Elisabeth
Paul (born April 25 , 1895 in Darmstadt, † February 4 , 1991 in London),
nee Elisabeth Selver, was a German
literary scholar and educational reformer who emigrated to Great Britain
in 1936 together with her future husband , where
she spent a few years in London in 1937 previously founded school and
expanded it into a non-denominational and
coeducational school that has been respected for decades . According to
its self-image , this St. Mary's Town and
Country School was a reform educational institution that can be attributed
to the schools in exile
Elisabeth
Selver's life before emigration
Family and schooling
Elisabeth
Paul was born on April 25, 1895 as Elisabeth Selver in Darmstadt.[1] In
her curriculum vitae she only
mentions her father, whose professional position she describes as "Grossherzgl.
rabb ip". David Selver was
born on February 24, 1856 in Chajowa, near the town of Blaszki, in what
was then the Russian Empire. He died
in Darmstadt on May 12, 1926, three years after his daughter's doctorate.
The mother, Amalie Selver, née
Neustein, who was born in Nuremberg on August 27, 1867 and died in Rugby
(Warwickshire) on May 17, 1948,
is not mentioned in the curriculum vitae . Elisabeth's older brother,
Paul Friedrich, was born on January 10, 1893
in Darmstadt and died in World War I ; May 27, 1915 is entered in the
population register as the date of death.
In her curriculum vitae, Elisabeth Selver reports only very briefly about
her
school days: From Easter 1901 she attended Reineck's seminary and the
Victoria School, "which I left after having achieved my school goal
in Easter
1911".
The future musicologist Elisabeth Noack attended the Victoria School at
the
same time as Elisabeth Selver. Since then, the two have probably had a
lifelong friendship, which we will come back to later.
Stays abroad and studies
The
school goal achieved by Elisabeth Selver in 1911 corresponded only to
the small matriculation register, which was particularly common for women
at
the time, which only allowed limited access to the university or training
at a
(primary) teacher training college . Selver initially chose neither of
these two paths, but improved her language
skills, first from May to Christmas 1911 and from October 1912 to March
1913 in Nancy, where she obtained a
diploma from the Alliance française and a "Certificat d'études
de français" from the university there . Following
this, from April to October 1913, she went to Great Britain and attended
the Royal Albert Memorial College at
the University of Exeter. [3] The stay ended with passing the “Summer
Meeting Examination” at the University
of Oxford.
In
the winter semester of 1914/15, 44 students began their studies at the
newly founded Royal University of
Frankfurt am Main , one of whom was Elisabeth Selver.
“Because
of the small register, I attended lectures and seminars in the field of
modern philology at the University
of Frankfurt from the winter semester of 1914/15 to the end of the semester
in 1917. At Easter 1918 I passed
the matriculation examination at the college in Darmstadt.” According
to a confirmation from the then rector
dated October 8, 1917, the university preparations for the matriculation
examination were completed by the end
of the 1917 summer semester.
In
the summer semester of 1918, Selver studied at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität
in Bonn and
switched to the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität in Heidelberg for the
winter semester of 1918/19. On the other hand,
in her curriculum vitae she writes: “From 1918 until now I studied at
the University of Frankfurt a. M.” This entry
may not be correct. In the documents of the University Archives in Frankfurt
there is no registration card
from Selver from 1918, which confirms her re-registration, but there is
a registration card from May 8, 1919.
Heidelberg is named as the last university she attended. Your place of
residence there at Leerbachstraße
12 is crossed out on the map and marked "cancelled".
Selver
also does not write anything about the content of her studies in Frankfurt
in her CV. However, the
registration cards for the university state that she was enrolled in "Recent
Philology". Accordingly, her oral
examination subjects as part of her doctorate were "Germanic Philology",
"Romanic Philology" and "English
Philology". The courses that she attended to prepare for the matriculation
examination from 1914 to 1917
were already in the context of this canon.
Her
CV ends with a thank you to " Prof. Schultz, who gave me the idea
for my dissertation". As other
professors with whom she studied, she mentions Hans Cornelius in Frankfurt,
Johannes Hoops in
Heidelberg, Hans Naumann in Frankfurt, Fritz Neumann in Heidelberg, Julius
Petersen in Frankfurt and
Wilhelm Meyer-Lübke in Bonn. Her dissertation is entitled "The
cyclic structure of Stefan George's poetry:
from the 'Hymns' to the 'Carpet of Life'". [4] The "Protocol
for Miss Elisabeth Selver's oral doctoral
examination" of July 27, 1923 ended with the overall grade "good".
Stimulator
and enabler
As
quoted above, the Frankfurt neo-Germanist Franz Schultz is said to have
provided the inspiration for
Selver's dissertation. Schultz was appointed in 1921 to succeed Julius
Petersen in his chair in Frankfurt.
Between 1921 and 1950 his repertoire repeatedly included events on contemporary
authors, also on
George, Rilke and Hauptmann,[5] and in the summer half of 1922 he announced,
among other things, an
event on "German Poets of the Present", which in the winter
half of 1922/23 the event “German Poetry of
Recent Times” followed. [6] Since Elisabeth Selver had already completed
her dissertation in the first half
of 1923, but Schultz had only started teaching in Frankfurt in the winter
semester of 1921/22, this meant
that she had little more than a year to choose a topic and work on her
dissertation would have been
available.
Other
influences than that of Schultz on the choice of the dissertation topic
would therefore be obvious.
In
Karl and Hanna Wolfskehls Correspondence with Friedrich Gundolf a note
by the editors states: “David
Selver, the rabbi of the Darmstadt Jewish community, was on friendly terms
and probably also had a
pastoral relationship with the Darmstadt Gundelfinger and Wolfskehl families.”[7]
Gundelfinger is the original
family name of Friedrich Gundolf .
This
close relationship between the three families, which is indicated here,
is also repeatedly emphasized
in other sources, for example in the correspondence between Friedrich
Gundolf and Elisabeth Salomon
published by Gunilla Eschenbach and Helmuth Mojem. In a letter printed
there by Gundolf from Darmstadt
to Elisabeth Salomon dated November 22, 1918, he writes: "I lead
a much quieter life here than in Berlin,
only see the Kühners or Selvers and de Haans." A comment by
the editors on the same page : “Kühners or
Selvers and de Haans. Darmstadt acquaintances; Else Kühner, Ernst
Gundolf's friend, the family of Rabbi
David Selver (1856-1926), whose daughter Elisabeth (1895-1991), later
married Paul, FG was friends - she
was to write a dissertation on George's poetry in 1923 Conductor Willem
de Haan (1849–1930), Karl
Wolfskehl's father-in-law."[8]
These
close family and friendly relationships lead – especially through the
people of Karl Wolfskehl and
Friedrich Gundolf – directly to Stefan George and into the inner circle
of the George circle.
Elisabeth
Selver's girlfriend, Elisabeth Noack, wrote about this on December 27,
1957: "The importance
of the poet Stefan George was also recognized early on in the Selver household
and contact with the
George circle through Karl Wolfskehl (...) became an event. This is how
it became for Dr. Elisabeth Paul-
Selver found it imperative to do her doctorate with a thesis on Stefan
George.”[9] And Hertha Luise
Busemann also assumes in the final report of the research project on the
Private Forest School Kaliski
that the dissertation topic “after the friendship between her father and
Charles [10]
Wolfskehl, who belonged to the George circle, was probably not chosen
by chance.
In
addition, Elisabeth Selver's relationship with Friedrich Gundolf must
have been very close, familiar and
friendly, as can be seen, among other things, from a letter he wrote to
Elisabeth Salomon on April 15,
1920, again written in Darmstadt: "Yesterday I took a nice spring
walk with me the beautiful Liesel S.,
picked primroses and sang your praises: especially the beauty of your
face was praised and again the
line from nose to upper lip (...) I hardly see things like that - I thought
about your legs, but didn't praise
them. “[11] Liesel S. is in Eschenbach/Mojem none other than Elisabeth
Selver.
........................................................
The years 1923 to 1931
Elisabeth
Selver's curriculum vitae from the doctoral file is the last document
that provides direct
information about her life for many years. Her traces ended with her dissertation.
According to an entry
from 1919, which documents a temporary stay in Frankfurt, the Darmstadt
registration register does not
mention her again until 1932. The entry is April 25, 1932, the date of
her de-registration to Berlin.
On
October 20, 1952, Elisabeth Paul filed an application for compensation
under the Federal Compensation
Act in Berlin. Three years later, on July 16, 1955, she submitted a detailed
justification containing many
biographical details. She writes about the time after her doctorate: “After
working at the Bergschule
Hochwaldhausen and at the Paedagogium in Darmstadt between 1926 and 1930,
I continued my language
studies at the Collège de France in Paris. In 1931 I went to Berlin
and worked there at first in the Kaliski
private school, where I built up the French department.”[9] In a letter
dated December 27, 1959 to the
compensation office, Elisabeth Noack specified the time given by her friend
a little more : You both worked
at the Bergschule Hochwaldhausen in 1923 and 1924, and Elisabeth Selver
taught French, German and
cultural studies there. [9]
So
it is possible that Elisabeth Selver stayed in Paris from 1926 to 1930.
