Kitabı oku: «The girl that could not be named Esther», sayfa 3
For in him all things were created,
in heaven and on earth,
visible and invisible,
whether thrones or dominions or
principalities or authorities —
all things were created through him and for him.
This confession of faith and the choice of the name Esther were one for the parents. They had decided on this name, which they found beautiful and appropriate. There was no family tradition to be sustained, either in the family of the pastor or in the family of his wife, of perpetuating the names of uncles or aunts, godparents or ancestors. In the choice of names, they were happily independent of such familiar constraints. They were free. Free to protest as well.
But were they really free?
Esther did not reveal her people or her kindred, for Mordecai had told her not to reveal it.
The Book of Esther, 2:10
Aert des Gelder, Esther and Mordecai, 1685
Chapter 3
There could be no unlimited freedom in the choice of a name – that much was clear to the Lunckes as well. The concern for state orderliness took precedence. Names were not strictly a private affair.
Names have always been something special. In the beginning there were only first names; people had no need of anything more to distinguish themselves. In the Bible, which is the beginning of the history of names for us, the first people were named Adam — Hebrew for human being — and Eve (Khava), which can be translated as Mother of Living Beings or Creating Life. Many biblical names are dependent on the circumstances of the birth. Very often they are plays on words, which are lost in translation. In the telling of the story of the twins Jacob and Esau, the Bible ties together a double folk etymology. Jacob (ya-akov), Hebrew for May God protect us, at birth held on to the heel (akev) of his twin brother Esau: And they called him Yaakov, 28› Reference that is, one who grabs the heel. Esau, later tricked out of his right of the first-born and of his father’s blessing, complains to his father Isaac, and says, Was he then named Jacob that he might supplant [akav- deceive] me these two times?29› Reference Akav means deceiver. The two words sounded very similar, something that allowed Esau a bitter play on words with the names. Later, after wrestling with God — I will not let you go unless you bless me — Jacob received the name Israel, which can mean he who struggles with God. 30› Reference The name Sarah, which cannot be skipped here, stands for princess or mistress. More on that later.
In the New Testament, the angel Gabriel appears to Mary and announces to her that she will bear a son, whom you shall name Jesus. 31› Reference In Hebrew this name was Yeshua, with the letter “Y” becoming “J” in English. Jeshua, Jehoshua, Joshua, or Josua — all mean God (Yahweh) helps. We will meet this name again as well.
In later periods names were supposed to be good for a healthy or lucky life. Wishes, hopes, magic, incantations – even today parents take all these into consideration when choosing names for their children. For the state, on the other hand, names principally have the function of distinguishing one individual from another. The state is interested in an orderly society. Given the large number of distinguishable family names, there must be order in given names as well.
Up to the middle of 1938 this was administered relatively liberally. According to section 1627 of the Civil Code, the father had parental power and with it the right to determine the given name of his child. There were no legal limitations on the choice of names. The only limitation lay in the old principle that given names should not be offensive to customs and order; they could not be senseless, ridiculous, or offensive.32› Reference It was in the interest of the children to put certain reins on any parental naming fantasy that got out of hand.
There were always attempts by some parents to show their political preferences or their patriotic spirit in the choice of names for their children. Bismarck as a given name was acceptable.33› Reference There was an amusing story about this. When Bismarck was still alive — he was then 70 years old — a Livonian (now part of Estonia) named Trampeldang had applied to the chancellor with the request to be allowed to name his first-born son Bismarck. Bismarck had approved, adding the personal comment, If heaven should bestow on me at my advanced aged another son, I will not miss the opportunity to let him be baptized with the name Trampeldang.34› Reference Lassaline (after Ferdinand Lassalle, considered the father of German Socialism) was approved as a girl’s name in 1912.35› Reference Inadequate regulations led to remarkable flights of fancy. Quite often such names turned out to be a burden for the children, who subsequently requested a name change.
