City walk Mühlhausen

In Mühlhausen Jews settled probably already before 1250. They are first mentioned in documents in 1278. They lived mainly from money lending and trade, as the guilds excluded them from crafts. There is also evidence of a rabbi, which suggests a larger community. Jews had to have their residence and protection renewed again and again against payment of fees. This Judenregal (granting of privileges and protection against taxes) lay first with the emperor, then with the Landgrave of Thuringia and at times with the city. In 1302 the city allowed Jews to acquire farms. However, the regal had to be renewed regularly. When the plague spread through the German Empire in 1349, Jewish pogroms also occurred in Mühlhausen, as they were blamed for the plague outbreak. Almost all the Jews of Mühlhausen were slain, the rest left the town.

From 1374, sporadic Jews again settled in the town. They lived mainly in the area of today's Jüdenstraße, where there was also a synagogue first mentioned around 1380, which was expanded in 1474. The Jewish population was an integral part of the town, which can be seen from the two busts of Jews with pointed hats (made in the 2nd half of the 14th century) at the southern portal of St. Mary's Church, placed between other statues. In 1375 there were already eight, in 1418 18 Jewish families. In addition to money and pledge transactions, they traded in horses and other goods. The Jewish community had a headman (Parnass), a rabbi and a teacher. After another pogrom in the fall of 1452, most of the Jews left the town. In 1517 Jews are mentioned in the town, but the synagogue building had been in Christian possession since 1513. In 1561 the council determined that Jews were to be banished from the town "for all time". Many Mühlhausen Jews moved east in the 16th century - to Krakow, Posen and Lissa.

The Judengasse or Jüdenstraße was renamed Horst-Wessel-Straße by city council resolution on March 31, 1933. After the end of the Nazi dictatorship, it was also called Wahlstraße in continuation of Wahlstraße. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the democratically elected city council decided in 1990 to rename the street back to Jüdenstraße.

After 1637 Jews again moved to Mulhouse, as the town was interested in their taxes. However, their number remained small and increased again only towards the end of the 18th and in the 19th century. While 14 Jewish families lived in the town in 1781, by 1840 there were already 22 families. With 213 Jewish inhabitants the highest number was reached in 1877.

A Jewish community was founded in 1806, and in 1808 it applied to hold services and in 1839 to build a synagogue. On the rear part of the property Jüdenstraße 24, which the community had acquired, construction began in 1840 according to a design by the city architect Hofmeister. Through the front house, a burgher's house built around 1700, one can reach the synagogue in the back via the courtyard. It was consecrated already in the following year 1841. In the front house was the religious school for the Jewish children, but all of them also attended the regular Mühlhausen schools (in 1832, for example, there were 32 Jewish children). In 1839 the Israelite Women's Association was founded and also in 1839 the first rabbi of modern times, Gerson Cohn, started his work.

In 1869, Jews became equal citizens in the North German Confederation; nevertheless, their numbers in Mulhouse remained about constant, as many emigrated to America. The majority of the local synagogue community was liberal, and many members strove to assimilate as much as possible with the majority of the population.

On November 10, 1938, members of the SS and NSDAP destroyed the synagogue's interior furnishings and objects of worship. Axe marks from that day can still be seen in the posts of the gallery. The rabbi was seriously injured, and numerous Jewish men were deported to Buchenwald. The Jewish community existed until 1943, and the building remained standing as one of the few surviving 19th-century synagogues in Germany.

After their extermination, a new Jewish community was founded in 1947, but it existed only until 1950. In 1987, efforts began to preserve the synagogue, which had been used as a warehouse in the meantime. Since 1998, the renovated ensemble of Jewish community house (front building) and synagogue (courtyard building) has been managed as a documentation, memorial and meeting place.

On March 18, 1927, the Manasse department store opened at Steinweg 81, its founding providing insight into the successful economic networks of Jewish families. The manager Withold Freudenheim (1884-1966) was not a long-established Mühlheim Jew. However, he was the brother-in-law of Georg Manasse, the general manager of the Jewish department store group Schocken from Zwickau. Founded in 1904, Schocken expanded until 1930 to become the fourth largest department store chain in Germany with 6500 employees and at last 19 branches.

