| Born: | 08-03-1896 |
| Faculty: | Law School |
| Category: | Deprivation of academic degree |
Hans HELLER had obtained the degree of "Dr. rer.pol." from the Law School of the University of Vienna on July 15th, 1922. On April 1st, 1943, he was deprived of the degree for racist reasons, as he was considered "unworthy of an academic degree from a German university as a Jew" ("eines akademischen Grades einer deutschen Hochschule unwuerdig") under National Socialism.
It was not until May 15th, 1955 that the doctoral degree was restored to him and the deprivation declared "null and void from the beginning" - but without informing him about this decision of the university.
Hans Heller was born on August 3rd, 1896 in Vienna's 3rd district, Ungargasse 63 as the son of Kommerzialrat Gustav Heller (1857-1937, industrialist) and Mathilde Heller, née Kreidl (1868-1926) and grew up with his siblings Margarethe Heller, married Rutter (1894-1970) and Marianne "Janne" Heller, married Wolf (1901-1938) in middle-class circumstances in Vienna's 4th district, Schlickgasse 17. His father Gustav and his brother Wilhelm Heller (1859-1931), both confectioners, had founded the candy factory "Gustav & Wilhelm Heller, Schokolade- und Zuckerwarenfabrik" (Gustav & Wilhelm Heller, Chocolate and Candy Factory) in 1891 in Vienna's 3rd district (Landstrasse), which was enlarged in 1899 and moved to Vienna's 10th district (Favoriten), Belgradplatz 3-5 and was the largest of its kind in Austria-Hungary with over 1,400 employees ("Heller-Zuckerl"), with branches in Paris, London and New York. Gustav Heller became the "k.u.k. Hoflieferanten" and "Kammerlieferanten des Kaisers", was president of the Zentralverband der Schokolade- und Zuckerwarenfabrikanten Oesterreichs in Vienna and vice president of the Office International du Cacao et du Chocolat, Bruxelles, founded in Belgium in 1930, and in the 1930s was also on the board of directors of Bank Creditanstalt in Vienna and was also a director of Vereinigte Chemische Fabriken Landau, Kreidl, Heller & Co.
During his high school years, Hans Heller first encountered the works of Sigmund Freud, which were to continue to occupy him in the future. From 1907 to 1915 he attended the k.k. Akademische Gymnasium in Vienna's 1st district, where he also passed the high school examination ("Reifepruefung / Matura") on February 20th, 1915, and was then drafted as an officer into the Austro-Hungarian army, where he belonged to the k.k. heavy artillery regiment and was stationed on the Italian front.
He was discharged from the army in November 1918 and then began to study law and political science at the University of Vienna in the fall term of 1917/18. While still a student, he married Margarethe (Gretl) Steiner (1899-1961) in February 1919 at the Vienna City Temple, and in February 1920 both their son Peter (1920-1998) was born. A few months later, Hans Heller resigned from the Jewish Community in August 1920.
He studied continuously until the spring term of 1921 and completed his studies in political science (with a focus on economics and political theory) at the Law Faculty of the University of Vienna with a dissertation on "The Economic Theory of Karl Marx and the New Marxists" (Absolutorium of October 30th, 1921) and received his doctorate ("Dr. rer.pol.") on July 15th, 1922.
At that time he lived with his wife and child in Vienna's 4th district, Karolinengasse 5, and subsequently became a junior partner in the family's candy factory business; later he became joint owner with his father. The first marriage was divorced in October 1934, and in February 1935 he married Renee Inge Maria Felicitas Schoen in a civil ceremony in Vienna.
During this period Hans Heller's interest in writing grew, and he published several short plays, also wrote "The Seven Lean Years" (unpublished) and the book "A Man Seeks His Homeland," about a half-Jewish art historian who fought the Nazis (published in Switzerland in 1936 under the pseudonym Martin Haller).
In the late 1930s he also became co-editor of the newspaper "Die Wiener Weltbuehne" (together with his friend, the journalist Willy Schlamm, and increasingly fled the city for the countryside - to his hunting lodge in Klausen [Chiusa], South Tyrol/Italy, and to his summer home in the Alpine village of Grundlsee, Styria/Austria.
After the "Anschluss" the entire family was expropriated, the "Heller factory" was looted ("Aryanized") and Hans Heller was also persecuted as a Jew under National Socialism after the "Anschluss" in 1938 and had to flee Austria - he last lived in Vienna's 13th district, Gloriettgasse 5. He managed to make a deal with his "Aryan" brother-in-law Viktor Opalski and another relative to sell the candy factory and was able to send some funds there with the help of a friend from England.
