Max Wertheimer
Today in this article we would like to reconstruct the history of the Jewish family Wertheim. In any case, this is how the surname of this numerous and branched family sounds in Russian transcription. The family Wertheim or Wertheimer (in other transcriptions – Wertheim, Wertheimer, Wertheim, Weitheimer) received its surname due to the fact that its representatives were natives of the German town (today – already a city) Wertheim. In this town once lived their ancestors. Wertheim was located in the Grand Duchy of Baden. A brief history of this duchy is as follows. For the first time the title of margrave (owning the duchy) took Duke Hermann II, who died in 1130. He actually became the ancestor of the Dukes of Baden. The Encyclopedia reports that his estates were often divided among his heirs. One of his heirs, Margrave Christopher I (died in 1527) united all the Baden lands and divided them again among his 3 sons. After the death of one of them, the brothers founded two lines, the Baden-Baden line and the Baden-Durlach line. The Baden-Baden line was discontinued in 1771 with the death of Margrave August Georg, and all the Baden estates were reunited. In 1806, Baden became a Grand Duchy. In 1871, Baden was incorporated into the German Empire. The last Grand Duke Frederick II abdicated in 1918, after the end of the First World War. According to the constitution of 1919, Baden ceased to be a Grand Duchy and became part of the German Empire. The city is now part of the federal state of Baden-Württemberg. The majestic medieval castle of the Dukes of Baden still towers over the old historic town center, and the narrow streets of the center are paved with cobblestones and bruchatka.
A Jewish community existed there as far back as the Middle Ages. It is safe to say that it was one of the oldest Jewish communities of the Middle Ages in Europe. It is possible that Jews were already living there before the local margraves built their castle, one of the oldest fortresses in Southern Germany. In any case, we know that in 1212, historical documents already mention a fairly large Jewish community in the town. In 1298 the Jews were expelled from the town for the first time by the Germans, and in 1349 pogroms and massacres of Jews, accompanied by accusations of spreading the plague, again ended this time with the final expulsion. For many centuries medieval Wertheim was essentially “Jew-free.” Although even in this rule there were exceptions. Historians believe that no more than 10 Jewish families somehow miraculously managed to live in Wertheim during these centuries.
For example, after the local synagogue was destroyed in 1349, a few years later a new synagogue was built in its place, which, however, in 1447 was again destroyed by the Christian population of the city. And on the place of the synagogue was built a chapel (chapel) of Our Lady (which is still on this place). On the chapel itself you can still distinguish an inscription informing that the synagogue was destroyed here and the chapel was built in its place. During the whole time of the Jews’ stay in this German city, five synagogues were destroyed and each time built again in a new place. However, as noted above, only a few Jewish families managed to survive in Wertheim in some unthinkable way. Apparently as an exception, the Christian inhabitants of the town allowed 16 Jewish families to settle there for a short time in 1622. Only at a much later time, at the end of the 18th century, did the Jews manage to re-establish a community in the town. In 1885, the Jewish community of Wertheim was the most numerous, with 221 members. At this time, the Jewish community even began to flourish. For 45 years, until about 1933, Jews owned numerous commercial enterprises and craft stores in the town, including a banker’s house, textile enterprises, hat stores, a shoe store, a wholesale tobacco business, an antique business, a bookbinding store and butcher shops. However, as we know, and this prosperity in the German homeland did not last long. Nothing changes: history repeats itself. Perhaps only it looks more and more terrible. Since the beginning of the 30s, the “new Germans” – National Socialists, descendants of those “old German Christians” with extraordinary enthusiasm and unprecedented, but, however, well known cruelty, freed the city from the Jewish presence, as it seemed to them – forever. Wertheim became “Judenfrei” again.
