Lundensaren_dec2020_historisktext

"My dear Freund": an academic life story

The young man

On 18 January 1871, the German empire was born when Wilhelm I of Prussia was declared the German Emperor. A little over three months later, the main character of this article was born. Julius Freund, thus born in the same year as his country, saw the light of day on 23 April 1871 in Marburg an der Lahn, a university town in Hessen.

Julius’s parents were the watchmaker and jeweller Salomon Freund and his wife Rosalie Haas. It has not been possible for the author to ascertain the Freund family’s financial status, but as Julius was placed in the Königliches Gymnasium (now Philippinum upper secondary school) in his hometown, the family presumably had the financial resources to give their son an education. Neither were they too poor to send Julius to begin studying at his hometown’s university, Philipps-Universität Marburg, after gaining his school certificate at Easter 1889. Once at the university, Julius focused most of his attention on linguistics, studying German and classical philology among other subjects, including history and philosophy. He concluded his studies with a state examination in July 1894.

Before Freund was able to continue his career, however, there was one small obstacle that each German male was obliged to confront, namely mandatory military service. In October 1894, therefore, he joined the eleventh Hessian “jäger” battallion as a one-year volunteer (Einjährig-Freiwilliger). Even through his choice of military service we can glean that the watchmaker and jeweller’s son did not come from a poor background; one-year volunteers were expected to support themselves during their service, and to gain this position each recruit had to undergo a knowledge test. In exchange, the one-year volunteer, whose educational background was assumed to make it easier for him to learn, was able to get away with just one year of military service and be assured of becoming an officer (or in any case a non-commissioned officer) in the reserves. The opportunity to have this shortened military service was thus to a large extent a question of class, money and education.

The choice of military unit was presumably simple for Freund the recruit; the eleventh Hessian jäger battalion was located in Marburg and had a highly visible presence in the town. The battalion’s band played at the town’s festivals and its officers would likely have been well-known members of the town’s high society. The efforts of the battalion in the Franco-German war were celebrated by memorials throughout the region, and the relationship between town and battalion was said to have been positive. It should also be noted that it was far from unusual for students in Marburg to apply for precisely that town’s battalion to serve their year as a one-year volunteer.

Soldiers from the eleventh Hessian jäger battalion in 1895, at the inauguration of the memorial following the Battle of Wörth.

With his military service completed, it was time for Julius Freund to find work. As he had studied languages, a profession as a linguist was the most likely option and in 1895 he entered the Königliches Friedrich upper secondary school in Kassel for his first trial year as a trainee teacher. He took his leave before the entire trial year was over, however, for the young trainee teacher had somehow found out that a superior position to that of upper secondary teacher had opened up, and in a foreign country too.

The lecturer

Another German academic who had not served his time in the military was Moritz Weinberg. Weinberg had held the position of lecturer in German at Uppsala University since January 1895, but was forced in the autumn semester of 1896 to return to Germany to complete his military service. Julius Freund somehow found out about this and was appointed as a substitute lecturer in German at Uppsala during Weinberg’s absence. Perhaps Freund found out about the vacancy precisely through Weinberg? Following studies in Berlin, the latter – who was one year older than Freund – had studied in Marburg from 1892 and completed his state degree in November 1894. It is therefore not impossible that Weinberg had tipped off his old study companion about the vacancy up in the far north.

Freund’s predecessor in Uppsala and Lund: Moritz Weinberg (left) and Edvard Theodor Walter (right).

During his time in Uppsala Freund undertook teaching on Mondays, Tuesday and Saturdays, mostly in robust language skills; he led “practical exercises” in German for beginners as well as “more advanced” students, gave lectures on Goethe and led individual exercises in oral and written translation into German. Weinberg’s military service was extended from one year to one and a half, and Freund thus also maintained his teaching during the autumn semester of 1897, but it must have been clear to the young academic that his time in Uppsala was beginning to run out. In other words, he was obliged to find a new livelihood.

On 15 September 1897 the lecturer in German language at Lund University, Edvard Teodor Walter, applied for “release from lecturing duties”. The humanities division of the Department of Philosophy, which was tasked with pronouncing on lecturer Walter’s application, noted at its meeting of 19 October that it certainly seemed as if Walter “intended in his application to obtain a leave of absence”, but decided anyway to “accept his resignation, so that the division may find the occasion to take measures to ensure the lecturer position in question be definitively filled.”

