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Dr. Louis Weigert * 1882

Oderfelder Straße 17 (Eimsbüttel, Harvestehude)

HIER WOHNTE
DR. LOUIS WEIGERT
JG. 1882
GEDEMÜTIGT / ENTRECHTET
FLUCHT IN DEN TOD
14.11.1938

further stumbling stones in Oderfelder Straße 17:
Emilie Löwenthal, Jenny Rosenmeyer

Dr. Louis Weigert, born on 11 June 1882 in Berlin, flight to death on 14 Nov. 1938 in Hamburg

Oderfelder Strasse 17

Louis Weigert was born into a Jewish merchant family that enabled him and a brother to study and become dentists.

Louis Weigert was the oldest of three sons of the married couple Siegfried Weigert and Jenny, née Brahn, from what was then Prussian Upper Silesia. The father Siegfried Weigert had been born on 5 May 1845 at the time of the heyday of the Jewish Community in Rosenberg (today Olesno in Poland), Jenny Brahn 13 years later, on 2 Dec. 1858 in Koschentin (today Koszecin in Poland). Siegfried Weigert became a merchant like his brothers Joseph and Hugo and like their half-brother Emil Richter. Their mother Eva, née Schlesinger, had remarried after the early death of their father Joseph. Her second marriage had produced Emil, with whom she moved to Berlin.

Soon after their wedding on 29 Apr. 1880 in Kreuzburg (today Kluczbork in Poland) in Upper Silesia, Siegfried and Jenny Weigert had also moved to Berlin, where Louis was born on 11 June 1882, and Curt two years later on 2 Sept. 1884.

The brothers Siegfried and Hugo Weigert jointly founded "Gebr. [Bros.] Weigert Delicatessen und Südfrüchte en gros” in Hamburg, a company dealing wholesale in delicatessen and tropical fruit with headquarters at Deichstrasse 48, later at Sandtorquai 36. While Hugo remained in Berlin, Siegfried moved to Hamburg with his family in 1886. The first residential address of their own was Alter Wall 4, where their last child, Erwin, was born on 25 Jan. 1892.

The following year, Siegfried Weigert and his family left downtown Hamburg and moved to Kirchenallee in the St. Georg quarter. His own family’s fate was repeated; he died at only 58, leaving behind his wife aged 35 years with three small children. She remained in St. Georg, at Hansaplatz 12, and did not remarry.

The brother Joseph Weigert succeeded Siegfried as co-owner of the company. His wife, Helene Weigert, née Cohn, became an authorized signatory.

Louis and Curt Weigert, about whose childhood and school years we know nothing, received commercial training in the tradition of their family. Curt joined the company after his uncle Hugo left, while Erwin became a dentist. Before Louis Weigert also took this professional path, he worked as an established merchant. In 1910 and 1911, he was registered with the authorities as residing at Bülaustrasse 2.

After the end of the First World War, Josef Weigert left the company, and Curt remained as sole proprietor and added canned goods to "Feinkost” (delicatessen), as it was now called, and tropical fruits to the product range.

In 1920, Erwin received his doctorate and he was entered in the register of Hamburg dentists. Corresponding information for Louis is missing.

At the end of the inflationary period, on 1 Nov. 1923, Helene Weigert died; she was buried in the Jewish Cemetery in Ohlsdorf, as had previously her brother-in-law Siegfried and as would later her sister-in-law Jenny, who followed on 4 Mar. 1926.

Dentist Louis Weigert practiced in Hamm and in Eilbek. He remained unmarried. Unlike his brother Erwin, he gave up his practice and moved to Berlin-Halensee in 1935 or 1936. He had achieved considerable affluence.

His brother Curt Weigert had also become wealthy as a businessman, living at Oderfelder Strasse 17 in a six-room apartment with upper-middle-class furnishings and preparing to emigrate in view of the Nazi takeover. He was allowed to take his paintings with him, as they were considered "non-high-quality German cultural heritage.” He was to pay a levy to the Gold Discount Bank (Dego-Abgabe) amounting to 23,564.30 RM (reichsmark) on his declared emigration assets, but this was eventually reduced to half.

Curt Weigert used his assets to support his neighbors, the dentist Felix Spiro and his wife Rositta, his cousin Johanna Steiner in Borgfelde (see corresponding entry), his uncle Emil Richter in Berlin-Karlshorst, and his aunt Olga Czernik in Berlin-Wilmersdorf.

After the November Pogrom of 1938, Louis Weigert returned to Hamburg for a visit on 12 Nov. 1938, lodged for one night in the Hotel Reichshof, visited his brother Curt in Oderfelder Strasse on 13 November, and retired there for the night’s rest in the early morning of 14 November. When his brother tried to wake him at noon, he found him lying face down on the floor, dead. He had poisoned himself with cyanide. In a suicide note, he wrote, "that he could stand it no longer.”

His body was cremated, and Curt Weigert took care of his burial in the Jewish Cemetery in Ohlsdorf. It took place on 18 Nov. 1938, grave location ZX 10 – 621.

Ten days later (on 24 Nov. 1938), Curt left for Uruguay with his wife Margot, née Spiro.

Emil Richter, who resided in Berlin, also took his own life, on 21 July 1941.

After the war, Louis Weigert’s estate, still amounting to 14,800 RM in securities, was divided among his brothers in restitution proceedings.

Translator: Erwin Fink
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: May 2021
© Hildegard Thevs

Quellen: StaHH, 232-3_H 19651, Testamente; 314-15 OFP, F 2365, F 2366, R 1938/3123; 331-5, Polizeibehörde – Unnatürliche Todesfälle, Journal 1938, 2514 vom 17.11.1938, 1400/38; 3 Akte 1938/1690; 332-5 Personenstandsregister 356-276/1894; 9817-491/1926; 2275-359/1892; 8153-545/1938; 332-8 Meldewesen, K 7143; 351-11 Wiedergutmachung, 6364, 7214, 14427; http://www.jüdischer-friedhof-altona.de/datenbank.html, Ohlsdorf 1931-1939; https://www.jüdische-gemeinden.de/index.php/gemeinden/p-r/1687-rosenberg-oberschlesien.