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Walter Herz

My husband Walter Herz, born 15 April 1910 in Fürth/Bavaria, who died in the Dachau concentration camp, studied law and economics from 1929 to 1933.

"My husband Walter Herz, born 15 April 1910 in Fürth/Bavaria, who died in the Dachau concentration camp, studied law and economics from 1929 to 1933. He passed his bar exam in Berlin in 1933 under difficult conditions for Jewish candidates. However, further education, employment in the civil service and thus any gainful employment at all following his legal studies were made impossible for him by the National Socialist racial laws. "1

These are the opening words of the affidavit that Walter Herz's widow, Hanna Herz (born Levy on 15 January 1911 in Essen), sent from Stockholm to the compensation authorities in Berlin on 6 November 1956.

Hanna Levy and Walter Herz had known each other for many years from their joint activities in the left-wing German-Jewish youth group "Schwarzer Haufen" and their time studying together in Berlin before they married on 12 August 1935.2

The example of this young couple shows how strongly National Socialism intervened in their private lives. Both had to give up their studies at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin. The new laws did not allow them a future as lawyers, and so it was impossible for Walter Herz to take the second state examination. He was therefore forced to prepare for a profession other than law in order to earn money as quickly as possible - a profession that was conceivable as a livelihood, even if he was later forced to emigrate from Germany. In autumn 1933, Walter Herz began an apprenticeship as a machine fitter, which he was able to complete.3

In 1936, Hanna's mother, Frida Levy, moved from Wuppertal to Eislebener Stra?e 7 in Berlin to live with them. Her husband, Fritz Levy, had died shortly before and three of her children were already safe in exile. She probably moved in with her daughter and son-in-law to prepare for their joint emigration. The siblings did their utmost abroad to bring their sister, mother and brother-in-law into exile.

Walter Herz and his wife had been involved in a Trotskyist group in Berlin-Charlottenburg and were arrested on 3 or 4 November 1936 and sent to Magdeburg police prison.4 His wife later wrote about this in Sweden:

"The training in his second profession as a machine fitter had been completed, and we thought we were finally safe from further persecution by the regime when the arrest in November 1936 made it impossible for him to continue practising his profession. "5

In the years that followed, Frida Levy tried everything possible to free her daughter and son-in-law from prison and bring them into exile. She wrote several times to the public prosecutor's office to ask for emigration places for them on an estate in Yugoslavia and for Palestine.6 But all these pleas were to no avail and Walter Herz was sentenced on 18 November 1937 to four years' imprisonment and four years' loss of honour for "preparation for high treason".7

Walter Herz's parents, Julius and Nelly Herz, managed to emigrate to New York in March 1938.8 They had to leave their only son behind in Germany. After her release in May 1939, Hanna Herz was also able to flee to her brother Berthold in Sweden, from where she tried to get her mother and husband out of Germany.9

Schloss Hartheim mit blauem Himmel, wei?en Fassaden und rotem Ziegeldach.
Lern- und Gedenkort Schloss Hartheim heute. Photo: Martin Hagmayr

After the emigration of Walter Herz's wife and parents, his mother-in-law Frida Levy was the only contact person for Walter Herz who was still in Germany. She did everything in her power and even returned from trips from the safe exile countries of Palestine and Sweden to be close to her son-in-law and help him, as evidenced by extensive correspondence with acquaintances and authorities.10

A letter dated 7 August 1940 from Frida Levy to the Reich Prosecutor's Office has been preserved, in which she asks for the remainder of her sentence to be shortened (it was due to end in November):

I give the following reasons: My son-in-law has the possibility of emigrating to Sweden. Whether the possibility of emigration will still exist after the end of the sentence seems very doubtful. [...] Since the opportunities for emigration have diminished considerably as a result of the war, it is important to me that my son-in-law should be able to take advantage of this opportunity.11

But on 8 October 1940, the Gestapo made a decision:

'In view of the present foreign political circumstances, emigration will be practically impossible. It seems advisable to reject the application, even if the convicted person has all the necessary papers to leave the country.12

On 25 January 1942, Frida Levy was deported from Berlin to Riga and died there.13 Walter Herz was now the only one of his family to remain in Germany. Despite the end of his imprisonment, he was not released but sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp on 22 January 1941 and transferred from there to Dachau, where he was admitted on 7 July 1942.14 The strenuous six years of imprisonment must have left him completely exhausted and physically exhausted at this point, because on 7 October 1942 he was transferred from Dachau to the Hartheim killing centre near Linz as part of Action 14f13, a murder campaign against sick concentration camp prisoners who were unable to work, and murdered there in the gas chamber.15

According to the forged death certificate, he died on 13 October 1942 in Dachau (the true place of death Hartheim was not to appear) of "heart and circulatory failure due to pneumonia".16 The urn with the ashes was buried on 23 February 1943 in the Jewish Cemetery Berlin-Wei?ensee.17 In February 1943, the following death notice appeared in the newspaper "Der Aufbau" in New York:

We received the sad news that our only beloved son - Walter Herz - was snatched from us by death in a concentration camp at the age of 32. On behalf of the bereaved. Julius Herz and his wife Nelly, née Rose.18

Life data

BornDied
19101942

  1. Archive of the State Office for Civil and Regulatory Affairs, Department I - Compensation Authority, File 63.950 Walter Herz Sheet E8.
  2. Ibid. Sheet C17.
  3. Ibid. Sheet E15.
  4. Frida-Levy-Gesamtschule Essen (ed.): Frida Levy, 2nd edition September 2006 Essen, p. 43.
  5. Archive of the State Office for Civil and Regulatory Affairs, Department I - Compensation Authority, File 63.950 Walter Herz, Sheet E15.
  6. Frida-Levy-Gesamtschule Essen (ed.), op. cit. p. 44f.
  7. Ibid. p. 45.
  8. Archive of the State Office for Civil and Regulatory Affairs, Department I - Compensation Authority, File 63.950 Walter Herz, Sheet M47.
  9. Frida-Levy-Gesamtschule Essen (ed.), op. cit. p. 50f.
  10. Ibid.
  11. Ibid. p. 55.
  12. Ibid. p. 53.
  13. Ibid. p. 69f.
  14. Ibid. p. 57.
  15. Letter from the Hartheim Documentation Centre of the O?LA dated 27 November 2009.
  16. Archive of the State Office for Civil and Regulatory Affairs, Department I - Compensation Authority, file 63.950 Walter Herz, sheet A2b.
  17. Letter from the archive of the Centrum Judaicum dated 19 April 2010.
  18. http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~alcalz/aufbau/1943/1943pdf/j9a08s18.pdf, retrieved on 29/04/2010.