Paul Maximilian Eppstein (4 March 1902 – 27 or 28 September 1944) was a German sociologist, Zionist and elder in the

Theresienstadt Ghetto Theresienstadt Ghetto was established by the SS during World War II in the fortress town of Terezín, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia ( German-occupied Czechoslovakia). Theresienstadt served as a waystation to the extermination c ...

Life

Paul Eppstein was the son of the traveling salesman Isidor Eppstein (1869–1916) and his wife Johanna, born Scharff (1874–1972). He spent his early childhood in Ludwigshafen am Rhein before the family moved to Mannheim in 1908. His brother Lothar was born in 1909 (passed away in 1977 in the USA). After his father's death, the family moved back to Ludwigshafen in 1918. In 1920 he took his

Abitur ''Abitur'' (), often shortened colloquially to ''Abi'', is a qualification granted at the end of secondary education in Germany. It is conferred on students who pass their final exams at the end of ISCED 3, usually after twelve or thirteen year ...

in Mannheim at the secondary school, then he studied law and political science, sociology and economics at the

University of Heidelberg Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg (; ), is a public university, public research university in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Founded in 1386 on instruction of Pope Urban VI, Heidelberg is List ...

. He received his doctorate in 1924 from the Faculty of Philosophy, the topic of his dissertation: The average as statistical fiction. In 1928 he became director of the Mannheim Adult Education Center, which in a few years developed into one of the most important institutes of this kind in Germany. On 14 August 1930, he married Dr. Hedwig Strauss (1903–1944). Eppstein taught sociology at the University for the Science of Judaism in Berlin in the 1930s. In 1933 he published the paperback "The Symptoms in Business Cycle Research". In the same year he had to resign the management of the adult education center due to the rise of the Nazis. At the request of the board of the Reich Representation of German Jews in Berlin, he joined the latter, where he was mainly concerned with administrative issues and social tasks. After the

November pogroms ( ) or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom(s) (, ), was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's (SA) and (SS) paramilitary forces along with some participation from the Hitler Youth and German civilia ...

, Eppstein received an invitation from England to lecture in sociology, which he refused because he did not want to leave Germany. In the following period he was arrested several times by the

Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...

. From July 1939 he worked in the Reich Association of Jews in Germany and had to appear several times in the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) in the so-called Eichmann department. In late summer 1941, as representative of the Reich Association, together with Josef Löwenherz from the Vienna Israelite Community,

Adolf Eichmann Otto Adolf Eichmann ( ;"Eichmann"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. ; 19 March 1906 – 1 Ju ...

in the presence of

Rolf Günther Rolf Günther (8 January 1913 – August 1945) was a German functionary who served in the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) as an ''Sturmbannführer'' and who acted as deputy to Adolf Eichmann. He first joined the ''Sturmabteilung'' (SA) in 1929 and became d ...

and

Friedrich Suhr Friedrich Suhr (6 May 1907 – 31 May 1946) was a German lawyer and SS-''Obersturmbannführer''. He worked in the Reich Security Main Office under Adolf Eichmann. During the Second World War, he led ''Einsatzkommando'' death squads in Ukraine. H ...

announced that in September 1941 all Jews in the Reich would be required to be labeled:Esriel Hildesheimer: ''Jüdische Selbstverwaltung unter dem NS-Regime.'' Mohr Siebeck, 1994, , s. 204. As of 19 September the

Star of David The Star of David (, , ) is a symbol generally recognized as representing both Jewish identity and Judaism. Its shape is that of a hexagram: the compound of two equilateral triangles. A derivation of the Seal of Solomon was used for decora ...

had to be worn by anyone who legally was considered a Jew. In January 1943, he was deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto with his wife and

Leo Baeck Leo Baeck (; 23 May 1873 – 2 November 1956) was a 20th-century German rabbi, scholar, and theologian. He served as leader of Reform Judaism in his native country and internationally, and later represented all German Jews during the Nazi ...

, where he was elected to succeed

Jakob Edelstein Jakob Edelstein (also written as Yacov, Yaakov, Jakub Edelstein or Edlstein; 25 July 1903 – 20 June 1944) was a Czechoslovak Zionist, social democrat and the first Jewish Elder in the Theresienstadt ghetto. He was murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau ...

as the elder (''Judenältester''). As such, he was forced, among other things, to prepare deportations to the extermination camps and lied to

Maurice Rossel Maurice Rossel (1917 – 2008)International Committee of the Red Cross The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is a humanitarian organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, and is a three-time Nobel Prize laureate. The organization has played an instrumental role in the development of rules of war and ...

June 1944 visit to the ghetto. On 27 or 28 September 1944, he was shot by SS men in the Small Fortress of Theresienstadt for alleged breaches of the law. His wife Hedwig was deported to

Auschwitz Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It consisted of Auschw ...

on 28 October 1944, where she was also murdered.

Literature

* John F. Oppenheimer (editor) u. a .: ''Lexicon of Judaism''. 2nd Edition. Bertelsmann Lexikon Verlag, Gütersloh u. a. 1971, , col. 187. * Karl Otto Watzinger: ''History of the Jews in Mannheim 1650–1945''. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1984, , pp. 89–92. * Israel Gutman (ed.): ''Encyclopedia of the Holocaust: The Persecution and Murder of European Jews''. 3 volumes, Piper Verlag, Munich / Zurich 1998, . * Beate Meyer: ''Deadly Tightrope Walk: The Reich Association of Jews in Germany between Hope, Coercion, Self-Assertion and Entanglement (1939–1945)''. Göttingen 2011, . * Wolfgang Benz: ''German Jews in the 20th Century: A Story in Portraits''. Munich: Beck, 2011, , therein: “Jewish elder” in Theresienstadt: Paul Eppstein, pp. 65–77 * Claus-Dieter Krohn: Eppstein, Paul. In: Harald Hagemann, Claus-Dieter Krohn (ed.): ''Biographical handbook of German-speaking economic emigration after 1933''. Volume 1: Adler – Lehmann. Saur, Munich 1999, , pp. 142–143. * Eppstein, Paul, in: Joseph Walk (ed.): ''Short biographies on the history of the Jews 1918–1945''. Munich: Saur, 1988, , pp. 81f. * Eppstein, Hedwig, in: Joseph Walk (ed.): ''Short biographies on the history of the Jews 1918-1945''. Munich: Saur, 1988, , p. 81 * Clary, David C.
''The Lost Scientists of World War II''
World Scientific Publishing, 2024,

References

External links

In: ''www.ghetto-theresienstadt.info, Theresienstadt 1941–1945. Ein Nachschlagewerk.''
Dokumente zu Paul Eppstein
in den Sammlungen de
Jüdischen Museums in Prag
Individual records {{DEFAULTSORT:Eppstein, Paul People from Ludwigshafen Writers from Mannheim German Zionists German sociologists 1902 births 1944 deaths German people who died in the Theresienstadt Ghetto Jewish sociologists Judenrat Heidelberg University alumni Adult education leaders Executed Jewish collaborators with Nazi Germany People from Rhineland-Palatinate executed in Nazi concentration camps People executed by Nazi Germany by firing squad