Alfred Sänger

Alfred Sänger, my great uncle, was born on September 3, 1894, in Augsburg to Julius Sänger and his wife Rosa, née Einstein. The Jewish family had been living there since 1881. Alfred’s siblings Berta, Siegfried Friedrich (Fritz), Else (Elsie), and Stephan Franz were also born in Augsburg. Alfred attended secondary school in Augsburg. Surviving photos show a happy family.
With the permission of his father, in 1913 Alfred Sänger began to study mechanical engineering at the Technical University in Munich. At the outbreak of the First World War, he interrupted his studies and volunteered for military service, like many German men. He served in the 4th Field Artillery Regiment, severely injured his knee in 1915 and after recovering fought on the Western front, as is described in a letter to the university. In 1918 he was awarded the Iron Cross. After the war, Alfred Sänger joined the Army Reserve and was promoted to lieutenant – a rank that was the exception for Jews at the time. In 1918 Alfred Sänger resumed his studies and three years later successfully passed his civil engineering exams. In 1926 he spent a year working on the construction of the Teliu tunnel in Romania. Two years later he married Judith Remde, née Berger. The marriage remained childless.
It is not clear how Alfred Sänger fared during the first few years of the Nazi regime. In 1935 he and Judith divorced; in 1941, in the face of ever-increasing persecution by the Nazis, she committed suicide in Berlin-Weißensee. In 1936 Alfred Sänger moved into Prinzregentenstraße 8 in Munich. He was director of the Munich branch of Kleofaas & Knapp, a civil engineering firm from Augsburg that belonged to his family. On November 11, 1938, in the wake of the “Night of Broken Glass,” he was sent to the Dachau concentration camp. Like his brother Fritz, the SS first released him from the camp on December 15, 1938. In 1939 Alfred Sänger moved to the family of his brother in Maria-Einsiedel-Straße 4. He probably had to perform forced labor.
On November 20, 1941, the Gestapo deported Alfred Sänger with almost 1 000 other Jewish men, women#, and children to Kaunas. Five days later, members of the SS task force 3 under the command of SS-Standartenfüher Karl Jäger, shot all of those deported from Munich, along with Jews from Berlin and Frankfurt.
My great-great-uncle was 47 when he was murdered. Three of his siblings, two of his sisters-in-law, and his young niece Anneliese were also murdered. Only his sister Elsie Götz, my great-grandmother, succeed in emigrating to the USA.(Text Nancy Freund-Heller, editor C. Fritsche, translation C. Hales)