What the misunderstood former lecturer thought of this hair-splitting academic exercise of public authority is not revealed in the documents, but at the same meeting the professor of Germanic languages, Edvard Lidforss, reported that a certain “Candidate for the higher teaching post” (Kandidat des höheren Lehramts) Julius Freund” had requested “to be considered” for the post. This rapid solution appeared to appeal to the division, and Lidforss was tasked with obtaining references concerning Freund’s teaching in Uppsala before the next meeting. Lidforss completed this task, and since the dean Henrik Schück had also testified in favour of Freund, the division decided to solicit the chancellor of the university to permit Freund to be appointed as lecturer in German at Lund, something which then came to pass on 7 December 1897.

In Lund, Freund moved first into Biskopsgatan before moving from autumn semester 1901 – via Tomegapsgatan and Klemensgatan (now the eastern part of Lilla Fiskaregatan) – to what was then a block of flats but is now Kulturen museum’s main building on Tegnérsplatsen. From there he went to teach university students in broadly the same subjects as he had in Uppsala; in Lund too, Freund’s teaching was focused on robust teaching of German language skills, with practical exercises and lectures on authors and their works. However, it is possible to discern certain attempts by the young lecturer to broaden his educational horizons; among other things, he led courses in essay-writing for Bachelor’s degrees as well as courses in German phonetics. Furthermore, during his final semester at Lund – the autumn semester of 1902 – he moved away from teacher-centred education to hold conversation courses for students in small groups.

Aside from academic teaching, Freund also worked on what we today would have deemed “external engagement activities”, that is, teaching activities targeting wider society (although in Freund’s case it could be assumed that it was rather a way of supplementing his lecturer’s salary). He held lectures at the girls’ secondary grammar in Lund and the Malmö lecture association, gave courses in German for postal service workers and secondary grammar school teachers in Malmö and occasionally took his lecturing activities as far afield as Västervik.

Kulturen’s current main building as seen in 1901, around the time Freund lived there.

However, it seems Freund was not entirely happy with this role as lecturer. Although his appointment was extended in 1900 and 1902, higher (or at least more permanent) forms of employment must have attracted him, especially as he had gained a PhD in 1899 following his thesis on “Huttens Vadiscus und seine Quelle” (Hutten’s Vadiscus and its sources). In 1901 he sought permission to apply for lecturer positions in Swedish secondary grammar schools; this was granted on the condition that he became a Swedish citizen. And thus, on 20 November 1901, the newspapers declared in a short news item that “the lecturer at the university in Lund, Julius Freund from Germany”, had been accepted as a Swedish citizen. This position within higher education never came to anything, however. That same year, he was announced in the Göteborgsposten newspaper as being the successful applicant for the position as lecturer in German and English at the Norra Latin grammar school in Stockholm, but in 1902 we find him still at Lund University. Perhaps it was also for this reason that Freund neglected to show evidence of the fact that he had ceased to be a German subject, and thus never had his Swedish citizenship confirmed.

Freund’s job search continued, however, and in autumn semester 1902 he was able to resign from his lecturer role at Lund University in order to take up another position – an application that was approved on 30 September that same year. Just as in the case of Freund’s appointment, the humanities division already had a new lecturer candidate ready: a certain Heinrich Friedrich Wilhelm Hungerland, but that is another story, as they say. For Freund, new positions were waiting in another country on the other side of the North Sea.

The prisoner

The position overseas that drew Freund away from Lund was the position of lecturer in “German language and Teutonic philology” at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. He spent five years there before taking up the position of professor of German language and literature at Sheffield University in early 1908.

As a professor in Sheffield, Freund was able to dedicate himself to academic research to a greater extent. In 1910 he published an article on The Sounds of West Middle German as Spoken at Marburg an der Lahn, that is, the phonology of his own dialect. ”Although in the first instance an analysis of my own speech”, Freund noted in the introduction to the article, ”it may be taken as representing that of the educated Marburger in general”. Minor self-studies were presumably part of his three articles on the theologian Carl Friedrich Cramer’s writings.

The University of Sheffield’s main building.

We don’t know exactly how happy Freund was in Sheffield, but in a review of a speech of one professor Franz in Tübingen on “the importance of English culture on the development of Germany”, Freund wrote that

“The German immigrant who has found happiness on Anglo-Saxon soil rarely returns permanently to his homeland; he feels powerfully and irresistibly drawn to the immense humanity and the Anglo-Saxons’ high and free culture: the relationship between people is something quite different”.