We do not know when exactly the refugee family from Wertheim first received their nickname and then their surname after the name of their former place of residence. But conducting genealogical expertise and analyzing the surviving portraits of the 18th century and numerous photographs of the late 19th – early 20th century bearers of this surname, we came to the conclusion that we are talking about members of one numerous clan, which since the Middle Ages scattered throughout Europe – from the capitals of Holland and France to the localities of Ukraine and Moldavia. The similarity can be traced not only in facial features, but also in many fates. For example, at all times talented businessmen – bankers and industrialists – have come out of this clan, all the families until recent times were very traditional and religious, despite the emancipation flourishing in Europe, and, after all, several families, still unaware of their kinship, you can find in the lists of the richest people on the planet in Forbes magazine, which publishes these lists annually.
However, let us begin in order. Documentary evidence tells us about one of the first representatives of this family Simon Wolf Wertheim – rabbi, born at the end of the 16th century already in the city of Worms in the family of natives of Wertheim and died there in 1664. His son Yosef (Yosel), born in 1626 and died in 1713, married Edel Oppenheimer. Edel was a member of the family of those very famous Jewish medieval magnates Oppenheimer, one of whom Feuchtwanger wrote his brilliant novel “The Jew Zus” about. The story tells us about the three sons of Yosef and Edel. In fact, it is with them that the branched Wertheimer dynasty begins, which later spread throughout the world.
The most famous and most celebrated son of Yosef was Shimshon or Samson Wertheim (or as his surname became later spelled, Wertheimer). He was born in the same Worms in 1658 and died in Vienna in 1724. He was called “the richest Jew of his time.” He was the chief rabbi of Hungary, Moravia, Bohemia and Worms (and for his philanthropic activities the people of Palestine called him rabbi of Hebron and Safed). Among other things, he held the title of “Court Jew” and was the chief administrator of the finances of three Austrian emperors. After receiving a Talmudic education, he arrived in Vienna in 1684, where he began his financial career under his relative (probably his uncle), Samuel Oppenheimer, a “Court Jew” (which was the official title in Europe at that time). Already soon he becomes his confidant and authorized representative in financial transactions with the Austrian court. He acquires the exclusive confidence of Emperor Leopold the First. Leopold the First had such confidence in Wertheimer that he also entrusted him with diplomatic missions. According to the researchers “Samson provided a good dowry for the imperial family of Leopold, having negotiated a dowry of one million florins from the King of Poland when his daughter married Leopold’s brother-in-law”.
According to Brockhaus and Ephron “during the struggle for the Spanish Succession, Samson, together with Oppenheimer, provided funds for the war, and after the latter’s death in 1703, supported the Austrian loan by finding new sources of money. In 1703, the emperor appointed Samson as Court Agent (assigning him the position of “factor”) and extended for 20 years his privileges of worship, citizenship rights and tax exemption”. Under the next Emperor Joseph I, Samson Wertheimer became a creditor of the state treasury. In particular, he lent the treasury money for the Turkish War of 1716-1718. In 1711, Emperor Charles VI confirmed him in the title of “Landes Rabiner” – the chief rabbi of the lands and regions of Hungary. In both Christian and Jewish society he was known by the nickname “Juden Kaiser.” As the encyclopedists report – ten imperial soldiers always stood watch in front of his palace. He owned many houses and gardens in Vienna, as well as all kinds of real estate in Frankfurt am Main, Worms and other cities. Samson organized and sponsored yeshivas and donated much money in Europe and Palestine. According to Austrian law, Jews who were not residents of Vienna were forbidden to spend the night in the city. Only Samson Wertheimer’s personal written authorization gave them the right to spend the night. If we trace the history of the Viennese Jewish community at that time, we know that it had a very difficult time recovering from the expulsion of the Jews from the city in 1670.
