Self-Assertion and Spiritual Resistance. The History of the Jewish Community Center in Hamburg

Barbara Müller-Wesemann

Source Description

The founding of the Jewish community center and its opening ceremony in the Hamburg neighborhood of Rotherbaum on January 9, 1938 was an unmistakable sign of self-assertion and spiritual resistance. It was reflected in the inaugural speech given by banker Max Moritz Warburg, both in his words and between the lines. The typewritten manuscript of this speech is 6.5 pages long and is kept at the Leo Baeck Institute in New York. It was thanks to Warburg’s financial and personal support that the project “Jüdisches Gemeinschaftshaus G.m.b.H.” was realized, creating a venue for the Hamburg Jewish Cultural Association Jüdischer Kulturbund Hamburg, which had been banned from its previous performance venues. Warburg was not only one of the Jewish Cultural Association's Jüdischer Kulturbund most important supporters, but also the association’s advocate in its constant conflicts with the German-Israelite Congregation. While the opening of the community center on Hartungstraße 9–11 certainly represents a significant marker in Hamburg’s Jewish cultural life during the National Socialist regime, it is its history prior to and after this event in particular that makes this place so special.
  • Barbara Müller-Wesemann

The history of the building


The story be­gins in the mid-19th cen­tury when the so-​called “Pfen­nigsche Villa,” named after Ham­burg mer­chant Fer­di­nand Pfen­nig, who had com­mis­sioned the build­ing, was built on Hartungstraße. In 1904 the “Lo­gen­heim” so­ci­ety bought the build­ing, and the Henry Jones-​Lodge (chaired by Gus­tav Tuch) moved in after major re­mod­el­ing. Two other Jew­ish lodges, the Ham­burg So­ci­ety for Jew­ish Folk­lore Ham­bur­gis­cher Verein für jüdische Volk­skunde and the Ham­burg As­so­ci­a­tion for Jew­ish His­tory and Lit­er­a­ture Ham­bur­gis­cher Verein für jüdische Geschichte und Lit­er­atur, were among the other or­ga­ni­za­tions find­ing a home in the build­ing, which soon turned into a cen­ter of Jew­ish life in Ham­burg. Due to the Great De­pres­sion the build­ing was sold in 1930 to the Ham­burg An­thro­po­soph­i­cal Build­ing So­ci­ety Bau-​Verein Ham­burger An­thro­posophen, but Jew­ish in­sti­tu­tions were able to con­tinue to use the space for cul­tural events. Five years later the An­thro­po­soph­i­cal So­ci­ety An­thro­posophis­che Gesellschaft was banned na­tion­wide by the Na­tional So­cial­ist regime and the build­ing was cleared and sealed. Since the prop­erty was mort­gaged to the Jew­ish con­gre­ga­tion, there was no in­ter­ested buyer. Even­tu­ally the Gestapo of­fered the con­gre­ga­tion the “op­tion to buy” the build­ing.

Thus the Jüdisches Gemein­schaft­shaus G.m.b.H. was born on Feb­ru­ary 1st, 1937. The pur­chase had be­come pos­si­ble due to a large fundrais­ing cam­paign, the suc­cess of which was largely the work of Max Moritz War­burg. A part­ner in the bank­ing house M. M. War­burg & Co., he was con­sid­ered one of the most im­por­tant bankers of his time.

Arguments for and against a Jewish community center


The project was by no means un­con­tro­ver­sial, and it faced var­i­ous ob­sta­cles, as War­burg men­tions in his speech. Cit­ing the fact that Jews were in­creas­ingly dri­ven out of the coun­try and a sup­pos­edly di­min­ished in­ter­est in cul­tural events, its crit­ics mainly took issue with the project’s high cost. They also feared that the es­tab­lish­ment of a Jew­ish com­mu­nity cen­ter would be­come the phys­i­cal man­i­fes­ta­tion of the “in­tel­lec­tual ghetto” the com­mu­nity al­ready found it­self in. Mean­while the project’s sup­port­ers, who pre­vailed in the end, par­tic­u­larly em­pha­sized the psy­cho­log­i­cal value. Under the pro­tec­tion of a Jew­ish in­sti­tu­tion, they ar­gued, would emerge a so­cial and cul­tural cen­ter that would serve as a “source of moral strength” and do its share to en­sure that “Jew­ish peo­ple gather and be­come grounded, to find inner calm and a higher peace.”

Functions of the Jewish community center


The com­mis­sion for the build­ing’s ex­ten­sive re­mod­el­ing was given to renowned ar­chi­tects Fritz Block, Ernst Hochfeld, and Oscar Ger­son. Banker Mar­tin E. Gold­schmidt served as ex­ec­u­tive sec­re­tary, and a 14-​member ad­vi­sory board was cre­ated under the su­per­vi­sion of at­tor­ney Rudolf Sam­son. In ad­di­tion to a stage and the­ater, the build­ing housed a li­brary, a lec­ture hall, a restau­rant, and a ninepin alley in the base­ment. These fa­cil­i­ties were pri­mar­ily in­tended for use by the Jew­ish Cul­tural As­so­ci­a­tion Jüdischer Kul­tur­bund, the Franz-​Rosenzweig Memo­r­ial Foun­da­tion, and by smaller as­so­ci­a­tions and com­mit­tees.

