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Julius Sommer * 1867

Neuer Pferdemarkt 12 (Altona, Sternschanze)

HIER WOHNTE
DR. JULIUS SOMMER
JG. 1867
GEDEMÜTIGT / ENTRECHTET
FLUCHT IN DEN TOD
16.12.1938

Dr. Julius Sommer, born on 25 Apr. 1867 in Rotenburg, suicide on 16 Dec. 1938

Neuer Pferdemarkt 12

The general practitioner Dr. Julius Sommer was born on 25 Apr. 1867 in Rotenburg/Fulda as the son of Moses Moritz and Bertha Sommer, née Wallach. It was not possible to establish the university at which he completed his education and when he arrived in Hamburg. In 1891, he received his license to practice medicine. In Oct. 1908, he married in Hamburg Hedwig Wallach, née Rothschild, a native of Frankfurt whose first husband had passed away three years before. From this marriage, she brought her son Philipp, born on 23 May 1900, into the new union. Based on the identical last name of Wallach, one may assume that the two families had been acquainted with each other for a long time. The Sommer couple had no children together.

In Aug. 1911, Dr. Julius Sommer joined the Jewish Community and according to the tax file card, he had a steadily rising income. Based on the high Community dues paid until 1940, his practice at Neuer Pferdemarkt 12 must have gone well. The Hamburg directory lists him as "Dr. med. et chir. Arzt [physician].” "Particularly, his calm demeanor and his medical assurance must have attracted these large numbers of patients,” as his daughter-in-law described him in 1960 in connection with the restitution proceedings. Her further remarks, too, betray a lot of affection for Julius Sommer: "My father-in-law was a short, inconspicuous man, dedicated to his profession, tireless in his loving care for his wife, who was almost always ailing. He was happy when his never-ending work left him an undisturbed hour in his family circle or time to further his medical education or deal with his graphic collection.”

According to information from the 1928 directory, Dr. Sommer had office hours on a regular basis even on Sunday mornings. Until giving up the practice in Sept. 1938, the Sommer family lived on Neuer Pferdemarkt. Afterward, Dr. Sommer moved with his wife to Rothenbaumchaussee 129. Son Philipp had already emigrated with his wife to Italy in May 1934, after his license to practice as a lawyer had been revoked in Apr. 1933.

On 16 Dec. 1938, Julius Sommer passed away in the Israelite Hospital. According to the certificate, the cause of death was "death by acute cardiac failure.” However, his family and friends later indicated that even days before, he had talked about taking his own life. According to this, Dr. Sommer had apparently administered to himself "an injection,” whereupon a physician friend accompanied him to the hospital to conceal the suicide. The intention was to spare his wife investigative measures by the authorities.

The reason for Julius Sommer’s suicide involved the threat by a former patient to press criminal charges for "racial defilement” ("Rassenschande”) in case he failed to meet her monetary demands. Despite negotiations with this woman and her husband, he apparently feared court proceedings, which he felt he could not cope with in light of government policies vis-à-vis the Jewish population, as his daughter-in-law explained: "If in those days he could have counted on finding justice and protection from the authorities, his calm, respectable personality would have been his fullest defense against the false accusations. However, because a Jew could not expect justice before a court of law at the time, his character left him to see not other way out than to spare himself and his wife the underserved humiliation.”

It seems that Dr. Julius Sommer no longer believed in the possibility of being able to emigrate in time. His seriously ill wife Hedwig, who according to her own words had "lost [her] best and most loyal protector” due to his death, succeeded at the eleventh hour – and after payment of more than 15,000 RM (reichsmark) in "Reich flight tax” ("Reichsfluchtsteuer”) – in departing for Cuba, where she arrived in May 1940. She passed away in New York on 10 Aug. 1945.


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

Stand: January 2019
© Gunhild Ohl-Hinz

Quellen: 1; 4; StaH 351-11 AfW, Abl. 2008/1, 230500 Wallace, Phillipp; StAH 314-15 OFP, R 1938/3231; AB 1928; Villiez, Verdrängung.
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