As Chabad points out, the community was not allowed to build a synagogue, so the Jews prayed in private homes. Samson himself interpreted the Torah every Sabbath in his home. The situation of the Jews of Vienna was rather sad, despite the “Highest Grace” granted to them once again to live in the capital of the Catholic kingdom. For the right to live in Vienna they paid special “patience money” in addition to the usual taxes. To keep the number of Jews in the capital from increasing, only one son in the family was allowed to marry. By the way, this inhuman law was further extended to the whole Austro-Hungarian Empire, and was abolished in the very recent historical past. The same law was the reason for the migration of Austrian Jews to Poland, and later to the Russian Empire or to the New World. It was Samson Wertheim who did a great deal, and at times made simply incredible efforts to make life easier for the Jewish community of Vienna. His efforts extended not only to the capital of the vast Habsburg Empire. The Jews of Hungary, Worms, and Bohemia supported him in every possible way. Despite the fact that Samson’s appointment as chief rabbi of many lands of the Austrian Empire was by imperial decree, the Jews of the Empire themselves never ceased to welcome this appointment.
As Samson’s contemporaries testified, he possessed “great Talmudic knowledge, and from near and far he was approached with inquiries of a ritual nature, which the rabbinical court presided over”. He attracted to the work of his rabbinical court such famous authorities of the time as Yaakov Eliezer Braunschweig, Simon ben-Juda Leib Yalles of Krakow, and Alexander ben-Menachem ha-Levi of Prosnitz. Contemporaries spoke of him as ο “the rabbi of the great communities of Israel.” He donated money for numerous editions of Talmudic books, and in particular he assumed most of the costs of publishing the Babylonian Talmud in Frankfurt am Main in 1712-22. When Eisenmenger’s then-famous Judeophobic book appeared, Samson pleaded with Emperor Leopold I to prohibit the distribution of this book as dangerous and harmful. As a consequence, two thousand copies of the book were confiscated and its sale was forbidden for many years. After the destruction of the Jewish community of Eisenstadt during the Hungarian uprising of Rakosy in 1708, he helped to rebuild it. According to the Concise Jewish Encyclopedia, “Together with other Court Jews, Wertheimer prevented the expulsion of the Jews from Rothenburg by paying a large ransom for them, and also successfully interceded with the authorities for the communities of Worms and Frankfurt.” He built the famous synagogue, which, in any case, existed in Vienna at the beginning of the 20th century and was called “Samson’s Schule” – that is, Samson’s synagogue. Not to mention that he helped to found and organize about forty Jewish communities in Hungary.
In his old age Samson Wertheimer left the service of the court, passing the business to his eldest son Wolf, who was born in 1681, and died in 1765 – in the Bavarian capital of Munich. Wolf, according to the old family tradition, was married to a member of the Oppenheimer clan (daughter of Immanuel Oppenheimer and granddaughter of the same Samuel who facilitated Samson’s move to Vienna). Wolf took an active part in his father’s money affairs and assisted him as court financial agent. In addition to public affairs, Samson also entrusted Wolf with Jewish affairs, especially philanthropic affairs. It should be noted that the funds founded by Samson lasted for many years. His money went to support the Jews of Palestine and the development of Jewish communities in the Austrian Empire. The foundation continued its activities into the 20th century – as early as 1909, the Jerusalem branch of the foundation gave grants to the German Jews of Palestine. A museum of Austrian Jewry was also created on the money of the Wertheimer Foundation. Wolf was less successful than his father in the financial field. Having failed to receive the money due to him from the Bavarian government, as written by Brockhaus and Efron, he was on the verge of bankruptcy. For some time he was able to pay only half interest on 150 thousand guilders left by his father for charitable purposes. However, his affairs improved again when Elector Maximilian, the ruler of Bavaria, liquidated his debts. In 1769, after Wolf’s death, Samson’s grandsons provided a fund of 150 thousand guilders, to which they added another 40 thousand guilders (money at that time huge). Wolf’s grandchildren received titles of nobility and the Wertheimer clan continued to develop and grow.