Warburg’s criticism of National Socialist anti-Jewish policies


In his speech, which re­ceived much at­ten­tion, War­burg called the ex­clu­sion of Jews from many pro­fes­sions a heavy bur­den damp­en­ing all joy. Nev­er­the­less it was im­por­tant to face facts and not be crushed by one’s wor­ries. War­burg went on to say that the es­tab­lish­ment of the com­mu­nity cen­ter meant the cre­ation of “a place of gath­er­ing, of up­lift and thus also of af­fir­ma­tion and en­joy­ment of life.” It was the pur­pose of com­mu­nity to pro­tect peo­ple from being “crushed by the every­day bat­tles of life” and from get­ting lost “in murky air and un­set­tled goings-​on.” Well aware that mem­bers of the Gestapo were present, he nev­er­the­less ex­plic­itly pointed out the mar­gin­al­iza­tion and hu­mil­i­a­tion of the Jew­ish pop­u­la­tion. War­burg even went one step fur­ther when he called the the­ater a “source of moral strength,” thus as­crib­ing to the arts the power to cre­ate iden­tity and in­spire courage: “Who­ever feels this truth will be­come free.” The fact that he un­der­pinned this mes­sage with a quote from the “Pre­lude on Stage” out of “Faust”, thus ig­nor­ing the pro­hi­bi­tion to per­form or quote from Goethe on a Jew­ish stage, seems to have es­caped the cen­sors. Nor did they seem to no­tice that War­burg’s ad­mo­ni­tion to ob­serve “the laws of our home­land” was in fact an iden­ti­fi­ca­tion with Ger­many in the name of all those present while War­burg also asked vis­i­tors not to park their cars on Hartungstraße and that they enter and leave the build­ing qui­etly so they would re­main in­vis­i­ble to the cen­ter’s non-​Jewish neigh­bors. It took him only three words to de­scribe the Ger­man Jews’ sit­u­a­tion at the time both ac­cu­rately and provoca­tively.

The Jewish Cultural Association


Since its foun­da­tion in 1934 the Jew­ish Cul­tural As­so­ci­a­tion Jüdischer Kul­tur­bund had be­come the only place where many of those af­fected by Na­tional So­cial­ist per­se­cu­tion could sat­isfy their cul­tural needs thanks to its artis­tic va­ri­ety, al­beit on a lim­ited scale. While it did serve as a refuge for a com­mu­nity of the mar­gin­al­ized, the Cul­tural As­so­ci­a­tion Kul­tur­bund un­tir­ingly con­firmed its will to defy the phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal at­tri­tion of its mem­bers by en­gag­ing with West­ern arts and cul­ture. In a com­mu­nity such as the Cul­tural As­so­ci­a­tion Kul­tur­bund it was al­ways pos­si­ble to com­mu­ni­cate on two lev­els, i. e. to utter words and at the same time ex­press what re­mained un­said by other means, thus en­gag­ing in a kind of sub­ver­sive com­mu­ni­ca­tion about one’s ex­ist­ing cir­cum­stances. As in other dic­ta­tor­ships, the­ater had as­sumed the role of an out­let.

A rebellious program


A look at the pro­gram put to­gether by the Jew­ish Cul­tural As­so­ci­a­tion Jüdischer Kul­tur­bund con­firms this as­sess­ment. One ex­am­ple was Richard Beer-​Hofmann’s drama “Jaakobs Traum” [“Yaakov’s Dream”], which makes ref­er­ence to the Old Tes­ta­ment and tells the story of the cho­sen peo­ple of Is­rael. In Sep­tem­ber 1935 – si­mul­ta­ne­ous with the pass­ing of the Nurem­berg Laws – it opened the Cul­tural As­so­ci­a­tion's  Kul­tur­bund the­ater sea­son. Ham­burg’s Jew­ish au­di­ence could hardly have been con­fronted with the top­ics of Jew­ish iden­tity and Jew­ish fate in a more strik­ing and vi­sion­ary way. The fact that this the­atri­cal provo­ca­tion was barely noted by the cen­sors does not di­min­ish its sig­nif­i­cance as a pub­lic act of re­volt and a com­ment on po­lit­i­cal re­al­ity. An­other ex­am­ple was dancer and chore­o­g­ra­pher Erika Milee, whose choric dance per­for­mance, “Der Sieg der Makkabäer” [“The Vic­tory of the Mac­cabees”], went far be­yond the his­tor­i­cal di­men­sion to be­come a time­less sym­bol of re­volt against any form of re­pres­sion. The fact that a clas­si­cal drama such as “Ham­let” ex­pressed the mood of both artists and au­di­ence is doc­u­mented by the ex­ten­sive press cov­er­age prior to and after its per­for­mance. The stag­ing of this Shake­speare play in par­tic­u­lar showed that the artis­tic self-​image of those in charge of the Cul­tural As­so­ci­a­tion  Kul­tur­bund, who re­fused to omit the cen­tral so­lil­o­quy, “To be, or not to be,” was able to pre­vail against the in­tel­lec­tual blind­ness of Berlin cen­sors. The plays of comedic play­wright Franz Mol­nar, too, crit­i­cized the con­tem­po­rary cir­cum­stances forced upon the Jews. The great suc­cess of Willy Hagen’s pro­grams demon­strates to what ex­tent this cabaret artist be­came the voice of his large au­di­ence de­spite re­peated cen­sor­ship.