[12] It is questionable whether
she only did language studies there. In fact, the letter from her friend
already mentioned says: “At the
Collège de France she was a personal student of Charles Andler,
the well-known Nietzsche researcher
who had written the standard French work on Nietzsche.”[9] Andler had
held the chair in Germanic
languages since 1926 Languages and Literatures at the Collège de
France.
In
a letter dated May 14, 1968 to the district court of Berlin, her lawyer
Dr. Karl Leonhard in her
compensation case, "that she first stayed in Paris in the years 1930
to 1932 to prepare her thesis and
later lived in Darmstadt from her own means". [9] Whether the time
frame originally given by Paul from
1926 to 1930 will be extended as a result remains to be seen. However,
the reference to their “thesis” is
interesting. That would mean that she also prepared for a habilitation
in Paris. However, there is no further
information on this.
In
the foreword to his 1933 book on the influence of French symbolism on
the poetic revival in
Germany, Enid Lowry Duthie refers to both Gundolf and Karl Wolfskehl,
before continuing:
'Mademoiselle Elizabeth Selver was my stubborn friend, whose advice and
encouragement was
the greatest help. Your concern has smoothed out many difficulties for
me, and I ask you to accept
my heartfelt thanks.”[13] Unfortunately, it does not appear where and
when Duthie met Selver.
However, it can be assumed that this took place in connection with her
study stay in Paris.
The
years 1932 to 1936
Between
Paris and Berlin
The
last entry concerning her in the Darmstadt population register dates from
April 25, 1932 and
officially documents her move to Berlin. However, it is doubtful whether
she was living in Darmstadt
at that time. In her doctoral documents in the archive of the University
of Frankfurt there is an
exchange of letters between Selver and the university from the period
between May and July
1932. Selver asks the university to issue her with a certified copy of
her doctoral degree, since
she had lost the original. The sender of both letters, first a postcard
and then a typed letter in July,
is noted as follows: Dr. E. Selver, Zwingenberg i. H., Orbisweg, Haus
Kühner. Although she was
already deregistered in Darmstadt at that time, her mother still lived
there at the old address. In a
letter dated December 5, 1955 from the compensation office in Berlin,
Zwingenberg on Bergstrasse
was officially determined to be Elisabeth Selver's last domestic place
of residence. [14]
Part
2 of "Karl Wolfskehl's correspondence from New Zealand 1938-1948"
reveals what "Haus
Kühner" is all about. In a letter from Wolfskehl to Kurt Frener
dated December 18, 1947, Wolfskehl
writes: “Greet everyone you know, go to Zwingenberg to see Else Kühner,
don’t you know her?
Otherwise just move in with her and tell her a bit about me and that I,
blind and senile with age,
simply can't write to everyone and can only laboriously get hold of a
few hours a week to
dictate."[15] Else Kühner (cf. section "Stimulators and
pioneers ") belonged to the circle of friends
around the families Gundolf, Wolfskehl and Selver. Gundolf mentioned her
in a letter to Elisabeth
Salomon dated November 12, 1916. Kühner, who, according to Gundolf,
is said to have lived in
the house at Klappacher Straße 8 in Darmstadt, is characterized
by the editors of the
correspondence as follows: "Else Kühner (1870–1957 ), close
friend of Ernst Gundolf, was a
teacher in Darmstadt.”[16] It is not known when Else Kühner moved
to Zwingenberg, nor how
close her relationship to Elisabeth Selver was. However, it can be taken
for granted that Elisabeth
Selver's friend and later husband, Heinrich (Heinz) Paul, also belonged
to Kühner's circle and frequented her Between Paris and Berlin
The time at the private forest school Kaliski
Elisabeth
Selver's mother, Amalie Selver, was also closely related to Else Kühner.
This is evident
from the reparations file for their estate, in which Elisabeth Selver
explains that her mother lived
“with a friend, Miss Kühnert, in Zwingenberg until she emigrated
to England in the summer of
1937”. However , an affidavit by Else Kühnert in the same file states
that Amalie Selver “last lived
with me in Darmstadt, Grüner Weg 37, until she emigrated to England
in November 1937”. [17]
The
time at the private forest school Kaliski
The
private forest school Kaliski (PriWaKi), founded by Lotte Kaliski , was
opened in early 1932 in
the grandstand building of today's Berlin Mommsen Stadium, Waldschulallee
34-42. Its director, in
turn, was Heinrich Selver (born 1901 in Blaszki; died 1957 in Paris),
a cousin of Elisabeth Selver.
The school's founder herself pointed out "that Selvers' cousin taught
at the school in the early
days". [18] Unfortunately, the time span “in the early days” is nowhere
specified, and Busemann
et al. leave this open when they write: In 1932 Heinrich Selver took over
the management of the
Kaliski forest school and “first he brought his cousin Dr. Elisabeth Selver
from Darmstadt
college. However, she soon left the Kaliski Forest School to found her
own school.”[19]
However,
Werner Fölling becomes a little more specific in his contribution
to the final report of the
research project on the PriWaKi. In a list of teachers, he mentions Elisabeth
Selver as a teacher
of German in 1932/33.[20] And Fölling gives another hint: Elisabeth
Selver's fiancé was also said
to have been a teacher at the PriWaKi around the turn of the year 1932/33.[21]
This can only mean
Heinrich Paul (see below), which is confirmed by a letter from Elisabeth
Selvers' lawyer Karl
Leonhard. On September 11, 1967 he wrote to the district court in Berlin:
“Heinz Paul was the
plaintiff’s fiance at the time. He left the Kalisky Forest School, where
he had also taught, in order
to be legally able to transfer the Aryan students from the Kalisky Forest
School to the plaintiff's
newly founded Forest School, which he easily managed to do .”[9]
Her
lawyer Leonhard commented on Selver’s departure from the PriWaKi in the
letter of September
11, 1967 already quoted above
difficulties
would not be made. (...) The plaintiff then no longer entered the Kalisky
Forest School,
but immediately founded her own school with her own funds or funds from
her mother and with the
help of the mother of one of her students."[9] Should this withdrawal
of the If the permission to
teach came, then - at the end of 1932 - no racist reasons should have
been decisive, but formal
ones: the lack of exams for a job in the school service, which later persuaded
Elisabeth Selver to
catch up on the secondary school teacher exam.
dr
Elisabeth Selver, now Ms. Paul, managed the forest school in Ruhleben,
Charlottenburg 9,
Wacholderweg 7b, with Mr. Heinz Paul, the student assessor, and lived
in the school together with
her mother, Ms. Amalie Selver. On November 30, 1956, Noack made another
affidavit, stating that
"Elisabeth Paul had her last domestic residence before her emigration
at the address of the school
in Berlin-Charlottenburg 9, Am Wacholderweg 8, and also lived there".
[9] There is a letter from
the Gestapo dated March 3, 1942 to the chief finance president in Berlin,
asset utilization
In
the foreword to his 1933 book on the influence of French symbolism on
the poetic revival in
Germany, Enid Lowry Duthie refers to both Gundolf and Karl Wolfskehl,
before continuing:
'Mademoiselle Elizabeth Selver was my stubborn friend, whose advice and
encouragement was
the greatest help. Your concern has smoothed out many difficulties for
me, and I ask you to accept
my heartfelt thanks.”[13] Unfortunately, it does not appear where and
when Duthie met Selver.
However, it can be assumed that this took place in connection with her
study stay in Paris
Elisabeth
Selver's official traces in Berlin remain in the dark. Unlike her later
husband, Heinrich
Paul, she is not listed in the Berlin address books of that time. In the
years that followed, however,
she set up her own private school together with Heinrich Paul (see section
"The Private Forest
School Heinz Paul") before emigrating to Great Britain in 1935, and
she obviously lived there with
Heinrich Paul. On November 29, 1956, Elisabeth Noack swore in lieu of
an oath, “that
From Elisabeth Selver, too, one learns nothing, apart from the sentence
already quoted, that she
went to Berlin in 1931 and worked there at first in the private school
Kaliski, whose French
department she had built up. She may have been in Berlin before PriWaKi
was founded, but it is
likely that contact with the school first came about through her cousin.
And the statement that she
was responsible for the "establishment of the French department"
at the school is more due to the
fact that her claims in the compensation procedure should be improved
than to reality. The "French
department" probably had hardly any other members apart from her
as a teacher.
founding a school and fleeing
The
house at Landwehrstraße 12 with a total of four apartments was given
away on January 13, 1936
by Amalie Selver, notarized. The mother retained a right of usufruct,
documented in the land registry, to
the excess of the incoming rent after deduction of all costs.[23] At that
time – and until October 1938 –
“the 'sworn accountant', qualified commercial teacher J. Simon” from Darmstadt
acted as the long-term
administrator of the property. Rent payments continue to be made to the
mother's account at the Kann
& Schack bank in Darmstadt.
“In
1935, however, the fact that I was engaged to an 'Aryan' meant that my
position at the
school could not be maintained. I was under constant threat of prosecution
for racial
defilement, the porter woman had already threatened me by shouting words
like racial
defilement after me. I therefore felt compelled not to come back from
the long vacation that
I began in June 1935. My last German place of residence was therefore
Berlin-
Charlottenburg.”[9]
Receivership
In
this letter she also sheds light on the background to her flight to Great
Britain:
branch office. Its subject line reads: “Jewess Elisabeth Sara Selver,
born April 25, 1895 in Darmstadt,
last Bln.-Charlottenburg, Joachimsthalerstr. 7/8 lived there.”[22] It
is not known if and when Elisabeth
Selver ever lived at this address, nor why there is no address book entry
about it.
