What we know so far

Curt Ascher and his son Claus (later Colin Anson), around the end of the 1920s. With kind permission of the Anson family.

In the January 1927 number of the newsletter of the Frankfurt Alpine Club section named Nachrichten-Blatt, the new registration of member Kurt Ascher is noted, with the address Kuranlage 1, Bad Homburg (a spa city near Frankfurt on the Main). It is added that Ascher transferred from the Berlin section. The annual report of the Berlin section of the German and Austrian Alpine Club from 1926 notes that the businessman "K. Ascher", who lived in Wilmersdorf, joined the section in 1923. He had therefore joined the Alpine Club four years before moving to the Frankfurt section.

According to the Frankfurt address book of 1936, the advertising consultant Curt Ascher lived at Grüneburgweg 85, but in the address book of the following year he is now listed as a representative with the address Kronberger street 20. This address can also be found on the death certificate dated October 29, 1937, which is kept in the Arolsen Archives. Curt Ascher, who was interned in the Dachau concentration camp, also lived with his family in Berlin and Frankfurt beforehand--this is one of the reasons why we assume that the two people are identical.

Kurt/Curt Ascher had a son who was able to flee to England as a teenager, took the name Colin Edward Anson and fought in the British army against Nazi Germany. Anson's eventful life is described in several books dealing with emigrated Germans who fought in the British army. His accounts are one of the main sources of our information about his father. In Helen Fry's book, German Soldier, British Commando, Anson also gives Kuranlage 1 in Bad Homburg as the family's home address in the 1920s--this also proves that our former member is the man murdered by the Nazis in the Dachau concentration camp.

Curt Ascher's son was born Claus Leopold Octavio Ascher in Berlin in 1922. The family later moved to the Rhine-Main area. After his father's death, Claus managed to get to England on the Kindertransport, where he adopted his British name. His mother remained in Frankfurt on the Main and he brought her to England after the war. Colin Edward Anson describes his father as a social democrat who was critical of the Nazis.

We are currently researching the fate of Curt Ascher in more detail and look forward to any information and documents that can help us!

Sources and Literature

Nachrichten-Blatt der Sektion Frankfurt am Main des Deutschen und Österreichischen Alpenvereins, online accessable

Frankfurt on the Main address books of 1936 and 1937

Helen Fry: German Schoolboy, British Commando: Churchill"s Secret Soldier. History Press 2010.

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