Hugo (Hugh Henry) Wolf

Hugo (Hugh Henry) WOLF (born on April 19^th, 1888, in Wiener Neustadt, Lower Austria/Austro-Hungarian Empire), had graduated at the Law School at the University of Vienna on March 16^th, 1912 with the academic degree "Dr. iur.". On November 11^th, 1919, he was registered in the list of lawyers in Vienna and opened his practice in Vienna's 1^st district, Teinfeltstraße 7. He married medical student Margarete Schönberger (1894-?), who graduated on April 6^th, 1922, at the University of Vienna and became a dentist. Son Georg was born on June 16^th, 1922, and daughter Maria Martina Wolf (m. Brody, 1925-2018) on October 3^rd, 1925. In 1938, they lived in Vienna's 13^th district, Neue Weltgasse 5.

In 1938, both were persecuted for racist reasons and had to flee Vienna. Both lost their professional licenses as Jews in der Third Reich, but were able to leave for Budapest/Hungary in September 1939, from where they were later able to emigrate to the USA via Lisbon/Portugal, and arrived in New York, NY, on October 11^th, 1940.

In times of Nazism he was deprived of his academic degree on July 22^nd, 1943, 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 12 years since the revocation - and a very long time since the end of Nazism - until posthumously the regranting of the doctorate took finally place on May 15^th, 1955 or rather the revocation was declared "void from the outset".

Hugh Henry Wolf died on May 27^th, 1946.

Lit.: Archive of the University of Vienna/enrollment forms ("Nationale") 1908-1912, graduation register ("Promotionsprotokoll") IUR 1911–1915 No 180, rectorate GZ 118 ex 1942/43 No 130, GZ 561 ex 1944/45 No 15; Austrian State Archives OeStA/AdR/BMF/VA 24419; POSCH 2009, 496; SAUER/REITER-ZATLOUKAL 2010, 369 [²2022, 600f.]; REITER-ZATLOUKAL/SAUER 2025; www.ancestry.de, www.genteam.at.

Herbert Posch