Siegfried Wilhelm Rosenfeld: personal papers

This collection contains the personal papers of Siegried Rosenfeld who had a successful career as a lawyer and politician before the Nazis came to power in Germany. It includes correspondence with NSDAP District Management of Laufen-Berchtesgaden-Altötting (Bavaria) regarding the borders of the district to ensure Siegfried Rosenfeld did not resettle within the district as well as his curriculum vitae.

Siegfried Rosenfeld was born on 22 March 1874 in Marienwerder (Brandenburg), son of Hermann and Jeanette Rosenfeld. He studied law in Freiburg and Berlin and worked as a lawyer in Berlin from 1904. At the same time he became a member of the Social Democratic Party (SDP). In 1918 he became a municipal councillor in Charlottenburg, Berlin and in 1921 he was listed as a delegate of the Prussian Landtag (Legislative assembly of a German state). Rosenfeld became Kammergerichtsrat in the Prussian Ministry of Justice in 1923 and Ministerialrat in 1925 from which he retired in 1933. In the same year he moved to Bavaria. In June 1934 he was denounced and imprisoned in Bad Reichenhall. He was forced to leave his home in 1934. Rosenfeld was interested in his heritage and started working on a publication on the history of European Jews which remained unfinished. He emigrated to England in August 1939 and was only reunited with his wife in 1946 after seven years of separation. They both settled down in London.

Chronological

See Wiener Library access conditions at: http://www.wienerlibrary.co.uk/usinglibrary/usingthelibrary.aspx

Donated by Hanna Cooper.

NB366