Coburg has found it difficult to address its National Socialist past. For many years, the time between the crucial town council elections in 1929 and the end of the war was not present in the collective memory and the local historiography.
The publication of Hubert Fromm’s book “Die Coburger Juden” (“The Coburg Jews”) in 1990 marked a crucial turning point. However, it did not prevent fierce controversies from continuing to erupt over how to deal with the National Socialist past – for instance in connection with the exhibition “Voraus zur Unzeit” (“Ahead into the Abyss”) of the Initiative Stadtmuseum Coburg in 2004.
In the meantime, however, the activities of various cultural initiatives and networks such as “Coburg ist bunt” (“Coburg is diverse”) or “Lebendige Erinnerungskultur” (“Living culture of remembrance”) have rendered the debate more objective. The decision of the Coburg town council on October 22, 2016, to commission research by the Munich Institute for Contemporary History to examine the 20th-century past in a scientific manner is to be viewed as an important step in this process.
Further reading
Hubert Fromm, Die Coburger Juden. Geduldet – Geächtet – Vernichtet [The Coburg Jews. Tolerated – Ostracized – Exterminated], 3rd revised and expanded edition, Coburg 2012
Initiative Stadtmuseum Coburg e.V. (Ed.), Voraus zur Unzeit. Coburg und der Aufstieg des Nationalsozialismus [Ahead into the Abyss. Coburg and the Rise of National Socialism], Coburger Stadtgeschichte [History of the town of Coburg] Vol. 2, Coburg 2004
Franger, Gaby / Gebauer, Kathrin / Kobrin, Irina (Eds.), Erinnerung ist Begegnung [History is Encounter], Dokumentation einer Ausstellung und eines Begegnungsprojekts [Documentation of an exhibition and an exchange project], Stadt Coburg 2008
Franger, Gaby / Frey, Edmund / Maisch, Brigitte, Seien Sie doch vernünftig!
Frauen der Coburger Geschichte [Please be reasonable! Women in Coburg’s history], Initiative Stadtmuseum Coburg e.V. 2008
Kaiser, Reinhard, Paper Kisses. A True Love Story, New York 2006
The book, which is based on an exchange of letters by Rudolf Kaufmann, a teacher at the Hirsch Institute, won the German Children’s and Youth Literature Award 1997.
Video (itv): The avant-garde of National Socialism
On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler is appointed chancellor. Long before National Socialism took power across the Reich, Coburg was considered its avant-garde. The causes are now being researched by historian Dr Eva Karl on behalf of the town of Coburg.
A town as a testing ground for the Third Reich
Coburg was the first town in Germany under National Socialist rule – even before 1933. In a Deutschlandfunk (German World Service) feature, Brigitte Baetz recounts how this came about.
Interview with contemporary witness Henry Wuga from Nuremberg
Henry Wuga fled to Scotland with a Kindertransport (children’s transport) as an adolescent.
https://youtu.be/sWsp4rgjv74
Links to additional pages
Digitales Stadtgedächtnis Coburg:
Article on Stolpersteine
Life paths of Jewish women in Coburg
Article in the magazine “Der Coburger”
13 driver’s licences – 13 fates
For 80 years they lie unnoticed in a file in Lichtenfels: Jewish driver’s licences from the 1930s. Until students examine them and research their history. A story both sad and instructive, which also shows why it is particularly satisfying to do something really meaningful.
Group of Jewish museums in Fürth, Schnaittach and Schwabach
https://www.juedisches-museum.org
Network Jewish Franconia
https://de.juedisches-franken.de