Withold Freudenheim had married Hedwig Manasse in Berlin, and their son Fritz was born in 1926. In the same year, the family moved to Mulhouse and Freudenheim became managing director of the Manasse department store together with owner Georg Manasse. The modern company strategy successfully combined individual customer service with seasonal special offers. Textiles, toys, household, drugstore and photographic goods were on sale on a wide sales floor. There were social facilities for the staff. No war toys were sold, as the managers were guided by the German League for Human Rights.

After the Nazi takeover of power, the boycott of Jewish stores was also carried out in Mulhouse on April 1, 1933; SA posts prevented potential buyers from entering the stores. Further actions followed and Jews were increasingly harassed in private and in business dealings. In February 1938, Freudenheim sold the Manasse department store to Karl Hellbach - it was "Aryanized" and henceforth traded as "Kaufhaus Karl Hellbach". At the time of the sale, it generated an estimated turnover of several hundred thousand Reichsmarks. In 1938, the family emigrated to Uruguay.

In September 1945, the Mühlhausen department store was confiscated under the Thuringian Restitution Act as Jewish property aryanized by the National Socialists. The owner Hellbach lodged a protest against this. The outcome of the long-running proceedings could not be determined so far.

Among the first Jews to live in the city again from 1637 were the Sußmanns. Around 1671 they worked as cloth manufacturers and traders. In 1715 Abraham Sußmann was the representative of the Mühlhausen Jews in their dealings with the town (taxes and letters of protection). Since 1725 the Sußmann cloth shop and weaving mill ("Raschwarenfabrik") was located at Kurze Jacobigasse 3. In 1784 Abraham Levi Oppenheim, who had moved from Eschwege and married a niece of the family, took over the company. Business went well: in 1791, Süßmann Abraham Oppenheim was appointed court factor (court supplier) to the Imperial Habsburg Court in Vienna and affixed the imperial coat of arms to the house and factory at Kurze Jakobigasse 3.

When Mühlhausen fell to France in 1807, the Napoleonic Code also applied here from 1808, making Jews equal citizens and obliging them to choose surnames. In a clear show of loyalty to France, the Oppenheims renamed themselves Oppé. It is true that the equal status of the Jews was reversed by the Congress of Vienna in 1815. In the 19th century, however, the Oppés not only played a major role in shaping Jewish community life as headmen. They were also one of the city's largest employers and also active as politicians and patrons of municipal institutions. Armin Oppé was a city councillor very early, from 1848 for 26 years, his son Louis followed him from 1880-1915. In the years from 1900-1906 Louis Oppé presided over the city council.

From 1889-1891, the Oppé family had a villa built in the historicizing style at Lindenbühl. The villa, which was extensively renovated a few years ago, represents the successful entrepreneurship of the factory owner Louis Oppé with its bay windows, facade decoration and gables. In this respect, it resembles the villas of successful Christian entrepreneurs and testifies to the arrival of assimilated Jews in the middle of society at the beginning of the 20th century. The villa was a center of the town's social life. After the death of Louis, his wife Laura Oppé lived alone in the house from 1915-1940.

After the war, the villa was put to various social uses and housed, among other things, a maternity ward and a company kindergarten. From 1990, it stood empty for a long time and is now used as a commercial building after its renovation. In 1985, a memorial plaque with a Star of David was affixed to the remains of a neighboring house also used by the Oppé family: "In memory of the Jewish victims of fascism of Mühlhausen 1933 - 1945".

In 1914, Alfred Salfeld (1872-1944) became the owner and managing director of the S.A. Oppé company. He had worked in England and met his wife Cecilie there. From 1933 on, the repressive measures increased. On August 15, 1938, the company was Aryanized: Salfeld had to sell the traditional family business to the Thuringia weaving mill W. & J. Kunckell. During the pogrom night on November 9, 1938, he was arrested and deported to the Buchenwald concentration camp. After his release from prison, the harassment, plundering and exclusion continued. Presumably only his marriage to a Christian and Englishwoman prevented his deportation. He and his wife died in 1944. In 1945, his daughter Anneliese succeeded in having the company transferred back to her, but in 1972 she had to agree to its transfer to national ownership. In 1990, she made another successful effort to reprivatize the company. Today, the former company premises on Kurze Jacobigasse and Lederne Käppchen are home to apartments, offices and the "Kulturfabrik".