Despite the difficulties that the school had to contend with from the
very beginning, Elisabeth Selver
received the “Certificate of Qualification as a Secondary School Teacher”
on August 31, 1933 after a
previous examination. In her letter of July 16, 1955, already quoted above,
she justified this by saying
that it was important to her "to possess this qualification in addition
to my academic qualifications". [9]
Heinrich Paul explains in his compensation proceedings that the money
to finance the "Private Forest
School Heinz Paul" he opened came from Elisabeth Selver and her mother
Amalie. However, no
statement can be made about these assets beyond the property, which still
brought in rental income up
to the mid-1930s, and the mother's rabbi's pension. However, cash must
still have been available,
otherwise the founding of schools in Berlin and London would hardly have
been possible. The bank
balances, which were then asserted in the reparation proceedings (see
below), were probably of less
importance in comparison. However, the receivership of the residential
building is likely to have led to a
serious cut.
From
the beginning of 1938 there was an extensive correspondence between the
administrator Simon
and the "Foreign Exchange Office of the Chief Finance President of
Hesse" in Darmstadt and then with
the "Foreign Exchange Office of the Chief Finance President of Berlin".
From the latter, on April 29,
1938, Simon received approval to accept the monthly rents (of the now
fully rented house) up to a
maximum of 360 RM as administrator. According to the documents, the monthly
surplus from this income
was probably 20 to 30 RM.[23]
On
October 3, 1938, Simon wrote to the foreign exchange office in Berlin,
"that the mother has also
become a foreigner under foreign exchange law because she has also moved
to England or will not
return from a visit to England to see her daughter." informed that
he had to hand over the property
management due to a legal order. This will be handed over to Willy Faulmann,
Darmstadt,
Lichtenbergstraße 33, who has already arranged further foreign exchange
transactions
Asset
management and expropriation
Expropriation
However,
the “legalized robbery”, as an exhibition on the “treasury and [26] plundering
of the Jews
Fritz Bauer Institute was entitled, did not end there. On Februariny 2
H7ien,s 1 Bs9ee4 r 1l3i9n, 3 t ihn3es– t1 cru9hc4iet5ef” d f pi n tuhaten
o c cnioa bnl y ov ef tfhricseei o rn
office for German foreign debts to transfer the above-mentioned cash balance
of 778 RM plus
interest to the upper financial office in Berlin. And even before that,
in a letter dated January 13,
1943, Willy Faulmann, who was still in charge of the property, had already
pointed out to the Chief
Finance President in Berlin-Brandenburg that there were still valuable
assets in the house. He
mentions some of the Selvers' older pieces of furniture, which an appraiser
estimated at 282 RM.
Possibly he was hoping for a sale on his own and an extra profit to be
made from it. But as early as
April 22, 1943, the tax office in Darmstadt-Stadt informed the chief financial
officer of Berlin-
Brandenburg: “I sold the furniture belonging to the Jewess Selvers on
the property at Landwehrstrasse
12 in Darmstadt. The proceeds from the sale are revoked.
I hereby transfer the management and exploitation of the property to you
in accordance with Section
3 a of the above-mentioned decree Chief Finance President Berlin-Brandenburg,
as the owner of the
property in Darmstadt, District 3. [25]
On
January 8, 1942, the foreign exchange office of the chief finance president
in Berlin wrote to
Faulmann about his request for another foreign exchange permit: “On the
condition that the assets
of the aforementioned fall under the Eleventh Ordinance to the Reich Citizenship
Law of November
25, 1941 and thus become part of the German Reich is, a foreign exchange
permit is no longer
required.”[23] This meant: The Selvers were German nationals and their
assets
take care of property management. Despite this receivership, the Selvers
still retained a certain
amount of power of disposal over the incoming funds, because on September
7, 1939, the foreign
exchange office gave Faulmann the right to pay 25 RM a month from the
excess rent to Miss Mali
Goldstein, Schlageterstrasse 101, Darmstadt. This was based on a written
request from Elisabeth
Selver to Faulmann dated August 15, 1939; she wanted to increase her cousin's
previous support of
10 RM a month.[23] [24]
Up
until now, all transactions had been handled in accordance with foreign
exchange regulations
and the funds had been collected via an administrative account for foreigners,
which formally
maintained the property rights (but not the disposal), a last letter in
the file indicates a serious change.
In an attachment to the letter from the Secret State Police in Berlin
dated March 3, 1942 to the chief
finance president in Berlin, 'asset utilization' branch, two items are
listed as seized assets: "1.) At
the conversion fund for German foreign debts, Berlin C 11, the account
No. 4546.036 with a balance
of about 778 RM, 2.) a residential property in Darmstadt, Landwehrstr.
12, registered with the District
Court of Darmstadt, District 3, Volume 26, Sheet 1251. The property has
an assessed value of
33,100 RM and is encumbered with 1 mortgage of 10,600 RM. It has already
been recorded by the
Reich Commissioner for the Treatment of Enemy Property and is being managed
by Willy Faulmann,
Darmstadt, Lichtenbergstr. 33, managed.”[25] On November 25, 1942, the
chief finance president of
Berlin-Brandenburg issued the following decree to the chief finance president
of Darmstadt, referring
to the data in the land registry: “The above-mentioned property has lapsed
into the Reich. I have
arranged for the land register correction. (...)
Heinrich
Paul
Paul's
parents were Gustav Paul and his wife Lina, née Heil. The father
ran a paper shop in
Darmstadt. [39] During the Second World War, the Paul family was bombed
out and then lived in
Ueberau, today a district of Reinheim. [40]
Institution that now specializes in dementia and Alzheimer's disease [37]
in pneumonia
(bronchopneumonia). She was almost 96 years old.
Heinrich Paul (full name: Heinrich Gustav Adolf Paul) was born on March
8, 1900 in Darmstadt and
died on August 15, 1980 in London.[14]
A decision had not yet been made on the rental income that Elisabeth Paul
was withheld from
during the confiscation of her Darmstadt house, the bank balances that
were withdrawn from her
disposal and the Jewish property tax paid, which led to an extensive exchange
of letters between
the compensation authorities and the lawyers.
On June 7, 1961, the Frankfurt Regional Finance Directorate decided to
award Elisabeth Paul a
further DM 500.00 as damages for confiscated furniture, but the dispute
over compensation for the
tax on removals goods and the Jewish property tax continued. The regional
council demanded
documents that Elisabeth Paul was apparently unable to produce, which
was reflected in noticeably
delaying letters from her lawyer. On November 27, 1962, ten years after
filing the application,
Elisabeth Paul then had her lawyer inform the district president that
the outstanding compensation
issues would not be pursued any further and that the proceedings were
therefore over.
In the last years of her life, Elisabeth Paul probably didn't notice anything
of what was happening
around her and her life's work fell victim to real estate speculators.
According to her death
certificate, she died on February 4, 1991 at the Elmhurst Residential
Home in London
Like his later wife, Heinrich Paul also came from Darmstadt. The parents'
houses of the two [38]
were only about 350 meters apart in the same district, the Johannesviertel.
According to the Darmstadt population register data and the documents
in the archive of the
Frankfurt University, both of them studied modern philology in Frankfurt
for at least one semester
in 1922 . By the end of the 1920s at the latest, there had probably been
a close friendship between
the two, which led them first to Berlin and then together to emigrate
to Great Britain.
A
letter from Paul dated June 10, 1954[14] is misleading, in which he writes:
"I completed my state
examination as a philologist at the University of Giessen (certificate
of September 13, 1926 attached) and
passed my assessor examination 2 years later." In the compensation
file is the copy of this document
mentioned here, which gives a more differentiated picture: Paul passed
the first examination for the higher
teaching post on February 23, 1924 with "good" and thus qualified
to teach the main subjects German and
English as well as the minor subject acquired history. This was followed
by the legal clerkship at the
Eleonora School in Darmstadt. Two years later, on September 8, 1926, the
oral state examination took
place with the grade "sufficient". He also received this grade
for his housework and for his "teaching skills",
which resulted in the overall grade "sufficient" and the appointment
as a study assessor. [14]
Heinrich Paul obviously lived with his parents in Darmstadt during the
semester in Frankfurt, because there
is no entry in the Darmstadt population register for this time. And at
the time when he was studying in
Frankfurt, so was his future wife, Elisabeth Selver. She was also enrolled
in modern philology, and if the
two didn't already know each other from Darmstadt, they should have met
here at the latest. Given the very
manageable number of students [44] at the time , it is quite unlikely
that they should not have met at lectures
or seminars.
In Heinz Paul's compensation file there is a longer letter from a Dr.
Peter. F. Meyer, London, May 14, 1968.
The following stations in Paul's curriculum vitae are listed: A ) 1926–1931
student assessor in a private
school in Seeheim an der Bergstrasse, then in a rural educational home
in the Lüneburg Heath; B ) 1931–
1932 director of a welfare facility in Schleswig-Holstein; C ) In 1932,
after a short period of work in Darmstadt,
he opened his own private forest school in Berlin.[14] This information
is only superficially correct.
