They Saved My Family
Posted: December 29, 2020 Filed under: Hoeber | Tags: CAU, Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced German Scholars, Institute for International Education, Nazis and Scientists, Rudolf Hober, Scholar Rescue Fund, University of Kiel Leave a comment
A couple of years ago, I wrote about The Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced German Scholars, which paid my grandfather’s salary at the university of Pennsylvania in 1934, making it possible for him to escape Nazi Germany. That Committee was a project of the Institute for international Education Scholar Rescue Fund. This year, the IIE-SRF celebrates its centenary, marking a hundred years of aiding international scholars threatened by conditions in their home countries. As part of the observance, the IIE is publishing stories of some of the scholars they helped over the years. They asked me to write an article about my grandfather. Here is the result.
From the IIE scholar rescue archives: Renowned physiologist Rudolf Höber
For the past 100 years, IIE has led special efforts to rescue academics who face threats to their lives and scholarly work. One of IIE’s most notable efforts was the Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced Foreign Scholars, which from 1933-1945 offered temporary academic homes in colleges and universities in the United States to more than 300 European scholars facing Nazi persecution. One such scholar was Dr. Rudolf Höber, a celebrated physiologist and human rights defender. In the below article, guest author Francis W. Hoeber tells us more about his grandfather’s remarkable life and work.
“My grandfather, Rudolf Höber (1873-1953), was a celebrity in the world of physiology. His pioneering work in biochemistry and biophysics won him worldwide recognition and two nominations for the Nobel prize. From 1911 to 1933, Höber was a professor at the University of Kiel in Germany and head of the prestigious Physiological Institute there.
Höber was more than a brilliant scientist; he was a humanist and social progressive as well. An early feminist, he focused on bringing women into the field of medicine, including his wife, Dr. Josephine M. Höber; 22 of the 24 doctoral dissertations he supervised at the University of Zürich early in his career were prepared by women scholars. When women got the right to vote in 1920, his wife quickly became a leading political activist, especially in public health and women’s rights. In the 1920s, Höber joined with other leading scientists and writers calling for the decriminalization of consensual same-sex relations. From 1930-1931, Höber served a term as Chancellor of the University of Kiel. Twice he had to discipline right wing students who disrupted speakers who were liberal or Jewish. In 1931 he expelled several Nazi students and banned the Nazi student group from the campus.
When Adolf Hitler took power in January 1933, Höber’s anti-Nazi record, plus the fact that one of his grandfathers was Jewish, made him an immediate target. That April, men in uniforms of Hitler’s Stormtroopers and the SS charged into Höber’s classroom. The Nazis threatened to kill him and throw grenades into his classrooms unless he quit his teaching. Höber laid low for a couple of days, but then returned to teaching his students despite the risk.
In the summer of 1933, however, the Nazi Education Ministry fired him from his professor position and expelled him from the university. Desperate to continue his scientific research, Höber applied to IIE’s Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced German Scholars for help. In a fairly short time, the Committee’s director, Edward R. Murrow, wrote Höber and arranged a teaching position and small lab at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. At UPenn, he continued his research on the molecular structure of cell membranes, with his wife as his laboratory collaborator. They co-authored numerous scientific articles and a new edition of Höber’s celebrated monograph, The Physical Chemistry of Cells and Tissues. This was in addition to lecturing and mentoring graduate students in advanced medical research. Höber’s adult children and their families were eventually able to follow him and his wife to the U.S. His descendants contributed much to their new country as academics, scientists, public servants, and artists.
The work of IIE’s Emergency Committee meant, literally, the survival of our family. In the midst of our current dark times, IIE helps us remember that the world has recovered from dreadful situations before.”
More stories about the Höber family are in Against Time: Letters from Nazi Germany, 1938-1939, published by the American Philosophical Society. Information is available here. Also available at Amazon.com.
German edition, Deutsche auf der Flucht, ein Briefwechsel zwischen Deutschland und Amerika von 1938 bis 1938, available here.
This entire blog is available in book form. Send a note to the author through the comments section below.
A Century-Old Experiment Still Relevant Today
Posted: August 27, 2020 Filed under: Hoeber | Tags: A Method to Measure the Electrical Conductivity Inside Cells, Dieter Ast, Elektrische Leitfaehigkeit, IEEE Microwave, Ilke Schmueser, James C. M. Hwang, Journal of Electrical Bioimpedence, kiel physiological institute, Pflüger's Archiv, Ron Pethig, Rudolf Hober, University of Kiel, university of pennsylvania Leave a comment
Prof. Rudolf Höber, Kiel, around the time he published his article on measuring electric current inside cells.
THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE IN GERMAN
There are about 75 million cells in a tablespoon of blood. My grandfather, Rudolf Höber, an early cellular physiologist, spent his whole life studying these microscopic entities, trying to figure out how they work. He and others knew that electric current is conducted within and between these cells. How much electric current? How does it work? How do you measure it? My grandfather figured it out. He published the method of measuring conductivity in cells in a German scientific journal, Pflüger’s Archiv für die gesamte Physiologie der Menschen und der Tiere [“Journal of General Physiology of Humans and Animals.”] In the original, it looked like this:
Rudolf Höber’s article on measuring electrical current inside blood cells, as it originally appeared in “Pflügers Archiv” in 1910.
Apparatus diagrams as published in “Pflügers Archiv” in 1910.
A couple of years ago, I was surprised to learn that my grandfather’s work on the measurement of electrical current in cells was still considered relevant, sufficiently so that it warranted publication of its own commemorative article. Ron Pethig, Professor of Bioelectronics and Dr. Ilke Schmueser, Researcher, both at the University of Edinburgh, published “Marking 100 Years Since Rudolf Höber’s Discovery of the Insulating Envelope Surrounding Cells and of the Beta-Dispersion Exhibited by Tissue” (Journal of Electrical Bioimpedence, vol. 3, pp. 74-49, 2012).
THE ARTICLE AS NEWLY TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH BY JAMES C. M. HWANG AND DIETER G. AST, 2020
Recently, I was unexpectedly contacted by James C. M. Hwang, a senior research professor in materials science at Cornell University. He had just completed an article on “Label-free Noninvasive Cell Characterization by Broadband Impedance Spectroscopy“, to be published next year by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers in its IEEE Microwave Magazine . His article reviews work done by various scientists in the past, including that of my grandfather, and finds that the principles they explored may be adapted to promise advances in science and engineering using today’s technologies. He found the work of my grandfather sufficiently interesting and relevant today that he enlisted a German-native-speaker colleague, Prof. Dieter G. Ast, to collaborate with him on producing an English translation. And now I am very pleased to be able to present “A Method to Measure the Electrical Conductivity Inside Cells,” available for the first time in English, thanks to Profs. Hwang and Ast. In the continuing documentation of our family’s history, we are grateful to them for this work. The complete translation appears at the end of this post.
HAVING TROUBLE UNDERSTANDING THESE ARTICLES?
I have been told that my Opa Rudi, the great physiologist, had hopes that I might follow him into a career in the sciences. Alas, my life took me in different directions. As a result, I must admit that my understanding of my grandfather’s groundbreaking article is limited, even in English. Nevertheless, it is a great satisfaction that scientists who do have the necessary knowledge find his work of a century ago to be relevant for further research, discovery and invention in the twenty-first century.
NOTE: The copyright on my grandfather’s original article is arguably still owned by the successor to the original publisher. Hence the following notice: Translated by permission of Springer Nature, Rudolf Höber, Pflüger’s Archiv für die gesamte Physiologie der Menschen und der Tiere, “Eine Methode, die Leitfähigkeit im Innern von Zellen zu messen,” copyright 1910.
In Praise of Similarity and Difference: Portrayals of German Jews (Moritz Daniel Oppenheim (1800-1882), Part II)
Posted: July 31, 2018 Filed under: Hoeber, Uncategorized | Tags: Franco-Prussian War, Jewish Family Life, Jews in Germany, Moritz Daniel Oppenheim 2 CommentsNote: With the exception of the first illustration below, the images in this post are borrowed from the wonderful book, Der Zyklus „Bilder aus dem altjüdischen Familienleben“ und sein Maler Moritz Daniel Oppenheim [The Series “Pictures of Old Jewish Family Life” and its Painter Moritz Daniel Oppenheim] by Ruth Dröse et al. (Hanau: Co-Con Verlag, 1996).
Moritz Daniel Oppenheim and his first wife, Adelheid Cleve, 1829 (self portrait). Nothing in their dress or demeanor distinguishes them visually from others in Germany’s rising bourgeoisie of the period.
Minority groups in any society continually negotiate a balance between maintaining their distinct identity and fitting into the larger society in which they live. In the United States, this negotiation has been repeatedly managed by immigrant groups, including Irish, Italian and Eastern Europeans in the 19th century and East and South Asians, Middle Easterners and myriad Latinos today. Jews in Germany in the 1800s faced similar social negotiations. At the beginning of the century, Jewish mobility was tightly restricted and their lives were often segregated from the majority community. A hundred years later, however, Jews were leaders in countless fields in Germany, including literature, the arts, science, the professions and business. Prejudice and discrimination persisted, but the progress over the century was remarkable.