That this form of hero worship was to be expected or even to be feared after 1933 as well is attested to by the Directive of the Minister of the Interior on July 3, 1933 (just a few days after Hitler took over the office of chancellor):36› Reference
If a registrar receives the request to register the name of the Reich Chancellor as a given name, even in the feminine form of Hitlerine, Hitlerike, or the like, he is to require that another name be chosen since the adoption of this name is unwelcome to the Reich Chancellor.
Too close an identification with the currents of the day when choosing a name had its down side as well. After a few years, the acknowledgment of this or that political orientation as expressed in a name became quite embarrassing for many a father. The post-war years had examples that were not restricted to the name Adolf, and it was the same in the Weimar period (1918-1933) and in the Third Reich (1933-1945). In such cases the district court could often be helpful after the fact. For example, in 1936 the given name Lenin, pushed through by a father for his son born in 1928, was stricken by the district court in Darmstadt on the grounds of its being offensive. The court wrote:
The surname ‘Lenin’ as a given name for a German child may have been admissible in the year 1928 in consideration of the then-reigning perception of the law. It was the expression of a time when the administration of justice demanded neutrality even in the face of forces that threatened the people. At that time there were no legal means to forbid the name ‘Lenin’ while permitting family names of historical personalities to be used as given names – e. g., Bismarck, Zeppelin, and so on. This value-free expression of justice has been superseded. Although foreign names for German citizens are not essentially inadmissible, there is no longer any room in a German birth register for the name of the Russian Bolshevik Lenin as the given name of a German child.37› Reference
We are not told exactly which new legal means had emerged, in contrast to 1928, to allow the district court to decide as it did. The applicable legislation had not changed.
The district court in Darmstadt had in any case been able to overcome the administration of a type of justice that demanded neutrality, whatever that’s supposed to mean.
All of this should have been no hindrance for the name Esther. This biblical name had nothing to do with current politics. The name was certainly not ridiculous or senseless, nor was it offensive. There was not only a book of the Bible named Esther; many authors had written about Esther, Mordecai, and Haman, including Hans Sachs, Lope de Vega, Racine, and Grillparzer. Georg Friedrich Handel had composed an oratorio on this biblical story. Even Goethe had written about Purim (in his early play Plundersweilern Fair), a Jewish festival commemorating the rescue of the Jews from Haman’s plot against them, and thus every year celebrating Queen Esther, who saved them.
Apparently even more important for the registrars in 1938 was the fact that in the German Unified Family Record Book, the name Esther stood alongside Edith, Elisabeth, and Eva.38› Reference
The family record book, which was given to Pastor Luncke on his wedding by the registrar in Wanne-Eickel, had an almost official character.39› Reference A name from the list in this unified family record book could simply not be inadmissible; it belonged, so to speak, to the canon. To be sure, the list of names differentiated between Given Names of Foreign Origin, including Esther, and the puffed-up list entitled Given Names from the Treasures of the German Past, but it nonetheless contained over one hundred female names of foreign origin without any limitation or warning. Nothing stood in the way of parents naming their daughter Esther. A limitation on the choice of this name, and thus a danger for the name Esther, could come about only if there were a legal regulation expressly forbidding such a name or if a court should find that the name Esther was offensive or a breach of morals and order.
Pastor Luncke could not foresee how his choice of the name Esther would move him to the edge of a precipice. The Lunckes could not know what state regulations were in the works and would come into effect one week after the birth of Esther. Except for a few people in the know in Berlin, no one could have explained to them that they had wandered into a sideshow of the National Socialist war against the Jews, a war in which the judicial system would participate with all its might. In matters of naming, the mills of the ministerial bureaucracy had started to turn again in 1937 and were grinding away slowly and relentlessly, but the average citizen had hardly any clue about what was going on. The judicial system gave their day in court to Pastor Luncke from Wattenscheid and the West Prussian forest ranger Cuno Lassen from the district of Marienwerder in order to set a precedent on the highest judicial level of how the administration of a type of justice that demanded neutrality could indeed be overcome. The new order had to obtain in matters of naming. The forest ranger and the pastor had never met, but the Supreme Court brought them together.
