Franz Oppenheimer
1864 - 1943

Franz Oppenheimer was born on March 30, 1864 in Berlin, at Krausnick street 5, the son of Julius Oppenheimer, a Reform rabbi and religious teacher born in Uslar (Solling) in May 1827 (died 1909 in Berlin-Charlottenburg) and Antonie Davidso(h)n (died 1910 in Berlin-Steglitz), born in Pyritz (Pomerania, Prussia) in January 1837. He had four siblings: Georg Oppenheimer (1860-1872, he died of cholera as a child), Paula Dehmel, née Oppenheimer (1862-1918), Sara, called Elise, Steindorff (1866-1963), wife of the famous Egyptologist Dr. Georg Steindorff (1861-1951), and Dr. Carl Nathan Oppenheimer (1874-1941).

Franz Oppenheimer married Martha Amalia Oppenheim, who was born in Berlin in February 1868 as the daughter of Julius Oppenheim (1833-1904) and Regina Wolff (1839-1907). They had three children: Eva (1893-1912), Ludwig (1897-1979) and Heinz Reinhard, later Hillel (1899-1971). Franz Oppenheimer married a second time. He had a daughter with Mathilda Hanna Holl, a Christian born in Fécamp (France) in 1879: Renata Ellen Lenart, née Oppenheimer (1917-2012). However, Mathilda Hanna Oppenheimer died in Frankfurt on the Main in May 1921. After moving from Berlin, Franz Oppenheimer lived at Hühnerweg 1 in the Sachsenhausen district of Frankfurt between 1919 and 1929. He then left Frankfurt on the Main again.

At Easter 1881, Franz Oppenheimer passed his Abitur examination at the Friedrich Gymnasium in Berlin. He then studied medicine at the universities of Freiburg (in Breisgau) and Berlin. He wrote his dissertation on "On the yellow diazo reaction" and passed his doctoral examination in March 1885. He was granted his license to practice medicine in June 1886. Franz Oppenheimer then completed the second half of his military service as a doctor with the 3rd Berlin Guards Regiment as a one-year volunteer (he had already completed the first half of his service with the Guards Fusilier Regiment in Berlin after completing his first exam, the "Physikum").

He then opened a small practice in his parents' apartment in Eichendorff street. However, he was not satisfied as a doctor and therefore continued his education in economics. At the same time, he published his first works, such as his "Wanderbriefe" in the newspaper "Vossiche Zeitung" in 1893, which also appeared as a book the following year. From this time onwards, he wrote for various newspapers, such as the "Volkszeitung", the "Berliner Zeitung" and the "Morgenpost", on topics including medicine, sport and travel. In 1896, his fundamental work "Die Siedlungsgenossenschaft. Versuch einer positiven Überwindung des Kommunismus durch Lösung des Genossenschaftsproblems und der Agrarfrage" (The Homebuildung Cooperative Society. An attempt to positively overcome communism by solving the cooperative problem and the agrarian question). In 1897, Franz Oppenheimer took over the editorship of the gazette "Welt am Montag" for a while. He then lived as a writer.

In 1902, Oppenheimer turned to Zionism and was in close contact with Theodor Herzl. At the 6th Zionist Congress in Basel in August 1903, he gave a much-noticed lecture on the establishment of a Jewish cooperative settlement in Palestine. He was then elected to the Palestine Committee, which was to promote the practical development of the Jewish settlement system. He worked on the Zionist magazine "Altneuland" until 1906.

In February 1908, Franz Oppenheimer was awarded a doctorate for the second time, this time at the University of Kiel in economics with a thesis on "Rodbertus' attack on Ricardo's rent theory and the Lexis-Diehl rescue attempt". The following year, he completed his habilitation in economics at the University of Berlin with a thesis on "David Ricardo's Basic Rent Theory. Presentation and Criticism". On March 20, 1909, Franz Oppenheimer gave his inaugural public lecture on "Production and Distribution of Goods in their Mutual Relationships". He then lectured as a "Privatdozent" (private lecturer) at the University of Berlin, mainly on theoretical and practical economics, but also on the history of socialism. It was not until 1917 that he was appointed titular professor.