The entry in the population register says nothing about the actual length
of stay of Heinz Paul in Seeheim,
but what is certain is that he was already in Gandersheim in December
1927. At the time relevant here,
there was a private school in Seeheim where he may have taught: the "private
school for daughters (higher educational institution and boarding school
G.
Türck)" in the house at Bergstraße 32 in Seeheim, which
existed until 1928.[45] However, whether Paul actually
taught at this school must remain open.
On
February 1, 1927, Paul de-registered for Seeheim , according to the Darmstadt
registration register ,
from where he returned to Darmstadt on May 1, 1927, and then de - registered
for Gandersheim on October
2, 1927. This phase ended on April 7, 1930 with the report from Dahlenburg.
According
to the register of residents of the city of Darmstadt, his parents’ apartment
at Liebigstraße 6
(second floor) remained Heinrich Paul’s main place of residence until
he moved to Berlin on September 1,
1932. His matriculation file in the archive of the University of Giessen
states “that he moved away on
September 6. May 1922 at the University of Giessen to study in the Faculty
of Philosophy (stud. phil.)
enrolled". Heinrich Paul had previously studied in Marburg, Heidelberg
and Frankfurt am Main. According
to the note on his matriculation file, he submitted a leaving certificate
from the University of Marburg
(October 12, 1920), a leaving certificate from the University of Heidelberg
(4 April 1921) and a leaving
certificate from the University of Frankfurt (March 25, 1922). Heinrich
Paul studied at the University of
Gießen up to and including the summer semester of 1923. According
to the note on the matriculation file,
he received his leaving certificate on June 8, 1923. [43]
The
Abitur documents [41] show that Paul was a Protestant and in 1909 first
attended pre-school and then
from Easter 1910 to Easter 1919 the state Realgymnasium in Darmstadt (today's
Georg Büchner School).
In 1919 he is on the list of students who were admitted to the war readiness
test, and he also wrote the
corresponding written exams. At the time (June 12-19, 1918) he had already
been drafted, but had not yet
received an order to report. In the record of the matriculation examination,
however, it was noted that Paul
still needed lessons and that he should take the matriculation examination
again in 1919; on March 28,
1919 he received his high school diploma. [42]
It
is correct that in 1927 the “Verein Kinderheim e. V. Waldesruh” was founded
as an independent welfare
organization that had set itself the task of “educating and educating
young people, children and psychopaths
who are difficult to train”. [47] The association, whose board also includes
a professor Dr. Pflug from the
University of Education in Kiel, maintained a two-class home school whose
five educators are listed in the
chronicle between 1927 and 1932. Not among them: Heinrich Paul. His name
is also not mentioned anywhere
else about the "Waldesruh children's home". The suspicion is
that he stayed there at best on a probationary
basis or as an intern, but by no means as a "director", as Noack
claimed.
In
1919/20 Max Bondy was a co-founder of the free school and work community
Sinntalhof on the Sinntalhof
in Brückenau. This school project failed, which is why Max Bondy
moved to Gandersheim in Lower Saxony in
1923 with some of the students and staff . In collaboration with his wife
Gertrud, a doctor and psychoanalyst,
he founded the Gandersheim school community there. In 1929 she moved to
Marienau, where she called
herself "School community on Gut Marienau", from which today's
country educational home Schule Marienau
emerged.
This is the period of time for which Noack's letter of December 27, 1959,
already quoted, states that he was
director of a welfare facility in Schleswig-Holstein, namely the Waldesruh
home near Segeberg (Holstein) for
children who are difficult to raise. Noack emphasizes that this home was
"closely connected to the university
for teacher training in Kiel", "whose professors for education
and psychology often had consultations with Mr.
Paul and sent their students to him as guest students". [9]
According to the population register, Heinrich Paul stayed with his parents
in Darmstadt for more than a year
after his return from northern Germany. There are only two photos from
this period, one with Elisabeth Selver
and Heinrich Paul, and one with Dr. Ludwig Rothamel, Dr. Elisabeth Selver
and Heinz Paul. "Both photos were
taken on the 15th of September 1931 at 5pm, near Darmstadt, Germany."
This reference comes from Karl
Rothamel, the son of Ludwig Rothamel. Ludwig Rothamel was an old school
friend of Heinrich Paul's in
Darmstadt, [48] and his son Karl himself attended the "St. Mary's
School” and has contributed some information
about the history of its operators. [49]
It is also not certain that Heinrich Paul actually lived with his parents
at this time. In Elisabeth Selver's doctoral
documents in the archive of the University of Frankfurt there is an exchange
of letters between Selver and the
university from the period between May and July 1932. Selver asks the
university to issue her with a certified
copy of her doctoral degree, since she had lost the original. The sender
of both letters, first a postcard and
then a typed letter in July, is noted as follows: Dr. E. Selver, Zwingenberg
i. H., Orbisweg, Haus Kühner. [50]
The letter of July 1, 1932, in which the copy of the doctoral certificate
was again reminded, ended with the
sentence “for Dr. Elisabeth Selver”, to which the handwritten signature
“H. Paul, Studienassessor” followed.
There are doubts as to whether this letter was actually written by Elisabeth
Selver herself
In the "Information sheet for the Gandersheim school community"
from 1928, the list of teachers teaching in
Gandersheim (as of December 1927) mentions the study assessor Paul for
the subjects English, [46] On
and history . and returned to DarmstJaadnt u oanr y M 1a,y 1 2943,1 1,
9 h3e1 m froovmed W toa h Flastherdetn, k arlusgo i in t the Segeberrg
diissttrriicctt ., German
"At the end of 1932, together with my then fiancée and now
wife, Dr. Elisabeth Selver in Berlin-Charlottenburg the private
forest school Heinz Paul, Berlin-Charlottenburg. Funds were
provided by my fiancee and her mother, but I was the owner
and director of the school, which was called Privatwaldschule
Heinz Paul."[14]
According
to the above-mentioned letter from Elisabeth Selver's
lawyer to the Berlin District Court of September 11, 1967, Elisabeth
Selver's teaching license was revoked at the end of 1932, presumably because
she did not have
any exams for teaching, which forced her to start a new life, initially
with help the mother of one of
her students from PriWaKi, and then together with Heinrich Paul, who initially
continued to teach
at PriWaKi and then left there voluntarily. Attorney Leonhard indicated
that
According to the Darmstadt city register, Heinrich Paul moved to Berlin
Eichkamp on September
1, 1932. According to Berlin's historical register of residents (EMK),
he moved into the house
"Marienburger Allee 16 near Rheinhold". [52] Very close to this
address was the Private Forest
School Kaliski (PriWaKi), where Elisabeth Selver was working at the time.
In his contribution to the
final report of a research report on PriWaKi, Werner Fölling writes:
“At the turn of the year 1932/33,
at least half of the teaching staff does not seem to have been Jewish.
As far as we know, (...) and
Miss Dr. Selver not Jewish.”[53] This “fiancé”, there is no doubt
about that, was Heinrich Paul.
Unlike Elisabeth Selver, Fölling no longer mentions him in his further
contribution about the
students and teachers of the PriwaKi. [54] The letter from Elisabeth Selvers'
lawyer from 1967,
which has already been quoted several times, also confirms that Heinz
Paul taught at PriWaKi. [9]
According
to an official questionnaire from 1936 in the compensation file, three
male and two female
full-time teachers were teaching 52 pupils at the school at that time,
eleven of whom were older than
14 years. 30 were boys, 22 girls. 15 of them were of "Israelite"
faith, but according to the National
Socialist rules this required further differentiation: 31 students were
"German or of related blood", 15
were considered "Jewish" in the sense of the Reich Citizenship
Law and six as "Jewish mixed
blood" . . [14]
Although
Paul was allowed to keep the economic management and ownership, he had
to be
replaced as headmaster. As Paul writes, it was only in 1935 that the "National
Socialist Head of
Police School Inspector Dr. Georg Nitsche” who was not up to the task,
and the school therefore
closed at Easter 1937. [14]
The
food is put together according to the principles of modern nutrition (plenty
of
vegetables and fruit). (...) The school fees are: in day boarding school
including meals
and supervision of schoolwork etc. 780.00 RM (...) in full boarding school
1500.00 RM
annually ."[14]
"During
the conversation with the study assessor Olberg at the beginning of August
ds.
js so little national self-satisfaction that you cannot be put in charge
of a private
school.”[14]
"The
private forest school Heinz Paul is a higher educational institution with
day and full
boarding school for boys and girls (...) and combines the educational
opportunities of
the country educational home with those of the parents' home. (...) As
far as this (...) is
possible, the lessons take place outdoors. (...) The educational goal
of the school is to
make the children fit for life through work, physical training and community
education.
The workload is based on the plans of the Oberrealschule and the Reformgymnasium.
(...)
behind it was the plan to enable the Aryan students of the private forest
school Kaliski to continue
their education in a similar school. According to the situation, only
Heinz Paul was able to run such
a school, because only he had the qualifications to teach. [9]
A
school project, which is also in the compensation files, says about the
concept:
At the time of this survey, Heinz Paul and Elisabeth Selver were no longer
at the school, which,
according to Paul, had “developed well at the beginning”. The problems
began as early as the
summer holidays of 1933, when the Prussian Association of Philologists
suggested that Paul hire
an Olberg study assessor. There was an interview, and this had fatal consequences
for Paul. In a
letter dated September 28, 1933, "The Upper President of the Province
of Brandenburg and of Berlin
- School Department" informed him:
Paul describes the situation for him and his Jewish fiancée, Elisabeth
Selver, as increasingly
threatening. She therefore did not return to Germany from a holiday in
Great Britain in the summer of 1935,
Heinrich Paul followed her on July 6, 1936.[14] However, a letter from
the “State Commissioner of
the Capital Berlin” dated November 5, 1935 seems mysterious in this context.