Up until the middle of 1938 the question of names, whether correct or incorrect, admissible or inadmissible, had stirred up just a few people. To be sure, even at the time of Esther‘s birth there was no biding regulation, just some very general principles for the choice of names, principles that had existed since the end of the previous century. This liberal situation was increasingly treated with hostility. A look at these voices is therefore absolutely necessary since in populist times such signals can be significant.
Sie hatte nicht gedacht,
so langen Gang zu tun mit allen Steinen,
die schwerer wurden von des Koenigs Scheinen
und kalt von ihrer Angst. Sie ging und ging –
Und als sie endlich, fast von nahe, ihn,
aufruhend auf dem Thron von Turmalin,
sich türmen sah, so wirklich wie ein Ding:
empfing die rechte von den Dienerinnen
die Schwindende und hielt sie zu dem Sitze.
Er rührte sie mit seines Szepters Spitze:
...und sie begriff es ohne Sinn, innen.
She had not thought to walk so far,
to come laden with all these jewels,
which all the time absorbing the King’s majesty
grew heavier, and colder too as they took up her fear.
Gradually she drew nearer. Now she saw
him, upright on his throne of tourmaline,
as potent as a tree or tower.
A servant by her side still steered her on
as weak with terror she began to swoon,
fell senseless to the ground before the King.
His sceptre touched her. She knew everything.
Rainer Maria Rilke, Esther, 1908
translated by Stephen Cohn
Chapter 4
Everyday citizens had no idea what was brewing under the surface, but press reports conveyed an inkling of what was going on. If you look at the professional literature of the registrars, especially the publications of the Journal of Registry Office Affairs (StAZ), even before 1933 and then afterwards you could hear the demand sounding louder and louder, German names for German children! At first, this resembled the path laid down by the campaign for the purification of the German language from Romance language influences, but after 1933 the drive became increasingly aggressive. Leaders began to lose self-control, though at first only in their language.
It began moderately in the foreword to the names section of the first edition (1921) of the German Unified Family Record Book, written by a Mr. Wlochatz, retired director of the registry office and a regular contributor to the Journal of Registry Office Affairs.
That German parents should prefer to give good German names to their children is a duty not only to their People, but even more to their children. We don’t need to be ashamed of the old German names! We have no lack of them! On the contrary – we have a rich supply of them from our Teutonic history, a host of names with a wonderful sound and with great meaning! One glance at the riches we have inherited reveals to us the depths of the Germanic soul. These names ring out with superior virtues, with the outstanding properties of the spirit and the heart of the Teutons of antiquity. The ancient Teutons were a warrior people, and many names breathe the spirit of battle and armed victories. If we were to add such names to our vocabulary, this would have the effect of eliciting in every way the heroic spirit and victorious power needed for the great struggle for existence in which we now find ourselves. The old names, resonant with battle and triumph, can be well used in a symbolic sense.40› Reference
Wlochatz points to another change in the second edition of the family record book. On the basis of comments from linguists, names long established and familiar to the reader are listed in the Foreign Names section, names like Anna, Johanna, Maria, Paul, Peter, Johannes, Michel, Sepp, and others, which clearly have been seamlessly integrated into the German People for over a thousand years. A registry office, however, he continues in a conciliatory tone, must take into consideration not only the wishes of the German experts, but also the events of everyday life. He goes on:
And so established biblical names should be retained, even though most of them come from the Hebrew; otherwise, we would have to logically exclude names like those mentioned above. Where would all this lead us?41› Reference
That sounds compassionate and reasonable – Wlochatz wanted to retain established biblical names. A decade later, in 1931, Wlochatz turned his attention to swings of the people’s spirit in the giving of names (in an article in the Journal of Registry Office Affairs). He names four major trends, with the primary one being consciously and decidedly German names. 42› Reference
He distinguishes three sub-trends which all have in common that their motivating spirit absolutely demands that German children be given good German names.