In total, Samson Wertheimer had 8 children by two wives. As befits a politician and financier, he arranged the marriages of his children in order to prosper both the financial and spiritual legacy of the clan. He strengthened his family ties to the Oppenheimer clan with the marriage of his son Wolf and daughter Tolze; by marrying his daughter Chava Rebbeka to Issachar Berush (Bernard) Escales, he became related to Gabriel ben-Juda Loeb Escales, one of the most respected rabbis of the time. Samson’s second son Yuda Loeb (1698-1749), married Sarchen, daughter of Issachar ha-Levi Berman of Halberstadt, a relative of Lipman Berends, a Hanoverian Court Jew; and daughter Serchen was given away directly to this Lipman’s son, Yuda Naftali Herz Berends. A daughter, Sarra, was given in marriage to Moses Loeb Isaac Kann, rabbi of Frankfurter am Main, who later became chief rabbi of the grand duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt. Another daughter, Hana, went to Hamburg after Zelikman Berend Kahn, another representative of the rabbinic dynasties of the time. Samson’s youngest son Yosef married his niece.
Thus, almost all of the prominent Jewish families of Central and Western Europe in the late 17th and early 18th centuries were connected by kinship. The financial success of Samson and his new relatives ensured that their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren would enjoy a prosperous existence and that their extensive financial empire would continue to flourish. Their families were very numerous, all of them had eight or even more children. The clan grew and prospered. It should be noted that the choice of new relatives in the Wertheimer clan, apparently, always occupied the minds of its representatives. The clan, during its existence, has been twinned with such bright and famous financial or rabbinical medieval families as Jaffe, Theomim, Katzenelenbogen, Auerbach, Weil, and Goldstein. Always these were the best parties of their time, both in the financial sense and in the Jewish sense. We meet very few Wertheimers who have departed from Judaism throughout the whole history of this clan.
One of the families or branches of the Wertheim family moved from Germany to Poland and Bessarabia in the early 18th century. Representatives of this part of the family became famous Hasidic tzaddiks. The first of them – Shimon Shlomo, son of Avraham Wertheim is considered a representative of the third generation (after the famous Baal Shem Tov) of Hasidic Magidim. He lived in Savran (near the border of what was then Poland and Bessarabia, which at that time belonged to Turkey). Savran, founded in the 17th century as a military and border settlement of Poland on the side of Ochakov, was called to repel Turkish and Tatar raids. It was then called Koniecz-Polski or Ust-Savron. Later, in the 18th century Savran was constantly attacked by Haidamaks, who hated Poles and Jews alike. After annexation to Russia Savran became a locality of Podolia province, Balt district. In the 18th, and even more so in the 19th century, Jews were the majority in this village. In 1847 “Savran Jewish Society” consisted of 2548 people.
It was Shimon Shlomo Wertheim (who died in 1790) who became the founder of the famous Savran Hasidic dynasty. His son, Moshe Tzvi ben Shimon Shlomo Wertheim, who was already born in Savran and better known as the Savran Rebbe (whose Talmudic sayings are still quoted today) moved from Savran to Odessa. Moshe Zvi moved to Odessa with the second wave of immigrants who actually built up the city and was at that time the most famous (and perhaps the first) Hasidic Admor of Odessa. Migdal Times writes: “In the XIX century, in the eyes of Russian Jews, brought to poverty by the government policy, living in overpopulated localities of the sedentary zone, Odessa appeared as a kind of fairy-tale country, the embodiment of a new life, and a wave of immigrants, among whom were very different people, poured into the city. Having escaped from the localities and having seen themselves “in the vastness” of the European city, many of them gradually began to lose touch with the traditional Jewish way of life. That’s why Odessa was notorious among the Jews at that time. “For a whole mile around this city,” people said, “the flames of Gehenna – hell are blazing. The author of this statement is considered to be one of the Hasidic tzaddiks, Moshe-Tzvi, the Savran Rebbe. He was one of the most ardent fighters against the new trends.” Moshe Tzvi died in 1838. Moshe Tzvi named his son, who also became a Hasidic Rebbe, after his grandfather – Shimon Shlomo ben Moshe Tzvi.
