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Julia Alice (Egele) Windmüller * 1877

Hegestraße 39 (Hamburg-Nord, Eppendorf)

gedemütigt / entrechtet
Flucht in den Tod 25.10.1941

further stumbling stones in Hegestraße 39:
Ernst Goldschmidt, Henriette Meidner, Gertrud Ruppin, Franz Wolff, Luise Wolff

Julia Alice (Egele) Windmüller, born on 2 Oct. 1877 in Hamburg, died by suicide on 25 Oct. 1941 in Hamburg

Hegestrasse 39

Julia Windmüller was a good seven years older than her sister Gertrud Adele, married name Ruppin (see corresponding entry). She had a Protestant upbringing. Her father Siegmund Phillip Windmüller and her mother Helene, née Elias, were of Jewish descent. The Windmüllers were doing very well economically, and they lived in Hamburg with many relatives. Julia’s parents had a large circle of friends in the Hamburg cultural and music scene, which is reflected in Julia’s friendship book labeled "Bekenntnisse” ("Confessions”).

This album in red punched leather with gilt edges was a gift from her aunt Agnes Reyersbach for her sixteenth birthday on 2 Oct. 1893. Today it is located in the Hamburg State and University Library together with the remainder of her written estate. Among the personalities who made entries in the "Bekenntnis-Album” were Prof. Richard Barth, conductor of the Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra (1895–1904); the composer and conductor Max Fiedler, from 1904 director of the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra; the opera singer Max Alvary, who received an honorary grave at the Ohlsdorf cemetery in 1898; the conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Prof. Arthur Nikisch; as well as other composers and famous violinists. Also impressive are the many entries by actresses, actors, and dramaturges, which, in connection with the founding of the Hamburg Schauspielhaus [playhouse] at the time, seem to suggest that Julia’s father was also one of the art lovers who made the construction of the Schauspielhaus possible by subscribing for shares.

Julia was a good pianist herself, subsequently giving piano lessons and making great efforts to pave the way for talented students to become outstanding piano teachers with the help of her personal contacts. At the age of 23, she got engaged to Dr. Weiglin, a musician. Julia used her connections not only for her students, but also for her fiancé. After nine years of being engaged, Julia broke off the relationship. On 31 March, her friend Amelie Nikisch from Leipzig wrote: "… but if your confidence is shaken, it was certainly quite right to make things tabula rasa at times. Even if it hurts for now!” In the altered situation, Julia rearranged her life.

After plans to make her music happen in other European countries could not be realized, she began to push her second talent, writing. A narrative of her had already been published in the Tageblatt newspaper in 1909, and by this time, she wrote tales and stories on a larger scale.
Julia led a bourgeois life, went on a summer trip every year where she met interesting people, moved out of home and continued to give piano lessons. During the First World War, full of patriotic enthusiasm, she compiled newspaper clippings and special reports and sent them to soldiers in the field to give them an overall view of what was happening on all sections of the frontline.

When her mother died at the end of 1928, Julia took a new small apartment on Krohnskamp and began to turn to the new media and write scripts for films. When the National Socialists came to power in 1933, however, all possibilities for publishing and working were taken away from her. Finally, she had to give up her apartment on Krohnskamp and move in with her sister and brother-in-law Ruppin at Hegestrasse 39 in 1937. From 1 Jan. 1939, all Jews whose names were not considered "typically Jewish” by the Nazis had to assume the added first names of Sara or Israel. To avoid this defamation, Julia Windmüller took the allegedly typical Jewish name of Egele and gave up her first names, Julia Alice.

When the deportation order was served on 21 Oct. 1941, when she had just celebrated her sixty-fourth birthday, she took an overdose of sleeping pills and died in the early hours of 25 Oct. 1941 in the Israelite Hospital at Johnsallee 68. Her musical legacy has remained in the Hamburg State and University Library along with correspondences, photos and the album entitled "Bekenntnisse,” her letters to Ida Dehmel contained in that correspondent’s estate, as well as writings in the estate of Ludwig Ficker, University of Innsbruck, and in the archive of Brenner Publishers.


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

Stand: May 2019
© Lore Wieprecht

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; 8; StaH 331-5 Polizeibehörde – Unnatürliche Sterbefälle, 1941/1603; Nachlass Julia Alice Windmüller in der Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg NJW G2 und NJW H5.
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