Berthold Guthmann

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Berthold Guthmann (April 13, 1893 – September 30, 1944) was a German lawyer and a veteran of the First World War. He was Jewish and became the secular head of the Jewish community in Wiesbaden from 1938 to 1942. He was killed at Auschwitz in 1944.

Guthmann was born in Eich, German Empire. He studied law in Freiburg and Giessen before joining the Imperial German Army when World War I began. He served as an observer and gunner in the air service and earned the Iron Cross Second Class. He held the rank of Leutnant in the Landwehr. His brothers also served: Sally was killed at Verdun, while Eduard survived the war and later moved to the United States.

After the war, Guthmann worked as a lawyer in Wiesbaden, a city with a large Jewish community. He was arrested after Kristallnacht and briefly sent to Buchenwald, from which he was released. In November 1939 he and his son Paul were attacked and seriously injured.

Guthmann led the Wiesbaden Jewish community from 1938 to 1942 and was also second in command of the Frankfurt Jewish congregation toward the end of its existence. In 1940 he helped Fritz Beckhardt, a Jewish flying ace, escape Germany by appealing to Hermann Göring. In September 1942, Guthmann and his family were initially spared when Wiesbaden’s Jews were deported to Theresienstadt. Later that year, the remaining Jews from Wiesbaden were arrested and moved to Frankfurt.

They were deported to Theresienstadt, and Guthmann was killed at Auschwitz on September 30, 1944, soon after his arrival. His son Paul was killed at Mauthausen in March 1945. Guthmann’s wife Klara and daughter Charlotte survived the Holocaust. Charlotte Guthmann (later Opfermann) moved to the United States, where she later published two books about her experiences.