Hilde Ottenheimer

"I was born on 11 December 1896 in Ludwigsburg. After completing a ten-grade girls' secondary school and a one-year course at a commercial college in Stuttgart, I worked as an office assistant for two years. From 1916-1919, I attended the Social Women's School in Mannheim and then worked for three years as managing director of the Württemberg State Association for Jewish Welfare in Stuttgart. In 1923, I was admitted to study social sciences at the University of Frankfurt am Main with a small matriculation, However, I had to break off my studies there prematurely and then worked for the Central Welfare Organisation of German Jews for five years. On the basis of private preparation and after attending the upper secondary school of the Augusta State School in Berlin, I took the humanistic Abitur at Easter 1930 and was enrolled exclusively at the Faculty of Philosophy of the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin.
I mainly studied under Professors Maier [?] and Spranger, to whom I owe many thanks for their rich encouragement and manifold appreciation.^"1

Hilde Ottenheimer sent this curriculum vitae to the Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy at Friedrich Wilhelm University Berlin on 29 June 1933 with the request that she be accepted for the doctoral examination for the major subjects of philosophy and education as well as the minor subjects of economics and history^.2

Hilde Ottenheimer enrolled at the Faculty of Philosophy in April 1930, where she was given the matriculation number 6194-120^.3 She earned her living through academic work, including writing a study on "Social Pedagogy in the Penal System" in 1931. She "published almost exclusively in Jewish publications. Her articles focussed on educational welfare, juvenile court assistance and the penal system. She argued in favour of education instead of punishment, for support instead of repression"^.4 Her tuition fees were waived for the winter semester of 1932/33; she was even granted a loan to prepare for her exams. When the National Socialists came to power in the summer semester of 1933, no more payments were received, so she had to work again to earn a living^.5

Fearing that, as a Jew, she would no longer be allowed to sit her exams, Hilde Ottenheimer hurriedly completed her dissertation - this haste was also criticised by the correctors Eduard Spranger and Ignatz Jastrow, who nevertheless gave her an "idoneum" (Latin for "suitable")^.6 She did not pass the oral examination, which she took on 20 July 1933. When she learnt of this, she asked for a revision. She explained her failure as a "complete failure of nerve" - due to overexertion and lack of time. In addition, as a Jew, she "had to expect to sit the exam at any time this semester"^.7 She enclosed a letter attesting to her current, but temporary, enormous psychological strain^.8 The request for a revision was not granted; however, she was able to retake the exam on 22 February 1934 and passed. She was enrolled at the university until April 1934.

Hilde Ottenheimer continued to work academically. She wrote articles for the anthology "Jews in German Culture", was on the editorial board of "Germania Judaica" and probably also worked for Leo Baeck^.9

She was deported from Berlin to Riga on 19 October 1942 and died there on 22 October 1942^.10 Hilde Ottenheimer's mother, Sara, was deported to Theresienstadt together with her daughter Klara Greilsamer and his husband Jakob on 22 August 1942. From there, they were taken to Auschwitz in October 1944, where they were murdered^.11 Stumbling stones were laid for them and for one of Hilde Ottenheimer's aunts in Ludwigsburg, her home town.

Hilde Ottenheimer's nephew Harry Grenville (then Heinz Greisinger), who left Germany in 1939 as a 13-year-old on a Kindertransport together with his sister Hannah, remembers his aunt in 2010:

"The most exciting events were the rare occasions when she flew from Berlin to Stuttgart. I always wanted to hear all about the flight. [...] Birthdays were important. From about age 6 I always wrote a birthday letter to Aunt Hilde in December and she always sent us a birthday present. I remember a very fine kaleidoscope and a pocket torch [...].
On one occasion I went with my mother to visit Aunt Hilde in Berlin. This was during the Nazi period and it was already difficult for Jews to visit some of the usual sights but Hilde did her best to make sure that I saw as much as possible of the city. She lived at that time in a large room in Z?hringerstra?e, and was always very amused that her landlady spent every morning talking to her friends on the telephone. [...]
You will have read about the difficulties she had in 1933 to get the University of Berlin to confer her doctorate, but it finally was approved on 22nd February 1934, my 8th birthday. I remember the excitement when the telegram arrived.^"12