As German Jews entered the middle and educated classes, they faced the conundrum of maintaining their distinctive customs and beliefs while sharing the benefits and liberal values of participation in a broader, more diverse, modern society. In the second half of the 19th century, the domestic art of my great-great-great grandfather’s brother, Moritz Daniel Oppenheim, portrayed a credible balance between these competing objectives. You can read a prior post about him here. His series depicting Jewish life became wildly popular. They started as black-and-white paintings that were photographically converted to lithographs. The set sold thousands of copies in many editions.
Moritz Daniel Oppenheim, Freitag Abend [Friday Evening], 1867. The father returns from the synagogue for the Sabbath meal with his family.
Moritz Daniel Oppenheim, Sabbat-Nachmittag [Sabbath Afternoon], (1866). A Jewish family quietly observes the Day of Rest.
Moritz Daniel Oppenheim, Das Wochen- oder Pfingstfest [The Feast of Weeks, or Shavuot] 1880. The late spring festival features decorations of garlands and flowers.
Moritz Daniel Oppenheim, Die Jahrzeit (Minjan) [Minyan], 1871. Jewish soldiers interrupt the war to observe Jahrzeit, the anniversary of the death of one of the soldiers’ father.
Prof. M. Oppenheim, Bilder aus dem altjüdischen Familienleben [Pictures of Old Jewish Family Life], edition of 1872.
Prof. M. Oppenheim, Bilder aus dem altjüdischen Familienleben [Pictures of Old Jewish Family Life], edition of 1901.
More stories about the Höber family are in Against Time: Letters from Nazi Germany, 1938-1939, published by the American Philosophical Society. Information is available here. Also available at Amazon.com.
German edition, Deutsche auf der Flucht, ein Briefwechsel zwischen Deutschland und Amerika von 1938 bis 1938, available here.
This entire blog is available in book form. Send a note to the author through the comments section below.
Portraitist to the Rothschilds — Moritz Daniel Oppenheim, 1800-1882, Part I
Posted: July 17, 2018 Filed under: Hoeber, Uncategorized | Tags: Bernhardine Oppenheim Friedeberg, Carl Mayer von Rothschild, Frankfurt am Main, Goethe and Mendelssohn, Hanau, Heinrich Heine, Ludwig Boerne, Moritz Daniel Oppenheim, Nathan Mayer Rothschild 3 CommentsNote: The images in this post are borrowed from the wonderful reference book and catalogue raisonné , Moritz Daniel Oppenheim, Die Entdeckung des jüdischen Selbstbewußtseins in der Kunst [“The Discovery of Jewish Self-Awareness in Art”], edited by Georg Heuberger and Anton Merk, Jüdisches Museum Frankfurt am Main, 1999.
Moritz Oppenheim (1800-1882), Selbstbildnis, 1825.
One of the fascinating things about digging into my family’s history was to discover that before 1900, almost everyone on my father’s side of the family was Jewish. My father was baptized and confirmed as a Protestant, as was his father, and my mother came from an entirely Protestant background,. So it was only late in my life that I learned of my father’s Jewish roots. My 5X great-grandfather, Lazarus Gumpel, sponsored the first Reformed synagogue in Hamburg, Germany around 1800. Other family members were close with Abraham Geiger and Theodore Creizenach, among the founders of Reform Judaism in the early 19th century.
One of the interesting characters I discovered was my 3X great-grandfather’s brother, Moritz Oppenheim (1800-1882). He was born in the confined ghetto in Hanau, near Frankfurt, to a wealthy family of jewelers and bankers. He grew up to be called The First Jewish Painter. He showed his talent early, with this remarkable and quirky self-portrait when he was just 14 years old.
Moritz Daniel Oppenheim. Selbstbildnis, 1815.
Moritz discovered early that he could make a decent living painting religious scenes based on both Old and New Testament themes. Many of these, however, bear the saccharine character of popular 19th century religious illustrations. The slightly racy quality of this painting of Potiphar’s Wife (here trying to seduce Joseph) makes it more interesting than some in this genre:
Moritz Daniel Oppenheim, Joseph und das Weib von Potiphar, 1828.
I think Moritz really was at his best when he got into portraiture. He had a wonderful capacity to capture the personalities of interesting people. I love this painting of my great-great-aunt, Bernhardine Friedeberg (1822-1873), which captures not just her beauty but her intelligence and determination:
Moritz Daniel Oppenheim, Bernhardine Friedeberg, 1846.
Good portraits were a sign of status and taste in Europe and America in the 19th century, and Moritz’s skills eventually came to the attention of the Rothschild banking family, then legendary as one of the wealthiest families in the world. In 1836, the Rothschilds commissioned him to paint portraits of the five brothers who dominated banking in Europe as well as other Rothschild relatives. The brilliance of the paintings and the fame of their subjects made Oppenheim himself famous.
Moritz Daniel Oppenheim, Carl Mayer von Rothschild, 1850.
Moritz Daniel Oppenheim, Nathan Mayer Rothschild, 1853.
The Rothschild commissions opened doors to other clients, and Moritz was appointed to paint portraits of the greatest literary figures of his time, including the romantic poet Heinrich Heine and the political commentator Ludwig Börne. Working from earlier sketches, in 1864 he also created a painting of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, at 21 the most famous composer in Europe, playing piano for Wolfgang von Goethe in 1830.
Moritz Daniel Oppenheim, Ludwig Börne, 1833.
Moritz Daniel Oppenheim, Heinrich Heine, 1831.
Moritz Daniel Oppenheim, Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy spielt vor Goethe, 1864.
I previously wrote a post about my artist great-grandmother, Marie Höber, here. Moritz Oppenheim was her great-uncle, and Marie treasured a letter she received from him praising her miniatures on ivory. The letter from Uncle Moritz, with its handsomely addressed envelope, is preserved in my family’s papers.
Letter from Moritz Daniel Oppenheim, in Frankfurt, to his great-niece, Marie Höber, in Berlin, June 17, 1871. Envelope below.
Moritz Daniel Oppenheim dictated his memoirs shortly before his death at the age of 82, but they wouldn’t be published until his grandson edited them 42 years later.
Moritz Oppenheim Erinnerungen (Memoirs), edited by his grandson, Alfred Oppenheim, 1924.
By the time he was in his sixties, Oppenheim was highly successful and known throughout Europe. And yet his greatest fame and popularity was yet to come with the publication of an extraordinary series of lithographs providing a particular portrayal of Jews as they fit into the contentious social and political world of Oppenheim’s times. This series will be the subject of Part 2 of this post, coming soon.
More stories about the Höber family are in Against Time: Letters from Nazi Germany, 1938-1939, published by the American Philosophical Society. Information is available here. Also available at Amazon.com.
German edition, Deutsche auf der Flucht, ein Briefwechsel zwischen Deutschland und Amerika von 1938 bis 1938, available here.
This entire blog is available in book form. Send a note to the author through the comments section below.
From Saxon Pig Farmer to Urban Gentleman, 1868-1937
Posted: June 5, 2018 Filed under: Hoeber, Uncategorized | Tags: Clara Fischer, Düsseldorf, Elfriede Hoeber, Franz Fischer, Küingdorf 7 Comments
Franz Fischer (standing, center) with his brothers and sisters at the Fischer farm in Küingdorf about 1900. The stern pair at the table are his parents. Franz’ sister Berta holds his arm. Click for a larger image.
My mother’s father, Franz Fischer, for whom I am named, was born on a pig farm in the village of Küingdorf, Germany in 1868, 3 1/2 weeks after his parents married. Located on the border between Westphalia and Hanover ( now Niedersachsen or Lower Saxony ), the landscape around Küingdorf is reminiscent of parts of Vermont or central Pennsylvania. The farm had sufficient land to raise grain to feed the pigs as well as a productive and profitable forest area. The farm was prosperous and well-maintained, but a pig farm all the same,
Franz was the oldest of nine children and in other another area of Germany would have been the heir apparent. It was a peculiarity of the traditional law in the Küingdorf area, however, that a farm was inherited by the youngest son, not the oldest. Thus, Franz knew early on that he would have to find another way than farming to earn his living. So while still a very young man he became interested in that most modern of conveyances, the bicycle.
Franz Fischer as a young man with his bicycle, about 1900.
In 1902, Franz met Clara Schallenberg, a city girl. She was the daughter of a successful retail and wholesale merchant dealing in household china and kitchen ware. Franz and Clara married in 1903.
Clara Schallenberg, later Fischer, around 1900.
One of the first things Franz and Clara did when they married was to register as Konfessionslos — without religious affiliation — in the local registry office. This registration would exempt them from church taxes. My mother wrote later of Franz and Clara, “I grew up in a pleasant, peaceful family in which I was taught to have deep disrespect for organized religion and great respect for fundamental ethical principles that none of us would ever abandon. Our father’s principles were rather simple: we do the right things, not to appeal to some figure ‘up there’ in the sky, but simply to do the right thing.” It was a powerful moral rectitude grounded in principled atheism.
Although Franz was born a farm boy, in the city of Dusseldorf he made himself into a gentleman in a time when social mobility was more limited than it is today. While industrialization at the turn of the twentieth century brought substantial migration from farm to city, Franz and Clara took things a step further and entered the Bildungsbuergertum, the literate and cultured middle class. I remember the proud, respectful tone in my grandmother Clara’s voice when she told me Franz was ein richtiger Herr, a genuine gentleman. Clearly one of the things that made Franz a gentleman is that he dressed the part.