In these sub-divisions of the consciously German trend, Wlochatz includes the Nordic movement, and especially the Folkish movement, referring to an unspecified Germanic element of the Volk — Folk, the People — a movement increasingly identified with Nazi ideology or at least recognized as its forerunner. He naively calls this a part of ethical cultural longings.
In Germany the religious beliefs of our pre-Christian ancestors are fostered and spread in the rapidly growing ‘Nordic Community of Faith,’ which aspires to the spiritual rebirth of the ‚Germanic’ man. In these circles children receive ancient Teutonic names. This spiritual attitude often overlaps with the other trend, the more recent ‘Folkish’ movement, which is much larger and more significant in its effects on the life of our people. Here, we are naturally not interested in this movement as a political party, but rather only in its effect within the sphere of German ethical cultural aspirations. And it is here that we find a decided rejection of all foreign influences, especially Semitic ones, and a move toward the goal of racial purification of the German people. As a result, within this movement we meet only pure Germanic names, even from time to time in ancient Teutonic form. Of course, it should be observed that through the ‘Folkish’ movement a large number of old German words have been brought back to life as well.
The religious Christian trend delineated by Wlochatz — seen among our nation’s Catholic brethren, who are unquestionably of good German orientation — is accustomed to many foreign names, including, since they are taken from the Bible, many of Hebrew origin. Wlochatz takes a critical view of this:
Since the religious writings of the Hebrews, that is, the Israelites, have found a home in the Christian world as well, and since their children are familiar with the great personalities of the Jewish people through Bible instruction, it should not be surprising that there are still a number of Germans who in the choice of names for their children reach into the treasury of a people foreign to us. Quite frequently this occurs as the expression of personal piety.
The registry office director, now at ease in retirement, clearly has made progress. He declares himself at one with the consciously German point of view, which calls for racial purification, that is, an inner rebirth of the Germans. 43› Reference This stance has made the naming question a question of conscience, driven by an imperious, demanding spirit. From Wlochatz’ point of view, the partisans of this route feel responsible for the coming generation. They are conscious of challenges to existence that remain completely foreign to the others. It thus follows that:
The call to give German names to German children became a demand, since it has been recognized that the German child undoubtedly has a right to a good German given name, and that German parents have the duty to start their children out in life equipped with such names... It can happen that the custom of pious Christian German parents to give a child a biblical name, and thus a sort of Hebrew name, may later lead to conflicts between child and parents. After all, the religious orientation of parents cannot be definitely assumed to be the orientation of the children, and certainly not when later in life the children learn to think differently about matters of faith.
For the first time, the viewpoint of the child’s welfare is sounded, an approach that could serve several purposes and one which we will meet in the Supreme Court. You can’t help being impressed by the certainty with which the ideology of the future was foretold. The thousand-year Reich was well established in the minds of many even before the thousand years had begun.
After these rather ponderous meditations by a retired registrar — to be sure, one with considerable influence on the activities of the registry office — the Berlin district court judge Dr. Boschan, also a longtime contributor to the Journal of Registry Office Affairs, took up the legal question. In mid-1936 he demanded a German-oriented giving of names, and inveighed against the danger of the German essence being infiltrated by foreign elements and the practice of half-hearted naming of children. 44› Reference He wrote:
According to the principles of the National Socialist state, which wants to create a true German homeland for its citizens, there must be a limit to the choice of foreign given names since the choice of foreign names is a purely capricious act. Legitimate grounds for the choice of a foreign name have not been demonstrated.