Another Hasidic tzaddik from this family became the first rabbi of the city of Bendery. Leib Wertheim, born in 1780 and a great-grandson of that famous Austrian rabbi and financial magnate Shimshon (or Samson) Wirtheim, about whom we wrote above, took the place of the rabbi of Bendery in 1810. In 1812, Bender was annexed to Russia. Before Leib Wirtheim appeared in the city, there was a synagogue in Bender, built in 1770, when the city itself was still within the fortress. According to Brockhaus and Efron “when the city was moved to a new place”, or we can say, during its further expansion, the synagogue that remained in the fortress “was visited only on the day of Yom Kippur”. According to Leib Wertheim’s decree, this old synagogue “due to its dilapidation” was destroyed, and the stone from it was used to build a new synagogue. Leib also organized for the first time in Bender the Hevra Kadisha society. In general, Leib Wertheim did so much for the Jews of Bender and became such a legendary figure that according to the memories of contemporaries, recorded in the early twentieth century, in the Bender cemetery “people come en masse to pray at the grave of Wertheim and in the mausoleum above it to light a lamp, and each visitor puts a note in a special box with the statement of his grief and need, counting on the intercession of the late tzadik in his favor before God. Numerous descendants of Leib Wertheim continued to live in Bessarabia and Romania (mainly in Bender and Kishinev) in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Returning to the Austrian branch of the family, we would like to note that, despite the fact that we do not know exactly when the first of the Wertheim family moved to Worms, leaving the town from which they received their surname, we have every reason to assume that it happened soon after 1556. The fact is that in 1556 the county of Wertheim (together with the town and its inhabitants) was transferred to the duchy of Stolberg. Thus, its population (at least part of it, and this was especially true for the Jews) were given greater freedom of movement. In our opinion, it was at this time that Shimon (Simon) Wolf’s grandfather, the first of the family to receive the nickname “Wertheim” and later the surname Wertheim, set out on his journey and left the town where he was born. Shimon’s famous grandson Samson, as we pointed out earlier, was born already in Worms, as were his two brothers, Mendel and Meir. Children and grandchildren were born to each of them. Samson’s branch is the most traced so far – he had three sons – Wolf, born in 1681 and died in 1765 in Munich, Leib, who died in 1763, and Joseph, born in the year of his grandfather’s death and named in his honor in 1713, and died in 1761. To these three sons of Samson went his financial empire.
To the descendants of this clan belongs Joseph von Wertheimer (he was most likely Samson’s great-grandson) – a famous public figure and writer, born in Vienna in 1800. Already from an early age, Joseph became interested in pedagogy and education. In 1824 he traveled to London, where he studied the organization of kindergartens, and in 1826 and 1828 he undertook a study tour throughout Europe, studying the experience of mainland countries. After completing his educational program, Joseph addressed a letter to the Austrian government in which he advocated the need for kindergartens and orphanages in Austria. In 1830 his endeavors culminated in success when, in cooperation with the Catholic priest Johann Lindner, he opened the first kindergarten in Vienna. The success of the garden was so great that the capital’s endeavor was taken up by many cities of the empire. For his services to the city, Emperor Franz Joseph elevated Joseph to the nobility, and the municipal council elected him an honorary citizen of Vienna. In addition to his public activities for the benefit of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Joseph took an active part in the affairs of the Jewish community of Vienna. He consistently advocated all proposals for the improvement of the education of Jewish youth, and later was even elected to the position of chairman of the community. He was the first to organize vocational training for Jewish youth, both boys and girls. As a man of great influence in court circles, Joseph repeatedly spoke both privately and publicly in favor of the equalization of Jewish rights.
Like all Jewish families, the Wertheimer family did not spread across Europe randomly – family members settled in new places and close and sometimes distant relatives came to them in turn. We mentioned that the descendants of Samson Wertheim’s family in the middle of the 18th century had already settled in the provinces of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In particular, Samson’s daughters settled in the northern lands of Germany, and part of the family returned to the historical ancestral homeland – the Prine regions of Germany. Further we meet members of this clan in Holland, France, England and, of course, in German-speaking countries.
