Adolf Erich (Adolphe) Fürth (Furth)

Born:	05-30-1897
Faculty:	Philosophical School
Category:	Deprivation of academic degree

Adolf Erich FÜRTH (later Adolphe FURTH), born on May 30^th, 1897 in Strakonitz, Bohemia/Austria-Hungary (Strakonice, Czech Republic) as the son of Dr. Hugo Fürth (1859-1930, chemist, vice president of the Austrian Fez Factories) and Margarethe Fürth, née Schwab (1866-1956). He had studied chemistry at the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Vienna and on April 5^th, 1922, he received the degree of "Dr. phil." in chemistry (dissertation: "Kinetics of iodine formation from iodide and periodate"). He lived in Vienna from 1933 in the house built by the architects Fischel and Siller in the Krottenbachtal in Vienna's 19^th district, Agnesstraße 45, a model example of Viennese objectivity. He and his family were persecuted as Jews under National Socialism: his mother was able to emigrate to the USA in time, his sister Marianne Pribram (1893-1940, married to lawyer Dr.jur Felix Ewald Pribram, 1893-1940) committed double suicide in Prague in 1940, his brother, vice-president of the Austrian Fez-Fabriken and playwright Dr. phil. Otto Fürth (1894-1970, married to Gertrude, née Hnatek, 1900-1983) was able to emigrate to the USA in time, as were his sister Gertrud Fleischmann (1899-1990, married to physician Dr.med. Walter Fleischmann, 1896-1979) and his brother Dr. Rudolf Ernst Fürth (1903-1986, married to Edith, née Werkmeister). Adolf Erich Fuerth had to flee Vienna, while his wife Christa Fürth (née Freiin Pakeny von Kilstaetten, 1895-1976), who was categorized as "Aryan" under National Socialism, was able to remain in Vienna for the time being, while he emigrated to Brussels/Belgium in September 1938. He fled from the German Wehrmacht, which also occupied Belgium in May 1940, to southwestern France, to the Dordogne-Périgord, where his wife also followed him. After obtaining a U.S. visa in Marseille on June 16, they both emigrated to the United States via Spain. On August 7, they were able to leave Europe on the SS Navemar from Seville, Spain and arrived in New York, NY on September 12^th, 1941. Already after fleeing Belgium, he had been deprived of his German citizenship in August 1941 for racist reasons (he became "stateless"). On July 14^th, 1942, the University of Vienna subsequently also deprived him of his academic degree on racist grounds, since under National Socialism he was considered "as a Jew unworthy of an academic degree from a German university." Adolphe Furth, as he was now called, was able to work in the USA as a chemist, was mustered into the US Army in February 1942 (he lived then at 628 W. 227 street in New York City, NY, later in Wenonah, New Jersey), became a US citizen, and in 1952 became a professor of chemistry at North Carolina College Durham. It was not until 13 years after the revocation and long after the end of Nazism that his doctoral degree was restored on May 15^th, 1955, or the revocation declared 'void ab initio'. Later, Adolphe Furth, née Adolf Erich Fürth, returned to Austria, where he died as a U.S. citizen in Vienna on June 27^th, 1983, and his urn was buried at the Vienna Central Cemetery.

Lit: Archive of the University of Vienna, graduation registry ("Promotionsprotokoll") PHIL 1913-1922 No. 1412, Rectorate GZ 118/74 ex 1941/42 and GZ 561/15 ex 1944/45; POSCH 2009, 415; Iris MEDER 2009; GAUGUSCH 2011, 820-822; www.geni.com; www.genteam.at; www.findbuch.at.

Herbert Posch