Stumbling Stones in Chemnitz
Dr Ernst Martin Müller
Dr Ernst Martin Müller
Born: 18 March 1879
Died: 30.08.1942
Godparents: Friedrich Schönemann and Ruth Hellmann
Installation location:
Bahnhofstraße 74Stumbling stone laying on:
5 December 2019
Life path
Dr Ernst Martin Müller - born on 18 May 1879 in Königsberg (East Prussia) - ran a thriving medical practice at Lange Straße 12. After working as an assistant doctor in Leipzig and at the University Dermatological Clinic in Breslau, the doctor set up his practice in a commercial building in the lively centre of Chemnitz in 1913. The practice, in which the specialist also offered his patients X-ray and light treatment, went well. Professionally successful, the doctor married the concert singer Helene Maria Winterer on 20 September 1926 and lived with her in the house where he also practised.
Singer Helene Müller-Winterer gave singing lessons there in the 1920s. Dr Müller's own interest in culture can certainly be seen in his membership of the Chemnitz "Kunsthütte" association. After the National Socialists seized power at the beginning of 1933, however, the couple's situation changed, although Müller's practice was not initially affected by the NSDAP's call to boycott Jewish goods, doctors and lawyers on 1 April 1933. In 1935, the medical practice came to the attention of the local Nazi authorities. Dr Ernst Martin Müller was included in a "List of non-Aryan business owners and tradesmen in the Chemnitz district" compiled by the city administration.
The Jewish doctor's licence to practise was revoked by the Nazi authorities in September 1938. Two months later, the couple moved to Munich. The deportations of Jews to the East began there in November 1941. Transports to the Theresienstadt ghetto were organised almost weekly in the summer of 1942. Faced with this threat, Dr Ernst Müller decided to commit suicide on 30 August 1942.
Stumbling stones in Chemnitz
It is a project against forgetting: stumbling stones have been laid in Chemnitz every year since 2007.
Embedded in the pavement, the memorial stones commemorate the tragic fates of fellow citizens who were persecuted, deported, murdered or driven to their deaths during the National Socialist regime.
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