The Jewish Encyclopedia mentions John Wertheimer, the head of the famous publishing house of Wertheimer, Lea and Co. who was born at the end of the 18th century and died in London in 1883. Among the numerous books he published, chiefly on philology, medicine, and pedagogy, were many Jewish ones; the firm also printed the journal “Jewish Chronicles.” Among his descendants we find Asher Wertheimer, the famous English art connoisseur and agent of many artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Moving from the British Isles across the Channel back to continental Europe, we find another prominent member of this clan – Wilhelm Wertheim. Wilhelm was born in Vienna in 1815 to a family of Viennese bankers – descendants of Samson Wertheim. Wilhelm’s father was the head of the Jewish community of Vienna. Due to the restrictions on education for Jews in Austria at the time, Wilhelm was only able to receive a medical education. But after he became a doctor of medicine in 1839, he attended lectures in mathematics and physics at the University of Berlin for two years. After that he moved to Paris and began to engage in experimental research. He was interested in such a field of physics as solid mechanics. He made great progress in his scientific endeavors and became first a supernumerary examiner at the École Polytechnique in Paris and then a supernumerary professor at the Faculty of Montpellier. In Paris he was known as Guillaume Wertheim. Students of all engineering universities remember with awe such a difficult subject as “resistance of materials” or as it was called in the USSR – “copromat”. It was Wilhelm (Guillaume) Wertheim who contributed to the development of this field of scientific knowledge with his experimental research. He even discovered a physical law that bears his name – “Wertheim’s law”. His life ended, unfortunately, tragically. He committed suicide by throwing himself down from the bell tower of St. Gaten Cathedral in Tours.
Returning to the history of another branch of the Wertheim clan, we must note that the descendants of this family, who settled in Holland, prospered. The Dutch house of Wertheim has been known for nearly 200 years. The founder of this branch is Abraham Karel Wertheim – a Dutch politician, who was born in 1832 and died in 1897 in Amsterdam. For several decades he was one of the most influential members of the liberal party in the Upper House. He was also a longtime member of the provincial states of North Holland. Abraham, like many other wealthy men, combined his political career with a career as a financier. As a major banker, he allocated large amounts of money to charity. His son Alexander Hendrik (born in 1864 and died in 1932) was a famous lawyer, and Abraham’s daughter became a famous composer.
Returning to 19th century Austria-Hungary we meet many of Samson’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren. The Jewish Encyclopedia of Brockhaus and Ephron mentions the famous writer Imanuel Wertheimer. Imanuel was born in Budapest in 1846. In 1865 he moved to the capital of the empire and began to collaborate in the periodical press. He gained fame with his tragedy “Cromwell”, written in 1875 and staged many times in the theaters of Vienna, Berlin and Munich. In Vienna we meet also another playwright, a member of this family. Paul Wertheimer was born in the Austrian capital in 1874. He became a lawyer, but this activity did not capture him entirely. The remaining forces he devoted to creativity. At the beginning of the century, he published several collections of poetry and drama.
Another member of the same family who was able to escape the winds of change that carried emancipation and haskalah into fashion, Solomon Aaron Wertheimer, became a famous rabbi. Solomon was born in the Hungarian town of Pesing in 1866. In 1871, the family moved to Jerusalem, where the boy received a classical Jewish education. In 1890 he worked extensively in the famous Cairo genizah, where he collected Jewish manuscripts, from which he later compiled many of his writings and works. Among them we find Talmudic studies, a collection of Midrash from manuscripts he found, notes on prayers, and others.
Another member of this famous family is a man who is among the most famous psychologists in the world, the founder of Gestalt psychology – Max Wertheimer. He was born in Prague in 1880 and died in the twentieth century, in 1943, in New York. At one time he studied law at the University of Prague, but soon began to study psychology and attended the famous lectures of Prof. Ehrenfels. He then moved to the University of Berlin, where he studied philosophy and psychology. In 1904 he defended his doctoral thesis at the University of Würzburg. He worked at the universities of Prague, Vienna, Berlin, and Frankfurt. In 1933, after the majority of Germans democratically brought Hitler to power, he left Germany and emigrated with his family to the United States. It is Max Wertheimer who is the founder of one of the most widespread and fashionable in the modern world trends of psychology – Gestalt psychology. His searches, experiments and studies of “stages of thinking” were extremely diverse and daring even within the framework of modern psychology. He was clearly ahead of his time in many respects – even then he was already dealing with the problems of parapsychology and supersensory perception on the one hand, and on the other hand he was developing the future “lie detector”.
