Jürgen Nitsche

Georg Manasse

Schocken’s Chief Executive Officer. Businessman – Social Democrat – Pacifist

Translation: Cassandra Krauss
Language: English
142 pages, softcover
38 illustrations
ISBN: 978-3-95565-020-9
Publication date: 2013
14.90 €

As chief executive officer of the store, Georg Manasse belonged to the closest confidants of the brothers Simon and Salman Schocken and was a primary aide in the successful development of the Schocken department store chain of Zwickau (Saxony).
A staunch social democrat and pacifist, Manasse joined the German League for Human Rights early on and played a leading role in Saxony from 1923 onwards. The doctor Karl Eskuchen, Rabbi Fritz Leopold Steinthal and the siblings Anna und Hans Siemsen belonged to his closest friends. Manasse was also connected to the later Minister-President of Saxony, Max Seydewitz, the Rabbi Leo Baeck, the writer Joachim Ringelnatz, and the sculptor Renée Sintenis, as well as to the art dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt. As a native of the city of Zwickau, he became involved in helping the resident Jews and was, as a member of the board of the Israelite Religious Community, responsible for questions relating to the budget and taxes. He emigrated to Sweden in the summer of 1935 before finding a new home in the US in late 1940.


Jürgen Nitsche

geboren 1958 in Lauenhain (Mittelsachsen), freier Historiker, Autor und Kurator, Promotion an der Universität Jena. Veröffentlichungen, Ausstellungen und wissenschaftliche Vorträge zur Geschichte der Juden, zu jüdischen Warenhäusern, über verfolgte Mediziner in der NS-Zeit und den nationalsozialistischen Krankenmord, biographische Forschungen zu den Familien von Stefan Heym, Stephan Hermlin und Dieter Noll. Mitglied der Koordinierungsstelle „Stolpersteine für Chemnitz“, Beirat des Vereins „Tage der jüdischen Kultur in Chemnitz“ und Gründungsmitglied der Internationalen Stefan-Heym-Gesellschaft.