German and Israeli journalist and author. She experienced the Nazi regime as a girl and young woman, living in Berlin first working in a factory, then hiding with her mother.
Werner Friedrich Dissel was a German actor, director, and resistance fighter against the Nazi regime.
The history of the Jews in Cologne dates to 321 C.E., when it was recorded in a census decreed by the Emperor Constantine I. As such, it is the oldest European Jewish community north of the Alps. The community quickly established itself in what came to be known as Cologne's Jewish quarter, building its first synagogue by 1040 C.E. The Crusades put an end to peaceful coexistence with Christians in 1096 C.E. Despite the Archbishop's protection many Jews were killed and their synagogue destroyed. The community regained its economic and religious life until about 1300 C.E., when the Christian majority again applied pressure. The community's fortunes improved and worsened a number of times into the 20th century. Before the 1930s, it consisted of 19,500 people. After the end of World War II it had been almost entirely extinguished due to Nazi destruction, expulsion and murder. Currently it numbers approximately 5,000.
Adolf Kober was a rabbi and a historian.
Werner Scharff was a German Jewish resistance activist against the Nazi regime. He was executed in Sachsenhausen concentration camp because of his activities in the "Community for Peace and Development" (German: "Gemeinschaft für Frieden und Aufbau"), which he founded together with Hans Winkler in Luckenwalde.
Gerhard Zwerenz was a German writer and politician. From 1994 until 1998 he was a member of the Bundestag for the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS).
Peter C. W. Hoffmann was a German-Canadian historian who was the William Kingsford Professor in the Department of History at McGill University. His principal area of research dealt with the German resistance against Nazism, and in particular, the resistance efforts of Claus von Stauffenberg. Hoffmann lived in Canada and in Germany.
Margarete Susman was a German-Jewish poet, writer, and critic who lived much of her life in Switzerland. The author of hundreds of essays, five collections of poetry, and notable literary-critical works, she distinguished herself as a philosophical writer addressing vital questions in literature, politics, culture and religion. Her 1946 work Das Buch Hiob und das Schicksal des jüdischen Volkes (1946), a reflection on Jewish history through the lens of the Biblical book of Job, was one of the earliest postwar Jewish theological responses to the Holocaust.
Gisela von Pöllnitz was a German journalist, communist, and resistance fighter against the Nazi regime. During the Nazi regime, she was a notable member of the Berlin-based anti-fascist resistance group around Harro Schulze-Boysen, later called the Red Orchestra by the Abwehr. Throughout her life von Pöllnitz had a lung condition that progressively worsened after being arrested several times by the Gestapo. On her final arrest by the Gestapo she contracted tuberculosis after 5 months in custody. Her physician Elfriede Paul arranged a sanitarium in Switzerland, but she never recovered.
Erich Schenk was an Austrian musicologist and music historian.
Walter Westfeld or Westfield was a German Jewish art collector and art dealer whose collection was plundered by Nazis. Westfield was murdered in the Holocaust.
Eduard Adolf Daelen was a German painter and writer. For some of his writings he used the pseudonyms Ursus teutonicus, Angelo Dämon, Edu Daelen-Bachem and Michel Bär. He became known above all for the first biography of Wilhelm Busch, which he wrote in 1886.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
