Leopold Plaschkes

Born:	03-13-1884
Faculty:	Law School
Category:	Deprivation of academic degree

Leopold PLASCHKES (born on March 13th, 1884 in St. Pölten/Lower Austria, died on May 4th, 1942 in Tel Aviv/Palästina [Israel]), son of Hermann Plaschkes (merchant) had graduated at the Law School at the University of Vienna  on March 24th, 1908 with the academic degree 'Dr. iur.'.
He became a lawyer and chairman of the reading and speaking hall for Jewish students ('Lese- und Redehalle juedischer Studenten') in Vienna. In 1918 he joined the board of directors of the Jewish city guard ('Juedische Stadtschutzwache'), was co-founder of the newspaper "Wiener Morgenzeitung" in 1919 and became executive of the municipal council in Vienna in the same year, serving initially for the Jewish popular party ('Juedische Volkspartei'), then for the Jeweish election community ('Juedische Wahlgemeinschaft') until 1927. Besides his engagement in the Jewish community life – also providing members of the Jewish community with legal assistance – he was also active in the public sector, editing several German-Jewish newspapers.
Plaschkes was one of the most prominent Zionists of the Jewish community in Vienna and worked as president of the Zionist National Association ('Zionistischer Landesverband') and board member of the Radical Zionist Federation ('Verband radikaler Zionisten'). His wife Lea Charlotte also worked in various Zionist committees in Vienna. Leopold Plaschkes, who was in the Rothschild-hospital in spring 1938, was – despite his illness – able to organize his emigration quickly. The Nazis appointed him as one of eight board members to consult Josef Loewenherz, head of the Jewish Community. He succeeded to emigrate to Palestine just in 1938 together with his wife (he had travelled to Palestine twice before: in 1919 and 1933). There he became president of the Union of the Old Zionists ('Union der Alten Zionisten'), joined the directors board of the Hitachduth Olej Germania ve Austria (HOGOA) and participated in the 21st Zionist congress in Geneve/Switzerland in 1939.
Leopold Plaschkes died on May 4th, 1942 in Tel Aviv after a long illness. His widowwas also a member to the directing board of the HOGOA and of the General Zionists. She died in 1959. In times of Nazism he was deprived of his academic degree (posthumously) on November 17th, 1942 with the racist argument, that he as a Jew was not considered dignified an academic degree of a German university ('eines akademischen Grades einer deutschen Hochschule unwürdig'). 
It took 66 years since the deprivation – and a very long time since the end of Nazism – until the regranting of the doctorate took finally place in 2008.

Lit.: POSCH 2009, 275, 457; SAUER/REITER-ZATLOUKAL 2010, 267f.; Evelyn ADUNKA, Exil in der Heimat. Über die Österreicher in Israel, Innsbruck, Wien u.a. 2002, 175-180; Archive of the University of Vienna/Graduation protocoll JUR 1903–1908 Nr. 1482, Expatriation lists in Dt. Reichsanzeiger Nr. 203 from September 1st, 1941; Rektorat GZ 118/Onr. 88 ex 1941/42; Austrian State Archive/Archive of the Republic/Finances/VA 29212; information from Dr. Benjamin Gril, INJÖSt 04/2019.

Katharina Kniefacz, Herbert Posch