During the First World War, Franz Oppenheimer worked as a consultant in the War Ministry until 1917 and was involved in the Zionist-influenced "Committee for the East", which aimed to improve the living conditions of the Jewish population under German occupation. From 1919 to 1929, Franz Oppenheimer taught at Frankfurt University as a full professor of sociology and theoretical economics. This chair, the first for sociology at a German university, had been established especially for Oppenheimer on the initiative and with the support of the founder Karl Kotzenberg. However, Oppenheimer did not feel at home in Frankfurt on the Main, neither at the university, which was small compared to Berlin, nor in terms of the climate. In his memoirs, he wrote: "Über meiner Frankfurter Zeit waltete ein schwerer Unstern. Meine bis dahin herrliche Gesundheit wurde schwer erschüttert." (My time in Frankfurt was overshadowed by a heavy star of doom. My hitherto splendid health was severely shaken.) He therefore left Frankfurt on the Main after his retirement in March 1929.

Prof. Dr. Franz Oppenheimer joined the Frankfurt on the Main section of the German and Austrian Alpine Club in 1921, having previously been a member of the Berlin section since 1901. His son Ludwig Oppenheimer followed him in 1923, when he also joined the Frankfurt section.

In his memoirs, Franz Oppenheimer writes that Löchner, a teacher at Friedrich-Gymnasium, "planted the first seed" of a passion for mountains and mountaineering in his heart through his reports on hikes. According to the annual report of the Berlin section of the German and Austrian Alpine Club for the year 1880, the school headmaster Löchner had joined the Berlin section in 1870, just one year after the section was founded. The importance of hiking in the Alps for Prof. Dr. Franz Oppenheimer can be seen from the fact that he dedicated a separate section of his memoirs to "Alpine journeys". There it says:

"Aber das große heilsame Gegengewicht gegen die angespannte Geistesarbeit fand ich doch durch die Jahrzehnte hindurch in meinen Bergfahrten, vor allem in den Alpen, die ich in allen ihren Hauptgruppen durchstreifte und in denen ich zwischen zwei- und dreihundert Gipfel bestieg, aber auch in der Sächsischen Schweiz, dem wunderbarsten 'Klettergarten', der sich erdenken lässt. Vom Jahre 1888 an bis 1921 habe ich fast jedes Jahr vier bis fünf Wochen Gipfel auf Gipfel gestürmt; die Berge waren das Paradies meines Mannesalters; [...] Noch im Jahre 1921 konnte ich recht schwierige führerlose Touren in Tirol mitmachen und teilweise sogar führen. Dann aber traf mich ein schwerer Unfall: als Gast meines Freundes Richard Sichler auf seinem Schloß Bürglen bei Basel verunglückte ich, als ich in einer klaren Nacht mich einer meiner großen Freuden hingab, der Beobachtung des gestirnten Himmels." (But I found the great salutary counterbalance to the tense mental work through the decades in my mountain trips, especially in the Alps, which I roamed in all their main groups and in which I climbed between two and three hundred peaks, but also in Saxon Switzerland, the most wonderful 'climbing garden' that can be imagined. From 1888 until 1921, I spent four to five weeks almost every year storming summit after summit; the mountains were the paradise of my manhood; [...] As late as 1921, I was able to take part in quite difficult unguided tours in Tyrol and even lead some of them. But then a serious accident struck me: as a guest of my friend Richard Sichler at his castle Bürglen near Basel, I had an accident when I was indulging in one of my great pleasures, observing the starry sky on a clear night.)

Franz Oppenheimer fell five meters and suffered such a complicated fracture of his left thigh that he was no longer able to undertake long and difficult hikes. Unfortunately, it is unclear how he participated in Section life in Frankfurt on the Main from 1921 onwards, as there are no relevant sources. After his retirement in 1929, Franz Oppenheimer moved to Lüdersdorf (Brandenburg, Prussia) so that he could no longer take part in events organized by the Frankfurt Section. We do not know whether he left the section after his departure or remained a member until the Nazi era. He does not appear to have joined the Berlin Section, at least not until 1933, as we were unable to find him in the published membership lists, but we were able to find his brother Dr. Carl Oppenheimer, who had been a member of the Berlin Section since 1925.