Franz Fischer around the time of his marriage to Clara Schallenberg, 1903.
As Franz’ business prospered, he and Clara attended concerts and plays, kept a large library and read extensively. Clara could recite long passages from Goethe and other German classics as well as Shakespeare and the Bible, her atheism notwithstanding. Franz and Clara sent their daughter, my mother Elfriede, to the university preparatory school (Gymnasium) and supported her through her PhD. at Heidelberg. Franz embellished his considerable library by pasting a handsome book plate, designed by a friend who was a graphic artist, inside each cover.
Franz Fischer’s book plate, 1920s.
Franz and Clara remained committed to bicycling throughout their lives.
Franz and Clara Fischer around 1930.
Clara Fischer and Franz Fischer walking in Düsseldorf, about 1930
Franz died in 1937, well before I was born, but his photographs have made him very real to me. From my mother’s stories about him, he was an easy person to like and was admired by those who knew him.
Franz Fischer not long before his death in 1937.
Deutsche Ausgabe erscheint im Sommer 2018 // The German Edition is Coming this Summer
Posted: February 26, 2018 Filed under: Hoeber | Tags: American Philosophical Society, Düsseldorf, Elfriede Hoeber, Escaping Nazi Germany, Francis W. Hoeber, German Social Democrats, Hoeber, Immigrant experience, Johannes Hoeber, Letters from Nazi Germany, Philadelphia, Susanne Hoeber Rudolph 4 Comments
Deutsche Ausgabe: “Deutsche auf der Flucht, Ein Briefwechsel zwischen Deutschland und Amerika von 1938 bis 1939.”, erscheint im Sommer 2018.
Liebe Kollegen/innen, Freunde, Verwandte,
Grüße aus Philadelphia! Es freut mich sehr, Ihnen/euch mitteilen zu können, dass mein Buch, Against Time, Letters from Nazi Germany, 1938-1939, im Frühsommer dieses Jahres in deutsche Fassung erscheinen wird. Der deutsche Titel lautet, Deutsche auf der Flucht, ein Briefwechsel zwischen Deutschland und Amerika von 1938 bis 1939. Viele von Ihnen/euch kennen das Buch schon auf Englisch, und der Berliner Lukas Verlag wird jetzt die deutsche Version des Buchs herausgeben. Es ist eine besondere Ehre, dass die Kosten der Veröffentlichung durch die Stiftung Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand (Berlin) unterstützt werden. Für weitere Informationen zum Buch, siehe unten.
Im Laufe des letzten Jahres habe ich mich mit der Abfassung der deutschen Version beschäftigt. Ich bedanke mich bei den deutschen und amerikanischen Kollegen/innen und Freunden/innen, die meine Forschungen im Bereich meiner Familiengeschichte in den letzten Jahren Unterstützt haben. Natürlich werde ich Ihnen/euch allen das Veröffentlichungsdatum ankündigen, sobald ein Termin festgelegt ist.
Mit freundliche Grüße, Ihr/euer
Frank
Dear Colleagues, Friends and Relatives,
Greetings from Philadelphia! I am pleased to tell you that my book, Against Time: Letters from Nazi Germany, 1938-1939, will be issued in a German edition this summer. The German title is Deutsche auf der Flucht, ein Briefwechsel zwischen Deutschland und Amerika von 1938 bis 1939, (“Germans Fleeing: An Exchange of Letters Between Germany and America from 1938 to 1939”). I am honored that the costs of publication are being supported by the German Resistance Memorial Foundation in Berlin. During the last year I have been occupied with the preparation of the German edition, which involved translating my notes and comments from English to German and re-editing all of the original German letters written by my parents. I am grateful to the American and German colleagues and friends who have supported my research into my family’s history over the last several years. I will, of course, let everyone know when a definite publication date has been set.
The English edition remains available from the publisher and on Amazon. For further information about that book, click here.
Best wishes,
Frank
English edition: Against Time: Letters from Nazi Germany, 1938-1939, by Francis W. Hoeber. Published by the American Philosophical Society Press, September 2015.
This Website is Now Also a Book
Posted: February 14, 2018 Filed under: Hoeber, Uncategorized | Tags: Düsseldorf, Elfriede Hoeber, Escaping Nazi Germany, Francis W. Hoeber, Heidelberg, Immigrant experience, Jawaharlal Nehru, Johannes Hoeber, Josephine Hober, Kristallnacht, Lloyd I. Rudolph, Mannheim, Novemberpogrom, Reichsbanner schwarz-Rot-Gold, Rudolf Hober, Susanne Hoeber Rudolph 2 Comments
Francis W. Hoeber, A Family Over Three Centuries, 2018.
A FAMILY OVER THREE CENTURIES, privately printed, incorporates all 82 stories from this website, Hoeber: A Family Over Three Centuries. Current technology makes it possible to print small quantities of this 300-page book with high quality images for a manageable price. While the website provides the opportunity to reach many readers around the world, it is a different kind of pleasure to hold abook in your hand, scan the illustrations, and dip into a story that catches your eye at random.
I prepared the book version primarily for family and friends. The process required reformatting the online material page by page using Indesign and Photoshop software, but the product is worth the effort. The Blurb Books service that did the printing provides high quality reproduction of the text and illustrations. If any readers of this website would like a copy, I will have one printed for you for my cost of printing ($50 US) and postage (varies). Please contact me through the comments section below if you would like information about getting a copy.
It is gratifying that the site has received more than 36,000 hits from nearly a hundred countries, from Algeria to Zambia. I have become acquainted — and even friends — with dozens of historians, writers and other interested readers who have contacted me about the content of these stories. The site has been in hiatus for some months as I have been preparing the book, but postings will resume in 2018.
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The Gestapo Has No Sense of Humor – Düsseldorf 1933
Posted: April 18, 2017 Filed under: Hoeber, Uncategorized | Tags: Düsseldorf, Elfriede Hoeber, Gestapo, Herbert Fischer, Hoeber, Johannes Hoeber, Paul Fischer, Rudolf Hober, Stormtroopers 4 CommentsThe National Socialists took control of the German government on January 30, 1933 and consolidated their power with great speed. Political street violence had been part of German life for a long time, but the Nazis escalated that pattern rapidly and brutally, using terrorist tactics to wipe out political opposition in a matter of weeks. My father, Johannes (1904-1977), was the first victim in our family, when he was arrested in March and imprisoned for several weeks because of his liberal politics, and my grandfather, Rudolf (1873-1953),was next when he was expelled from his professor’s position the following fall, in part because of actions he took against Nazi students. The situation with my mother’s brothers was something else entirely.
My mother had three younger brothers who, in 1933, were in their mid-twenties. All three were good looking and charming, with cheerful dispositions and a taste for evenings with friends in the taverns of Düsseldorf’s Altstadt, taverns with names like the Golden Kettle (Im Goldenen Kessel) and Fatty’s Irish Pub, which are still popular today. On the night of Tuesday, November 7, 1933, my uncles Paul Fischer (1909-1947), a recent law graduate still in training, and Herbert Fischer (1907-1992), by day in business with his father, went out for an evening of socializing. Their father Franz (1868-1937) and older brother Günter (1906-1979) were away on a business trip for several days.
Herbert Fischer (1907-1992). This picture was taken several years after his imprisonment by the Gestapo in 1933.
The social evening lasted until 3 :00 in the morning, when the bars closed. Paul and Herbert, whose state after a long night of drinking can only be guessed, got into the car of a friend who drove them home. Still joking as they tumbled out of the car, Herbert spotted a poster that had been pasted on a nearby wall and was partially coming off. Tearing the poster off the wall, Herbert crumpled it into a ball and threw it into the car at his friend saying, “Here! You can use this to clean your windshield!” It seems that Herbert didn’t recognize the poster as Nazi propaganda, nor did he notice the Stormtrooper watching nearby. Although lacking legal authority, the hundreds of thousands of brown-shirted Stormtroopers of Hitler’s Sturmabteilung constituted a militia of the Nazi Party and were free to attack and bully citizens who showed any sign of dissent from the regime. Although Herbert was non-political, the waiting Stormtrooper saw his petty vandalism as a political act and took him into custody. Paul went along to be a witness in his brother’s defense, but soon found himself taken into custody as well.
Paul Fischer (1909-1947). This picture was taken a couple of years after his imprisonment by the Gestapo in 1933.
As Paul and Herbert got passed on from the Stormtrooper to a bicycle policeman to an automobile police squad to the police station, the story of the incident grew from a tipsy prank to an organized conspiracy against the state. By dawn, both Herbert and Paul were arrested and imprisoned and their case turned over to the “political police,” a part of the recently formed Secret State Police (Geheime Staatspolizei or Gestapo). Apparently the fact that Paul was a lawyer in training (Referendar) increased the Gestapo’s suspicions. The brothers were held for more than a week without charges and were subject to repeated beatings.
