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Burning synagogues, devastated Jewish stores, tens of thousands of abused and deported Jews, many dead: this is what we associate with the "Reichspogromnacht" of November 1938, which will be commemorated again on November 9. But what echo did the nationwide outbreak of violence, which lasted several days and was partly controlled by the Nazi regime, have in the Frankfurt Alpine Club section at the time? We from the section team "Spurensuche Nationalsozialismus" (Tracing National Socialism) have done some research and found stories of repressed victims.

First the shocking figures: Throughout the German Reich, at least 1,400 synagogues and prayer houses were destroyed in the November pogroms, and around 30,000 Jewish men between the ages of 18 and 60 were arrested and locked up in concentration camps. In Frankfurt on the Main, too, no one could have been unaware of what was happening during these days: On the night of November 10, 1938, the synagogues in Börne street, Börneplatz, Höchst and Friedberger Anlage were completely burned to the ground, while other synagogues and countless Jewish businesses were massively vandalized. More than 3,000 Jewish men were rounded up in the Festhalle of Frankfurt after being dragged away from their workplaces or homes, where they were maltreated, sometimes severely. It is now known that exactly 3155 men were then deported from the Festhalle to the Dachau and Buchenwald concentration camps.

In view of the high number, it is clear that Jewish members or former members of the Frankfurt section of the Alpine Club were among the victims of the anti-Semitic terror in Frankfurt. We have found seven names so far:

Siegmund Kaiser, born in 1882, lawyer, joined the Frankfurt Section in 1920: He could still have been a member in 1938, because as a so-called "Frontkämpfer" (front-line fighter) in the First World War, he did not fall under the exclusion of so-called "non-Aryans", which the section had decreed in a change to its statutes in 1934. During the November progroms, Kaiser was deported to the Dachau concentration camp, from where he was released on December 29, 1938. At the end of 1938, however, like all Jewish lawyers, he lost his license to practice law by Nazi decree. His attempt to emigrate failed--he was murdered in Auschwitz in 1942.

Ludwig Reinheimer, born in 1894, doctor, joined the section in 1922: As a "Frontkämpfer" (front-line fighter), Reinheimer was also not affected by the "Aryan paragraph" of the 1934 association statutes. He was imprisoned in the Buchenwald concentration camp for a month in November 1938. He and his family (his wife was a Christian, his two daughters were nondenominational) were subjected to increasing reprisals before and after this, until he was finally murdered at the beginning of 1945, once again in concentration camp custody. Until the early 1930s, there are reports of the Reinheimer couple going on extended hikes and climbing tours.

Robert Rosenburg: Born in 1899, he later became a lawyer and joined the Frankfurt section in 1923. He also fought in the First World War and was seriously wounded, so the section was unable to expel him in 1934 on the basis of the "Aryan paragraph". During the November pogroms in 1938, the Secret State Police (Gestapo) stormed Rosenburg's lawyer's office and searched it; he was temporarily sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp. In 1941, he and his mother were deported to the Lodz ghetto, where they both died.

Max Salomon: Born in 1884, lawyer and bank director. Salomon joined the Frankfurt section as early as 1905. He did not fall under the "non-Aryan ban" of the 1934 club statutes either, so could not be formally excluded. In November 1938, Salomon was deported to the Buchenwald concentration camp during the November pogroms. This experience also led him to press ahead with his emigration: In April 1939, he was finally able to flee to Great Britain.

Stefanie "Nini" Hess, Born in 1884, together with her sister Carry she was one of the most important female photographers of the Weimar Republic. She joined the Frankfurt Alpine Club section in 1921. According to the 1934 statutes of the association, which had swung to the Nazi line, she should have been expelled, but we have no documentation of this. From 1933 onwards, the Hess sisters barely had enough work to survive. Carry emigrated to France, Nini stayed. During the Pogrom Night in November 1938, members of the SA destroyed the entire Hess photo studio, including the negative and picture archive and the photographic equipment. This made any further work impossible for her. Nini Hess was deported by the Nazis in 1943 and probably murdered in Auschwitz.