In today’s Germany we must establish the following principle: German children receive German names; foreign children receive foreign names. If legitimate grounds are given, exceptions may be allowed.45› Reference
This statement did not go unchallenged. Another Berlin state court judge commented briefly on Judge Boschan’s principle with these words:
These remarks may be relevant for future legislation. They should not be taken as the statement of current law; they certainly are not conceived as such.46› Reference
True, there was no legislation, but there was at any rate a directive from the Minister of the Interior on April 14, 1937, regarding the use of German given names.47› Reference It was not published in any official ministerial journal but rather in the Journal of Registry Office Affairs. Despite its questionable status as an official regulation, it played a great role in future decisions. Here is the text in full:
Children of Germans should basically receive only German names. However, not all Nordic names can be included as German names; insofar as concerns non-German names (e. g., Bjoern, Knut, Sven, Ragnhild, etc.), they are no more desirable than are other non-German names. On the other hand, names have been used in Germany for centuries that are originally of foreign origin but that are no longer regarded as foreign in the minds of the people and are indeed completely Germanized; these can continue to be used unreservedly (e. g., Hans, Johann, Peter, Julius, Elisabeth, Maria, Sophie, Charlotte, etc.). It serves the development of clan thinking to rely on previously used clan names . Very often, these will be Germanized names, which in the future will still indicate the origin of the clan in a specific German territory (e. g., Dierk, Meinert, Uwe, Wiebke, etc.).
Should basically receive only German names is a phrase that permits exceptions. There was no legal basis for this ministerial recommendation, and a recommendation is all it was. Even the current Reich and Prussian Minister of the Interior, referring to his own directive, wrote a good six months later:
Special regulations regarding given names still do not exist. It has simply been determined that given names of German citizens are in principle to be entered in the German language in the civil registry, and that indecent, senseless, or ridiculous given names may not be used.48› Reference
Everything seemed so open and above-board. To our astonishment, we find in the middle of 1938 clear and disturbing references in the press to developments on the name front – the military expression seems quite appropriate here. The name question had taken on another dimension since the end of 1937. The echoes in the press served partly as a trial balloon for what was to come, and may have been meant as a warning to be read between the lines about this new development. It was especially Germany‘s most famous newspaper, the Frankfurter Zeitung, that conspicuously followed the story of the naming question, and in the summer of 1938 published reports whose journalistic significance is hard to grasp for the modern reader.
In Mein Kampf, Hitler had assigned this newspaper to the bourgeois democratic Jew papers, to the so-called intelligentsia press, which, as he expressed it, wrote for our intellectual demimonde. 49› Reference By 1938, the Frankfurter Zeitung had long been without Jewish owners. In honor of the Fuehrer’s birthday the following year, ownership shares were to go as a present to the Eher Publishing House in Munich.50› Reference It should not be forgotten that this newspaper, which Hitler and Goebbels repeatedly wanted to finish off, was important for the foreign policy image of the Third Reich because a certain distance was perceived between the regime and the paper.
How far the editorial board could stand apart from the Nazis is not a question that can be answered here. In point of fact, there was no single editorial opinion.
Be that as it may, during this period the Frankfurter Zeitung reported on three occasions about our topic, one that was probably only of remote interest to the average reader. Two of these cases were quite important and were reported on in a manner that was unusual and striking for that period. We should consider it possible that this constituted an effort to warn the alert reader at home and abroad of hidden signals indicating an otherwise little-known development. Such signals could warn people, but they could change nothing.
In the Saturday edition of July 1, 1938, a short article entitled Restriction to Two Given Names ended with this sentence: Names of German origin are to be preferred. This was hardly anything more than the kind of signal mentioned above. The report itself was generally scanty. It was based on an article published in the Journal of Registry Office Affairs, by a Dr. Stoelzel, professor at the University of Marburg,51› Reference an article which could itself, however, be considered explosive. Stoelzel‘s relentless proposals went much further than the bureaucrats and even than the Reich Ministry of the Interior had dared.