Assuming that this reflects Freund’s view and is not merely a summary of Franz’s opinions, our German professor must have been relatively content in his new hometown. The fact that he entered into a marriage with Aenne Eisenberg in the city in 1912 also speaks to the idea that he had found a permanent home here.

However, Freund’s life in Sheffield – along with his other German-born professor colleagues around Great Britain –¬¬ changed abruptly with the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. On 4 August 1914, the same day that Britain declared war against Germany, Freund reported to the German consulate in Sheffield to sign up for service on the front line in what was either an expression of the patriotic enthusiasm of the time or a highly developed sense of duty. However, as it was impossible for Freund to be moved to Germany due to the war, he simply had to return to the university and resume his teaching duties.

Painting of George Kenner depicting the internment camp at Knockaloe on the Isle of Man.

All the same, a life as an “enemy alien” in Britain cannot have been easy for Freund. Anti-German sentiments meant that the number of students fell and that Germans in Britain were subject to the disapproval and suspicion of the public. Despite this, Freund continued to work as a professor until July 1915, when he was interned. The university, which was both unaware of the fact that Freund had reported for war duty and keen to treat its staff well (particularly in light of the British academics who found themselves in the opposite position in Germany), stepped in initially to support Freund, allowing him at first to remain as a professor with a quarter of his salary.

On 18 August 1915, the vice-chancellor of the university, Herbert Albert Laurens Fisher wrote in a letter to “My dear Freund” – who at this point was interned in a war camp in Handforth in Cheshire – that he had asked the Home Secretary to give Freund as much free time as he needed to continue his academic work, and according to a later letter, the university’s standpoint was that “Dr. Freund still remains a member of the University Staff and we desire that the unfortunate circumstances of the War should interrupt his studies as little as may be”. Attempts to get Freund moved to a “privileged” camp failed, however, and he eventually ended up in an internment camp on the Isle of Man while his wife was repatriated in October 1915.

According to a letter from July 1916 from the governor of the camp on the Isle of Man to the vice-chancellor of the University of Sheffield, Freund lived “very quietly and naturally gives no trouble. He is at present engaged in writing an Anglo-German dictionary”. During this time, meanwhile, the senate of the university had increasingly begun to resist having an inactive professor from a foreign power – even if just on a quarter salary. With the Bishop of Sheffield a driving force behind the decision, the senate decided in September 1916 – to the protests of the Department of Philosophy – to give Freund notice. After this he sat interned without salary until he was released in an exchange in February 1918 and able to return to Germany.

The professor

Once Freund had returned to Germany, he entered the German foreign ministry’s intelligence unit. Evidently a 47-year-old academic with language skills and many years’ experience of life in one of Germany’s enemy countries was deemed more suited to intelligence work than duty on the front line with the 11th Hessian jäger battalion – but in October, when the war was nearly over and Germany’s defeat appeared certain, he returned to civilian life. His time in Great Britain had evidently served him well, as he succeeded in obtaining a position as lecturer in English at Friedrich Wilhelm University (now Humboldt Universität Berlin). He was also appointed professor of the same subject in 1919. His wife Aenne lived with him in their residence at Leistikowstraβe 6 in Charlottenburg, and in January 1919 their only child was born: a daughter named Ruth Marianne.

The main building of Friedrich Wilhelm University in the 1930's

In addition to his teaching at the university, Julius Freund also held seminars at the Berlin business academy. It also appears clear that his internment had not rendered him too unfavourably disposed towards Britain and the University of Sheffield – for example, he participated in a banquet in London in 1928 to honour a retired professor of English at Freund’s old workplace. With the exception of a long period of sick leave for angina in 1929 (which – gruesomely enough – indicates a life of a certain prosperity), the future should have been looking rosy for Freund. He was highly qualified and had work experience from several European higher education institutions; he had survived a world war; he had a wife and child, and he was a professor at a university in the German capital. Nevertheless, there was a fatal detail that would end up turning his life upside down once again.

For Julius Freund was Jewish.

