Gerhard Lüdecke and his wife Gabriele Lüdecke-Eisenberg have been dealing with this topic for decades and the current political events have made it very topical again. The former judge researches the history of Jewish lawyers in Hanau after 1933.
Hanau – It is thanks to him, among other things, that a memorial plaque was installed in the regional court in 2017, on which the names of persecuted and murdered Hanau lawyers can be read. Names such as Leo Koref, the lawyer and notary who was murdered in Theresienstadt, or the President of the Regional Court Felix Lesser, who survived the Theresienstadt concentration camp and returned to Hanau.
Attacks on politicians worry historians
The strengthening of the AfD in this country and the recent attacks on politicians in the Berlin Reichstag worried Gerhard Lüdecke. “This topic is noticeably intensifying,” says the 82-year-old, who has observed an unbroken line of anti-Semitic thought throughout history. In a publication in the “New Magazine” published annually by the History Association, the lawyer has compiled his research into the persecution and fate of Jewish lawyers in a 50-page article.
“The essay was intended as an alternative to the AfD,” he explains. Against the background of the terrible anti-racist events such as the attack on the Jewish synagogue in Halle or the murder of Walter Lübcke, the pensioner sees the urgent need to deal more intensively with his own history and the history of the Jewish fellow citizens. He regrets that neither the city nor the history association or the judicial authorities have dealt with this part of the city’s or judicial history.
Awareness and political education in schools is a priority
In the opinion of Gerhard Lüdeckes, the ideas propagated by the AfD must urgently be countered through education and political education in schools. There, young people should be made aware of and learn where exclusion and racism can lead. From the sixth grade onwards, the lawyer is certain that this topic should be conveyed to the younger students with thorough preparation.
He and his wife, the retired teacher Gabriele Eisenberg-Lüdecke, have often sought an exchange with the students at schools. In classrooms they talked about the persecuted Jewish lawyers in Hanau and about the Jews who were deported from Hanau to Theresienstadt. “This part of Hanau’s history interests the students and they ask very specific questions,” says Lüdecke. Questions that they dared not ask their own grandparents.
Reaching young people with specific fates
Eisenberg-Lüdecke adds that this discussion should not only be conducted in high schools. Racism and anti-Semitism should also be discussed in secondary and secondary schools. “If it is conveyed using the example of specific human fates, the young people also understand what it is about,” says the pedagogue.
As an example, she cites the design of a November pogrom memorial event in Hanauer Nordstrasse. There, Karl Rehbein students wrote down and presented the story of Jewish youth who were just as old as the presenting students at the time of their deportation or murder. “You could feel the consternation.”
Statements by AfD boss Gauland shock historians
The former teacher is very concerned about the growing right-wing extremist forces in Germany. Statements such as those by AfD leader Alexander Gauland, who spoke in the Bundestag about the hunted down of established politicians like Angela Merkel, should set off a mood of alarm. That reminded her of the classic Biedermann and the arsonists and the sentence, “The best camouflage is the truth, because nobody believes that.”
Gerhard Lüdecke also sees reason to be confident. “I am glad that almost all parties are so decidedly against the machinations of the AfD and that the Bundestag has proven to be defensive,” he said in an interview with our newspaper. The lawyer also welcomes the fact that the question of whether the AfD cannot be banned is being raised again.
The ex-judge is convinced that the ideas of this party cannot be forbidden. But one has to take countermeasures. This makes him optimistic that the young generation of lawyers is taking a strong position against the AfD. All the more so since many lawyers, notaries and judges close to the Nazis remained in office in the ranks of lawyers after the end of the war.
–
