Friedrich Dalsheim
1895 - 1936

Friedrich Karl Dalsheim was born on October 25, 1895, in Frankfurt on the Main, the son of Leo Dalsheim, born in Worms in 1875, and Bertha Stein, born in Weilbach (Odenwald) in 1866. He had two sisters: Else (also Elisabeth), married name Rosenbaum, and Franziska, married name Friesem. The family lived at Kronberger street 36 in Frankfurt's Westend district, not far from the Westend Synagogue. His father ran a haberdashery and fancy goods store until 1928. The 1914 Frankfurt address book listed it as a store for special leather goods, haberdashery, fancy goods, toys, and doll novelties wholesale at Nidda street 56. After World War I, the address book listed the company as follows: Leo Dalsheim, founded in 1885, wholesale and export of leather goods and haberdashery, Nidda street 56, owner Leo Dalsheim, authorized signatory Julius Rosenbaum. So it remained in the same location but changed its product range.

Both parents were Jewish and members of the Jewish community of Frankfurt on the Main. The marriage of his sister Franziska to Karl Friesem was therefore announced in the community newsletter of the Jewish community in Frankfurt on the Main (Gemeindeblatt der Israelitischen Gemeinde Frankfurt am Main) in February 1925, as was the death of his father Leo Dalsheim in September 1930. This shows the family's strong connection to the Jewish community during the Weimar Republic.

In August 1930, Friedrich Dalsheim married Lotte Julie Adele Gewiese, born in 1903, daughter of the Protestant lawyer and district administrator of Pleschen (Prussian Province of Posen) Dr. Georg Wilhelm Eduard Gewiese (1868-1917) and Antonie Maria Christine Meta Rospatt (1878-1977).

Friedrich Dalsheim attended the Philantropin, Frankfurt's most important Jewish school, and, according to his registration card at the University of Frankfurt on the Main dated November 2, 1914, obtained his high school diploma at the Wöhler-Realgymnasium. During World War I, he served as a soldier for three and a half years, including in Infantry Regiment 399, and was on leave from his studies during this time. His leaving certificate from the University of Frankfurt dated May 1, 1917, was sent to the Ersatz Battalion, 7th Guard Infantry Regiment, 4th Convalescent Company Berlin-Neukölln. This proves that he was wounded during the World War I and therefore needed to recover. Dalsheim was awarded the Iron Cross II Class.

Friedrich Dalsheim received his high school diploma from the Wöhler Realgymnasium in Frankfurt on the Main on February 17, 1914. He then began studying law at the University of Heidelberg, but transferred to the University of Frankfurt in November 1914 to continue his studies there. In the winter semester of 1914/15, for example, he studied criminal law with the Jewish professor Berthold Freudenthal (Breslau 1872-1929 Frankfurt on the Main), philosophy of law with the Jewish honorary professor Franz Haymann, who was able to emigrate to England in 1938, but also "projective geometry" with the mathematician Professor Arthur Schoenflies (Landsberg an der Warthe 1853-1928 Frankfurt am Main), who had been a member of the Frankfurt section of the German and Austrian Alpine Club since 1912, and "Nation State and Imperialism" with the historian Professor Georg Küntzel (Schroda/Province of Posen 1870-1945 Frankfurt on the Main). After World War I, Friedrich Dalsheim studied for one semester at the University of Berlin and then returned to the University of Frankfurt am Main, where he passed his first law exam in May 1919 and then worked as a trainee lawyer in the Frankfurt on the Main Higher Regional Court district, most recently at the Frankfurt am Main Local Court (Amtsgericht).

In July 1921, he applied for admission to the doctoral program at the University of Frankfurt on the Main, where he earned his doctorate in law with a thesis on "Das Berufsgeheimnis der privaten Banken und die neueste Finanzgesetzgebung" (The professional secrecy of private banks and the latest financial legislation). In his expert opinion of July 14, 1921, on this doctoral thesis, Professor Friedrich Klausing wrote:

"Die Arbeit ist im ganzen recht gewandt geschrieben, hält sich aber von phrasenhaften Wendungen und gelegentlichen banalen Ausführungen nicht ganz frei. Sie ist offensichtlich mit grossem Fleisse angefertigt. Juristisch zeigt der Verfasser z.T. erheblich über dem Durchschnitt stehende Fähigkeiten." (The thesis is written in a very skillful manner overall, but is not entirely free of clichéd phrases and occasional banal statements. It has obviously been written with great diligence. In legal terms, the author demonstrates abilities that are in some extent well above average.)