With reference to a
submission of October 9, 1935, he lets the "Miss Dr. Elisabeth Selver"
about the "Mr. Schulrat
Freitag" communicated the conditions "for the establishment
of a Jewish higher private school".[9]
Given the circumstances at the time, it is obvious that such an application
could not have been
made by the “Aryan” Heinrich Paul. What is surprising, however, are the
two dates in the letter,
because by then Elisabeth Selver had long been in Great Britain.
October
1952 based on the Law on Compensation for Victims of
National Socialism. He alleges loss of assets due to the loss of the
school and persecution-related ill health. With regard to the damage
to health, he refers to a "vegetative dystonia", for which he
submits
an opinion from a British doctor. In the course of the long-drawn-out
procedure, he submitted a
handwritten statement on June 27, 1964, which basically repeated all the
points from earlier letters.
However, he concludes with the following sentences: “Panic and increasing
psychoses made it
necessary that, despite all my efforts, I had to give up teaching and
driving a car. I would like to
add that during my time in Berlin I was secretly politically active. One
of my friends in this field was
Harro Schulze-Boysen, who was executed in 1944.”[14] Whether the latter
is actually true remains
an open question; the point plays no role in the outcome of the proceedings.
His health impairments,
on the other hand, are the subject of several statements by the doctors
and psychiatrists treating
him and an official report. The latter sums up most succinctly what Heinrich
Paul claims to be
suffering from:
“AS [applicant] has described the persecution in detail (...) He also
reports that he took
an active part in an anti-Nazi movement and that he was warned by this
organization
of the impending arrest; During the last year of his stay in Germany he
had seldom
spent the night in his own house because he felt threatened. Building
up his existence
in England was very difficult and he not only taught all subjects as a
teacher for five
years, but also worked as a factotum and craftsman in the school until
he could no
longer. His energy had diminished and around 1955 he had had to give up
his job: his
nerves were no longer up to teaching. Since then he has been involved
in music and
composition. His anxiety and tension also affected his stomach function,
so that a 12-
finger ulcer developed. He simply couldn't forget the time from 1933 to
1936, had to
keep pondering, and even today he had nightmares about persecution."[14]
It
is very difficult to get an idea of Heinz Paul in the second phase of
his life. Although he was headmaster alongside his wife from 1946 to
1956, the question as to why he was no longer headmaster after
1956 was initially unanswerable. It was he who had more school
experience and was familiar with reform pedagogical approaches.
But his role at the school is almost incomprehensible; it seems that
he has always stood in his wife's shadow.
More information about Heinz Paul and his difficulties in everyday
school and private life can only be found in the file for the
The last entry about Heinrich Paul in Berlin's historical register of
residents reads: "Deregistration:
on August 1, 1936 from Berlin, Wacholderweg 7 b to London, 16 Wedderburn
Road."[58] Heinz
Paul and Elisabeth Selver married on April 21, 1937 in exile and acquired
St Mary's School, which
they later renamed St Mary's Town and Country School .
However,
a phase of political and economic stabilization as well as international
recognition
did not occur until 1924 under Reich Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann
, which lasted
until the beginning of the global economic crisis in October 1929.”[64]
The National Archives in Kew (Richmond, UK) store reports of school inspections
by the “St. Mary's
School” from several years. The same archive also contains correspondence
between Heinz Paul and
John Sturge Stephens, one from the period between 1920 and 1930[59] and
one from 1952.[60] John
Sturge Stephens (1891-1954) was a Quaker and is considered Cornwall's
first conscientious objector
due to his attitude during the First World War. [61] The same archive
also contains letters from Theo
Spira to John Sturge Stephens. [62] The origin of the connection between
Paul and Stephens is unclear,
as is the background to the relationship between Spira and Stephens.
"In addition, Germany, which had lost the war, was initially denied
membership of the
League of Nations. Over the years, however, the new Reich government received
valuable support in its efforts to improve foreign relations from the
German League for
the League of Nations, which advocated the idea of a federation of states,
and whose
educational department had already started a few days before the constitution
of the
Weimar Republic was signed. to August 7, 1919 in Wetzlar held a conference
with
American and English Quakers on the ethical prerequisites for a lasting
peace. The old
imperial city on the Lahn was particularly suitable for this topic due
to its history. From
1689 to 1806, the Imperial Chamber Court was located here, where Johann
Wolfgang
von Goethe and his father also worked for a time as part of their advanced
legal
training. The Wetzlar meeting was preceded by a conference in Heppenheim
in June
1919, which was essentially organized by the 'Giessen Group for the Redesign
of the
Education System' around the reform pedagogues Theo Spira and Otto Erdmann
and
the Jewish religious philosopher Martin Buber and also the crisis management
in
Europe after the World War had as a goal.
In
agreement with the findings of Paul's doctors, the expert has the impression
"that it is a case of a
psycho-neurosis" which is more likely to be attributed to the "worsening
of a hereditary psychasthenic
state of failure" than to the asserted consequences of the Persecution.
Nevertheless, he also advocates
recognizing a reduction in employment (MdE), which ultimately happens.
According to the decision of
November 14, 1966, Heinz Paul was retrospectively awarded compensation
of DM 35,887.57 and, from
October 1, 1966, a pension of DM 1,177.17 recognition of a higher rate
of reduced earnings, the Berlin
Regional Court awarded him further compensation of 2,693 DM in a judgment
of September 30, 1968,
but otherwise dismissed the lawsuit.[14 ]
In
1923 Spira worked at the English Department of the University of Giessen,
and Heinrich Paul also
studied English in Giessen in 1922/1923. Spira had previously worked as
a teacher at the Odenwald
School: "Spira, Theo Dr., OSO employee 1913/14; did some work on
the development of English sounds,
also on Shelley's intellectual history (at the English seminar at the
University of Giessen in 1923) and
interpreted Shakespeare's sonnets in 1929.". [63] Spira was probably
also active in peace politics, as
can be seen from the following quote:
an addendum
Historical
register of the city of Darmstadt on David Selver (with the entries about
his daughter Elisabeth)
and Heinrich Gustav Adolf Paul (stock ST 12 & ST 18)
If Stephens was one of the British Quakers who took part in the Wetzla
meeting in 1919, then everything indicates that
Heinrich Paul, presumably a Spira student, also came into contact with
Stephens through Spira. [65]
Darmstadt city archive
UAF Dept. 604, No. 2395: The most important documents here relate to the
(preliminary) studies started
in 1914 with a “small matriculation” which led to the matriculation examination
passed at Easter 1918 at
the Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences.
UAF Dept. 136, No. 131: This contains the documents on Selver's doctoral
procedure.
This also includes a handwritten curriculum vitae, which, itself undated,
was attached to the application for
the doctoral procedure on January 1, 1923.
compensation file Dr. Heinrich Gustav Paul - 81 WGA 5781/55 compensation
file Dr.
Elisabeth Paul, née Selver – 81 WGA 5780/55 These two files themselves
do not contain any
useful documents, but refer to them
Apart
from the address book entries, there are no official documents
about this school founded by the two of them. Its brief history can
only be reconstructed through Heinz Paul's compensation file. Paul's
letter of June 10, 1954, already quoted above, says:
was written because she was already in Berlin at the time. [51] What is
certain, however, is that
the relationship between the Selver family and Else Kühner must have
been very close, as will
become clear later in connection with the reparation proceedings
For
Heinrich Paul there is a separate entry in the Berlin address book from
1935 for the first time:
"(Paul) - Heinz Stud Assess Charlb Wacholderweg 7b". This is
not far from his first address,
Marienburger Allee 16. This entry is repeated in the 1936 address book,
with "Heinz" now becoming
"Heinrich". But there is another entry: "(Paul) - Heinz
Priv Waldschule Charlb Wacholderweg 7b".
Both entries also appear in the street section of the address book and
are repeated in the same
way in 1937. [55] In many memoirs of former students of St. Mary's School
in London, which Heinz
Paul and Elisabeth Selver acquired in 1937, there are vague references
to an earlier school in
Germany. This is also the case with Karl Rothamel, already quoted above,
who only knows how to
report: "As far that I know, Elisabeth and Heinz had a school in
Berlin."[56] Busemann et al. leave
the question of a school founded by Selver and Paul open when they write:
In 1932 Heinrich Selver
took over the management of the Kaliski forest school and “first he brought
his cousin Dr. Elisabeth
Selver from Darmstadt to the college. However, she soon left the Kaliski
Forest School to set up
her own school.”[57]
On
March 8, 1954, Elisabeth Selver received the approval notice from the
State Central Bank of Hesse for
DM 2,500 "for the reconstruction or repair of the property in Darmstadt,
Landwehrstr.
