Ch. 32 - Ernst Lohmeyer

We've read about the Viscount Trencaval who was friendly with Jews. Let them run his government, and even got them out of jail when they deserved the punishments. To show their gratitude, they betrayed him, captured him with trickery, and poisoned him in his own prison – and all of that at the age of 24 or 25.

Lohmeyer didn’t learn from history, so repeated these mistakes. He was running the University of Breslau in the early 1930s, a time when Germany was cleaning up its academic institutions. Lohmeyer tried to help Jews keep their teaching jobs.

As a consequence, Lohmeyer lost his job as Rektor in Breslau. He moved to the University in Greifswald where he worked as a theology professor. He wrote pro-Jewish books like Galilea and Jerusalem. While other German professors were exploring what the Bible really has to say about Jews, Lohmeyer would have none of that. He stayed best friends with the Jewish people.

In 1945, the German government was defeated, and the occupiers looked around for reliable collaborators to take over the old institutions. Who better than Ernst Lohmeyer to be Rektor at the University in Greifswald?

The university in Greifswald was scheduled to reopen on February 15, 1946. A big celebration was planned. The night before, the Jewish secret police NKVD arrested Lohmeyer. He was ritually murdered in secret on September 19, 1946. Twelve years later, in 1958, the family learned of his death.

But its not as if he didn’t get a memorial. In 1996, Lohmeyer was rehabilitated.

Brought back from the dead? No. Money for the family? No. But he did get a plaque, which is more than most other victims got.

(http://www-alt.uni-greifswald.de/~theol/~nt/body_geschichtliches.html)