“Albert Hirschland: Der Rasseschänder  [race-defiler] von Magdeburg,” Der Stürmer, special edition no. 2, August 1935. Gestapo Sachsen,

The right of Albert Hirschland to receive baptism is defended as legitimate by the Council of Brethren in Saxony, despite antisemitic campaign and show-trial against him.

Daniel Kester summarises:

In 1935 Albert Hirschland, the principal of a business college in Magdeburg, was accused of having sex with underage non-Jewish students. He was arrested and put on trial for “race defilement”, and details of his case were published and broadcast throughout Germany. The Hirschland trial was one of the Nazi’s biggest propaganda efforts up to that time, and they used it to try and demonstrate the perverted nature of the Jews. Accusations were made of Hirschland seducing hundreds of innocent girls, and of mass orgies in a friend’s apartment. The anti-Semitic Nazi paper, “Der Sturmer” put out a special 16-page issue about, “Albert Hirschland, the Race-defiler from Magdeburg” (see cover at right). Two million copies of the special issue were distributed. The media campaign in Magdeburg “reached a frenzy of demonization and hatred”. Hirschland was found guilty of five counts of illicit sexual acts and sentenced to 10 years in prison and 10 years of “preventive detention”. The anti-Jewish hysteria that the Nazis whipped up helped set the stage for the Nuremberg laws introduced later that year, which stripped the Jews of many of their rights and made marriage as well as sexual relations between Jews and non-Jews illegal. Hirschland was imprisoned, and in 1943 murdered at Auschwitz.

From Michael E. Abrahams-Sprod,

 “Life under Siege: The Jews of Magdeburg under Nazi Rule” Michael E. Abrahams-Sprod, 165-172. (PhD. Diss., Department of Hebrew, Biblical and Jewish Studies, The University of Sydney , June 2006), 185-196.

The most widely publicised and sensationalised trial for ‘Rassenschande’ [race-defilement] in Magdeburg for the entire Nazi period was that of Albert Hirschland, who was tried and convicted in June 1935. This was the first show trial in the city and attracted significant local and national media coverage. The propaganda value of the trial was maximised by the Nazi Party with a sixteen-page special edition of Der Stürmer dedicated solely to the Hirschland case published throughout Germany on 1 August 1935.

In 1935 Albert Hirschland was the director of the formerly named ‘Bruckshöhere Handelsschule’. The renamed ‘Kaufmännische Privatschule’ was a vocational institution which had been founded some thirty-eight years prior by Hirschland’s brother-in-law, Alfred Bruck. Bruck was married to Hirschland’s sister, Elfriede. All parties were Jewish. Owing to Bruck’s partial blindness and ill-health, Hirschland had operated the business college for some time.

Hirschland had commenced instruction for conversion to Lutheranism inNovember 1934 and was duly baptised on 17 March 1935. His baptism took place at St Ulrich’s Church, Madgeburg, by Pastor Oskar Zuckschwerdt, a member of the Confessing Church that resisted the Nazis. He was detained several times by the Nazis and was savaged in Der Sturmer for allowing Hirschland to be baptisted.

Prayer: Thank you Lord for those pastors who defended the rights of Jewish people to become believers in Yeshua. Help us today to preserve and protects the rights and freedoms of all, especially where communities are in conflict. In Yeshua’s name we pray. Amen.

Christopher J. Probst, Demonizing the Jews: Luther and the Protestant Church in Nazi Germany (USA: Indiana University Press, 2012), 85-88.

Albert HIRSCHLAND (29 November 1896, Steinheim – 18 February 1943, Auschwitz)

Sources:

Michael E. Abrahams-Sprod, “Life under Siege: The Jews of Magdeburg under Nazi Rule” (PhD. Diss., Department of Hebrew, Biblical and Jewish Studies, The University of Sydney , June 2006), 185-196.

Wolfgang Gerlach,  And the Witnesses Were Silent: The Confessing Church and the Persecution of the Jews (University of Nebraska Press, 2000)

Daniel Kester, “Scandals: Albert Hirschland”. Online: http://hirschland.com/2012/03/07/scandals-albert-hirschland/

Christopher J. Probst, Demonizing the Jews: Luther and the Protestant Church in Nazi Germany (USA: Indiana University Press, 2012), 85-88.

“Albert Hirschland: Der Rasseschänder von Magdeburg,” Der Stürmer, special edition no. 2, August 1935. Gestapo Sachsen, Report for July 1935.