The end of the Jewish community center


In Jan­u­ary 1939 Na­tional So­cial­ist au­thor­i­ties with­drew the Cul­tural As­so­ci­a­tion Kul­tur­bund Ham­burg’s sta­tus as an in­de­pen­dent as­so­ci­a­tion. The in­sti­tu­tion it­self, in­clud­ing the com­mu­nity cen­ter, con­tin­ued to exist, how­ever. Now a branch of the na­tional or­ga­ni­za­tion Jew­ish Cul­tural As­so­ci­a­tion in Ger­many Jüdischer Kul­tur­bund in Deutsch­land based in Berlin, the cen­ter hosted guest per­for­mances by the Berlin the­ater en­sem­ble, cham­ber con­certs, va­ri­ety shows, and es­pe­cially film screen­ings. On Sep­tem­ber 11, 1941 the Jew­ish Cul­tural As­so­ci­a­tion in Ger­many  Jüdischer Kul­tur­bund in Deutsch­land was dis­solved by the Gestapo and its as­sets liq­ui­dated. A few weeks later the com­mu­nity cen­ter on Hartungstraße was turned into an of­fice for pro­vi­sions and sup­plies for the be­gin­ning de­por­ta­tions. On July 11, 1942 it be­came a col­lec­tion point for one of the trans­ports from Ham­burg to Auschwitz. After the Al­lied bomb­ings and the par­tial de­struc­tion of the city’s the­aters in 1943 the build­ing be­came the makeshift home of the Thalia The­ater, and nine months later it be­came the lo­ca­tion of the “Ufa-​Kammerspiele” as part of the total mo­bi­liza­tion.

The building on Hartungstraße after 1945


On May 10, 1945 the build­ing was con­fis­cated by the British mil­i­tary gov­ern­ment. The Army Wel­fare Ser­vice es­tab­lished a cabaret in it, but in July of the same year Ham­burg’s cul­tural au­thor­ity filed a re­quest that the build­ing be made avail­able for stag­ing Kam­mer­spiele in­ti­mate the­ater. This ini­tia­tive was launched by Jew­ish ac­tress Ida Ehre who, with major sup­port from British the­ater of­fi­cer John Olden, was look­ing for a venue to stage plays about “human prob­lems and global prob­lems”. The re­quest was granted and Ida Ehre be­came the lease­holder of the Jüdisches Gemein­schaft­shaus G.m.b.H. On De­cem­ber 10, 1945 the Ham­burger Kam­mer­spiele the­ater opened with a per­for­mance of Robert Ardrey’s play “Leucht­feuer” Bea­con. Ida Ehre’s “the­ater of hu­man­ity” The­ater der Men­schlichkeit, which was meant to be ded­i­cated to in­ter­na­tional rec­on­cil­i­a­tion, al­most lit­er­ally quoted the hope ex­pressed by Max Moritz War­burg in his 1938 in­au­gural speech at the Jew­ish com­mu­nity cen­ter: the pro­gram notes of De­cem­ber 1945 state that the­ater must “serve only one pur­pose, the pur­pose of all true art: to seek the eter­nal truths and give ex­pres­sion to them.”

Select Bibliography


Barbara Müller-Wesemann, Theater als geistiger Widerstand. Der Jüdische Kulturbund in Hamburg 1934–1941, Stuttgart 1996.

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About the Author

Barbara Müller-Wesemann, Dr. phil, was until 2009 research assistant at the Zentrum für Theaterforschung and lecturer at the institute for german language and literature studies II of the university of Hamburg. She was the co-founder of the festival for new directors Die Wüste lebt (1996-2002) and was drafting the Körber Studio Junge Regie, which she is co-organising since 2003.

Recommended Citation and License Statement

Barbara Müller-Wesemann, Self-Assertion and Spiritual Resistance. The History of the Jewish Community Center in Hamburg (translated by Insa Kummer), in: Key Documents of German-Jewish History, June 08, 2017. <https://dx.doi.org/10.23691/jgo:article-136.en.v1> [January 06, 2025].

This text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution - Non commercial - No Derivatives 4.0 International License. As long as the work is unedited and you give appropriate credit according to the Recommended Citation, you may reuse and redistribute the material in any medium or format for non-commercial purposes.