Stoelzel, also a frequent contributor to this journal, and its expert on questions of marital status, complained primarily that the new marital affairs law of 1937 had allowed an unlimited number of given names, and he took a stand for a limit of at the most two given names. He painted a dire picture of what misuse could be made of an unlimited set of names, and he then switched over to the question of which names conscientious registrars should allow, which names should be denied, and what attitude they should take regarding the current demand to encourage the choice of given names of Germanic origin. 52› Reference
Stoelzel’s concluding recommendation went much further: he advised for the sake of simplicity to allow parents no choice at all or at the most a very limited one. German parents should have a choice only among names on two lists. Any names not found on either of these lists would henceforth not be considered for German children – that is, banned. These points remained hidden from the readers of the Frankfurter Zeitung, although this radical solution should have had greater publicity. After all, after about half a century of following this suggestion, German given names would have been reduced to a rudimentary inventory of scarcely more than a hundred, and for the rest of the Thousand Year Reich people would have had to resort to numbering their children instead!
On Sunday, August 7, and the following Thursday, August 11, 1938, the Frankfurter Zeitung published two items under the title German and Jewish Given Names. The sources for these articles couldn’t have been more different. One came from a legal decision on names from the Prussian Supreme Court on Civil Matters of July 1, 1938; the other, from an article drawn from the magazine The New Folk, a publication of the Office for Racial Policy of the Nazi Party.
In the August issue of this family-oriented illustrated magazine, heavy on pictures, Rolf L. Fahrenkrog demanded German names for German children. This was the article featured in the Frankfurter Zeitung on August 11, 1938, the day Esther Luncke was born. In an unusually subdued report, it cited a few passages without comment, then turned with the words In conclusion, the author writes to a rather amusing episode, which gives the impression that the whole article was similarly light-hearted:
A party comrade insisted to me that we must avoid un-German, and especially Jewish, given names. He proudly stated that his boys had beautiful German names, Georg and Paul. I had to disappoint him. Georg comes from the Greek and has the beautiful and proud meaning of farmer. Paulus is an old Christian name of Latin origin, meaning small, modest. This name developed like Johannes. They were ‘Germanified,’ so to speak. From Georg we have forms sounding like old German, like Joerg, Joern, Juern, or Juergen, but that doesn‘t alter the fact that its origin is not German.
The original doesn’t sound so easy-going; there the author ended with the following appeal:
We desire to and should stand fast on this point — Our children, who are born German and are educated in the Folk Society of the Third Reich as pure German people, should bear truly German names that correspond to the true value of our German blood. There are no justifiable grounds to give them un-German names; in fact, there are many reasons not to. Everything supports the demand of GERMAN NAMES FOR GERMAN CHILDREN!53› Reference
Completely lacking in the Frankfurter Zeitung article were the vehement anti-Semitic outbursts with which Fahrenkrog punctuated his article, aside from various incorrect or at least questionable etymological derivations.
Hardly any other people is as rich in beautiful, praiseworthy, but still distinctive family names as is the German people. And if Jews have acquired them or are attempting to acquire them today, it is their unmistakable intention to conceal themselves behind the variety of these German name forms so that they can continue undisturbed to pursue their Jewish business. Jewish name camouflage has been so successful that today there are real live Jews bearing the names Mueller or Schmidt who are immediately accepted as Folk-Comrades by trusting and naive Germans.
Since in every marriage in Germany the maiden name of a woman is replaced by the family name of her husband, and the children of such a marriage bear only these family names, this results in every case in the „disappearance“ of the mother‘s maiden name, whether Jewish or not. Fahrenkrog cannot have been referring to this standard situation, though he was hardly concerned with logical argumentation. He was on a hateful rant against Jew names, that is, Jewish given names, without giving rational reasons (assuming there were any). So he thundered:
For the National Socialist German, who is obviously an enemy of the Jews, it is selfevident that no Jewish names should be chosen. His children have a natural right to bear German names.