In the early 1930s, Klausing became an ardent Nazi and, as early as April 1, 1933, organized demonstrations in front of the homes of Jewish colleagues and the unpopular curator of the University of Frankfurt on the Main, Kurt Riezler, who was married to Katharina Liebermann, daughter of the Jewish painter Max Liebermann.

The second reviewer of Friedrich Dalsheim's dissertation, Professor Friedrich Giese, came to the following conclusion on July 20, 1914: "Die Arbeit stellt ohne Zweifel eine über dem Durchschnitt stehende, vollkommen ausreichende Leistung dar, die dem Verf[asser] die besten Anwartschaften auf das Prädikat "gut" eröffnen dürfte." (The work undoubtedly represents an above-average, perfectly adequate achievement, which should give the author the best prospects of receiving a "good" grade.)

Dalsheim took the oral exam on July 29, 1921, and received an overall grade of "good." He later moved to Berlin, where he worked for the IG Farben AG bank called Länderbank. He lived at Budapester street 8 in Berlin-Tiergarten. In 1926, Friedrich Dalsheim became a member of the International Institute of African Languages and Cultures. Two years later, he became managing director of Terra-Film AG alongside Erich Morawsky and sat on the supervisory board of Filmhaus Bruckmann AG alongside Morawsky, Walter Strehle, and Karl Wolffsohn. Friedrich Dalsheim then became active in the film industry himself. He learned the craft of cinematography from Emil Schünemann and Alexander von Lagorio. In 1929, he traveled to Africa with ethnologist Gulla Pfeffer (1897-1967) to shoot a film about a small farmer from the Ewe people. Dalsheim was the cinematographer, director, and producer of the film, which was first shown in 1930 under the title "Menschen im Busch" (People in the Bush).

In 1931, he went to Bali, then part of the Dutch East Indies, to produce another film. Its premiere in Berlin did not take place until February 1933. But shortly afterwards, Friedrich Dalsheim, as a Jew in the German Reich, was banned from working.

The membership directory of the Frankfurt on the Main section of the German and Austrian Alpine Club from 1925 lists Friedrich Dalsheim without a year of admission and with the address "Berlin, N.W. 7." Since he was not a member of the Frankfurt section before World War I, he probably did not join the section until 1925 – although he was already living in Berlin at that time, he must have felt connected to Frankfurt. However, due to a lack of sources, we cannot say in what way he participated in the life of the Frankfurt section. Friedrich Dalsheim is not listed in the membership directories of the Berlin section of the Alpine Club from 1929 to 1932. He therefore does not appear to have joined the Berlin section at a later date.

As a Jew, Friedrich Dalsheim was able to remain a member after the so-called "Arierparagraf" (Aryan paragraph) was enshrined in the statutes of the Frankfurt on the Main section in February 1934, as he was considered a so-called "Frontkämpfer" (front-line fighter) due to his military service. Whether he left the section in 1933 or was expelled despite his status, we cannot say at present due to a lack of sources.

After being banned from his profession in 1933, Friedrich Dalsheim went to Greenland with polar explorer and ethnologist Knud Rasmussen, where another film was made: Palos Bruderfaerd (Palos's Bridal Journey). This was a documentary film with a fictional plot, which premiered at the 2nd Venice International Film Festival and was awarded the prize for best travel documentary. In 1935, Dalsheim went to Bali to shoot the film "Die Kopfjäger von Borneo" (The Headhunters of Borneo), which was released a year later. At its premiere the following year, unlike in February 1933, he as a Jew was no longer even mentioned.

Friedrich Dalsheim returned from Bali only briefly to the German Reich and left for Switzerland in February 1936. There he first lived in St. Moritz, where he had been invited by Lucie Dreyfus, and later moved to Zurich, where he stayed at the hotel "Am Zürichberg." Presumably due to his seemingly hopeless professional and financial situation, Dr. Friedrich Dalsheim committed suicide in August 1936. His death in Zurich was announced in October 1936 in the community newsletter of the Jewish community in Frankfurt on the Main (Gemeindeblatt der Israelitischen Gemeinde Frankfurt am Main). This proves that he remained a member of this Jewish community until the end. His ethnographic collection from Borneo was handed over by a Berlin acquaintance in April 1937 to the then Museum of Ethnology in Munich, where it is still located today.

His younger sister Franziska Friesem, née Dalsheim, was deported from Frankfurt on the Main at an unknown date in 1942. However, the memorial book for the victims of Nazi persecution of the Jews does not mention a place of death or extermination camp, so we do not know where she was murdered. Her older sister Else was able to emigrate to the United States of America with her husband Julius Isidor Rosenbaum and their two children, Helga and Hans Harry. Else Rosenbaum died there in 1982 at the age of 91, while her husband had already passed away in 1953.