Paul Loewe, Born in 1912 and joined the Frankfurt section of the Alpine Club in 1932, he emigrated to Mexico in 1934 because he was unable to continue his medical studies under the Nazi regime. He lost his father Otto Loewe in the November pogroms: Otto Loewe, who had been chief physician at the Frankfurt Markus-Krankenhaus until 1933, was beaten so severely by Nazi henchmen in the Festhalle that he died on November 12, 1938, from internal bleeding in his spleen and brain.

Robert Max Hirsch, born in 1883, and a member of the Frankfurt section since 1908, he was a successful entrepreneur and art collector. His family were mountain enthusiasts; his father and a brother were also members of the Frankfurt section. Robert Max Hirsch emigrated to Switzerland in 1933 after the Nazis came to power, but suffered great financial losses in the process. His older brother Carl Siegmund Hirsch lost his life in the November pogroms of 1938: He was so badly mistreated in the Buchenwald concentration camp that he died on November 25, 1938. This was despite the fact that his brother Robert had paid half a million Swiss francs to get him released.

We assume that other members or former members of the Frankfurt section were also victims of the November pogroms. How did the leadership at the time perceive the pogroms and what role did section members possibly play in them? We have no evidence of this. However, we do know that Max Tasche, Max Tasche, for example, who held leading positions in the section in the 1930s, had been a member of the NSDAP and the SA since 1933. SA groups were centrally involved in the November riots against Jews throughout the Reich. So were leading members of the section involved? We are continuing our research and hope to find out more.

In November and December 1938 of the monthly section's "Nachrichten-Blätter", there is no reference to the serious pogroms. There was silence about the victims--just as the exclusion of Jewish-marked members had been taking place in silence since 1933, while the adaptation of club life and structures to the Nazi line proceeded apace. This can also be seen in the topics of the news sheets in the late fall of 1938.

In the Section's November 1938 "Mitteilungen", which were apparently ready for printing around the 15th of the month, the Reich eagle with swastika is emblazoned on the bottom left of the front page for the first time. After the Wehrmacht occupied the Sudeten territories of Czechoslovakia at the beginning of October 1938, the second text of the paper enthuses about the "Sudetenland, an attractive travel destination". It is "all German land that has now found its way home", writes the author Hans F.W. Kasten. He tells of "Germanic tribes", which the Roman historian Tacitus had already found there, and Goethe had also spent a long time in Marienbad. In this way, the aggressive expansionism of the Nazi state is cheered and trivialized--not for the first time.

The fact that the city of Frankfurt on the Main has just been shaken by an outbreak of violence and that more than 3,000 Jews have been deported leaves no trace in the December issue. Instead, it is dominated by the usual tour reports, outlooks for the new year and, above all, the anticipation of the section's famous winter festival in the Zoogesellschaftshaus. This is famous in Frankfurt society at the time and attracts hundreds of guests every year. The members also learn that the "Reichssender Frankfurt" of the radio station brought into line by the Nazi regime will "volle eineinhalb Stunden lang unsere Darbietungen an Musik und Gesang […] in die Welt übertragen" (broadcast our performances of music and song [...] to the world for a full hour and a half).

At this time, the Nazi war preparations were in full swing. The fact that the Alpine Club in Frankfurt is also making its contribution is evidenced by an appeal to its members that December under the heading "Wehrmacht and mountaineering youth": According to this, it is "erwünscht, dass bergfreudige und naturverbundene junge Bergsteiger und Skifahrer in die Reihen jener Truppenverbände treten, denen im Ernstfall besonders ehrenvolle Leistungen im Hochgebirge vorbehalten sein werden" (desirable that young mountaineers and skiers who love the mountains and are close to nature join the ranks of those troop units for which particularly honorable achievements in the high mountains will be reserved in an emergency). Written volunteer applications "for fall 1939" including a recommendation from the section, "from which the previous mountaineering achievements are evident", should be submitted by January 5, 1939.

This isn't the first appeal of this kind: the first appeared already in 1937. Even earlier, night hikes had become "military sports exercises," and young mountaineers were offered shooting training and prize shooting. The militarization of the Frankfurt Alpine Club, and especially its youth work, had been in full swing since 1933--just like the expulsion from its own ranks of those stigmatized as Jews by the Nazi regime.

Many more details about the Frankfurt section during the Nazi era can be found on our website.