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Already layed Stumbling Stones


Dr. Manfred Horowitz * 1880

Lenhartzstraße 7 (Hamburg-Nord, Eppendorf)

gedemütigt entrechtet
Flucht in den Tod 14.11.1937

see:

further stumbling stones in Lenhartzstraße 7:
Dr. Bernhard Aronsohn, Ida Aronsohn, Henriette Hirsch

Dr. jur. Manfred Horowitz, born on 15 Jan. 1880 in Hamburg, suicide on 14 Nov. 1937 in Hamburg

Axel-Springer-Platz 3 (Kaiser-Wilhelm-Strasse 23/31)
Lenhartzstrasse 7 (Hamburg-Eppendorf)

The lawyer Manfred Horowitz and his brother Edwin (born on 6 June 1881), born at Glashüttenstrasse 116 in today’s Karolinenviertel, a Hamburg neighborhood, came from a Jewish family. The younger brother Felix was born (on 18 June 1884) after the family’s relocation to Kielerstrasse 77. Their father Léon Horowitz, his actual name being Aron Hurwitz, owned a paper and bag factory located at Bei der Kleinen Michaelisstrasse 26. After relocating to Deichstrasse 54, the plant became a wholesale business, extended by a printing and lithography shop. The Horowitz family resided at Loogestieg 10 in 1912. After the death of the father on 24 July 1925 and his partner Martin Mortensen, Manfred’s brother Felix took over his father’s company, which had already been founded in 1875. The mother Henriette, née Prager (born on 14 Sept. 1839), a teacher’s daughter, had already passed away on 12 Oct. 1919.

Manfred Horowitz attended the "Stiftungsschule von 1815” at Zeughausmarkt 32 (later Anton-Rée-Realschule [a practice-oriented secondary school up to grade 10]; today Anna-Siemens-Gewerbeschule [a vocational school]) from 1886 to 1889. Originally founded by Reformed Jews in Hamburg as a school for the poor, the institution also accepted Christian pupils from 1859 onward. After passing his high school graduation exam (Abitur) at the Christianeum in Altona, Manfred Horowitz studied law in Munich, Berlin, and Kiel, where he passed his first law examination in Nov. 1901. After obtaining his doctorate in law in Rostock, he passed his second law examination at the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court (Hanseatisches Oberlandesgericht). On 28 Apr. 1905, he set himself up in Hamburg as a lawyer. He operated his thriving law firm at Kaiser-Wilhelm-Strasse 23-31 in the "Rosenhof” as a partnership with Hans Heymann (born on 7 Feb. 1881, died on 13 Dec. 1948).

On 26 Nov. 1915, he married the non-Jewish woman Ingeborg Pflittner, born on 27 Mar. 1893 in Hamburg. At the beginning of 1918, Manfred Horowitz left the Jewish Community. He became culturally and politically active one year later, in Jan. 1919, when he took over the chairmanship of the newly founded Volksbühne, a Hamburg theater, and from March to June, he briefly became an SPD member of the Hamburg City Parliament and a member of the tax delegation.

When, after the Nazis came to power, Jewish lawyers had their license revoked by law on 7 Apr. 1933, Manfred Horowitz was one of those who could initially continue to work, since he had already been admitted to the bar before 1914 and had participated in the First World War. However, with the restrictions imposed by anti-Jewish laws and ordinances, the volume of the firm’s work fell sharply.

In order not to endanger his wife Ingeborg and his daughter Eva, born in 1929, he filed for divorce in Dec. 1936. He had previously signed over the house at Parkallee 10 to his wife.

Shortly afterward, Manfred Horowitz was arrested by the Gestapo. Someone who had supposedly seen him on the street with a non-Jewish woman had denounced him. However, the suspicion of "racial defilement” ("Rassenschande”) turned out to be unfounded. Manfred Horowitz was released from police custody on 23 Dec. 1936, but he was to leave Germany immediately.

Ingeborg Pflittner, who had resumed her maiden name, supported her divorced husband in his preparations for emigration. His partner Hans Heymann had already emigrated to Great Britain in Apr. 1936. In Jan. 1937, Manfred Horowitz emigrated to the USA. In New York, his "new home,” however, he could not find a suitable occupation and probably also out of homesickness and longing for his family, he returned to Hamburg on 5 July 1937. He tried to practice as a lawyer again and lived as a subtenant at Loogestieg 7 since 1 Aug. 1937. When he was again asked to leave the German Reich by 18 Nov. 1937, he took his own life on 14 Nov. 1937 with an overdose of pills.

During the police investigation, his landlady Elisabeth Kuhn (born in 1895) stated in evidence: "Yesterday evening around 8 p.m., I brought him tea in his room, and he told me that he wanted to go to a wedding ceremony today. Since Dr. Horowitz was not yet up at 11 a.m., I knocked on his room door, but he did not answer.”

The district physician by the name of Maltrecht, who was called in, confirmed his death by poisoning. In the garbage can of his room, there were various broken glasses and a pill, on the desk a drinking glass and an empty vial; next to it was a letter to his divorced wife, who by then was living with her daughter in Berlin-Grunewald: "Dear Mommy, I can’t live without you and Evi. Goodbye now. I thank you very much for filling my life with beauty and for giving me Evi, the peak of all bliss. Kiss her for me as I kiss you. Your Mani.”

And a note addressed to his landlady:
"Dear Mrs. Kuhn. Thank you very much for your friendliness and kindness. I think you can empathize with me that I cannot live separate from Mommy and Evi. Your Manfred Horowitz.”

His brother, the merchant Edwin Horowitz, lived with his wife Betty, née Schlu (born on 9 Sept. 1889), in a "mixed marriage” ("Mischehe”) that had remained childless. He also chose suicide. Two years later, on 14 Sept. 1939, he poisoned himself with an overdose of sleeping pills.

Felix Horowitz, his youngest brother, and his wife succeeded in emigrating to the USA in Sept. 1939.

The Stolperstein at Axel-Springer-Platz commemorates Manfred Horowitz as a lawyer. Another Stolperstein was laid in front of his former residence at Lenhartzstrasse 7. A Stolperstein was laid for Edwin Horowitz at Loogestieg 10 (see Stolpersteine in Hamburg-Eppendorf und Hamburg-Hoheluft-Ost).

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

Stand: May 2020
© Susanne Rosendahl

Quellen: StaH 351-11 AfW Abl. 2008/1, 10429 Horowitz, Eva; StaH 314-15 OFP, F 1120; StaH 331-5 Polizeibehörde - Unnatürliche Sterbefälle 1938/483; StaH 331-5 Polizeibehörde – Unnatürliche Sterbefälle 1939/1841; StaH Bürgerschafts-Mitglieder 1859-1959, Handschrift DCI (601); StaH 231-7 Amtsgericht Hamburg, Abteilung für das Handelsregister B 1955-327; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 1974 u 400/1880; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 8707 u 448/1915; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 6987 u 1136/1919; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 9888 u 754/1937; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 3349 u 790/1919; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 8163 u 374/1939; StaH 720-1, 211-2, 5_43; StaH 241-2, P 1747; Morisse: Jüdische Rechtsanwälte, S. 136; Batz: Bitte nicht Wecken!, S. 327; Hamburger Börsenfirmen, 1923, S. 492; Schult: Arbeiterbewegung, S. 103; diverse Hamburger Adressbücher.

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