Jewish Frankfurt

The progenitor of the Rothschild family was born in Frankfurt's Judengasse. His five sons ensured the family's financial rise. In the 19th century, they established branches of their bank in the world's most important metropolises. Mayer Amschel (1773-1855) was elevated to the nobility by Franz I of Austria. The last head of the Frankfurt house was Wilhelm Carl von Rothschild, who died in 1901. Frankfurt owes numerous foundations to the family, such as the Clementine Children's Hospital and the Carolinum.

Ludwig Börne was another important Frankfurt Jew. Born Löb Baruch in Frankfurt on 24 May 1786, he grew up under the most adverse circumstances in the Frankfurt ghetto. Thanks to the emancipation of Jews, however, he was allowed to study, became a civil servant and later a journalist and freelance writer. In 1830, he moved to Paris, where he became a pioneer and spokesman for the "petty-bourgeois revolutionary democrats".

Leopold Sonnemann was a merchant, banker, publisher and politician. He soon converted his father's textile business into a bank. The founder of the later "Frankfurter Zeitung" was a member of the labour movement and the Frankfurt city parliament for 28 years. The name of the co-founder of Frankfurter Volksbank is also associated with modern city services, from water to electricity supply, as well as with the founding of Frankfurt Zoo. The newspaper existed until 1943 and was soon thereafter continued as the Frankfurter Allgemeine (FAZ).

Georg Speyer was the son of the Frankfurt banker, Layard Speyer. Initially destined for a commercial career after his training at the Philanthropin, he was soon at home in the banking world of Europe. In addition to his professional activities, Speyer was involved in many of Frankfurt's social, artistic and scientific endeavours. Together with his wife, Franziska, he supported the “Studienstiftung” (Student Foundation), which later formed the basis for Frankfurt's university. Without the Speyers' financial commitment, Paul Ehrlich's work here would not have been possible. Other parts of his fortune went to various funds, but also to the Senckenberg Research Society. The university foundation named after the Speyers still exists today.

From 1899, Paul Ehrlich was head of the Royal Institute for Experimental Therapy in Frankfurt, where he made a significant contribution to chemotherapy. He developed the first effective treatment for syphilis and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine together with Prof Metchnikoff in 1908. The Paul Ehrlich Prize, which is awarded annually in Frankfurt, honours this deserving scientist.

Bertha von Pappenheim was born in Vienna as the third daughter of a Jewish Orthodox grain merchant. As there was no Jewish girls' school in Vienna, she attended a private Catholic school. As a result, she was influenced by different religious and bourgeois values. In 1888, she moved to Frankfurt, the hometown of her mother, who came from the long-established Frankfurt Goldschmidt family. She became known in Freud's studies on hysteria, as she suffered from a mental illness. She was one of the most important players in the women's movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She was a member of the Jewish Women's Association and campaigned for women's rights in the Jewish community. She was also committed to the welfare of Jewish orphans. As an author, she wrote and published children's stories, novellas, short stories, plays and poems. For further information on her life and work, visit: www.berthapappenheim.com

Rabbi von Stolin was born Israel Perlow and was the rabbi of a small town in Russia. His grave is located in the cemetery of the Israeli religious community in the Old Jewish Cemetery on Rat-Beil-Straße. It has become a place of pilgrimage for pious Jews from all over the world. They wear kaftans and have the rarely seen pajes, the temple curls. These strictly orthodox Jews are called "Hasidim", the pious. Hasidism, the youngest and most popular religious-mystical movement, originated in the Ukraine in the middle of the 18th century. According to Hasidic belief, the "Wunterrabbi" was one of the 36 chosen ones who were especially honoured because of their wisdom.

Erich Fromm was the son of an orthodox Jewish Frankfurt wine merchant. He was co-founder of the South German Institute for Psychoanalysis in Frankfurt (1929) and emigrated to the USA in 1934. His most important works are "The Art of Loving" (1956), "Analytical Social Psychology and Social Theory" (1970), "Anatomy of Human Destructiveness" (1973), "To Have or to Be" (1976), and "Sigmund Freud's Psychoanalysis, Greatness and Limits" (1980).

Theodor Adorno was one of the world's most famous Frankfurt Jews. The philosopher, sociologist and musicologist had a major influence on the student movement of the 1970s. Born in Frankfurt, he took up a teaching post in Oxford after emigrating, returned to Frankfurt in 1949 and became director of the Institute for Social Research together with Max Horkheimer.

Anne Frank was born in Frankfurt to Jewish parents. The family emigrated to the Netherlands in 1933. In July 1942, she had to go into hiding and lived in a secret annexe of a house in Amsterdam. It was here that Anne Frank's diary entries, which were later translated and published in 60 different languages, were written. In 1944, the family was betrayed and deported. Anne Frank died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945. Her father was the only survivor of the family.