7. The Marx family settle in Cologne
The Urbanisation of Jews
Jews had for centuries, been very much separate from mainstream society. They had no access to schooling other than from within their religious communities and certainly little opportunity for further education. They were barred from commerce and ownership of property. Yet during the early life of Sara, there was a pronounced and noticeable elevation in prosperity for Jewish families and our Marx family was no exception. It was a restructuring of Jewish society, their lifestyle and economic activity that produced an explosion of activity, given the many generations of exclusion, eroded by gradual emancipation.
This urbanisation modernised the Jews and the new access to schooling and further education which they embraced, projected Jews into all areas of commerce and professions. The restrictions up until this point had limited intellectual pursuits apart from Torah study. The Torah is the first five books in the Bible, called the five books of Moses. According to Jewish tradition, these were all handed down to the Israelites when they received the Ten Commandments. Jews recognised the importance of education for developing their talents and qualities and as a means for upward mobility in the developing modern society.
We have seen our family moving towards cities, from the late 19th Century. This was a striking part of the social and economic trend for Jews at this time. As with Emanuel Marx, it started in the mid-19thCentury and reached its peak between 1890 and 1930. For example, in 1860 Berlin there were 19,000 Jews living there. By 1925 the number was 173,000. At this point, over 30% of all Jews in Germany were living in Berlin.
The pedlars, moneylenders and itinerant Jewish country folk of yore transformed themselves into shopkeepers and bankers. They entered the freelance professions of doctors and lawyers. The number of Jewish doctors exploded in disproportion to the number of Jews in society as a whole. Their growing wealth and prosperity could even be seen in the tax paid. According to statistics in 1905 for example, in Frankfurt am Main, Catholic taxpayers paid on average 59.40 Marks, Protestants 121.00 Marks versus Jewish taxpayers 427.50 Marks. And yet, by 1925, the forces of antisemitism prevalent and continuing in society, such high points were in decline. While more Jews were spread into all areas of social, commercial and industrial life, ownership at the top level was diminishing. This was a particular period which was not to last.
This huge social rise was noticed by the general population who became envious, causing occasional riots and social unrest. In Berlin, for example, there is a massive Jewish cemetery and the Jews built large mausoleums for their families and loved ones. This caused huge upset to the local people seeing the display of such wealth on the dead when their own living circumstances were no match.
Here are the seeds of later destruction but for now they were unseen, and our families were taking advantage of their growing status and looking after the well-being of their families and their loved ones.
Settling in Cologne
Sara and Ludwig establish themselves in Cologne and settle down to family life with four boys. They moved into lodgings at 6 RichardWagnerStraße. This is on the outskirts of Cologne, about a mile west of the Cathedral in the centre of the city by the Rhine River. Their attention is on schooling and growing their business.
The offices of Ludolf’s business, called by his name Ludolf Marx, were at number 6, Kaiser Wilhelmring. It was conveniently a ten-minute walk from their home. Eventually, when they became more established and prosperous, they moved home. It was after the First World War that Ludwig relocated his offices at the same time, to a more prestigious, central location, Breitestraße, a very commercial district of the city. Sara and Ludolf also moved a couple of times, eventually settling in Kinkelstraße, closer into the city. This is where she remained until being kicked out by the Nazis sometime in 1940.
Education
Erich was sent to the Oberrealschule in 1898 at the age of 10. An Oberrealschule ranks in the middle between Gymnasium at the top and Hauptschule at the bottom. He was clearly intelligent enough to be sent afterwards to a technical/commercial college called Handelsrealschule. This seems to have been the route for all four boys. Ludwig refers to his schooling in a CV he used to apply for emigration to Australia in 1937.
Four Marx boys
As his boys reach their late teens, Ludolf has them occasionally working for him, writing letters to clients, and doing various administrative tasks, good training for their futures. I have two surviving letters written by Erich in Jan 1906 and Ludwig in March 1906 when they were 18 and 17 respectively. The writing is in parts copperplate but in others difficult to read, especially as they use a very formal German script handwriting.
Note the blue crayon date. Ludolf used a red crayon and a blue crayon to mark his correspondence, blue meaning resolved and red as an alert.
Erich Marx
In 1907 Erich passes his school certificate and takes on evening classes at a technical college while apprenticing as a machine tool operator. Life however is interrupted by military service as Erich reaches 18 years of age, something all German teenagers had to do.
After military service, Erich becomes a service engineer with a company called Eduard Wille in Cronenberg, a district of Wuppertal. Cronenberg is about 50km North of Cologne, and he takes the train each day from home to work. The company still exists today, now known as Stahlwille Eduard Wille GmbH & Co.KG, manufacturing hand tools for the automotive, industrial, and aerospace industries. It was right up Erich’s street, and a forerunner of his own, future company. He worked with Eduard Wille for two years and then became a manager at Hartin Maschinenbau, also a company that still exists today.
Willi Marx
Willi trod a similar path, setting the trend for his younger brothers. I do not know whether he went straight into the family business or took up other activities first. it is likely that he too was educated in a technical or commercial college and completed military service thereafter.
Ludwig Marx
After attending the Oberrealschule, Ludwig also goes on to study business and commerce at a Handelsrealschule. He too is apprenticed but with a glove manufacturing and wholesale business. At the end of his apprenticeship, Ludwig would have done his military service. Afterwards, he started working, importing and exporting foreign and domestic wax and became manager of his own business styled Ludmar. Ludmar probably stood for LUDwig MARx, a tradition that various members of the Marx family used to create names for companies.
It's probable that this interest in wax came from the association with his grandfather, Simon Holländer who worked with animal and mineral fats and oils.
Kurt Marx
Kurt meanwhile, after he finished school, went to work for his Dad, but things went drastically awry (more of which later!). In 1912 he went to Belgium to train as a photographer. This was set up by his father and he seemed to have settled well there, becoming fluent in French.
Family life and the individual pursuits of each boy were interrupted by an event in the Balkans in 1914.
-Attributions:
Many of the documents and photographs here are, or at some time in the future will be, lodged as a family archive with the Jewish Museum in Berlin. Jüdisches Museum Berlin, Schenkung von Frau Anne Marx in liebevoller Erinnerung an ihren Mann Carl Theodore.
Jewish Social History in the 19th and early 20th Centuries – UCLA conference paper author Reinhard Rürup published 4 Feb 2004