Otto Aschaffenburg
1878 - 1942

Otto Aschaffenburg was born in December 1878 in Frankfurt on the Main, the son of Gustav Aschaffenburg (1843-?) and Anna Amalia Aschaffenburg, née Schönhof (1854-1930). Both parents were Jewish. He had two older brothers named Harry Alfred Aschaffenburg (1875-1939) and Juris Paul Siegfried Aschaffenburg (1877-1932) as well as an older sister named Alice Rosa, married name Stockhausen (1876-1942). In the year of his birth, the family lived at Ostend street 25. According to Mahlau's Frankfurt address book from 1897, his father was not only a music teacher for piano at the Frankfurt music school founded in 1860, but also a choir conductor at Frankfurt's main synagogue. At this time, the family lived at Uhland street 40. In 1905, the entire family lived at Oberweg 22. The father was listed as a music teacher, Otto and his brother Harry each as a merchant and his brother Paul as a court clerk and Dr. jur.

In August 1918, Otto Aschaffenburg married Lili Dormitzer, born in 1895, daughter of Louis Dormitzer and Sophie Dormitzer, née Kupfer, who were both deported from Nuremberg to Theresienstadt in September 1942. During the First World War, Lili Dormitzer worked in the care of war orphans, as a nurse and as a massage therapist for amputees. She was awarded the Ludwig Cross by King Ludwig III of Bavaria for her voluntary service. Her brother Max Dormitzer, born in 1897, volunteered for military service at the age of 18. He served in the 8th Field Artillery Regiment and was seriously wounded in 1917. Shortly before the end of the war, on October 1, 1918, he was killed at Chemin des Dames (France).

In 1918, Otto Aschaffenburg's family lived at Lichtenstein street 2, while his brother Harry, now a bank director, lived at Wolfsgang street 47a and his widowed mother Anna Amalia Aschaffenburg lived as a private citizen at Hamman street 6 (in Frankfurt's Nordend district). Otto and Lili Aschaffenburg had two children: Hans Wolfgang Aschaffenburg, born in August 1919, and Greta Aschaffenburg, born in February 1921, who later married Merchant. After the birth of the two children, the family of Otto Aschaffenburg, who had become a bank director, lived at Guiollett street 57 in Frankfurt's Westend district. His brothers Harry Aschaffenburg, also a bank director, lived in the same district at Westend street 94, and Dr. Paul Aschaffenburg, then a senior district court judge, lived at the street Im Trutz Frankfurt 40.

Following the 1928 merger of the Frankfurt banking house Lazard Speyer-Ellissen, based at Taunus-Anlage 11, with the Berlin banking house C. Schlesinger-Trier & Co., Otto Aschaffenburg's family moved to Berlin, initially living in Berlin-Dahlem and from the early 1930s in Berlin-Charlottenburg.

Otto Aschaffenburg joined the Lazard Speyer-Ellissen bank as an apprentice in 1894. According to the Frankfurt address books, he was already working for this leading German-Jewish bank at Taunus-Anlage 11 before the First World War as an individually authorized signatory. In 1920, he became one of the owners of this bank. In 1928, he was joined by the owners Kommerzienrat Eduard Beit von Speyer (1866-1933), Dr. Ernst Picard (1890-1936), former State Secretary Carl Bergmann (1874-1935), and Ernst Kahn (1884-1959).

The Lazard Speyer-Ellissen bank merged with the Berlin bank C. Schlesinger-Trier & Co in 1928, but from 1929 onwards, under the name Lazard Speyer-Ellissen, Kommanditgesellschaft auf Aktien (KG a.A.), it experienced considerable financial difficulties in the course of the global economic crisis. It was finally dissolved in 1934. Otto Aschaffenburg remained in Berlin after 1934 and, according to the Berlin address books, lived as a banker in Charlottenburg at the street Am Rupenhorn 12-14 from 1935 to 1942. He continued to work as the liquidator of his bank for as long as possible, presumably until 1939.

Otto Aschaffenburg joined the Frankfurt on the Main section of the German and Austrian Alpine Club in 1911. He is listed as the only family member in the list of members of the section for 1925. Otto Aschaffenburg does not appear to have joined the local Alpine Club section after moving to Berlin. At least his name does not appear in the Berlin directory for 1929 or in the supplements for 1930 and 1931.

At the annual general meeting in March 1936, Otto Aschaffenburg was awarded the Silver Edelweiss for his 25-year membership of the German and Austrian Alpine Club. The Nachrichten-Blatt of the Frankfurt section reported on this in March 1937, mentioning Otto Aschaffenburg by name. Incidentally, the awarding of the Silver Edelweiss to Dr. Alfred Carlebach was also mentioned here. As Otto Aschaffenburg had already been a member of the Frankfurt on the Main section before 1914, the so-called "Arierparagraf" (Aryan paragraph) enshrined in the section statutes in 1934 did not apply to him. He was therefore able to remain a member during the first years of the Nazi dictatorship. The award also proves that Otto Aschaffenburg neither resigned from the section nor was expelled from it in 1933.

Otto Aschaffenburg had a breakdown in 1940 from which he never recovered. He finally died in July 1942 after an operation at the Jewish Hospital in Berlin. His wife Lili Aschaffenburg had to do forced labor in Berlin at the Siemens & Halske plant from January 1941. In January 1943, she went into hiding in Berlin to avoid deportation. She lived illegally in various places, most recently on Lake Constance. However, she did not manage to escape to the nearby neutral Switzerland. After liberation, she emigrated to the USA in February 1947 and died in Needham (Norfolk, Massachusetts) in August 1991.

His son Hans Wolfgang Aschaffenburg left Berlin for Switzerland in 1936, where he completed his schooling at an English boarding school near Bex. In September 1938, he emigrated to the USA. There he studied at Cambridge and eventually fought as a soldier of the US Army in Italy against the Germans. He passed away in Boston in May 1979. Aschaffenburg's daughter Greta went to Oxford in Great Britain in 1939 before the outbreak of the Second World War and emigrated to New York City (USA) in 1948. She married Robert Savage and had two daughters with him. They later divorced. Greta married John Merchant in 1962, with whom she had another daughter. Greta Merchant died in Needham (Massachusetts) in 2018.

Lili Aschaffenburg's parents were deported from Nuremberg to Theresienstadt in September 1942. Her mother Sophie Dormitzer died shortly afterwards on September 23, 1942, due to the catastrophic living conditions in Theresienstadt. Her father Louis Dormitzer only lived a little longer, as he also died on February 26, 1943, due to the catastrophic living conditions in Theresienstadt.

Otto Aschaffenburg's brother Harry Alfred, retired bank director of Dresdner Bank, lived in Frankfurt on the Main until his death in October 1939. His sister Alice Rosa Stockhausen died in Hamburg in October 1942 at the age of 66. She was married to the Christian Franz Joseph Emanuel Stockhausen and was therefore not deported.