The house at Landwehrstraße 12 in Darmstadt and the three associated
parcels of land were returned to
Elisabeth Selver in accordance with occupation law. The resolution was
noted: "The remittance is made in
accordance with American Military Government Law No. 59 by resolution
of the Office for Property Control
and Restitution, Darmstadt, of November 3, 1949."[27]
Elisabeth
Paul managed the school through the war years and turned it into a very
successful private school
in the 1960s and 1970s. How far emigrant children attended school in the
few years before the war and
during the war can hardly be assessed conclusively, but the school obviously
exerted a great attraction on
parents from artistic and diplomatic circles. [28]
Elisabeth
Selver was represented by the head of studies Dr. Elisabeth Noack, her
former schoolmate. The
house changed hands for 35,000 DM. [27]
The
school saw itself as a private, non-denominational, co-educational and
progressive school. This
progressive stands for the British variant of what is known in Germany
as reform pedagogy.
The land register files at the district court in Darmstadt document Elisabeth
Selver's application for
reimbursement dated June 26, 1948. The application was directed against
the "German Reich, Chief Finance
President Berlin-Charlottenburg", represented by the "Hessian
State Ministry, Minister of Finance, Wiesbaden".
Heinrich Paul had worked for some time at the Bondy schools , Elisabeth
Paul, as mentioned above, at the
Bergschule Hochwaldhausen and for a short time at the private forest school
Kaliski, run by her cousin. After
that, both of them founded the private forest school Heinz Paul . Elisabeth
Paul, who was the determining
force of St. Mary's School , also drew on the classics of reform pedagogy
to flesh out her pedagogical
approach, but she particularly preferred Frederick Matthias Alexander
and the Alexander Technique he
founded.
582.35
RM. Today I instructed my financial office to transfer the above amount
to the postal check account
(...) of your upper financial office (...).” The file ends with the confirmation
of receipt from the upper financial
office of the Berlin-Brandenburg Regional Finance President dated May
4, 1943. [25]
The refund of the building
12". This mortgage would be entered in the land register in favor
of the State of Hesse, represented by the
Minister of Finance. Four years later, on April 22, 1958, the property
purchase contract between Elisabeth
Selver and a Darmstadt couple was concluded before a Darmstadt notary.
The further life story of Elisabeth Selver, now Elisabeth Paul since her
marriage on April 21, 1937, is
inseparable from the story of “St. Mary's Town and Country School”, of
which she was a formative figure.
Die St. Mary’s School
St.
Mary's Town and Country School
The
school was originally a day school. Due to the war-related evacuations,
it turned into a boarding school.
After the war it was again a day school with a rather small proportion
of boarding students. The name suffix
"Country School" owes primarily to the property Hedgerley Wood
(location) acquired in 1954 near Chinnor in
the Chiltern Hills . To Hedgerley Wood which has a small swimming pool
and all facilities for games and
projects had been taken over, also included a large forest area. It was
a weekend home for a small group of
boarding and day students and also for a Franco-British children's summer
school. The lower grades
(“Junior School”) regularly spent a week or more there with their class
teachers in the summer halfyear,
in accordance with the concept of school camps.
The
school was popular and well frequented. While in 1951 144 girls and boys
of all ages, including
17 boarders, attended the school, in 1974 there were 186 girls and boys
aged 4 to 16 years.[29]
A film about the school can be called up on a website about St. Mary's
School , in which Elisabeth
Paul also speaks in detail. [31] Stills from this, contrasting the then
70-year-old with photographs
from 1928 and 1932, can be seen on the school website.[32]
There
are no concrete references to Elisabeth Paul's private life, only contradictory
impressions from
different generations of students.[30] She was revered as a lifelong influential
influencer, but is also
described as a very eccentric person.
Elisabeth Paul's Compensation Proceedings
On
October 20, 1952, Elisabeth Paul submitted her application to the Compensation
Office in Berlin
on the basis of the Law on Compensation for Victims of National Socialism
. The procedure that was
set in motion was only completed on November 17, 1969.[9]
On
February 7, 1957, the compensation office granted Elisabeth Paul an advance
of 2,000 DM for
the first time, which was to be offset against a decision of 21 April
1961 for a total of 16,650. [33]
"However, the social position of the plaintiff, which is determined
by the validity in public
life based on her educational background, her achievements and abilities,
justifies the
desired upgrading to the comparable civil servant group of the higher
service. (...) As the
director and co-owner of her own school, she enjoyed the same respect
as a senior civil
servant. In addition, the plaintiff at the university in The person Elizabeth
Paul
Almost
at the same time as her own proceedings, Elisabeth Paul, following an
informal application dated April 9,
In addition, there were claims because the mother's widow's pension was
initially reduced and then completely
withheld.[17] Parts of these claims had already been asserted in connection
with the application for the retransfer
of their Darmstadt house (see above), but had been rejected at the time.
However,
the desired settlement never came about because the legal dispute continued,
which only
came to an end with a judgment by the Berlin district court on September
30, 1968. The verdict
proved that Elisabeth Selver was right on many points, above all on the
question of classification and
the compensation payments that could be derived from this. The court is
of the opinion that it cannot
be determined "that she earned an annual income of 8,200 RM based
on her own work during the
relevant period, which is necessary for classification in the higher service."
It but then executes:
Elisabeth Paul was only awarded compensation for members of the higher
civil service , while she
insisted on equality with a member of the higher civil service, and she
was denied the right to choose
a pension. Due to an ongoing lawsuit, the Compensation Office offered
on 11.
September 1962 offered a settlement of 40,000 DM to which the previously
mentioned 16,650 DM
should be credited. In addition, the lawsuit should also be considered
settled as a result of the settlement.[9]
Compensation
procedure Amalie Selver
As
her mother's heiress, Elisabeth Paul asserts claims for furniture left
behind in Darmstadt, confiscated bank
balances, a Jewish property tax and withheld rent payments.
In a decision dated May 16, 1953, the compensation authority at the Darmstadt
Regional Council rejected all
claims resulting from the widow's pension – DM 6,720.00. Many years of
legal disputes followed before the
Darmstadt Regional Court and the Frankfurt Higher Regional Court, during
which Paul's London lawyer Mainzer
died and her Darmstadt lawyer handed over his office to his successor.
On January 27, 1955, the Higher
Regional Court of Frankfurt ordered the state of Hesse, represented by
the Hessian Minister of the Interior, to
pay back pensions of DM 6,720.00 and to assume the out-of-court costs
April 1955 another 200.00 DM as
compensation for transport costs. This total of 6,920.00 DM was paid out
in three installments by August 21,
1956. [17]
On
September 19, 1962, a further capital payment of DM 9,497.49 was granted
in addition to DM 40,000 and
the retrospective pension entitlement was confirmed, which led to an additional
payment of DM 30,331 and to
an ongoing monthly pension payment of DM 622. [9 ]
Frankfurt and obtained diplomas from the Universities of Nancy and Oxford,
which increased her
validity in her job as head of a private school. The plaintiff was therefore
to be classified in the
higher service due to her social position."[9]
Attorney
Leonhard declared on behalf of his client at the end of October 1968 a
waiver of appeal, whereupon
Elisabeth Paul on November 17, 1969 about the decision of November 11,
1969.
March 1950 on October 18, 1952, also on behalf of her deceased mother,
Amalie Selver , made a formal
application for reparation under the "Law for the Reparation of National
Socialist Injustice". Claims were made
for damage to property and assets as well as damage to economic progress
in general.
In both cases, Elisabeth Paul was represented by Friedrich Mainzer, a
former attorney from Darmstadt and now
from London. dr Friedrich (Fritz) Mainzer (* March 17, 1875 in Darmstadt
– † August 15, 1955 in London) was
already her father's lawyer when he was dismissed as a rabbi by the Jewish
community in Darmstadt. At that
time, the proceedings ended with a settlement that secured David Selver
early retirement with a pension
entitlement. This pension entitlement in turn resulted in the claim for
additional payment of the reduced or
withheld widow's pension.
Mainzer's
Darmstadt law practice was attacked and devastated during the pogrom night
in 1938 and he was
then banned from practicing his profession. In the spring of 1939 he emigrated
to Great Britain and from May
1940 worked in London as a "lawyer on continental law". [34]
The house in Mainz that belonged to him until he
emigrated in Osannstr. 11 in Darmstadt was the center of the Jewish community
in Darmstadt after 1948 and
until the fall of 1988. [35]
The
End of St. Mary's The Town & Country School
The
demise of St. Mary's School was arguably due in part to its autocratic
nature. And nobody
could or wanted to notice their "mental illness", their progressive
mental illness with noticeable
changes in thinking and acting. At the age of eighty-six, she still thinks
she is running a school that
in 1981 consisted of just seven students and just as many teachers. In
1982 the school was closed
- not because of Elisabeth Paul's inability to work, but because of horrendous
debts, not least tax
debts.[36]
Archive
of the Marienau school (http://www.marienau.com/ueber-uns/archiv/): Written
information from the
head of the archive, Jörg Blume, dated January 31, 2017 Landesarchiv
Berlin [66]
University Archive Frankfurt am Main (UAF) (http://www.archiv.uni-frankfurt.de/39883913/UA
F?legacy_request=1).