The next representative of this famous family name, who created a financial empire in the twentieth century – Pierre Wertheimer. He was in fact the financial manager or as he was called “the brain and gray cardinal” of the famous Coco Chanel, who, by the way, was famous for her anti-Semitism. Pierre’s great-grandfather – Leiman Wertheimer was born in Alsace, near the same Baden, in the town of Otrot in 1797. Leiman was the son of a slaughterer, and was himself engaged in the cattle trade. When Alsace was annexed to Germany in 1871, one of Leiman’s three grandsons, Ernest, emigrated to France and settled in Paris. It was he who laid the foundation for the prosperity of the future financial empire. One of his sons – the already mentioned Pierre, born in 1888, married a representative of the Jewish dynasty of French bankers Lazar. Pierre and his brother Paul, who worked together all their lives, created a huge financial empire, which today is run by their grandchildren and is considered one of the largest financial structures in modern Europe.
Another modern financial empire of the Wertheim family belongs to Zeev (Stef) Wertheimer, an Israeli businessman and public figure. His family, according to newspapers, is one of the 16 richest families in Israel. Ze’ev was born in 1926 in Kippenheim, Germany, the home of a branch of the Wertheim clan. His family moved to Eretz Israel in 1937. According to the Concise Jewish Encyclopedia “In 1943, Wertheimer volunteered for the British Air Force, working as an optical equipment repair technician at an air force base in Bahrain. In 1945 he joined the Palmach Force and completed a flight course at Kibbutz Na’an. In 1947-48 he worked as a technician in the underground war industry and in the Palmach Iftah Brigade.” In 1952, Wertheimer founded Iskar, a company for the development and production of cutting tools and superhard alloy products, which was one of the first to export domestic industrial products to the United States and European countries. “Iskar has established 63 subsidiary companies and branches in Europe and the Far East.” In 1977, Ze’ev became a member of the Knesset. He is one of the initiators and creators of the so-called “industrial parks”. He is also the founder of hi-tech centers in Israel. In 1991, he received the Israel State Prize. With his own money he created a museum dedicated to German Jews.
At the end of this article we would like to tell you about the latest events that happened not so long ago, in 2005, with the members of a large Jewish clan Wertheim, the descendants of one of the branches of which live in the United States. This branch of the Wertheims, the representatives of which until the early 30’s owned about 50 land plots and trading enterprises in Berlin alone. In particular, they owned the largest department store in the center of Berlin (the prototype of the current malls) and the land on which the Germans were built Hitler’s personal bunker, in the walls of which the Fuhrer, his wife Eva Braun and members of the Goebbels family committed suicide. The total amount of material claims of the Wertheim clan to Germany for the so-called “arized commercial enterprises and plots of land” is about 500 million euros. According to German newspapers, “after the Nazis came to power, the Wertheim family was forced to sell all their business and land plots to the Third Reich. The then head of the family Georg Wertheim under threat of reprisal left the management of the concern. In 1939, he managed to move across the ocean to the United States, which saved his life. Less fortunate was his brother Fritz, who ended up in a concentration camp. Georg told his children almost nothing, he did not want to remember his life in Germany at all. After the war, most of the Wertheims’ land ended up in the GDR. Only, after the destruction of the Berlin Wall, in 1991, Georg Wertheim’s daughter Barbara Prinzip, 72, filed a lawsuit claiming ownership of her family’s plots. Finally, in 2005, she was able to win that lawsuit. “This is a huge victory for our whole family that we have been waiting for for years,” she said – she said.