Paul Loewe
1912 - ?

Paul Loewe was born on November 19, 1912, in Frankfurt am Main, the son of Jewish physician Dr. Otto Loewe and his wife Ida, née Seeber. The family lived at Arndtstr. 29 in Frankfurt's Westend district. Paul Loewe's father was chief physician at Frankfurt's Markus Hospital until 1933. However, he was forced to give up this position under pressure from the National Socialists. Otto Loewe was arrested by a Gestapo rollkommando on the night of November 9-10, 1938, and severely mistreated in Frankfurt's Festhalle along with other Jewish men. As a result of the abuse, he died on November 12, 1938, on his way home. A street in Frankfurt's Bockenheim district is now named after Otto Loewe.

Paul Loewe studied medicine at the University of Frankfurt am Main from Easter 1931 to Easter 1934. According to his own account, he had "gotten along well" with his fellow students until the Nazis seized power. However, this changed quickly. Since Paul Loewe's father was Jewish and his mother was Protestant, he was now considered a so-called "half-Jew" or "Mischling" in the diction of the National Socialists, which led to considerable difficulties in continuing his studies. His fellow students broke off contact with him, he could no longer find colleagues for the required laboratory work, and he was denied admission to the "German Student Union." According to his own statement, he felt "constant moral pressure," which ultimately forced him to leave the university.

One of his few remaining non-Jewish friends advised Paul Loewe to leave Germany. The friend predicted that the situation for Jewish students would worsen. "I noticed how difficult it was for him to leave his old home and interrupt his studies."

But his father also urged the then 22-year-old Paul to emigrate in 1934. Paul Loewe's legal counsel in the compensation proceedings, attorney Jacob Flesch from Frankfurt am Main, described it as follows: "Er [Paul Loewe, d.V.] hat mit allen Fasern seines Herzens am Elternhaus gehangen. Er hat sich gegen das Verlangen des Vaters, auszuwandern, mit Händen und Füssen gesträubt und sich schliesslich zur Auswanderung entschlossen, als der Vater ihm erklärt hat, er bezahle ihm die Fahrkarte für Hin- und Rückfahrt, damit er jederzeit zurückfahren könne, wenn der Antisemitismus in Deutschland aufhören würde." (He [Paul Loewe, ed.] was deeply attached to his parents' home. He resisted his father's desire for him to emigrate with all his might and finally decided to emigrate when his father told him that he would pay for his round-trip ticket so that he could return at any time if anti-Semitism in Germany ceased.")

He emigrated to Mexico on May 16, 1934, by ship from Hamburg. Immediately after his arrival, he applied for admission to the medical faculty of the University of Mexico. Since the academic year in Mexico at that time lasted from February to November, he was unable to continue his medical studies until the following year. At the same time, he had to take courses in Mexican history and geography, Mexican and Ibero-American literature, and Spanish to supplement his Mexican high school diploma, and take exams in these subjects. The medical faculty of the University of Mexico certified the successful completion of his studies on August 29, 1938. He then completed the social service required in Mexico at the time from September 1938 to March 1939.

As his father was only able to support him financially on an irregular basis due to foreign exchange restrictions, Paul Loewe worked as an X-ray technician in the meantime to earn a living. As a result, he did not pass his state examination until October 31, 1940. Two weeks later, on November 12, he was awarded his medical degree by the Universidad Nacional de Mexico. Paul Loewe was now, like his father, a specialist in surgery.

Almost nothing is known about Dr. Paul Loewe's later life. We do know, however, that around 1938 he was responsible for the first Wood Badge course (basic training for scouts and scout leaders) in Mexico and that he later worked with the scouts there. For example, he led the "Meztitla Scout Camp" project in Tepoztlán and donated part of the land for it.
Paul Loewe married Liesl Deutsch, who had fled Vienna in 1939, and they had two children, born in Mexico in 1941 and 1944. Paul and Liesl Loewe owned a country house in Tepoztlán in the state of Morelos, 75 kilometers south of the capital Mexico City. In 1958/59, Paul Loewe was a member of the board of the Sociedad Mexicana de Radiología, meaning that he was working as a radiologist at the time. In 1967, together with fellow doctors from the Hospital Dalinde in Mexico City, he published an article in the British Journal of Plastic Surgery entitled "Preliminary report on the subcutaneous perfusion of dimethyl polisiloxane to increase volume and alter regional contour."

It is currently unknown when Paul Loewe died. In 2007, the German Radiological Society congratulated Dr. Paul Loewe on his 95th birthday at the address "Mexico 20, D.F., ME Mexico," indicating that he was still alive at that time.
His son Ricardo, born in 1941, was a doctor and human rights activist. Ricardo later converted his parents' country house into a Clínica Popular, an outpatient clinic for poor people, mainly indigenous people, who could not afford medical treatment. He died on November 9, 2022, in Vienna. Ricardo Loewe has a son named Andrés Loewe.

Paul Loewe joined the Frankfurt section of the German and Austrian Alpine Club in 1932. His two guarantors were Professor Walter Behrmann and the long-standing first chairman of the Frankfurt am Main section, Professor Dr. Matthias Friedwagner. He thus became a member when a student section was established in Frankfurt. We know nothing about Loewe's activities in the section. It is also unknown whether he was expelled from the Alpine Club or resigned his membership before emigrating in 1934. Following the amendment to the statutes adopted in early 1934, so-called "non-Aryans" were no longer allowed to remain in the Frankfurt section unless they had been "front-line soldiers" in the First World War or had been members of the section before 1914. Neither of these applied to Paul Loewe.