Leopold Schwager

Leopold Schwager was born on August 31, 1884 in Kötzting, to Isidor Schwager and his wife Anna, née Steindler. After completing an apprenticeship in Munich he joined his father’s leather business in Cham. In 1910 he returned to Munich and founded his own leather and barrel factory, “Leopold Schwager Lederhandlung und Schäfte Fabrikation.” One year later, Leopold Schwager married Sabine Teller and moved with her to Gärtnerplatz 4 (today Klenzestraße 26). The couple had three children: Charlotte, born in 1912, Erwin, born in 1913, and Karl, born in 1921. Charlotte was only two years old when she died of pneumonia. With the outbreak of the First World War Leopold Schwager fought in the German army. He ended up in an English prisoner of war camp and didn’t return to Munich until 1919.
After the Nazi seizure of power, Leopold and Sabine Schwager initially did not try to leave Germany. Their sons emigrated in 1938 to Palestine and the USA. Following the “Kristallnacht” pogroms on November 9, 1938 Leopold Schwager was imprisoned for a month in Dachau concentration camp. After his release, he and his wife got on the waiting list for US visas at the American consulate in Stuttgart – they had number 39,000 on the list. In December 1938 Leopold Schwager’s leather factory was “aryanized”: Gerhard Fiehler, brother of Munich Mayor Karl Fiehler, paid an extremely low price and took over the business.
In February 1941, Leopold and Sabine Schwager’s number on the waiting list for US visas came up. Their son, Erwin, did everything he could from the USA to bring his parents over. But Leopold and Sabine Schwager were unable to make the journey to freedom: In October 1941, the Nazi regime forbade German Jews to emigrate. On November 20, 1941 Leopold and Sabine Schwager were deported to Kaunas in Lithuania and shot there five days later. (text Dianne Schwager, editor C. Fritsche, translation T. Axelrod)