There are two files on Elisabeth Selver here:
Gießen University Archive (https://www.uni-giessen.de/org/admin/dez/b/universitaetsarchiv):
Written communication
from the head of the archive, Dr. Eva-Marie Felschow, February 7, 2017
Hessian State Archive Darmstadt, inventory 15/5 (Ludwig Bergstrasser),
correspondence between Pa and Pe
The book served as a self-portrayal for reform pedagogical schools (progressive
schools) in Great Britain. Elisabeth
Paul's essay in it, which touches on only a few aspects of the school's
history, describes the pedagogical concept
in detail. It is available online at: Elisabeth Paul: St. Mary's Town
and Country School (http://www.stmarystown
andcountryschool.com/ips1962.pdf). In the book, which is not available
online, Elisabeth Paul's essay is followed
by a contribution by AS Neill on Summerhill.
St.
Mary's Town and Country School. In: HubertAlwyn Thomas Child (Hrsg.):
The independent
progressive school. Hutchinson & Co. (Publishers) LTD, London 1962,
S. 136– 145.
Written communication from the Darmstadt city archive of February 9, 2017
Hertha Luise
Busemann, Michael Daxner, Werner Fölling, Klaus Klattenhoff, Friedrich
Wißmann: "The private forest
school Kaliski in Berlin-Grunewald (PriWaKi)." Final report of the
research project funded by the German
Research Foundation. Oldenburg, 1992 (in the library of the University
of Oldenburg, call number pae 475
wal BX 0221)
The
cyclic structure of Stefan George's poetry from the 'hymns' to the 'carpet
of life'. Philosophical dissertation,
Frankfurt am Main 1923.
Holdings ST 12/14 No. 213 & ST 12/14 No. 136
Sources
writings
Karl
Wolfskehl, Hanna Wolfskehl: Correspondence with Friedrich Gundolf, 1899-1931.
Volume
1, Castrvm Peregrini, Amsterdam 1977, ISBN 978-90-6034-032-5.
Historical resident register of Berlin, stock B Rep. 021; written information
dated January
17, 2017.to which the files at the State Office for Civil and Regulatory
Affairs (see below)
Frank Estelmann, Olaf Müller: Adapted everyday life in German and
Romance studies. Franz
Schultz and Frankfurt German Studies. In: Jörn Kobes, Jan-Otmar Hesse
(eds.): Frankfurt
scientists between 1933 and 1945. Wallstein, Göttingen 2008, ISBN
978-3-8353-0258-7 , pp.
33-45.
Compensation file Heinz Paul - Reg.Nr. 79,770
Compensation File Elisabeth Paul – Reg.No. 173.318
Hessian Main State Archive Wiesbaden: Amalie Selver reparations case,
HStAW 518, no. 27881
[69]
Mario
Zanucchi said of this study: “The effect of the Symbolists on Stefan George
was
systematically examined in Enid Lowry Duthie's groundbreaking 1933 study.
However, Duthie's
study is not only outdated in terms of content and methodology, but also
fails to recognize the
central differences between George and the French Symbolists. Also unnoticed
is Duthíe
George's Syrÿcretistic mingling of French symbolism with the German
poetic tradition, as well as
the attention he pays to the proto-symbolist poetry of CF Meyer."
1923)", De Gruyter, Berlin/
Boston, 2016, ISBN 978-3-11-042012-8, 978-3-11-042013-5, 9783110425192,
p. 7)
Enid Lowry Duthie: The Influence of French Symbolism in Germany's Poetic
Revival. The
Blätter für die Kunst from 1892–1900. Paris 1933. / Neudruck:
Geneva 1974.
District Court of Darmstadt. Land register file for volume 26, page 1251
of the land register
of Darmstadt, District III (House Landwehrstrasse 12 in Darmstadt). File
inspection on June
26, 2017 State Office for Citizen and Regulatory Affairs (LABO), Dept.
I – Compensation
Authority for Victims of National Socialism, Fehrbelliner Platz 1, 10707
Berlin. [68] Inspection
of files on June 15, 2017 and July 17, 2017:
blha inventory Rep. 36 A – G 3097 (compulsory
administration) blha inventory Rep. 36 A II – 35461 (asset realization)
Correspondence 1914-1931. De Gruyter, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-11-022546-4.
Gunilla Eschenbach, Helmuth Mojem (ed.): Friedrich Gundolf - Elisabeth
Salomon.
Brandenburg State Main Archive (blha), Potsdam, files on the ordered asset
management and expropriation of Elisabeth Selver in the inventory "Rep.
36A Chief
Finance President Berlin-Brandenburg" [67]
January 2017 to an inquiry about a private forest school in Wacholderweg
7b.
Karl Wolfskehl's correspondence from New Zealand 1938–1948. Volume 2,
Luchterhand Literaturverlag, Darmstadt 1988, ISBN 978-3-630-80002-8.
The Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf Museum in the Villa Oppenheim (http://www.villa-oppenhei
mberlin.
de/): Written information from the head of the collection, Sonja Miltenberger,
dated 27.
Karl Wolfskehl, Hanna Wolfskehl: Correspondence with Friedrich Gundolf,
1899-1931. Volume
2 (1905-1931), Castrvm Peregrini, Amsterdam 1977, ISBN 978-90-6034-032-5.
literature
This
site is highly recommended, especially because of the imagery.
St. Mary’s School: The early History (http://stmarystownandcountryschool.com/early.htm
l)
St. Mary's School: A retrospective of this unique school, by a former
pupil (http://stmarystown
andcountryschool.com/). The site lives mainly from the memories of the
students who attended
the school from the 1960s. But there are also many isolated references
to the beginnings of
the school, for example on the following subpages:
The book is based on the research project on the private forest school
Kaliski (see
sources).
Hertha
Luise Busemann, Michael Daxner, Werner Fölling: Island of security.
The private
forest school Kaliski 1932 to 1939. Publisher JB Metzler, Stuttgart /
Weimar 1992, ISBN
3-476-00845-2.
St. Mary’s School: Town & Country's Demise (http://stmarystownandcountryschool.com/d
emise.html)
1.
There is no doubt about this date of birth, it is clearly determined by
the population register.
However, Elisabeth Selver herself later caused confusion when she gave
different
information about her age on different occasions. On a website of the
“St. Mary's School”
several dates are listed: In a copy of her study book from Paris from
1928, a handwritten
date of birth is entered, which with some effort turns out to be 25. VI.
1908 can be
deciphered. In the same place, reference is made to her death certificate,
which bears the
date of birth March 11, 1892. And finally, there is the English marriage
register, in which
she was entered in 1937 at the age of 41, which refers to a birth year
of 1896. (Mrs. Paul
(http://stmarystownandcountryschool.com/elisabeth.html )). Playing with
one's own age seems
to have remained a lifelong trait of Elsabeth Selver. Due to the closure
of the "St. Mary's
School," a reporter for The Daily Telegraph visited her in 1982.
According to their article, “She
admits to being in her late 80's but refuses to be specific because 'if
the children knew how old I
am I wouldn't be able to be a principal'. She is alluding to her absurd
idea at the time of being
able to reopen the officially closed school. (Margot Norman: Inspectors
in row over closed
progressive school. The Daily Telegraph, 27th September 1982, translated
from: TOWN &
COUNTRY'S DEMISE (http://st marystownandcountryschool.com/demise.html))
Jochem Schäfer: Goethe and his late work "Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre"
in the light of the
resistance against National Socialism. The German Hiking Day 1927 in Herborn
and its
consequences. Schmitz, Nordstrand (North Sea) 2011, ISBN 978-3-938098-67-7.
St. Mary’s School: The staff (http://stmarystownandcountryschool.com/staff.html)
St. Mary’s School: Mrs. Paul (http://stmarystownandcountryschool.com/elisabeth.html)
Si. Mary’s School:Town & Country School Guestbook/Blog (http://www.stmarystownandcountryschool.com/guestbook.html)
Jörg H. Fehrs: From Heidereutergasse to Roseneck. Jewish Schools
in Berlin 1712-1942.
Edition Hentrich, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-89468-075-X.
Weblinks
St. Mary’s Town and Country School in der WIKIPEDIA-EN
itemizations
........................................................
3. History of the Exeter University (http://www.exetermemories.co.uk/em/university.php)
7. Karl and Hanna Wolfskehl: Correspondence with Friedrich Gundolf, 1899-1931.
Part 1,
13. „Miss Elisabeth Selver has been a constant friend to me, whose advice
and
Note 59, page 355.
6. The corresponding course catalogs of the University of Frankfurt are
online
At that time, today's Rhönring bore the name Schlageterstraße
.
12. For the year 1928, it is identified by a photocopied entry in their
'Livrett Universitaire
D/00804 /95(A), inventory 518, no. 27881. Kühnert's own place of
residence at the time of the affidavit was
Orbisweg in Zwingenberg.
was deported to Theresienstadt and murdered on June 29, 1943.
11. Gunilla Eschenbach, Helmuth Mojem (ed.): Friedrich Gundolf - Elisabeth
Salomon.
5. Frank Estelmann, Olaf Müller: Adapted everyday life in German
and Romance studies. French
Correspondence 1914-1931. p. 52.
15. Karl Wolfskehl's correspondence from New Zealand 1938-1948. Volume
2, p. 915.
21. Hertha Luise Busemann et al.: The private forest school Kaliski in
Berlin-Grunewald (PriWaKi). p. 177.
