Dr. jur. Josef Gunzenhäuser

Josef Gunzenhäuser was born on July 6, 1896 in Frankfurt am Main. He was the son of the merchant Julius Gunzenhäuser and his wife Else Amalie, née Schülein. Between 1906 and 1915 he attended the Humanistische Gymnasium in Ingolstadt. After his Abitur (general qualification for university entrance), he studied Law in Munich and Erlangen, passing his state examination in 1922 and gaining his doctorate in 1925 in Erlangen. Josef Gunzenhäuser had a great gift for languages; he was fluent in English, Spanish, French, Italian and Turkish. Until 1924, Josef Gunzenhäuser was a civil servant with the Reichsausgleichsamt (Federal Equalization Office) in Munich. In 1925 he opened a law firm together with his uncle, Benno Schülein. On August 29, 1933, in the same year as the Nazi seizure of power, the Nazis took away Josef Gunzenhäuser’s licence to practise as a lawyer. After the “Kristallnacht” pogroms, he was interned until February 1939 in Dachau concentration camp. Even in 1941, Josef Gunzenhäuser was offering English and Spanish language courses for the Jewish community. On June 6, 1942 he was deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto, where Josef Gunzenhäuser was murdered on July 1, 1942, just before his 46th birthday. Josef Gunzenhäuser’s brother Adolf emigrated to Italy in 1933; his father Julius Gunzenhäuser died in 1936. Else Gunzenhäuser was deported to Theresienstadt just a few days before her son. She was able to leave the ghetto in February 1945 by way of an exchange transport to Switzerland. From there, she emigrated to be with her son Adolf. (text Anne Hepach, editor C. Fritsche, translation C. Hales)