Among the mountain peaks that Franz Oppenheimer climbed are the Matterhorn (4478m), Piz Bernina (4048m), the Tödi (3613m) in the Glarus Alps, the Spritzkarspitze (2606m) above the Eng, the Rosengartenspitze (2981) in the Dolomites and the Weißkugel (3738m) in the Ötztal Alps. Franz Oppenheimer made many tours with family members, especially with his younger brother Carl, but also with his cousin Adolf Nassau and his brother-in-law Paul Oppenheim (1863-1934), as well as with colleagues and friends such as the physics professor Max Abraham (1875-1922) and the biochemist Leonor Michaelis (Berlin 1875-1949 New York City). Franz Oppenheimer describes the joint tours with and without a mountain guide in his memoirs as follows:

"Was waren das jedesmal für reiche, für erfüllte Wochen! Wir teilten nicht nur die Strapazen und die Freuden der Bergfahrten miteinander, sondern gaben uns gegenseitig das Beste, was wir hatten: unser Wissen, unsere Gedanken. Wir waren schweigsam, wenn wir unter dem wuchtigen Rucksack der Führerlosen unsern Weg aufwärts erzwangen und im schwierigen Gelände auch im Abstieg. Aber auf den Wegen zu den Hütten zurück und in den Hütten selbst, namentlich an regnerischen Tagen, wenn uns unerwünschte Rast aufgezwungen war, dann hoben sich die Schleusen, und jeder sprach von seiner Arbeit, von seinem Streben, von seinen Plänen und Entwürfen." (What rich, fulfilling weeks those were each time! We not only shared the hardships and joys of the mountain trips, but also gave each other the best we had: our knowledge, our thoughts. We were silent when we forced our way upwards under the massive rucksack of those without a guide, and in difficult terrain also on the descent. But on the way back to the huts and in the huts themselves, especially on rainy days, when we were forced to take an unwanted rest, the floodgates lifted and everyone talked about their work, their aspirations, their plans and designs.)

After the National Socialists came to power in January 1933, Franz Oppenheimer was also persecuted as a Jew. In 1933, he lost his position as emeritus professor due to the new anti-Semitic legislation and instead received a lower-paid pension. His son Heinz Reinhard had already emigrated to Palestine in 1925 due to his Zionist convictions. Franz Oppenheimer therefore spent the winter of 1934/35 there, but he did not want to live in Palestine permanently.

He then sought to emigrate to the USA. In 1936, he went to the United States for a few months to prepare for this. However, it was not until 1938 that he applied for emigration for himself and his daughter Renate. This was finally approved in December 1938. Both traveled via Marseille to Japan, where they arrived in January 1939. After just over six months, Franz Oppenheimer had to leave Japan again and found refuge in Shanghai. There he lived from the sale of part of his library.

In July 1940, Franz Oppenheimer and his daughter Renate were finally allowed to immigrate to the USA. They settled in Los Angeles, where Oppenheimer's sister Elise Steindorff also lived. Here he published again, mainly in the journal "The American Journal of Economics and Sociology". Renate Oppenheimer worked as an assistant to film authors and doctors and as a secretary to the former Berlin psychoanalyst Ernst Simmel in New York, earning a living for both of them. Franz Oppenheimer died on September 30, 1943, at the age of 80. A Deutsche Bundespost stamp in the "Important Germans" series was issued in 1964 to mark his 100th birthday. Franz Oppenheimer's urn was transferred to Frankfurt on the Main in 2007. He was given a grave of honor in the South Cemetery.

As a Jew, his son Ludwig Oppenheimer was dismissed by the National Socialists as a lecturer at the Berlin School of Politics. He then worked for the Reich Representation of German Jews and married the non-Jew Elsa Kappler in 1935. They both emigrated to Palestine in 1938. From 1939 Ludwig Oppenheimer worked for the Jewish Agency in Palestine in agricultural economic research and from 1948 for the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture at the Agricultural Research Center in Rehovot. He died in Rehovot in February 1979.

Franz Oppenheimer's first wife Martha was able to emigrate to Palestine in 1939. She lived with her sons Heinz and Ludwig in Rehovot. Martha Oppenheimer finally died there in 1949.