22nd blha inventory Rep. 36 A II – 35461 23rd blha inventory Rep. 36 A
– G 3097 (compulsory
administration)
4. A typed copy is held by the university library
Exchange of letters 1914–1931, p. 153, and there also note 194 9. Compensation
file
Elisabeth Paul
encouragement was the greatest help. Her solicitude smoothed out many
difficulties for me, and I beg her to
accept my heartfelt thanks.“ (Enid Lowry Duthie: The influence of French
symbolism in the poetic renewal of
Germany. S. VIII.)
2. On the history of the Jewish community in Darmstadt (http://www.alemannia-judaica.de/darms
tadt_synagoge_a.htm)
Note 25, p. 247.
19. Hertha Luise Busemann, Michael Daxner, Werner Fölling: Island
of security. p. 187.
available: course catalogs of the Goethe University (http://publikationen.ub.uni-fran
kfurt.de/solrsearch/index/search/
searchtype/collection/id/17036/start/0/rows/100/sortfield/yea r/ sortorder/desc)
Individual Paris”. (Mrs. Paul (http://stmarystownandcountryschool.com/elisabeth.html
))
18. Hertha Luise Busemann, Michael Daxner, Werner Fölling: Island
of security.
25. blha inventory Rep. 36 A II – 35461 (asset realization)
17. Hessian Main State Archive Wiesbaden: Amalie Selver compensation file,
reg. no.
Schultz and the Frankfurt German Studies. p. 36.
Correspondence 1914-1931. p. 122.
16. Gunilla Eschenbach, Helmuth Mojem (ed.): Friedrich Gundolf - Elisabeth
Salomon.
24. Mali Goldstein is believed to be Amalie Goldstein, born in 1874 who
died in 1942
Alphabetical index of the stumbling blocks in Darmstadt (http://www.dfg-vk-darmstadt.de/
Lexikon_Auflage_2/
Stolpersteine_Liste_sortbar.htm)
Frankfurt am Main: The cyclic construction of Stefan George's poems (https://hds.hebis.de/ubffm/Record/
HEB122163389 ).
10. Hertha Luise Busemann et al.: The private forest school Kaliski in
Berlin-Grunewald (PriWaKi), p. 415 f.
20. Hertha Luise Busemann et al.: The private forest school Kaliski in
Berlin-Grunewald (PriWaKi). p. 771.
8. Gunilla Eschenbach, Helmuth Mojem (ed.): Friedrich Gundolf - Elisabeth
Salomon.
14. Compensation file Heinz Paul – RG.Nr. 79,770 (source)
Registered on April 1, 1937, he stated that his father's occupation was
"Stationer and Bookseller".
l)
38. Selver: Landwehrstrasse 12; Paul: Liebigstrasse 6 39.
In the Hampstead Marriage Register, which records Paul's marriage to Elisabeth
Selver on 21
26. Fritz Bauer Institute: Legalized robbery (http://www.fritz-bauer-institut.de/legalisierter-raub.htm
32. St. Mary’s School: Mrs. Paul (http://stmarystownandcountryschool.com/elisabeth.html)
which also existed until 1928, was then located in the youth home, which
was still independent.
10ELMZ)
31. St. Mary’s School: Der Film (http://www.stmarystownandcountryschool.com/sixsides.html)
All information on the two schools by Jürgen Eck, chairman / museum
director of the Museumsverein
Seeheim-Jugenheim e. V., Bergstrasse Museums Seeheim-Jugenheim: Museum
Burg Tannenberg
+ School Museum Seeheim-Jugenheim, e-mail dated July 3, 2017
45. Another state-approved private school, the "Töchterheim
und Schule Tannenhof"
se.html)
29. British History Online: Hampstead: Education (http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/middx/vol
9/
pp159-169#n115)
Official personnel directory of the University of Frankfurt a. M.: Summer
semester 1921 (htt p://
publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/11221)
Philosophical Faculty of the University of Frankfurt 359 male and 125
female students.
School:Town & Country School Guestbook/Blog (http://www.stmarystownandcountryschool.
com/
guestbook.html).
aica.de/darmstadt_synagoge_n.htm)
41. Stadtarchiv Darmstadt, holdings ST 12/14 No. 213 & ST 12/14 No.
136 42.
Stadtarchiv Darmstadt, holdings ST 12/14 No. 213 & ST 12/14 No. 136
43. Written
communication from the Universitätsarchiv Gießen dated February
7, 2017 44. In the
summer semester of 1921, i.e. one semester before Paul studied there,
they studied at the
40. In the files of Ludwig Bergstrasser, the first post-war government
president in Darmstadt, there are
several documents that deal with the Paul couple's request to create an
economic livelihood again. On
January 9, 1946, the “Regional Association of Booksellers from Greater
Hesse Group Darmstadt
Starkenburg” wrote to the regional council in connection with the “application
from Gustav Paul,
Ueberau, for approval as a lending library with book sales”: “The Pauls
have property in Darmstadt
lost to air raids. Your desire to start a new business is approved.” On
February 13, 1946, the regional
council of the Darmstadt Chamber of Industry and Commerce announced that
Paul’s application for
approval as a lending library with book sales in Ueberau would be approved.
(Hessian State Archive
Darmstadt, inventory 15/5 (Ludwig Bergsträsser), correspondence Pa
– Pe)
Darmstadt, District III (House Landwehrstrasse 12 in Darmstadt)
St. Mary’s School: Mrs. Paul (http://stmarystownandcountryschool.com/elisabeth.html)
27. District Court of Darmstadt. Land register file for volume 26, sheet
1251 of the land register from
ntryschool.com/guestbook.html).
36. St. Mary’s School: Town & Country's Demise (http://stmarystownandcountryschool.com/demi
35. On the history of the Jewish community in Darmstadt after 1945 (http://www.alemannia-jud
30. ST. Mary’s School:Town & Country School Guestbook/Blog (http://www.stmarystownandcou
28. There is enough information for children from both circles on the
website ST. Mary's
37. Elmhurst Residential Home (https://www.carehome.co.uk/carehome.cfm/searchazref/100010
33. See compensation file Heinz Paul - Reg. Friedrich (Fritz)
Mainzer (http://www.dfg-vk-darmstadt.de/Lexikon_Auflage_2/Justiz_SchicksaleJuedischerAnwaelteI
nDarmstadt.htm)
48. Stadtarchiv Darmstadt, Bestand ST 12/14 Nr. 213 49. St.
Mary’s School – Mrs. Paul (http://stmarystownandcountryschool.com/elisabeth.html)
54. Hertha Luise Busemann et al.: The private forest school Kaliski in
Berlin-Grunewald
61. John Sturge Stephens (1891–1954) – Cornwall’s ‘first’ conscientious
objector (http://www.10
Brandenburg, 1919–1948 (stock) (http://www.recherche.im.blha.de/detail.aspx?ID=16637
81)
52. Berlin State Archive (stock B Rep. 021)
59. Letters to Jn. Sturge Stephens from Heinz Paul, Darmstadt, Reference
ST/ 510 (http://discov ery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/
details/rd/56c6dda1-95f7-41af-ac4a-af66189506ab)
Archive“.
57. Hertha Luise Busemann, Michael Daxner, Werner Fölling: Island
of security. p. 187.
51. Hertha Luise Busemann, Michael Daxner, Werner Fölling: Island
of security.
64. Jochem Schäfer: Goethe and his late work. p. 17.
Reference ST 523 (http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/rd/4061616f-45c3-436f-af
c6-c3aa376b597b)
from-ns-wrong/)
50. University Archive Frankfurt am Main (UAF): File UAF Abt. 136, No.
131
56. St. Mary’s School – Guestbook (http://www.stmarystownandcountryschool.com/guestbook.ht
0firstworldwarstories.co.uk/John-Sturge-Stephens/story/)
46. Written information from the Marienau school archives dated January
31, 2017 47. The Wahlstedt
chronicle published by the municipality of Wahlstedt (http://d-nb.info/11090
72961) is in the holdings of the German
National Library and contains pages 310-311 a section on the "Waldesruh
children's home".
(PriWaKi). S. 770 f.
67. 36A Chief Finance President Berlin-Brandenburg Rep. 36A Chief Finance
President Berlin
53. Hertha Luise Busemann et al.: The private forest school Kaliski in
Berlin-Grunewald (PriWaKi). p. 177.
60. Letter to Jn. Sturge Stephens from Heinz (Paul), Reference ST 527
(http://discovery.national archives.gov.uk/details/
rd/82a5641a-008f-4c65-9b39-b19be88ff8ca)
66. The following files can be found in the Compensation Files (http://wga-database.de/de/recherche.html
).
65. This can, however, only be clarified by looking at the correspondence
in the “National
Note 59, page 355.
58. Berlin State Archive (stock B Rep. 021)
63. Theo Spira in the Geheeb archive (https://www.ecole.ch/geheeb/GA_Korrespondenz_S.htm)
69. Compensation file Amalie Selver (https://arcinsys.hessen.de/arcinsys/detailAction.action?
detailid=v2143517&icomefrom=search)
ml)
(Doctoral process Elisabeth Selver)
68. The Compensation Authority of the State of Berlin (https://www.berlin.de/labo/entschaedigung
55. Berlin address and telephone books (http://digital.zlb.de/viewer/cms/82/)
62. Letters to Jn. Sturge Stephens from Professor Theo Spira, Wiesbaden,
1946–1949,
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