The statutes of the Franz Rosenzweig Memorial
Foundation of November 1930 were kept
very brief. They read like a note for the files with a five-point program. Their
content combined programmatic goals and specific steps with as yet little
defined institutional directives. The intellectual life of
Hamburg's Jewish
community was supposed to be “stimulated and promoted according to
Rosenzweig's ideas.”
Explicit reference to
Rosenzweig's book
Zweistromland
is made in a virtually self-obligating
manner; based on his ideas a “Jewish house of teaching” was to be established in
Hamburg. The
foundation was supposed to be above party
lines and not favor any religious movement, it was to promote the spread of
Jewish books, establish a series of Jewish lectures and organize a “contest for
the purposes of Jewish scholarship.” In light of the successful work of the
Frankfurt
teaching institution, this was rather ambitious.
The text shows that there was a lack of legal advice, which might have been
purposefully spurned since this was not meant to be the usual kind of
association. It is likely that one reason for choosing to call it a “foundation”
was that members expected to accrue interest-bearing assets in the future, which
did not come to pass, however. Equally, the foundation was meant to have members. Another statute issued at a
later date shows that the founders eventually agreed to organize as an
association, maintaining a small office at
Rothenbaumchaussee 77 in
Hamburg. In
response to an inquiry by the
Gestapo of November 1933 the Rosenzweig Memorial Foundation confirmed that the term
“foundation” was not legally correct. In a list of the
Jewish congregation drawn up
for the
Gestapo upon
request in 1935, the number of members given was 184. A
membership list does not survive.
By-laws of the Franz Rosenzweig Memorial Foundation, Hamburg, November 1930 (translated by Insa Kummer), edited in: Key Documents of German-Jewish History,
<https://dx.doi.org/10.23691/jgo:source-67.en.v1> [October 06, 2024].