City walk Dessau-Roßlau

"Scene of reasonable people"
. The permanent exhibition in the Dessau City Museum leads through 800 years of "culture and history in Anhalt-Dessau". The cityscape around it tells of human unreasonableness, of war and destruction.

Whoever has time and desire may dive a little deeper into the city history of Dessau from the Askanische Straße. Via Steinstraße, one reaches Schlossplatz, once the center of the medieval city. Here, too, the consequences of the night of bombing on March 7, 1945 are still visible: the former town church of St. Marien, built in its Gothic form in 1506-54, was only reconstructed in 1989-98 and has since served as an event center. On the square in front of it, the historic monument from 1860 to Prince Leopold I of Anhalt-Dessau (1676-1747, also called the "Old Dessau") has been reinstalled. Under his - still little enlightened - regency Mendelssohn was born in 1729. Around the corner, past the "Lustgartentor", is the "Johannbau", the former west wing of the destroyed Residenzschloss. Built around 1530, it is considered one of the first Renaissance buildings in Central Germany. The ruins were not blown up, but the original form could not be restored until 1990. In August 2005, the "Museum of Dessau City History" opened its doors here. A visit is worthwhile. The permanent exhibition "Schauplatz vernünftiger Menschen. Culture and History in Anhalt-Dessau" also includes a small "Jewish section" with a model of the synagogue destroyed in 1938 - once a stone's throw away.

"As is well known, most synagogues are hidden behind a house, ..." (David Fraenkel, in: Sulamith II / Vol. 1, Dessau 1808, p. 263)
. From 1686 to 1907, the Dessau community had to meet in a backyard synagogue. Towards the street there were only school and rabbi's house - since 1994 again the seat of the Jewish community of Dessau.

In today's Kantorstraße 3, within sight of Mendelssohn's memorial plaque, stands the Rabbi's House (also erroneously called "Kantorhaus"). It is the last surviving building of the old Dessau community that survived both the pogrom night of 1938 and the firestorm of March 7, 1945. After being used as a guest and apprentice residence, it was returned to the new Jewish community in 1994. The history of the place begins 300 years earlier: in 1684 the property No. 164 in the former Töpfergasse (later Judenschulgasse or Schulstraße 10) was acquired by community members. With princely permission, the rabbi's house was built there from 1686/87 and behind it - hidden from the public - the first synagogue. It was extended in 1711 and rebuilt after a fire in 1729/30. A third remodeling took place in 1858/59, until the old backyard synagogue was completely demolished in 1907.

"For if art and religion are siblings, ..." (Festive sermon by State Rabbi Dr. Walter at the dedication of the New Synagogue on February 18, 1908)
. The Dessau synagogue at Steinstraße 11/14 set new religious as well as urban standards. In the November pogrom 1938, it went up in flames. A new building is planned...

A generous estate endowment from the Dessau banking family von Cohn made it possible: from 1906-08, the Jewish community, which at the time numbered just under 500 members, had a new synagogue and community center built on Steinstrasse, south of Askanische Strasse. With its neo-Romanesque forms, the monumental building designed by the Berlin architectural firm Cremer & Wolffenstein set new standards - both inside and out. No longer hidden in the backyard, but in public, in a line of sight with the castle and city church of St. Mary, the Jewish house of worship with its dome visible from afar became an equal part of the city's silhouette - until 1938. On the afternoon of November 9, the synagogue and community center were looted by the SA, burned down and demolished just a few days later. It was not until 1988, on the 50th anniversary of the destruction, that a memorial stele was erected away from the old site (about Askanische Strasse 5). The community, which was reestablished in 1994, decided at the end of 2017 to build a new synagogue based on designs by Alfred Jacoby. The foundation stone is to be laid on November 9, 2018... Until then, a void remains - religiously as well as urbanistically. Somewhat lost, a single "stumbling stone" thus also commemorates the former community secretary, Salomon Jacobson.

"To promote culture and humanity among the Jewish nation" (David Fraenkel, in: Sulamith I / Vol. 1, Leipzig 1806, p. 8)
. With the "Herzogliche Franzschule" was founded in Dessau in 1799, one of the most progressive Jewish schools of its time - since 2009, the visitors*innen of the "Dessau Center" park here. 

Educational reforms have a tradition in Dessau: Already Basedow's "Philanthropinum" tried from 1774, in the spirit of the Enlightenment, to break new ground. On the Jewish side, such a concept was implemented four years later with the "Jewish Free School Berlin" (1778-1825) - at the suggestion of Mendelssohn. In his home country, the tradition initially remained: in 1785, the community received princely permission to establish its own Talmud Torah school next to the rabbi's house. The purely religious orientation was not convincing in the long run: In 1799, an association of "young Jewish philanthropists" came together, which now also opened a "free school" in Dessau - following the Berlin model. It was headed by the enterprising David Fraenkel (1779-1865), a great-nephew of the old Dessau rabbi, who also founded the first Jewish "Töchterschule" in 1806 and the Sulamith (1806-48), the first Jewish journal in German language and writing. Beginning in 1815, ducal subsidies finally began to flow, and so Fraenkel had his model school renamed the "Herzogliche Franzschule." From 1849-69, it continued as Germany's first state commercial school. What remains are a few historical views of the building at Leipziger Straße 9. The old location lies buried somewhere under the "Dessau Center" on Rennstraße...

"Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny" (Opera by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht, Leipzig 1930)
. Kurt Weill's birthplace on Leipziger Straße, badly damaged in 1945, had to make way for a new building in 1967. His second Dessau nursery in today's Franzstraße 117, however, remained intact.

Facing the former "Franz School," at Leipziger Strasse 59, stood the birthplace of composer Kurt Weill (1900-50). He is revered today - after Mendelssohn - as the second great "son" of Dessau, but his legacy seemed almost forgotten in the city until 1990. Since 1993, the "Kurt Weill Society" has organized the annual "Kurt Weill Festival", the "Kurt Weill Center" (Feininger Master House) houses a musician's museum, a "Kurt Weill Monument" (1995-97) was erected on Lidice Square, and the Rabbi's House has its own plaque. Nevertheless, even today it is difficult to locate Weill's birthplace - an open area east of Kantorstrasse, roughly at the level of Rennstrasse - because the street layout and buildings have changed too much since the night of the bombing on March 7, 1945. Dessau also experienced its "rise and fall". In 1898 Weill's parents had come to the city, and until 1919 his father Albert worked here as cantor of the Jewish community. On March 2, 1900, Kurt was born as the third child, a fourth followed, and so the family moved to nearby Franzstrasse 45 (today 117) as early as 1902. A memorial plaque commemorates the then two-year-old. Already 1903 the removal followed into the Muldstrasse 20, 1907 finally into the new community center at the Steinstrasse. 1918 went Kurt to the music study to Berlin...

"Think I was killed in the war and say it to Hänschen, too. Later you can tell him the truth." (Farewell letter from Hans Heinen to his wife, September 1939)
The "Leipziger Torhaus" in Franzstraße once marked Dessau's city limits. Right next to it, in front of house 162, today two "Stolpersteine" commemorate the communist resistance against Nazi rule.

From Franzstraße 177, the path leads a little to the south, across Gliwicer Straße. On the left side, in front of house 149, there is a passage to the last preserved piece of Leipziger Straße. Here, at the southern end of the "Sandvorstadt", once stood the Old Leipziger Gate. Just in front of it, towards the southeast, the Jewish community was able to build its first burial ground in 1687. A few remains of the old city wall still bear witness to this. The city and the cemetery grew, and so the Leipziger Tor was moved further south to Franzstraße. The western of the two gate houses by C. I. Pozzi (1826/27) has been preserved, the eastern one was already demolished in 1890/91 in favor of a nail factory. Even today, the street "Am Leipziger Tor" marks the old city boundary and continues to the entrance of the Israelite cemetery. Before that, it is worth taking a short moment of remembrance in front of the house at Franzstraße 162 (formerly 27), where two "Stolpersteine" were laid in 2009 for Hans Heinen (1909-39) and Hugo Jacoby (1875-1935). Both were members of the KPD and imprisoned in the notorious concentration camp Roßlau in 1933/34. Hans was executed in Sachsenhausen in 1939, Hugo died in Dessau in 1935 from the consequences of imprisonment. His gravestone on the Jewish cemetery is missing...

"Since the original location of many gravestones could no longer be determined, ..." (Notice board at the entrance to the Jewish cemetery Dessau, after 1945)
. The Jewish cemetery "Am Leipziger Tor" was created in 1687, expanded several times - and almost completely destroyed in the November pogrom 1938. Since 1995, burials take place here again.

The last stop on this walk is to be the "Israelite Cemetery". At no other place can the ups and downs of almost 350 years of Jewish history in Dessau be traced as clearly as here. It was not until 1687 (according to older information 1674) that the Jewish community was able to establish a burial ground in front of the (old) Leipziger Tor with princely permission. Between 1695 and 1902 the area was extended several times towards the southeast, towards Steneschen Straße. At the southern entrance, the gardener's house and the carriage house (today the mourning hall) from 1902 are still preserved. Until 1941, a total of over 2,000 people were buried in Dessau, including visitors to the Leipzig Trade Fair before 1814. At the same time as the New Synagogue, Cremer Wolffenstein had an imposing mourning hall built here in 1906. It was completely destroyed in the November pogrom of 1938 - together with the Mendelssohn monument erected in front of it in 1933 and large parts of the cemetery grounds. The gravestones were piled up and used as building material. Reconstruction began immediately in 1945, but old debris and garbage are still being brought to light when new areas are developed. Since 1995 the Jewish Community of Dessau buries its dead here again, a separate area for non-Jewish partners is planned...