In the Middle Ages, the Jewish cemetery, first mentioned in a document in 1417, was located in the north of the city in front of the city wall near today's street "An der Burg". After the resettlement of Jews from about 1737, the medieval burial ground was also used again. The growing synagogue community tried unsuccessfully to expand the cemetery from 1851. In 1872 it was assigned a new burial ground in the east of the interdenominational, municipal cemetery on Eisenacher Strasse. The old cemetery had to make way for the construction of a road in 1900. It was cleared and some of the gravestones were moved to the new cemetery.

The new cemetery was planned for 230 graves; today 151 are occupied. In the southern part of the area, which is accessed by a cross-shaped path, some of the old gravestones (set up in a semicircle in two rows) come from the first Jewish cemetery. In the newer part there are graves until 1950. During the pogrom night in 1938 the cemetery remained intact thanks to the efforts of the then cemetery caretaker. After 1945, however, it was desecrated several times - among others at the beginning of 1988. Today it is located on the edge of a green area, since the municipal cemetery was dissolved and partially built over.

The merchant Heinrich Eckmann (1871-1947) came from Schmalkalden, where he already owned a smaller department store. In January 1904, he submitted a building application for a department store in Mühlhausen. After approval, he acquired plots of land at Görmarstrasse 18 to 21 and Friedrichstrasse 49 (today: Unter der Linde 1). In the same year, the new department store was completed as a multi-storey building.

The location of the department store on a corner lot on the way to the train station proved to be very good. Eckmann also attached great importance to the architecture and the modern retail concept. Several sales floors and large windows offered the goods in elaborate displays. As a result, it quickly became one of the first stores on the square. Eckmann noticed early on that a threatening situation arose for Jews when the Nazis came to power in 1933. On April 1, 1933, Jewish stores were boycotted and SA posts prevented potential buyers from entering the stores. In 1934 Eckmann sent his son Erich (1905-1980) away from Germany and also leased out his department store. In 1938 he sold it to the tenants Reinhold and Pabst and, together with his wife Ottilie, emigrated to Israel. Ottilie died already in Frankfurt am Main; Heinrich continued traveling and lived in Tel Aviv until his death in 1947.

Because of the Thuringian Restitution Act, the Reinhold & Pabst department store was confiscated in 1945 and transferred back to Heinrich Eckmann's son Erich in 1948 with half of the store inventory and stock. Reinhold & Pabst and Erich Eckmann then founded a joint limited company that rented out the department store building. The ownership rights of the Eckmann family remained. In 1991, Weyrauch GmbH acquired the business, which continues today as a department store.

Ludwig Maas (1875-1954) came from southern Germany, his wife Karoline Meyberg (1875-1975) from Eschwege. The family first lived in an apartment at Görmarstraße 37, later in a house at Wilhelmstraße 22 (today Friedrich-Engels-Straße 22), where Ludwig Maas ran a grain and feed trade. In 1906, 1908 and 1910 the children Else, Julius and Erna were born.

Already in 1936, Julius emigrated to Ohio. His sister Else led the Jewish community in Mulhouse since November 1938. A year later, she also emigrated with her parents to the U.S. In 1940, the Secret State Police (Gestapo) confiscated the property at Wilhelmstraße 22 as Jewish property and sold it to the couple Otto and Martha Altmann from Mühlhausen. Less than half of the purchase price (RM 46,000) was transferred to a blocked account of the Maas family, but the family could not dispose of it. The remaining sum went to the mortgage bank in Frankfurt am Main.

Julius Maas served in the U.S. Army and also came to Mühlhausen as an officer in 1945. Here he reclaimed his family's "Aryanized" property as the family's authorized representative. Still in 1945, the sale of the property was reversed on the basis of the Thuringian Reparation Act in favor of the former Jewish owners, and the house and property were leased to Mr. and Mrs. Altmann. But already six years later the GDR seized the property, as it was in foreign ownership. After the fall of the Wall, the Maas family decided to forego a restitution procedure and accept a compensation sum. Julius Maas also took part as an interpreter in the Nuremberg war crimes trials after the war.