The day after the arrest, my grandmother and my father and mother began agitating with the police for the young men’s release. It took three days just to identify the official with authority over Paul and Herbert’s case. My grandmother was so desperate for her sons’ release that she forced herself to mumble “Heil Hitler!” to the police official, the only time in the entire Nazi period that she ever used that hated salutation. As my father wrote at the time, “Endless approaches, endless waiting, walking down endless corridors, daily hopes, daily disappointments, long negotiations and discussions, after the third day with the help of a lawyer.” After a week, Paul was released with no explanation either for his arrest or his beatings or his release. He left the city immediately to recuperate from the wounds he received in the beatings. Herbert continued to be held, inexplicably, because, as my father wrote, “He never at any time ever engaged in any political activity whatsoever.” Nevertheless, it took another week to negotiate his release, again without explanation, but, as my mother wrote, he came out “relatively undamaged.”
In the end, it all came to nothing and the brothers returned to their respective occupations. But the reality of being arrested and beaten and held for many days for no reason was part of the atmosphere of terror that would be part of daily life in Germany for the next 12 years.
Johennes Höber’s letter to his parents telling of the Gestapo’s arrest of his brothers-in-law, Herbert Fischer and Paul Fischer, on November 8, 1933. (Deutschleser: Bitte klicken für ein größeres Bild.)
More stories about the Hoeber and Fischer families are to be found in Against Time: Letters from Nazi Germany, 1938-1939, published by the American Philosophical Society. Information is available here. Also available at Amazon.com
How Tyranny Begins
Posted: February 21, 2017 Filed under: Hoeber, Uncategorized | Tags: Academic freedom, Christian-Albrechts Universitaet, Free speech, German Social Democrats, Hoeber, kiel physiological institute, Resistance to Nazis, Rudolf Hober, Schleswig-Holstein, SPD, Stormtroopers, University of Kiel, Widerstand gegen NSDAP 7 Comments
Seeburg Student Center, University of Kiel, where Nazi students prevented the lecture of Prof. Walther Schücking , May 26, 1930.
The following account is based on documents I recently received from the Schleswig-Holstein State Archives in Schleswig, Germany. I am indebted to my friend, archivist Dagmar Bickelmann, who has been endlessly helpful in locating records relating to my grandfather’s time at the University of Kiel.
My grandfather, Rudolf Höber (1873-1953), was elected Rektor (Chancellor) by the faculty of the University of Kiel in March 1930. Shortly after his installation, the university community was shaken when the local chapter of the National Socialist German Student Association forcibly disrupted a lecture by the distinguished professor of international law, Walther Schücking (1875-1935).
Schücking had served in 1918 as a German delegate to the Versailles peace conference that ended World War I. Thereafter, he became a strong advocate for the League of Nations, the international organization dedicated to ending war, and spoke often on the struggle for world peace. On Monday, May 26, 1930 he was scheduled to speak in the ceremonial hall of the Seeburg, the student center on Kiel Harbor. His lecture was entitled “The Moral Idea of the League of Nations.” The Nazis opposed the League of Nations, just as they opposed “pacifism.” They claimed that ending war and supporting the League would cause Germany to live for decades under the onerous terms of the Treaty of Versailles, which they believed could be reversed only by a new war.
Prof. Schücking’s lecture meeting was chaired by a distinguished panel of academics and jurists. The Nazis packed the hall early, making it difficult for anyone else to find a seat. When Schücking began to speak, the Nazis interrupted his presentation, shouting insults and catcalls. His discussion of the accomplishments of the League of Nations was derided by the audience and met with raucous laughter. As Schücking continued his lecture, the disruptions got louder. During a discussion that followed Prof. Schücking’s talk, a Nazi party member, Schalow, screamed that the League was a fraud and that leaders who preached the “emasculating” doctrine of pacifism were cowards. He claimed that the presiding panel was nothing but a bunch of Jews. The panelists intervened vigorously in the debate. A jurist condemned the “murderous activities of the SA,” the Sturmabteilung or Nazi Stormtroopers who often physically assaulted their opponents. Nazis screamed that one of the panelists was a member of the Reichsbanner, a pro-democracy militia of the Social Democratic party. When it became apparent that the most disruptive speaker, Schalow, was a student, one of the professors threatened to bring him before the university disciplinary tribunal for violation of the university’s code of behavior. This temporarily brought the meeting back under control.
Near the end of his talk, Prof. Schücking spoke critically of the political ineptness and rudeness of German political fanatics. The Nazis showed their displeasure by stamping their feet so loudly that the meeting had to be brought to a close. Triumphant at having prevented Prof Schücking from finishing his lecture, the Nazi students launched into a chorus of the Horst Wessel Lied, an anthem of the Nazi Party. They finished the evening by standing, giving the Nazi salute, and shouting “Heil Hitler!” in unison. In response, someone in the audience, possibly another professor, shouted “Pfui!,” in those days roughly the equivalent of yelling “Disgusting!” Someone else in the audience – according to the Nazis, an angry “German worker,” not a student – responded by punching that person in the face. The meeting thus came to a tumultuous end.
Clipping from Nazi newspaper boasting about suppressing academic freedom by disrupting Prof. Schücking’s speech. Schleswig-Holsteinische Tageszeitung, 31 May 1930.
As it happened, the Nazi student group had reserved the same room in the Seeburg student center for a meeting of their own two days later, on Wednesday, May 28. On the afternoon of the scheduled Nazi meeting, however, a notice was posted from Rektor Höber that read, “Because of the events on Monday evening … we hereby withdraw the permission previously granted for the use of the large hall for a National Socialist meeting.”
Rudolf Höber, Professor of Physiology and Rektor of the University of Kiel, around the time he banned the Nazi party from the University because of its disruption of free speech.
The president of the National Socialist Student Association, a student named Münske, went to the office the Rektor, who agreed to meet with him. Rektor Höber, however, refused to allow the Nazi meeting, in order to ensure there was no repetition of the violence of March 26. In a letter to Rektor Höber three days later, Münske renewed his claim that the Nazis should not be held responsible for disrupting Prof. Schücking’s lecture and should not be excluded from use of the hall in the future. Rektor Höber dictated a file memorandum noting that he would not respond to Münske’s letter, since he had discussed the matter with him on May 28. The memo included evidence showing the Nazis as a group to be responsible for breaking up the Schücking meeting.
Rektor Rudolf Höber’s memo concerning the Nazi attack on Prof. Schücking, 7 June 1930.
The Schücking affair was a marker in the advance of the Nazi assault on liberalism, internationalism and academic freedom of speech. It was a precursor to the Baumgarten affair five months later, when Nazi students disrupted a sermon of the liberal theologian Otto Baumgarten, branding him a pacifist, “Jew-lover” and traitor to the nation. In response, Rektor Höber expelled the students involved and permanently banned the National Socialist German Student Group from the University campus. This action was one of the factors held against Höber when the Nazis took control of the country in 1933, leading to his expulsion from the faculty and emigration to the United States.
More stories about the Hoeber family are to be found in Against Time: Letters from Nazi Germany, 1938-1939, published by the American Philosophical Society. Information is available here. Also available at Amazon.com
My Grandfather’s Pearl Stickpin – 1918
Posted: November 1, 2016 Filed under: Hoeber | Tags: Gabriele Höber, German navy mutiny 1918, German Revolution of 1918, Hoeber, Johannes Hoeber, Josephine Hober, Physiological Institute Kiel, Rudolf Hober, University of Kiel, Ursula Hober 2 CommentsRegular readers of this website may know that, for me, photographs, documents and objects are bridges across time. In this case, a picture and a pearl connect me to my family as it was nearly a century ago.
A German historian contacted me recently and asked for a photograph of my grandfather, Rudolf Höber, around 1915. That’s when Rudolf became Professor and Director of the Physiological Institute at the University of Kiel. I don’t have an individual portrait of him in 1915, but I found this great family portrait taken in February 1918.
The Höber Family, Kiel, Germany, February 1918. Rudolf Höber surrounded by, from left, Ursula, Josephine, Johannes, Gabriele.
The parents and their three children all look somewhat gloomy, but serious portraits were the fashion of the day. At the time the picture was taken, scientists came from as far away as Japan to study with Rudolf at the Physiological Institute, despite the fact that it was the middle of World War I. The sailor suit my father is wearing in the picture was typical for German school boys then and later. It was particularly appropriate in Kiel, which had a huge naval installation. A few months after this picture was taken, Johannes, 14, was on his way home from his Gymnasium when he witnessed the shooting that marked the mutiny of the German naval forces, starting the German Revolution of 1918.
When the photograph was cropped to pull out the portrait of Rudolf the historian had requested, I noticed something. In the center of the knot of Rudolf’s tie is a pearl stickpin.
Prof. Rudolf Höber, Kiel, February 1918.
When Rudolf died in 1952, the pearl stickpin passed to my father, Johannes. And when Johannes died in 1977 the pearl stickpin passed to me.
My grandfather’s pearl stickpin.
Although it is not particularly fashionable today, I still try to find occasion to wear the stickpin once in a while.
Wearing my grandfather’s pearl stickpin – 2016.
More stories about the Hoeber family are to be found in Against Time: Letters from Nazi Germany, 1938-1939, published by the American Philosophical Society. Information is available here. Also available at Amazon.com
Revolutionary Politician — Great-great Uncle Heinrich Bernhard Oppenheim (1819-1880)
Posted: October 13, 2016 Filed under: Hoeber | Tags: 1848, Abraham Geiger, Amalia Oppenheim Hoeber, Baden uprising, Bettina von Arnim, German Revolution, Gustav Struve, Heidelberg University, Heinrich Bernhard Oppenheim, Ludwig Bamberger, Schoenhauserallee Cemetery 6 Comments
Doctor of Law degree granted to Heinrich Bernhard Oppenheim by the University of Heidelberg, March 20, 1839.
