Stumbling Stones in Chemnitz

Dr Helmuth Daniel Klemperer
Born: 29 October 1900
Died: 31/08/1968

Ursula Klemperer, née Pabst
Born: 11.09.1908
Died: unknown

Charlotte Edith Klemperer,
married name Navia
Born: 16 June 1931
Died: 20/08/1999

Justus Thomas Klemperer
Born: 06.10.1936
Died: unknown

Dr Helmuth Klemperer was one of the 14 Jewish lawyers who had been admitted to the bar at the Chemnitz District Court
admitted to the bar at the Chemnitz District Court and Regional Court. What is known about the
man who had such a sonorous surname?

Helmuth Daniel Klemperer was born in Dresden, the son of Leon Klemperer and Charlotte Polak. His father was an authorised signatory at Dresdner Bank. He had several siblings.

He studied law at the universities of Göttingen, Leipzig and Freiburg. He completed his studies on 18 March 1922. Among other things, he was later a trainee lawyer at the Sayda district court. On 1 November 1922, he submitted his dissertation to the Faculty of Law in Leipzig,
in which he dealt with the topic "The German states in international law". On 6 March 1923
he was awarded the title "Dr jur.

In December 1925, Dr Klemperer was admitted as an assessor at the district court and regional court in Chemnitz, initially living at Weststraße 30 before finding a suitable flat at Heinrich-Beck-Straße 1. In the same year (1925), his older brother Dr Josef Hermann Klemperer (1899-1973) found a job as a doctor at the state sanatorium and nursing home in Untergöltzsch near Rodewisch.

Two years later, Dr Helmuth Klemperer became a partner of Dr Fritz Gabriel Cohn, who had his office at Zwickauer Straße 6. He was the successor to Dr Woldemar Uhlemann, who had left the firm.

During this time, Dr Helmuth Klemperer met Ursula Margarete Pabst, a dental assistant who lived on Gerhart-Hauptmann-Platz. Even before they married, she gave birth to a girl on 16 June 1931. Charlotte Edith was born in the private clinic of gynaecologists Dr Hermann Uhle and Dr Franz Vogt. It is not known when and where Dr Helmuth Klemperer married the merchant's daughter.

The couple moved into a flat on the first floor of Heinrich-Beck-Straße 1, the same building that housed the Jewish Community Centre until 1933/34.

As a result of the Nazi seizure of power, Dr Klemper's
Dr Klemperer's professional situation changed abruptly. In a letter from the Saxon Minister of Justice dated
4 May 1933, he was informed that "the
withdrawal of his licence to practise law" was being considered. As a non-war veteran, he had to expect this. And indeed, Dr Klemperer's licence was withdrawn from 7 June 1933. However, Dr Klemperer had already left Chemnitz and Germany for political reasons. He had probably travelled to
He had probably emigrated with his family to Barcelona (Spain) in March 1933.

On 13 May 1933, the lawyer wrote a courageous reply to the Saxon Minister of Justice in which he boasted that he was of Jewish descent "like Jesus Christ and Karl Marx, the great advocates of the rights of the weary and burdened, the oppressed and exploited classes". He called on the minister to expel him from the legal profession and ended the letter with the slogan "Germany, wake up!", which was widely used by the National Socialists. The writer Kurt Tucholsky had used this expression as the title of a poem in 1930 in which he drew attention to the fascist danger.

The Chemnitz lawyer and councillor Dr Reinhold Regler, who had been a member of the NSDAP since February 1931, attacked Dr Klemperer in a letter as "one of the worst Bolshevists we had here in Chemnitz".

Dr Klemperer initially lived in Barcelona. His wife gave birth to a boy in the Catalan city of Esplugues de Llobregat on 6 October 1936. He was given the first name Justus Thomas. In June 1937, the family emigrated to Ecuador via Prague. Dr Helmuth Klemperer worked there as a commercial correspondent and translator.

He was naturalised again in Germany in July 1953 and re-admitted as a lawyer in Wiesbaden in 1957. His marriage broke up during this time. Dr Helmuth Klemperer died in Guayaquil (Ecuador) at the age of 67.

Author: Dr Jürgen Nitsche

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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