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A Small Town in Germany
This summer LMU Jewish Studies professor Margarete Feinstein will attend a dedication ceremony in the city hall of Willstätt, Baden-Württemberg, a small town on the German side of the Rhein across from Strasbourg. The town is honoring a man who never lived within its city limits and yet that man bore the name Willstätter, literally meaning from the town of Willstätt. How did this happen, and how is this occasion an act of reconciliation after the Holocaust?
In the early 17th century, Willstätt consisted of fifty houses clustered around a castle and a lumber mill. A few of the homes were those of Jews who served primarily as livestock dealers to the surrounding farmers. The local count increasingly granted the Jewish residents greater economic freedom, but the Thirty Years War decimated the region, and in 1632, Willstätt was razed to the ground by invading forces.
While most of the livestock dealers found refuge in nearby Offenburg, a few Jews stayed to join in rebuilding Willstätt. Later, some of them accepted the invitation of Karl-Wilhelm, the Margrave of Baden, to settle in his new capital city of Karlsruhe where the Margrave promised them freedom of religion, along with free building sites and construction materials. When citizens were required to adopt family names, these Jews identified themselves as Willstätter, proclaiming that they were from Willstätt. In Karlsruhe, Willstätter became known as a Jewish name.
One of the first to settle in Karlsruhe was Rabbi Ephraim Willstätter, whose son Elias, and grandson Benjamin would also serve as rabbis of the Karlsruhe Jewish community. Rabbi Ephraim’s great-great-grandson would become the most famous person to bear the Willstätter name: Richard Willstätter, a founder of biochemistry and recipient of the 1915 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his research on plant pigments, especially chlorophyll.
Richard Willstätter was a German patriot. He was also aware of the antisemitic poison in German universities and resigned his professorship in Munich in 1924 in protest over antisemitism in the faculty. Even so, when the National Socialists came to power in 1933, he refused to leave Germany. Turning down an offer of a position in Palestine, he told Chaim Weizmann, “I know that Germany has gone mad, but if a mother falls ill, it is not a reason for her children to leave her. My home is Germany, my university, in spite of what has happened, is in Munich.” On November 9, 1938, the Gestapo came to Willstätter’s home to take him to the Dachau Concentration Camp. They searched his home unaware that he was in the garden. This close call finally prompted Willstätter to heed the pleas of his friends and his daughter to leave Germany. Stripped of his home, his library, and his art collection, Willstätter immigrated to Switzerland. When he arrived in Basel on March 4, 1939, his first words to his friend and former student, Arthur Stoll, were “I hear that recently many, who have overcome fears and dangers to be able to leave Germany, toss their hats into the air for joy once they are across the border; I want to cry!” On August 3, 1942, Willstätter died in exile from heart failure.
On July 18, 2024, the town of Willstätt will dedicate a bust of Richard Willstätter, in recognition of his ancestors’ ties to the town and of his scientific accomplishments. Two local women, Helene Rieger and Doris Freund spearheaded the project, which was financed by the Community Foundation of Willstätt [Bürgerstiftung Willstätt]. Hubert Benz is the sculptor who created the bust. Originally Benz planned to represent Willstätter’s work with plant pigments by incorporating a plant motif into the design. Instead, he created a unique bust with two sides. On one side Willstätter’s face emerges from a column. On the other side is the reverse, with his face recessed into a second column. When illuminated from below, it appears that Willstätter’s head is turning to follow the viewer, seemingly bringing him to life once more.
Professor Margarete Feinstein, LMU Associate Director of Jewish Studies and great-granddaughter of Richard Willstätter, will represent the Willstätter family at the ceremony. Feinstein reflects, “Richard Willstätter loved the warmth and humor of the people of Baden and was proud of his ancestors’ origins. It literally broke his heart when he was forced to leave Germany in 1939. The generosity and respect paid by today’s citizens of Willstätt represent a type of homecoming for Richard Willstätter, and the family is deeply appreciative of that.”