Law Office Dr. Paul Mühsam

Paul Mühsam, jurist, writer  * 1876, 17.07. Brandenburg  † 1960, 11.03. Jerusalem

The well-known Jüdian jurist Paul Mühsam who daily crossed Postplatz on his way to work, noted his experiences  about Görlitz under the National Socialists in his memoirs under the title „I have been a man“. In Görlitz, a street has been named after Paul Mühsam since 1990.

The cousin of the writer Erich Mühsam spent his childhood in Chemnitz, youth years in Zittau and chose after finishing law studies in 1905 Görlitz as a residence, where he settled as a lawyer.He was the first Jew from G&oumlitz to emigrate to Palestine in 1933. 

His daughter, Else Levi-Mühsam, was born in Görlitz on May 8, 1910 and has been an honorary citizen of her native town since 1992. She left Germany in 1934 because of National Socialism.

For three decades, the most important phase of her life took place in Jerusalem. Here she was in lively intellectual exchange with Martin Buber, Gerschom Scholem, David Flusser and Else Lasker-Schüler, to name only the best known. Here she typed the first manuscripts of the writer and religious philosopher Shalom Ben-Chorin to earn some money before taking up her first permanent position in 1937 with the founder of the "World Center for Jewish Music", Dr. Salli Levi, whom she later married.

In 1960, Else Levi-Mühsam, a niece of the writer and publicist Erich Mühsam, returned to Germany to publicize the literary work of her father, Paul Mühsam.And perhaps one day memorial plaques will be placed at the family home at Bismarckstrasse 4 and at Berliner Strasse 60, where the poet and lawyer Paul Mühsam founded his law firm in 1905.