In the extensive archive of my family’s papers, I found the University of Heidelberg law degree bestowed on my great-great-grandmother’s brother, Heinrich Bernhard Oppenheim. This was in 1839 and he was just 19. Although he taught law for a time, Heinrich was denied a position as a professor of law because he was Jewish. Later, however, his legal training enabled him to become a well-known journalist and commentator for liberal and left radical causes for nearly 40 years.
As a young man, Heinrich was a member of the intellectual and literary circle around Countess Bettina von Arnim in Berlin. Although he was short and had an odd voice and accent, he was known as a great conversationalist and a man of “uncommon wit” (Carl Schurz). His boyish appearance and sparkling talk made him a favorite with women. In the von Arnim salon he befriended some of the leading European thinkers and progressive political figures of the day. For a time he shared rooms with theologian Abraham Geiger, one of the prime founders of Reform Judaism, and he was good friends with the young Karl Marx.
In March 1848, Heinrich participated in the political uprising in Berlin in a failed attempt to wrest a more democratic form of government from King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia. He addressed several of the mass demonstrations in the Tiergarten park in the Prussian capitol. Later in 1848, Heinrich fled to the southern Duchy of Baden where he continued his revolutionary activities with a left extremist wing led by Gustav Struve in Karlsruhe and Lörrach.
Declaration of the short-lived German Republic by Gustav Struve, Lörrach in the Duchy of Baden, September 21, 1848. Heinrich Bernhard Oppenheim was was one of the leading voices in this failed attempt to establish a constitutional form of government.
In July 1849, the Baden revolution collapsed and Heinrich was driven into an 11-year exile in Switzerland, France, Belgium and England. He was unable to return to Germany until 1861. During his political exile, he continued to publish pro-democracy commentary, much of it in French.
Revue Germanique, Paris 1858, including articles by Heinrich Bernhard Oppenheim
Heinrich Bernhard Oppenheim, “Letters on Modern German Historians,” Revue Germanique, Paris, 1858.
When he was finally able to return to Germany, Heinrich continued his liberal political writing. In 1879-80 he earned recognition for his articulate opposition to a sudden onslaught of antisemitism led by the prominent historian Heinrich von Treitschke. Oppenheim’s articles targeted the attacks as a political strategy of conservatives to discredit governmental reforms being pressed by liberal activists, many of whom were Jews.
Heinrich Bernhard Oppenheim’s rebuke to the notorious antisemites Heinrich von Treitschke and Adolf Stöcker, Die Gegenwart, Berlin, January 1880.
On March 29, 1880, a few weeks after publishing his rebuke to the Berlin antisemites, Heinrich died of a chronic lung ailment . His funeral was attended by many representatives of the Berlin news corps as well as liberal political activists from all over Germany. Shortly thereafter, his colleagues published a long pamphlet collecting numerous speeches about him and the obituaries published in the many newspapers in Germany. The pamphlet contains the only known portrait of Heinrich Bernhard Oppenheim.
Memorial brochure of obituaries and tributes by public figures dedicated to Heinrich Bernhard Oppenheim, Berlin, 1880.
The funeral for Heinrich took place in his home in Berlin and a long procession accompanied his casket to the Schönhauser Allee cemetery. In December of that year, the family arranged for the erection of a grave monument of pink granite. My family’s papers includes the original text of the gravestone inscription, written by the liberal political leader Ludwig Bamberger.
Heinrich Bernhard Oppenheim’s grave inscription written by Ludwig Bamberger, 1880.
“In memory of Heinrich Bernhard Oppenheim, born Frankfurt a/M 20 July 1819, died Berlin 29 March 1880.
True and good of heart, strong and bright in spirit, always a ready fighter, always a helping friend, expert in learning and life, compassionate to the least of men, faithful to the greatest of men, willingly accepting and even more willingly giving all that a man can give, thus he worked for his country, thus he lived for others to his last breath, thus unforgettable, irreplaceable, he lives in the memory of his family and his friends.”
Heinrich Bernhard Oppenheim’s grave (left), Schönhauserallee Cemetery, Berlin. The grave of his sister Amalia, my great-great grandmother, is on the right.
More stories about the Hoeber family are to be found in Against Time: Letters from Nazi Germany, 1938-1939, published by the American Philosophical Society. Information is available here. Also available at Amazon.com
The Photographic Art of Philadelphian Bill Rapp
Posted: September 27, 2016 Filed under: Hoeber | Tags: Bill Rapp, Camden Ferry, Ditta Baron Hoeber, Frank Hoeber, Free Library of Philadelphia, Horticultural Hall, Michael Froio, Philadelphia street scenes, street photography 1 Comment
Bill Rapp, Philadelphia-to-Camden Ferry on its last day of operation, March 31, 1952. Bill Rapp Collection, Free Library of Philadelphia.
I first spotted one of Bill Rapp’s photographs among the antiques at the Fitler Square Fair in our old neighborhood in Philadelphia. This was around 1980. Bill’s wife Jean dealt in prints and old documents, and in her booth she had a beautiful image of the interior of the old Philadelphia-to-Camden Ferry. The price was a little more than I wanted to pay, by my artist wife Ditta encouraged me to buy it. Bill made his living as an advertising agent, not a photographer, but he had a wonderful eye and his printing was impeccable.
A portion of our collection of Bill Rapp originals that we acquired in the 1980s.
At the annual spring fairs over the next several years, Ditta and I acquired additional prints of Bill’s beautiful work. My particular interest was the rare slices of Philadelphia history that Bill had captured. Ditta, the photographer-artist, had a particular appreciation for the artistry of Bill’s work. By the time Bill died in 1989 we had accumulated a nice collection of his photographs. What happened next, however, was unexpected. About a year after Bill died there was a knock at our front door — it was Jean Rapp. She held tightly in her hands a sizable batch of photographic negatives bundled together with a rubber band. They were Bill’s. She said that because we had shown so much interest in Bill’s work over the years she wanted Ditta and me to have the negatives to print whatever copies we wanted for ourselves. When we finished with them, Jean asked that we donate them to the Free Library of Philadelphia. We gratefully accepted the negatives and the responsibility that went with them. Not long after this we learned that Jean, too, had passed away.
Bill Rapp, Horticultural Hall, Philadelphia. This building was a relic of the U.S. Centennial Exhibition in 1876. It was destroyed by Hurricane Hazel in 1957. Bill Rapp Collection, Free Library of Philadelphia.
In those days Ditta had a darkroom in our house for her own work. She hired a student to come in and make rough prints of the negatives so we would know what we had. The resulting proofs were fine, but we weren’t ready to part with the negatives because we lacked the resources then to print the images in the finished quality they deserved. Years passed with Bill’s negatives and the proof prints resting quietly in storage.
Bill Rapp, Ship Maintenance, Philadelphia, ca. 1950. Bill Rapp Collection, Free Library of Philadelphia.
In 2011, we decided it was finally time to deal properly with Bill’s legacy. In the meantime we had become friends with Mike Froio, a photographer and instructor at Drexel University. We arranged with Mike to clean and scan all of Bill’s negatives. Ditta selected more than a hundred of them to be printed in archival form. In 2012 and 2013 we donated two large albums of these prints to the Free Library of Philadelphia along with an indexed archive housing all of Bill’s original negatives. We also gave the Library a set of disks containing the scans of the negatives and photographs along with a digital inventory.
Bill Rapp, Street scene, 9th and Bainbridge Streets, Philadelphia, ca. 1950. Bill Rapp Collection, Free Library of Philadelphia.
Recently, the Free Library finished loading many of Bill’s images online; you can see them by clicking here (look for the live lambs that were once sold in the Italian market to be turned into Easter dinner). Curator Laura Stroffolino also posted a nice blog entry about the collection that you can read here. It is a privilege to participate in preserving the legacy of a fine artist whose work might otherwise have been lost.
Bill Rapp, O.U. Lunch (“Baked Beef Hash Rice and Carrots 35 cents”), Philadelphia, 1950s. Bill Rapp Collection, Free Library of Philadelphia.
Stories about the Hoeber family are to be found in Against Time: Letters from Nazi Germany, 1938-1939, published by the American Philosophical Society. Information is available here. Also available at Amazon.com
A Story in Some Grains of Sand
Posted: July 6, 2016 Filed under: Hoeber | Tags: Baltic Sea, Delft vase, Elfriede Hoeber, Hoeber, Immigrant experience, Jacob Marx, Johannes Hoeber, Josephine Hober, kiel physiological institute, Rudolf Hober, Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, University of Kiel Leave a comment
Old Delft vase acquired by Jacob Marx around 1870, Berlin.
When I went to my late sister Susanne’s Vermont home recently, I spotted this familiar old family vase. I placed it on a table on the sunny porch to photograph it. Then, with relatives watching, I turned the vase over and poured out — some ordinary sea sand.
Sand from the vase. Baltic Sea, Kiel 1914, Barnard, Vermont 2016
How did I know there would be sand in the vase? The answer is a story I heard from my father a long time ago.