The refugee

It should hardly need further elaboration to state that the Nazi takeover of power in 1933 was a catastrophe for Germany’s Jews – and, later, Jews across the globe. For Julius Freund – along with thousands of other Jews in the German public administration – the Nazi persecution of Jews began with him losing his job without any recourse. In April 1933, the “Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service” (”Gesetz zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums”) was published, which stated that “non-Aryans” were not allowed to fill posts in the German public administration, meaning Freund was forced to retire in September 1933. He was far from alone in this; at Friedrich Wilhelm University 252 of 797 employees were forced to retire on racist grounds during the period 1933-1945, but this would hardly have been any great comfort to an unemployed 62-year-old Jewish academic in Nazi Germany.

Initially the Freund family were able to live off a modest pension from the university, but when this was withdrawn in early 1937 – as the anti-Semitic oppression intensified – Julius and Aenne Freund must have increasingly considered joining many of Julius’s colleagues, who had also been forcibly retired, to flee abroad. The decision must have been made easier by the fact that their daughter managed to emigrate to the US in 1938.

On 20 January 1939 a letter arrived at the National Board of Health and Welfare in Stockholm stating that the bank teller Lotten Åbergh of Arboga was applying for “a residence permit for a period of time for the former Lecturer in German language at Lund and Uppsala University, Professor Julius Freund and his wife, Aenne Freund”. This letter was followed shortly thereafter by a letter from the aid committee of the Jewish Community in Stockholm which in part contained the same request and in part assured that the “spouses Freund will not be a burden on anyone during the period they may spend residing in Sweden.” The letter from the aid committee also explained in detail Freund’s teaching activities in Sweden and the circumstances around how he almost obtained Swedish citizenship; factors that presumably were taken into account when the Board of Health and Welfare granted both Julius and Aenne Freud a residence permit from February to July 1939.

Despite this residence permit, it was not an easy task to leave Germany as this required a German passport, and the process to obtain that appears to have occupied the Freunds for the entire first half of 1939. In fact, it took such a long time that their residence permit – following the proper application by the aid committee – was extended in June 1939 until December 1939. At that point, four months after the residence permit was granted, Julius and Aenne had just managed to obtain their passports and had thus not yet had a chance to leave Germany. However, they did finally make it to Stockholm on 12 July 1939, less than two months before the outbreak of the Second World War.

Message from the National Board of Health and Welfare to the Swedish embassy in Berlin, stating that Julius and Aenne Freund had received a Swedish residence permit.

Despite the fact that the Freunds were now back in Julius’s former country of work, neither they nor the Swedish state intended that they would continue to reside there. According to the residence permit, they had only been granted “Temporary residence while awaiting emigration to the USA”, where – we can assume – they intended to join their daughter. The outbreak of the Second World War just a short time after the Freunds arrived in Sweden must have led to these plans being postponed to a future date.

As it happened, Julius Freund never made it to the US, as he passed away in Stockholm on 29 September 1939 and was laid to rest in the Norra begravningsplatsen cemetery in Stockholm. The author has not managed to find any information relating to his cause of death, but complications linked to his angina appear likely. Aenne Freund spend the Second World War in Sweden before finally emigrating in November 1945 to the US, where she became a naturalised citizen in 1951.

Julius Freund’s life story is filled with contradictions. He established an international career and considered taking Swedish citizenship, but was also a dutiful German reservist. He was interned in a camp by the British because he was a German, only to be exiled from Germany because the Nazis did not consider him one. We cannot help but wonder what the exiled professor himself thought as he lay dying in Sweden. How did he view his life and achievements? Did he look back at a life in which destiny had dealt him blow after blow? Or did he remember how he had overcome his setbacks against all odds? We do not know. What we do know is that Julius Freund’s life story is inextricably linked to the major catastrophes of the twentieth century. And for that reason alone, we should remember Lund University’s lecturer in German from 1898-1902.

Text: Henrik Ullstad, Archivist at Records Management and Archives

The author would like to express his warm thanks to Dr. Katharina Schaal at the Philipps Marburg University archive for kindly supplying information about Julius Freund’s studies. He also owes a debt of gratitude to Christopher T. Husbands, whose article German-/Austrian-origin professors of German in British universities during the First World War: the lessons of four case studies is the main source of information for Julius Freund’s life after his time in Lund. The author would also like to thank the archivist Fredrik Tersmeden for kind help with producing archive materials, Matthias Wurm for help with translations, and Lukas Sjöström for the good ideas and discussions.
Finally, the author wishes to point out that the main character of this article should not be confused with the librettist (1862 1914) or art collector and textile manufacturer (1869-1941) of the same name.