conservationists who had hitherto prevented widespread changes in the face of the city were rendered powerless.
On September 1, 1939, Gauleiter Mutschmann officially established the Durchführungsstelle für die Neugestaltung der Stadt Dresden (Implementation Office for the Reshaping of the City ofDresden). The man named to head it was Professor Hermann Martin Hammitzsch. By a happy coincidence, Hammitzsch was not only an architect, but a few year earlier had also married Adolf Hitlerâs elder sister and former housekeeper, Angela.
In an altogether grimmer constellation of circumstance, Hammitzschâs appointment occurred on the day that Germany invaded Poland and the Second World War began.
7
First the Synagogue Burns, Then the City
JEWS HAD NEVER SETTLED in Dresden in the numbers typical of other central and eastern German cities. In 1933 there were 30,000 Jewish citizens in Breslau, 12,000 in Leipzig, and 160,000 in Berlin, but only just over 6,000 in Dresden.
The first Jews were said to have settled in Dresden around 1300. The exact date is unknown. What is certain, however, is that Jews were burned alive on the Altmarkt (old market) after being blamed for the Black Death that in 1348â49 swept through Europe. This was no isolated incidentâin Prague, three thousand were massacred. Throughout the rest of the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance period, Jews were by turn permitted, then expelled or persecuted, then tolerated again at the whim of successive rulers. Most were moneylenders, welcome when the powerful needed cash, less so when the cash had to be repaid. In 1705 a Dresden merchant complained that Jews were âevery day to be seen walking all the streets and thoroughfares, openly and shamelessly plying their trade.â
It was only under Augustus II and III that Jews became permanently tolerated (though not yet given equal rights). A Jewish banker, Behrend Lehmann, was instrumental in collecting the vast sums that Augustus the Strong needed to purchase the Polish throne. A decade later, in 1708, recompense for Lehmann came in the form of a royal proclamation:
We are desirous in estimation of the services performed to us over many years to allow him the special mercy and freedom, that he maysettle with wife, children, and necessary servants at our Residence here and purchase a house and garden and become in essence resident in this placeâ¦under our protectionâ¦and further shall pay an annual protection money of eight Reich talers in currency, this to be rendered to our treasuryâ¦
The Dresden Jews were labeled Hofjuden (court Jews), in the mildly contemptuous phrase of the time. They accepted the limitations of this role. Later in the eighteenth century, it was the energetic, mercantile Jews in Leipzigâvital to the functioning of the annual fairs that made the city richâwho pressed for full legal emancipation.
By 1763 there were around eight hundred Jewish residents, mostly trading in some way or other, most still associated with supplies for the court and the army. Nevertheless, until the early nineteenth century a sign forbade Jews and dogs access to the pleasure gardens of the Brühl Terrace. Only when a generalâs wifeâs inability to take the air without her pet led to a lifting of the animal ban were the authorities shamed into relenting in the case of Jews as well. The sign was, however, restored in 1935.
Things gradually improved, aided by the French Revolution and the spread of the doctrine of human rights and liberty. Nevertheless, though in Prussia and the West German states Jews were emancipated in 1806, their Saxon coreligionists had to wait another thirty years or more. A measure of equality in commercial, economic, and religious matters was somewhat reluctantly granted by the Saxon legislature in the laws of 1837â38. Full civil rights had to wait until the 1848 revolution. The next year, 1849, Bernhard Hirschelâin 1825, the
On September 1, 1939, Gauleiter Mutschmann officially established the Durchführungsstelle für die Neugestaltung der Stadt Dresden (Implementation Office for the Reshaping of the City ofDresden). The man named to head it was Professor Hermann Martin Hammitzsch. By a happy coincidence, Hammitzsch was not only an architect, but a few year earlier had also married Adolf Hitlerâs elder sister and former housekeeper, Angela.
In an altogether grimmer constellation of circumstance, Hammitzschâs appointment occurred on the day that Germany invaded Poland and the Second World War began.
7
First the Synagogue Burns, Then the City
JEWS HAD NEVER SETTLED in Dresden in the numbers typical of other central and eastern German cities. In 1933 there were 30,000 Jewish citizens in Breslau, 12,000 in Leipzig, and 160,000 in Berlin, but only just over 6,000 in Dresden.
The first Jews were said to have settled in Dresden around 1300. The exact date is unknown. What is certain, however, is that Jews were burned alive on the Altmarkt (old market) after being blamed for the Black Death that in 1348â49 swept through Europe. This was no isolated incidentâin Prague, three thousand were massacred. Throughout the rest of the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance period, Jews were by turn permitted, then expelled or persecuted, then tolerated again at the whim of successive rulers. Most were moneylenders, welcome when the powerful needed cash, less so when the cash had to be repaid. In 1705 a Dresden merchant complained that Jews were âevery day to be seen walking all the streets and thoroughfares, openly and shamelessly plying their trade.â
It was only under Augustus II and III that Jews became permanently tolerated (though not yet given equal rights). A Jewish banker, Behrend Lehmann, was instrumental in collecting the vast sums that Augustus the Strong needed to purchase the Polish throne. A decade later, in 1708, recompense for Lehmann came in the form of a royal proclamation:
We are desirous in estimation of the services performed to us over many years to allow him the special mercy and freedom, that he maysettle with wife, children, and necessary servants at our Residence here and purchase a house and garden and become in essence resident in this placeâ¦under our protectionâ¦and further shall pay an annual protection money of eight Reich talers in currency, this to be rendered to our treasuryâ¦
The Dresden Jews were labeled Hofjuden (court Jews), in the mildly contemptuous phrase of the time. They accepted the limitations of this role. Later in the eighteenth century, it was the energetic, mercantile Jews in Leipzigâvital to the functioning of the annual fairs that made the city richâwho pressed for full legal emancipation.
By 1763 there were around eight hundred Jewish residents, mostly trading in some way or other, most still associated with supplies for the court and the army. Nevertheless, until the early nineteenth century a sign forbade Jews and dogs access to the pleasure gardens of the Brühl Terrace. Only when a generalâs wifeâs inability to take the air without her pet led to a lifting of the animal ban were the authorities shamed into relenting in the case of Jews as well. The sign was, however, restored in 1935.
Things gradually improved, aided by the French Revolution and the spread of the doctrine of human rights and liberty. Nevertheless, though in Prussia and the West German states Jews were emancipated in 1806, their Saxon coreligionists had to wait another thirty years or more. A measure of equality in commercial, economic, and religious matters was somewhat reluctantly granted by the Saxon legislature in the laws of 1837â38. Full civil rights had to wait until the 1848 revolution. The next year, 1849, Bernhard Hirschelâin 1825, the
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