My great-grandfather, Jacob Marx, was a banker and investor in Berlin in the mid-nineteenth century. He made some smart investments in the industrial boom before and after the Franco-Prussian War in the early 1870s. Some of his new wealth he invested in art, including several antique Delft vases.
Jakob Marx, 1835-1883
After Jacob died in 1883, the vases were owned by his widow, Marie, and when she died in 1913 they were inherited by my grandparents, Rudolf Höber and Josephine Marx Höber. At that time, Rudolf and Josephine lived on Hegewischstrasse in Kiel, a university city and naval harbor on the Baltic Sea.
Rudolf and Josephine Höber with their first child, Johannes, around December 1904 (ten years before they inherited the Delft vases).
Josephine displayed the vases atop a tall Schrank, an antique wardrobe cabinet in the family living room. Inconveniently, however, a streetcar line traversed the street in front of the residence, and every time a trolley went past the Delft vases shook and rattled. The noise annoyed Josephine, who also feared the old pieces would be shaken off the cabinet and break. To resolve the problem, she gave her ten-year-old son Johannes a metal pail and told him to go down to the shore of the Baltic, fill the bucket with sand and bring it home. Josephine then filled each Delft vase with sand. The extra weight kept them from rattling on top of the Schrank for the next 19 years.
In 1933, the Nazis forced Rudolf out of his position in Kiel and he and Josephine emigrated to Philadelphia. They took the vases with them — and the sand went along. Josephine died in 1941 and Rudolf in 1953 and then the vases — and the sand — were inherited by my parents, Johannes and Elfriede. They moved several times and at each move the vases were carefully packed and the sand with them.
Johannes died in Washington DC in 1977 and Elfriede in Oakland, California in 1999. When we divided up Elfriede’s possessions among her three children, my sister Sue expressed a desire to have the Delft vases. We wrapped them and transported them — and the sand — to the house in Barnard, Vermont, where she and her husband Lloyd worked and wrote in the summers for many years. And there they have remained until now. The next home for the Delft vases and the sand from the Baltic Sea remains to be seen.
Susanne and Lloyd Rudolph’s house in Barnard, Vermont, the last stop so far in the Delft vase’s journey.
More stories about the Hoeber family are to be found in Against Time: Letters from Nazi Germany, 1938-1939, published by the American Philosophical Society. Information is available here. Also available at Amazon.com
The Dark Humor of a Nuremberg Prosecutor — 1945
Posted: May 17, 2016 Filed under: Hoeber, Uncategorized | Tags: denazification, Elfriede Hoeber, Escaping Nazi Germany, German Social Democrats, Immigrant experience, Johannes Hoeber, Letters from Nazi Germany, Nuremberg Prosecution, Robert M. W. Kempner 3 CommentsRobert Kempner was my parents’ friend and, like them, a Social Democrat and activist against the Nazi Party before 1933. Like them, he fled Germany for America before World War II. At the end of the War the U.S. government recruited Kempner, a lawyer, to be one of the lead prosecutors at the International War Crimes Tribunal in Nuremberg. The fact that he was bilingual made Kempner particularly effective in cross examining the Nazi leadership. He also was a witness against Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem in 1960.
Robert M. W. Kempner when he was a prosecutor at the International War Crimes Tribunal, Nuremberg, 1946.
While my parents were able to escape Germany before the War, my mother’s mother and three brothers were trapped there for the duration. After the war, communications between Americans and German nationals continued to be restricted for many months. Desperate for news about her family, and unable to communicate through civilian channels, my mother wrote to Robert Kempner in Nuremberg asking him to find out if they were alright. As a prosecutor, he had access to the American military mail system, and wrote my parents an extraordinary postcard in response. The original is preserved in my family’s papers.
Postcard from Nuremberg Prosecutor Robert M. W. Kempner to Johannes and Elfriede Hoeber, December 26, 1945.
The first surprising thing is that Kempner used a Nazi-era card with an Adolf Hitler postage stamp. There is great irony in the inscription on the lower left: The Führer knows only war, work and care. We want to take whatever part [of that burden] off him that we can. By the time this postcard was written, the Führer’s cares were long over, since he had killed himself more than six months earlier when the Nazis were crushed by the Allies.
The trial of Major War Criminals had begun on November 20, 1945 and would continue until the end of the next year. There was evidently a Christmas recess in the proceedings, since Kempner writes that he was on a vacation trip (!) to places like Heidelberg and Mannheim where he and my parents had been associated in anti-Nazi activities years earlier. Note, by the way, that Kempner wrote in English, even though his and my parents’ first language was German. American military censors would probably not have allowed letters through if they were written in a language other than English.
Reverse of Postcard from Robert Kempner to Johannes and Elfriede Hoeber, December 26, 1945.
Kempner did not respond directly to my mother’s questions about her family (he probably wasn’t able to contact them) but he responded to reports of widespread starvation and freezing conditions in the war-devastated country. This was probably my mother’s biggest concern and Kempner wrote, “The Germ.[an] situation is not to [sic] bad, they need more fat and meat but they have enough bread and also enough coal for [heating] 1-2 rooms.” Overall, though, Kempner shows little sympathy for the suffering of the Germans, far too many of whom denied any involvement in the nation’s atrocities. Here is the full text of the postcard:
Dec 26Dear Elfriede and Jonny:It was very nice of Elfriede to write me. Thanks for the letter. At present I am travelling (5-6 days) for vacation, visiting Heidelberg, Mannheim, Wiesbaden, Frankfurt.The Germ. situation is not to[o] bad, they need more fat and meat but have enough bread and also coal for 1-2 rooms. Of course, they don’t like the de-nazification program. You know they all ‘had’ to join the Party, were helpful to Jews, if not having a Jewish grandmother, or at least participants of July 20, 1944, which was, if all the allegations of participation were true, a mass movement of the first rank. The Communist vote will be pretty low because of the happenings in the Russian area where fraternization without giving cigarettes is called rape. There are a lot of openings for Elfr. & Jonny but I think we better stay around Philadelphia Pa. Hope you will write me again.Yours,Robert MWK
“July 20, 1944” refers a failed attempt by eight military officers to assassinate Hitler. After the war, totally unrealistic numbers of German claimed to have supported it.
The comment about the Russians is unclear, but it was well known that the occupying Soviet Army committed massive rapes of German women, including elderly women and young girls.
Kempner’s comments about “lots of openings” refers to the fact that, as exiled Germans committed to democracy, my parents would have opportunities in a new government to be installed by the Allies — but Kempner didn’t recommend it. In any event, my parents never considered returning to the country from which they had been driven out.
It was an idiosyncrasy of Kempner’s that he addressed my father as “John” or “Jonny.” My father was adamant about not Anglicizing his name, which was Johannes. During his lifetime Robert Kempner was the only one with the temerity to address him as John.
Years later, Robert Kempner successfully sued the German government for restitution on behalf of hundreds — perhaps thousands — of victims of the Nazis, primarily in Israel and America. My parents were among the clients for whom he secured some compensation from the German authorities for the losses they had suffered.
More stories about the Hoeber family are to be found in Against Time: Letters from Nazi Germany, 1938-1939, published by the American Philosophical Society. Information is available here. Also available at Amazon.com
Review of “Against Time: Letters from Nazi Germany, 1938-1939” from CHOICE, A Publication of the Association of College and Research Libraries
Posted: May 2, 2016 Filed under: Hoeber, Uncategorized | Tags: Against Time: Letters From Nazi Germany 1938-1939, American Philosophical Society, Destruction of Duesseldorf, Elfriede Hoeber, Escaping Nazi Germany, Francis W. Hoeber, Hoeber, Immigrant experience, Immigration visa, Johannes Hoeber, Letters from Nazi Germany, Philadelphia reform movement, Susanne Hoeber, Susanne Hoeber Rudolph 1 Comment
I am delighted that the following review appeared on May 1, 2016, in CHOICE, a publication of the Association of College and Research Libraries.
REVIEW
AGAINST TIME: Letters from Nazi Germany, 1938-1939, by Francis W. Hoeber
Francis Hoeber possesses, apparently, decades’ worth of materials from his family’s history. However, he has chosen to publish only letters from 1938 and 1939, because they are truly exceptional in foregrounding human experience in the face of obliterating fascism. His father, Johannes, had emigrated from Germany in 1938, with the idea that Elfriede would follow with their young daughter. Complications arose. Eventually they united, lived in the US, and raised their family. That is a passive, objective summary. In contrast, these letters, written by two literate, gifted writers, construct a deeply experienced history entwined with significant world events. Genuine, emotional, human, rational—the letters exemplify precisely why published history needs such primary material. We can read or view synthesized historical accounts in textbooks or documentaries; we can summarize and categorize, intellectually. However, only by absorbing the personal narratives of people who recount the events they lived through can readers approximate the feelings, the vibrant presence, the individual acts that enliven historical experience. Through self-expressed microhistory, whether routine (running a business) or epochal (Kristallnacht), readers feel the macrohistory viscerally. Hoeber provides relevant context in footnotes and summaries to orient readers.
Summing up: Highly recommended.
–J. B. Wolford, University of Missouri—St. Louis
More information about Against Time is available by clicking here.
You can order the book directly from the publisher by clicking here.
