Lothar Ellbogen (Elbogen)

Born:	06-19-1900
Faculty:	Law School
Category:	Deprivation of academic degree

Lothar ELLBOGEN (ELBOGEN) (born on June 19^th, 1900 in Hinterbruehl-Moedling/Lower Austria as son of Eduard Elbogen (1857-1931) and Jenny Melanie Elbogen, née Kadelburg (1864-1942), died on October 12^th, 1941 in the camp Zasavica/Yugoslavia [Засавица/Serbia), had graduated at the Law School of the University of Vienna with the academic degree of "Dr. iur.". on December 11^th, 1924.
After his studies, Elbogen worked as an industrialist, owned several mines and traded in talcum worldwide. He lived in Vienna's 3^rd district, Neulinggasse After the Anschluss in 1938, Lothar Elbogen was persecuted as a Jew. On December 20^th, 1938, he was formally deprived of his doctorate on criminal grounds, as he did not want to accept the racist expropriation of his property without resistance. He had been charged under § 81 StG with the crime of public violence against public officials and was sentenced by final judgment of the Vienna Regional Court for Criminal Matters (6 c Vr 4256/38 Hv 57 E/38) on September 1^st, 1938 to three months of severe aggravated imprisonment, whereupon the doctoral degree revocation at the University of Vienna was initiated.
The attempt to secure the doctoral diploma via the police in his apartment failed, since his mother Melanie Elbogen allegedly did not have the keys to the corresponding box in the apartment and Lothar Elbogen was in custody. He is then questioned at the police detention center in Vienna's 9^th district, Rossauerlaende, where he is being held "at the disposal of the Foreign Currency Investigation Office, Vienna branch at No. E 1376/38-Hf", or requested to hand over the diploma. The detention center reports back that the diploma cannot be found despite "questioning", "it was probably taken abroad by the bride of Elbogen, who has already emigrated".
The background to the arrest and conviction was his - unsuccessful - attempt to still sell his flourishing company at a reasonable price, which he, as a Jew, was prevented from doing by the Nazi bureaucracy, which "Aryanized" the company instead: Among those interested in buying the company was the Guelph Duke Ernst August of Brunswick and Luneburg, who had connections to NSDAP members in Austria who acted as middlemen in the "Aryanization". Lothar Elbogen was arrested and held in pre-trial detention, during which he was physically tortured and put under massive pressure or blackmailed into selling his business far below its value. Only after a year in pre-trial detention did Elbogen finally give in to the threats and sign the Aryanization contract under duress. The new owner, the Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg, ultimately paid only half the market value. However, Elbogen was not released until his foreign assets had also been wrested from him. Left penniless by the loss-making sale, Lothar Elbogen was unable to pay the "property levy" for Jews demanded by the Nazi regime after his release and therefore did not receive a passport.
Nevertheless, he initially managed to escape to Yugoslavia, whereupon his citizenship was revoked by the German Reich - his expatriation was announced in the "Preussische Reichsanzeiger" No. 244 of October 18^th, 1941.
After the invasion of Yugoslavia by the German Wehrmacht, Elbogen was arrested again and shortly afterwards, on October 12^th, 1941, he was murdered in the Zasavica|Засавица camp near Sabac, Yugoslavia [Šabac|Шабац/Serbia]. After the end of the Second World War, the "Aryanization" of the company was investigated by the courts. On the basis of several witness statements, preserved letters from Lothar Elbogen in which he emphasized that he had only agreed to this forcibly, and further investigations, the court determined in 1950 that the company had been sold under duress for only half its value. Ernst August von Braunschweig-Luneburg was ordered to pay compensation, to give more than half of the company to his heirs and to give them a retroactive share of the company's profits. It was not until 17 years after the revocation and long after the end of National Socialism that the University of Vienna determined that Lothar Ellbogen was "presumably worthy of re-award, but a special application would have to be made" (his death in 1941 was not known at the time) and the doctoral degree was not re-awarded for the time being in May 1955. Then, however, in the Senate meeting of June 30th, 1955, the regranting was decided and the doctoral degree was awarded again (posthumously) on July 4th, 1955, and the deprivation was declared "null and void from the beginning".

Lit.: Archive of the University of Vienna, Rectorate GZ 202 ex 1938/39 (=S 127.1), GZ 561 ex 1944/45, graduation registry ("Promotionsprotokoll") IUR (1924-1939) No 109; POSCH 2009, 406; Documentation Centre of Austrian Resistance (DOEW): Austrian Victims of the Holocaust; Michael WECH/Thomas SCHUHBAUER, "Adel ohne Skrupel. Die dunklen Geschäfte der Welfen", TV-documentary, ARD/NDR 2014; see also: Kurt SAGATZ, Profiteure von Arisierung und Weltkrieg?ARD-Dokumentation wirft Welfen dunkle Geschaefte vor, in: Der Tagesspiegel, August 18^th, 2014; Gustav SEIBT, Doku "Adel ohne Skrupel" im Ersten. Wie die Welfen von der Arisierung profitierten, in: Sueddeutsche Zeitung August 18^th, 2014; information from Manfred Luedtke, 07/2015.

Katharina Kniefacz, Herbert Posch