Search for Names, Places and Biographies

Julius Hess * 1861

Große Bleichen 3 (vormals Nr. 7) (Hamburg-Mitte, Neustadt)

HIER WOHNTE
DR. JULIUS HESS
JG. 1861
ENTRECHTET / GEDEMÜTIGT
FLUCHT IN DEN TOD
27.12.1938

Dr. Julius Hess, born on 26 Dec. 1861 in Rotenburg, suicide on 27 Dec. 1938 in Hamburg

Grosse Bleichen 3 (Grosse Bleichen 7)

Julius Hess was born in Rotenburg/Fulda as the youngest of three brothers. The parents, married on 25 May 1845 in Schmalkalden in Thuringia, were Herz Naftali (born on 4 Jan. 1819, died on 25 Jan. 1892) and Nanny/Nannette, née Plautberg (born on 19 Nov. 1820, died on 30 June 1885). The father Herz, a son of the livestock dealer David Hess (born in 1793) and his wife Zerle/Zerline, née Herzberg (born in 1785, died in 1869), served as district head of the Jewish Community in Rotenburg, to which Baumbach, Bebra, Iba, Nentershausen and Sontra belonged at that time. From 1873 onward, he sat on the town council of Rotenburg, in 1888 on the "Standing Citizens’ Committee” ("ständiger Bürgerausschuss”) and was one of the largest taxpayers of the town and the district. He owned the Wüstefeld estate, the barracks building on Bürgerstrasse and, since 1878, the Hess’sche Mühle, a mill named after him. His sons Moritz Hess (born on 20 May 1846) and Joseph Hess (born on 17 Dec. 1849, died on 7 Feb. 1926 in Kassel) expanded this former landgrave Herrenmühle ("lordly mill”) at the Fulda Bridge into an efficient business.

Unlike his older brothers, who took over the father’s business as wholesalers, Julius Hess studied medicine. In 1885, he received his license to practice medicine in Munich and in 1888, he settled as a specialist for nervous diseases and electrotherapy in Hamburg at Gerhofstrasse 38. A year later, he practiced at Colonnaden 13.

On 8 Sept. 1890, Julius Hess married the Hamburg native Caecilie Fanny Lion (born on 22 Jan. 1868), the Jewish daughter of the merchant Levin Lion and his wife Minna, née Leipziger. Their only child, daughter Irma Natalie, was born on 5 Nov. 1891 at Hansastrasse 14. The year 1899 saw a move into their own house, located at Klosterallee 10. The Hess couple divorced on 19 Oct. 1903, according to a subsequent registry office note on their marriage certificate. In the following year, Julius Hess relocated his practice and apartment to the third floor of the house at Grosse Bleichen 7. The property at Klosterallee 10 was sold in 1905.

Daughter Irma, married name Manoilovic, left Germany at an unknown time. She lived in the Yugoslavian city of Novi Sad, north of the Danube. Whether she was later among the more than 1,000 civilians murdered by the Hungarian occupiers in Novi Sad in Jan. 1942 is not known.

Just how long her father Julius Hess continued to practice in the 1930s is not clear from the available documents either. After top officials of the medical profession repeatedly demanded that the remaining Jewish doctors be forced out of professional life, they were initially excluded from the Salaried Employee Statutory Health Insurance Association (Angestellten-Krankenkassen-Verband) pursuant to a new ordinance and thus became dependent on private patients henceforth. In the last step, according to the "Fourth Ordinance to the Reich Citizenship Law (4. Verordnung zum Reichsbürgergesetz), they were deprived of their state license to practice medicine (Approbation) on 30 Sept. 1938. By this time at the latest, Julius Hess would have ceased his activities as a doctor. His six-room household on Grosse Bleichen was run by his long-time non-Jewish housekeeper Elli Gimke. One day after his sixty-seventh birthday, on 27 Dec. 1938, she found her employer untypically asleep by as late as 11 o’clock in the morning. A Barbital (Veronal) glass vial in the trash seemed suspicious to her. A colleague of his called in confirmed the suspicion of Barbital poisoning and ordered an immediate transfer to the Israelite Hospital.

Julius Hess died during transport. The lawyer Richard Schwabe (born on 7 Sept. 1894, died on 6 Sept. 1978), who was only allowed to call himself a "Jewish legal adviser” ("jüdischer Konsulent”), was appointed as executor.

Julius Hess held domestic and foreign securities, mortgages, bank deposits, and works of art. After deduction of "debts of the estate,” such as tax arrears and the remaining "levy on Jewish assets” ("Judenvermögensabgabe”), his assets were placed under a "security order” ("Sicherungsanordnung”). Finally, the public auctioning of his household effects took place. The proceeds from the estate were confiscated to the benefit of the treasurer’s office with the Hamburg Chief Finance Administrator (Oberfinanzkasse).

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

Stand: May 2020
© Susanne Rosendahl

Quellen: 1; StaH 331-5 Polizeibehörde-Unnatürliche Sterbefälle 1939/385; StaH 314-15 OFP, R 1939/2533; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 1089 u 435/1938; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 8546 u 298/1890; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 9066 u 1579/1891; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 8631 u 153/1904; StaH 352-13 Karteikarten jüdischer Ärzte Nr. 14; StaH 314-15 OPF, R 1939/2533; Villiez: Kraft, S. 293; Morisse: Jüdische Rechtsanwälte, S. 159; Dokumentation der jüdischen Friedhöfe in Hessen, http://www.lagis-hessen.de/de/subjects/gsrec/current/41/sn/juf?q=hess (Zugriff 15.4.2012); www.hassia-judaica.de (Zugriff 15.4.2012); http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novi_Sad (Zugriff 4.1.2015).
Zur Nummerierung häufig genutzter Quellen siehe Link "Recherche und Quellen".