Also available at Amazon.com
A Surprising Perspective on America — 1937
Posted: April 25, 2016 Filed under: Hoeber, Uncategorized | Tags: Cape Cod, Chatham MA, Düsseldorf, Elfriede Hoeber, Escaping Nazi Germany, Fiorello LaGuardia, Hoeber, Johannes Hoeber, Josephine Hober, Philadelphia, Rudolf Hoeber, university of pennsylvania 2 CommentsRudolf and Josephine Höber, my grandparents, fled Nazi Germany for Philadelphia already in 1933, but their son Johannes and his wife Elfriede were holding on in Düsseldorf in the belief that the Nazis couldn’t last. By 1937, my grandparents were desperate to have their children join them in America, so Rudolf and Josephine invited the young couple to come and visit them in America. It turned into a grand trip.
Steamship Europa in Cherbourg, France. Photo by Johannes Höber, May 1937 as he and Elfriede were leaving for a month in the US.
Elfriede kept a travel diary capturing her impressions of the country that would later become home to her and Johannes and their little girl, Susanne.
Elfriede Höber’s diary of the visit to America, May-June 1937. Click image to enlarge.
Page of Elfriede’s trip diary with Johannes’s photos. Click on image to enlarge.
Elfriede complained on every page about the “unbearable,” “insane” heat (Washington and Philadelphia before air conditioning) but otherwise she and Johannes found much to like in America. They were impressed by Washington, where many of the iconic government buildings along the Mall had recently been finished, and they liked the democratic feel of the place.
Elfriede: “We drove by the White House as though it were an ordinary residence. No guards to be seen. Unfortunately Mr. Roosevelt was not at home.”
In Philadelphia, the family attended the graduation of Johannes’s sister, Ursula, from the University of Pennsylvania medical school. They were impressed by the 1,500 graduates and the audience of 8,000 in Philadelphia’s Convention Hall, with Roosevelt’s Secretary of State Cordell Hull as commencement speaker.
Ursula Höber upon her graduation from medical school, University of Pennsylvania, June 9, 1937.
Elfriede loved Connecticut: “This is the way I always imagined New England to be, with hills and forests scattered with enchanting villages with white wooden houses and white churches on trim green lawns under high trees. The houses are mostly laid back from the street and not separated by fences. As a result the country seems so open and gains a wonderfully elegant and fresh appearance.” In Woodbury, Connecticut, they asked directions of a police officer. “This guy was like a sheriff in the movies, going around in short sleeves with a big tin badge, unshaven, and stormed off in the middle of our conversation and threw himself into his car to chase another car that had exceeded the Woodbury speed limit.” The family drove from Philadelphia to Cape Cod in two cars, a Ford and a DeSoto, where Elfriede declared the beaches to be the loveliest she had ever seen.
Höber family with their two cars at a lunch spot in Chatham, Massachusetts, June 1937.
Johannes and Elfriede traveled from Cape Cod (Fall River MA) back to New York by night boat! Elfriede: “Excellent cabin on the Commonwealth, a very old fashioned but very comfortable ship. Wonderful evening ride to Long Island Sound. Fantastic passage through the ocean of lights of the harbor of Newport. Night’s sleep interrupted by foghorns. Awoke at 6:15 in the East River. Reunion with the Empire State Building. Passage under the East River bridges that cross the river in great arches, all with two levels with eight lanes each. Generous good breakfast on board to prepare us for a day in New York.”
One of the steam boats of the Fall River Line that carried passengers between Cape Cod and New York until 1937.
Johannes and Elfriede spent their last America day in New York, where Johannes indulged himself three times in “America’s national drink” — an ice cream soda. Elfriede: “Lunch in an enormous restaurant. The ladies room has 60 toilets, 30 for free and 30 for 5 cents. The noise of the streets is mind shattering. The noise of the El is deafening, the subway hellish. The people in this city seem to have lost all sense of hearing.”
And a highlight of the whole trip, an hour before they boarded the ship to return to Europe, was to go by New York’s City Hall and catch sight of Fiorello LaGuardia, whose reputation as a dynamic, progressive mayor had reached even into the corners of Hitler’s Germany. “We were able to watch as LaGuardia stood next to his car for a few minutes talking with advisers. Because we were speaking German, a man appeared next to us out of nowhere, unmistakably a cop, and didn’t let us out of his sight until the mayor left.”
Fiorello H. LaGuardia, Mayor of New York.
Elfriede and Johannes returned to Düsseldorf in late June 1937, but the visit to his parents bore fruit. Six months later, Johannes and Elfriede began making their own plans to leave Germany and move to the United States. It would be nearly two more years, however, before the whole family could be reunited in Philadelphia.
Elfriede and Johannes Höber at home in Düsseldorf in 1938, a few months before Johannes left Germany permanently to live in the United States. Elfriede and Susanne followed him a year later.
The story of how Johannes and Elfriede eventually got out of Germany and into the United States is told in Against Time: Letters from Nazi Germany, 1938-1939. You can read more about that book here. Also available on Amazon.com.
Through Books, Immigrants Become Americans. 1939 …
Posted: March 17, 2016 Filed under: Hoeber, Uncategorized | Tags: Baedecker, Dr. Spock, Elfriede Hoeber, Escaping Nazi Germany, Huckleberry Finns Fahrten und Abenteuer, Immigrant experience, Johannes Hoeber, Kenneth Roberts, Letters from Nazi Germany, Philadelphia history, Rudolph Blankenburg, Scharff and Westcott Leave a commentIf you’re pretty well educated in your birth country, it’s daunting to face a new country and become a person who knows less than anyone else. So how do you catch up? When my parents decided it was time to flee Nazi Germany, their answer was books. I still have some of them. I love this beautiful history of the United States, with its funky canvas dust jacket and the stars on the spine:
Firmin Roz, Geschichte der Vereinigten Staaten, Leipzig, 1930.
My mother’s mother gave her fleeing daughter and son-in-law this old Baedeker’s guidebook to the United States, in English. The fold-out city maps are small but quite detailed. Years later my mother fell in love with the Rand McNally Road Atlas, but in the beginning it was this Baedeker that got her and my father started on American geography:
Karl Baedecker, United States, Leipzig, 1909
Baedecker’s United States. This fold-out map of Washington D.C. is one of 50 maps in the book. Click for larger image.
What do you give a bright eight-year-old to learn a bit about adventures in America? The choices in Nazi Germany weren’t too great, but you could do worse than providing her with a German translation of an American classic — Huck Finn. Susanne learned to love Mark Twain’s stories of life on the Mississippi well before she got here:
Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finns Fahrten und Abenteuer, Berlin, 1938
And how do you learn to raise children the American way? A couple years after arriving here, my parents were confronted with two new babies in short order — my brother and then me. Fortunately, every American at the time followed the same child-rearing Bible, Dr. Spock. That my mother referred to it frequently is shown by the tattered condition of this cheap paperback edition. She must have been comforted by the first eight words of the book, one of the most uplifting opening sentences of any book ever: “You know more than you think you do.” The simplest reassurance imaginable.
Benjamin Spock, M.D., Baby and Child Care, New York, 1946
German schools didn’t teach much about the American Revolution, so even educated immigrants didn’t know much about early American history. A German friend who had arrived in America a couple of years earlier than my parents introduced them to the historical novels of Kenneth Roberts set in the American Revolution and the years of the Early Republic. Roberts was a fine historian as well as a novelist, and my parents learned more than many Americans about our early history in a short time from his books. Because of him they loved to visit historic sites in the U.S., starting with Valley Forge shortly after their arrival:
Oliver Wiswell (1940 ), Rabble in Arms (1933 ), Lydia Bailey (1947 ) by Kenneth Roberts. My parents learned a lot of American history from these novels.
My mother, particularly, developed an interest in the history of Philadelphia. She was fascinated to learn that in the early 20th century Philadelphia was governed by a German-American progressive named Rudolph Blankenburg. At Leary’s huge used book store on 9th Street above Chestnut, she was able to by a book on Mayor Blankenburg, written by his wife, for half a dollar:
The Blankenburgs of Philadelphia (1928), by Lucretia Blankenburg. Mayor Blankenburg was called “Old Dutch Cleanser” because of his work cleaning up ocrruption in Philadelphia.
When my parents had been in the U.S. for some time, my mother acquired her great treasure, a copy of Scharf and Westcott’s magnificent three-volume History of Philadelphia, 1609-1884. Standards of historical accuracy were different when this set was published, but it is still a wonderful source of anecdotes about the city in its first 275 years:
History of Philadelphia, 1609-1884 by J. Thomas Scharff and Thompson Westcott, 1884. My mother also bought this set at Leary’s Used Books on 9th Street for $25 around 1955.
History of Philadelphia, 1609-1884 by J. Thomas Scharff and Thompson Westcott, 1884. Click on image to view more clearly.
More on the Hoeber family is in the book Against Time: Letters from Nazi Germany, 1938-1939. Click here for details and ordering information.
World War I Begins, as Seen by a Ten-Year-Old – Berlin, August 10, 1914
Posted: February 9, 2016 Filed under: Hoeber, Uncategorized | Tags: August 1914, Hoeber, Johannes Hoeber, Kaiser Wilhelm, Kiel, potsdam, Rudolf Hober, World War I Leave a commentIt was said in my family that my father, Johannes Höber, had a knack for being present at historic events. I recently discovered such an incident that I had not known about before. The story is told in a couple of postcards that were found recently among the papers of my sister, Susanne. The postcards were written by my father as a child, in an old fashioned German script that even some German readers do not know today. As was usual at that time, a grownup drew lines on the card with a ruler and pencil to help the child write straight and evenly.
