Ludwig Frank was born in 1878 in Steinach, Franconia, to the Jewish cattle and horse trader Otto Frank and his wife Henriette. After graduating from secondary school he studied at the Technical University in Munich and became a mechanical engineer in 1902. In order to work as a teacher he then studied mathematics and physics for several semesters. In 1911 Ludwig Frank presented his doctorate thesis on a geographical topic. A year later he commenced his first teaching post in Kempten. In 1920 Ludwig Frank became a secondary-school teacher for maths and physics at the Rupprecht higher vocational college in Munich-Neuhausen. There, in 1930, he was confronted with the allegation of having sexually harassed a prospective teacher – and was able to prove his innocence.
Around two-and-a-half months after the Nazis had come to power, a colleague denounced Ludwig Frank: in early September 1935, Hans Simmer claimed that Frank had or was having a number of affairs with “Aryan” women, included school pupils. Simmer told the police that he had been observing Frank for some time and now requested the police do the same: “Have the Jew put under surveillance and see the women he goes out with.” The police questioned Frank but could not find any evidence of violating the “Nuremberg race laws.” He was dismissed from his position in January 1936, like the other Jewish teachers, and moved from Neuhausen to the Ismaninger Straße 62a in Steinhausen. In the wake of “The Night of Broken Glass,” Ludwig Frank was imprisoned for almost three weeks in the Dachau concentration camp during November 1938. Once more at Hans Simmer’s instigation, he was again forced to prove his innocence against claims of having relationships with “Aryan” women. On November 23, 1939, the Gestapo arrested Frank and questioned him in the Wittelsbacher Palais. His landlady Käthe Gutmann later told of how Ludwig Frank’s hair had turned white overnight during his imprisonment. In 1940 Frank was then sent to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. His efforts to have a lawyer organize his emigration failed. Ludwig Frank was murdered on April 12, 1940, in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, aged 61. (Text Ingrid Reuther, editor C. Fritsche, translation P. Bowman)