August 10, 1914, postcards from Johannes Höber, age 10, in Potsdam, to his father in Kiel.
Johannes lived with his parents in the northern port city of Kiel, where his father was a professor and his mother a physician. Johannes’s widowed grandmother, Großmama Mimi, lived in Berlin, a five hour train trip from Kiel. In Late July 1914, Johannes and his younger sister Grilli and their mother made the trip from Kiel to Berlin to stay for a couple of weeks with Großmama Mimi. Perhaps the occasion for the trip was Johannes’s birthday: he turned ten on August 7. While the children were visiting friends in Potsdam, outside Berlin, World War I broke out with Germany’s declaration of war against Russia on August 1, followed promptly by the German invasion of Russia’s ally, France.
![1914. At school, Johannes and his classmates played at being soldiers. Johannes is in the front row, third from the left, wearing a spike helmet [Pickelhaube]. Click on image to enlarge.](https://hoebers.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/johannes-world-war-i1.jpg?w=590)
1914. At school, Johannes and his classmates played at being soldiers. Johannes is in the front row, third from the left, wearing a spiked helmet [Pickelhaube]. Click on image to enlarge.
Dear Papi,
Your card just arrived and I like it a lot. Hopefully we will see each other again soon. Yesterday there was an outdoor church service and a departure parade for the first infantry regiment. We left here already at 10 and arrived at the Lustgarten [park in front of the Imperial palace] – that’s where the parade was – just as a group of the soldiers were marching in. We then looked around and found a very nice place to watch the Kaiser arrive. We had waited barely 5 minutes when we heard “Hurrah!” in the distance and suddenly the Kaiser’s car came around the corner and drove by directly in front of us. It continued for a while that way and eventually we saw the Kaiser driving back.
It is wonderful here in Potsdam. Grilli went to school with [her friend] Tutti today and tidied up and then sewed a gusset and a “Nog” [?] on a shirt for a soldier’s uniform. I spent the whole morning today cutting up wood with a saw.
Your Jonny (now 10)
Kaiser Wilhelm II in an open car. This is probably what he looked like when Johannes saw him.
Thus Johannes was present to see some of the first troops to depart from Germany for the War, under the personal direction of Kaiser Wilhelm II. Four years later, as the War came to an end, Johannes would also witness the mutiny of German Navy at the Kiel naval base. He was walking home from school when he encountered sailors firing on their officers in the streets outside the warship facility. This was one of the events leading to Germany’s signing an armistice ending the War, and another in a string of historic events to which Johannes would be an eyewitness.
Johannes, summer of 1918 (age 14) near the end of World War I.
For more on the Hoeber family, click here.
Unlocking Nehru: The Rudolphs Innovate, 1963
Posted: January 21, 2016 Filed under: Hoeber, Uncategorized | Tags: Delhi, Francis W. Hoeber, interview techniques, Jawaharlal Nehru, Lloyd I. Rudolph, New Delhi, political science of India, Prime Minister's Secretariat, Susanne Hoeber Rudolph 5 Comments
Lloyd Rudolph and Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, a few years before their interview with Jawaharlal Nehru in New Delhi.
My sister Susanne met her husband, Lloyd Rudolph, at Harvard and they embarked on a unique joint career as political scientists. They wrote and taught together, specializing in political development in the then newly-independent India. They were 32 and 35, respectively when they took their second research trip to India in 1962-63. On this occasion they settled in the capital, and shortly after their arrival asked with intrepid directness for an appointment to interview Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. They were pleased and somewhat amazed when their request was granted. The invitation, in an oversize parchment envelope and typed on impressive stationery, was hand delivered by a uniformed messenger in an elegant car to the Rudolphs’ house at 44 Lucknow Road. The interview was scheduled for Tuesday, February 13, 1963.
The house at 44 Lucknow Road, Delhi, where Susanne and Lloyd Rudolph lived at the time they interviewed Nehru.
Recognizing that this was a rare opportunity, Sue and Lloyd devised a singular scheme for making the most of their time with Nehru: they decided they would take no notes, so that neither he nor they would be distracted by their writing. Sue and Lloyd prepared for days. They read articles and newspapers and began drafting a set of questions for the Prime Minister. These they revised again and again to make them simple and direct, with the intention of being both respectful and provocative. When they were finally satisfied with the questions they had formulated — they memorized them. Their determination was to be with Nehru with no paper or writing instrument visible.
Prime Minister’s Secretariat Building, New Delhi, where Susanne and Lloyd Rudolph met Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, February 13, 1963.
On the appointed day, Sue and Lloyd drove their little green Fiat to the imposing Prime Minister’s Secretariat in New Delhi. There they were ushered into Nehru’s private office, where they were able to question him intently for more than an hour. He was cordial and frank, though guarded on certain issues as Sue and Lloyd had anticipated. In an amusing aside, Sue took out a cigarette at one point (everyone smoked then) and Lloyd and the Prime Minister both lit a match for her at the same time. Sue looked at Lloyd but turned and accepted a light from the handsome Nehru.
Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India, 1947-1964.
Already while driving home, Sue and Lloyd talked rapidly as Sue furiously scribbled down notes of what the Prime Minister had told them As soon as they returned to the house on Lucknow Road, they hastened into their study and closed the door. With the prepared list of questions before them as an aid, they spoke into the microphone of their little tape recorder and dictated Nehru’s responses. Each reminded the other of what they had heard, using their collective memory to recall with precision what Prime Minister Nehru had said during the interview. Sometimes during the dictation, one of them would start a sentence and the other would finish it, a rhetorical characteristic that would become one of their habits in subsequent years. They turned the tape over to their secretary to transcribe and later edited the typed transcript before having it typed into a final version with an original and five carbon copies.
The transcribed interview came to a dozen legal-size pages. The candid responses they had been able to elicit from Nehru were a testament to their methodological inventiveness and unique teamwork. Sue and Lloyd used the information they gleaned in numerous articles and books over the ensuing years, and made the transcript available to other scholars. It was cited as recently as last year in a history of the Indian Army since Independence.
Sue and Lloyd’s study at 44 Lucknow Road, Delhi, in 1963. That’s me on the right holding their daughter, Jenny.
I know the details of this story because I was the secretary who typed the notes of the interview along with many others they conducted with government and political officials that year. In 1962-1963 I took a year off between my second and third years as an undergraduate at Columbia University to work for them in India. It was quite an adventure.
Sue and Lloyd were unique scholarly collaborators. Through decades of writing and teaching they made an indelible imprint on the field of political science and enriched the lives of countless students and scholars around the world. Their emotional, personal, intellectual and professional bonds made them inseparable life partners for 63 thrillingly adventurous years. Susanne died in her sleep on December 23, 2015. Lloyd slipped away equally peacefully on January 16, 2016, just 24 days after Susanne.
Susanne Hoeber Rudolph and Lloyd Rudolph, India, 2012
For more on the Hoeber Family go to http://againsttimebook.com/.
Beautiful Objects that Survived–1865-1901
Posted: December 17, 2015 Filed under: Hoeber, Uncategorized | Tags: German Christmas in US, Hoeber, Jakob Marx, Josephine Hober, Rudolf Hober 6 Comments
When my mother and father were forced to leave Germany in 1939, they had to abandon everything they owned. Five years earlier, however, when my father’s parents were expelled by the Nazis, it was still possible for them to bring personal effects with them. My grandfather, Rudolf Höber and my grandmother, Jospehine Marx Höber, both came from families that were pretty well off. Some of the things they brought with them are still in use in our house today, and we enjoy them particularly around Christmas time.
Linen napkins monogrammed by my great-grandmother Elise Köhlau before her marriage to Anselm Höber in 1865.
At Christmas dinner we often use white napkins saved for special occasions. Linen napkins in bourgeois households in 19th century Germany were huge, nearly a meter square. When my great-grandmother, Elise Koehlau, married Anselm Höber in 1865, she brought a supply of such napkins into the marriage. As was traditional then, she embroidered the monogram of her maiden name in the corner of the napkins with red thread and each napkin was numbered.
Hand painted dessert plates, Königliche Porzellan-Manufaktur, Berlin, 1870.
My grandmother’s father, Jakob Marx, made money as a financier in the Franco-Prussian War. He and his wife Marie had a home at Pariserplatz 1, next to the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. These plates were theirs.
A hand painted flower from one of my great-grandparents’ KPM plates, 1870.
When my grandparents, Rudolf and Josephine, married in 1901 they got a set of silverware with an “RJH” monogram.
The silverware in use in 1901 was larger than the pieces we use today. The soup spoon on the left is ten inches long and feels huge.
The RJH monogram is for Rudolf and Josephine Höber, 1901.
When my parents and grandparents came to this country over 75 years ago, they rapidly became integrated into the life of their new country, to which they were devoted. Like so many American families, however, we hang on to some of the ways our family did things generations ago, particularly at holidays. After all these years, we still roast a goose at Christmas and bring out some of the beautiful things that remind us of our history.
The last remaining Christmas decoration that my grandparents brought to America when the Nazis expelled them from Germany in 1934.
Hoeber 