Hans Heller left for Hoylake, Cheshire, England/UK via Switzerland in 1938 with his wife Inge - his older sister Margarete Rutter stayed behind and survived National Socialism and World War II on the one hand by marrying an "Aryan" and later as a "submarine" hidden in the cellar of their house (she died in 1970 and is buried in the family grave in Vienna-Doebling); his younger sister Marianne Wolf died of multiple sclerosis in August 1938. His wife Inge later followed him to England.
In England, Hans made contact with the English confectionery company Barker & Dobson in Liverpool, where he was employed from 1939 to 1940, and proposed to set up a new Heller candy factory on their premises and run it together with a cousin. After his son Peter was interned as an "enemy alien" in 1940 and sent to Canada - a fate Hans Heller was spared because of his work in the export business - he considered emigrating to the United States, which he did in 1940 on a business trip for Barker & Dobson.
He arrived in New York, NY/USA on the SS Scythia on August 12th, 1940, and then left again for England in March 1941 and officially re-entered the USA via Liverpool and Toronto/Canada on April 1st, 1941 at Niagara Falls over the Whirlpool Rapids Bridge and lived in Riverdale, NY/USA, where he also applied for naturalization as John Heller in September 1941 (his wife was still living in London, England/UK and his son in Canada at that time).
All three were expatriated from the German Reich on July 9th, 1941, which became legally effective with the announcement in the German Reichsanzeiger of July 12th, 1941, and involved the loss of all property in favor of the Third Reich.
As a further legal consequence of the expatriation, proceedings were also initiated against Hans Heller at the University of Vienna for the withdrawal of his academic degree - on April 1st, 1943, he was then also deprived of his doctoral degree from 1922 for racist reasons, as he was considered "as a Jew unworthy of an academic degree from a German university" under National Socialism and announced in the German Reichsanzeiger of April 13th, 1943.
It was not until 12 years after the revocation and long after the end of National Socialism that John Heller's doctoral degree was restored on May 15th, 1955, or the revocation was declared "null and void from the beginning" - but without informing him himself about this decision of the university.
At first it was difficult for John Heller to find partners with whom he could build up a confectionery business in New York. When he finally found enough investors, he set up a small business called "Heller Candy Company, Inc. " in a rented loft in Harlem in 1940, later moving to 42nd street in midtown Manhattan. In the early 1940s Hans and Inge separated; later he met his third wife, the American artist Helen Olive Ek (1918-1976, her parents had immigrated to the U.S. from Sweden), whom he married on August 7th, 1945 in Stamford, Connecticut/USA. He received U.S. citizenship on December 20th, 1945, and lived with Hellen Heller first on the Upper West Side of New York City, later the family moved to Hartsdale West, NY, where both their son Marc was born in 1948.
His son Peter from his first marriage, later Commonwealth Professor of German and Comparative Literature, had also moved to the U.S. with his wife in 1945 from Montreal, Canada, where he had received his undergraduate degree and married, and was living in New York, NY.
After the war, John Heller traveled briefly to Austria in 1947 - after returning to the U.S., he published reports in several American newspapers about the plight of the population at that time and the political situation in post-war Austria (including "Hungry Austria Reverts to the Past" in the New York Herald Tribune). He visited Austria several more times in an effort to deal with the difficult return of family property and to reconnect with his sister and her family - it took several years to resolve ownership of the family factory in Vienna (the Heller company continued to operate successfully until it merged with rival firm Victor Schmidt & Sons in 1971, and the brand remained intact after the sale to this day).
In the U.S., John Heller and his family eventually moved to Scarborough, New York, on the Hudson River, and the Heller Candy Company he had founded in the U.S. flourished. It produced hard and filled candies in bags, jars and tins, which proved their worth in the Vietnam War due to their heat resistance, and the U.S. Army became an important customer, which further increased their popularity and they were also exported to Asia and South America.
John Heller was also involved in landscape painting and in 1974 he and his wife, Helen Heller, now very well known as a sculptor, wanted to exhibit their works together in a gallery in Soho in New York City, but his wife died of cancer shortly before the opening.
John Heller married Dr. Edith Kepes, an anesthesiologist, in his fourth marriage and remained president of the Heller Candy Company until his retirement in 1981. The couple made numerous trips, including to Vienna, where John Heller held an exhibition of a selection of his paintings at the Theater an der Wien in 1976 - organized by the Austrian Student Union (OeH). In 1983 Abaris Press published his memoirs "Memoirs of a Reluctant Capitalist" (further memoirs focusing on the age experience: "Old, Old Age" remained unpublished). In 1985 his autobiography was published in German by Ovilava-Libri Press in Wels/Upper Austria (Hubert Plieseis), under the title Zwischen zwei Welten: Memories, Documents, Prose, Pictures.
Dr. John Heller, born Hans Heller, died on December 7th, 1987 in Tarrytown, Westchester, NY/USA.
Lit.: Archives of the University of Vienna/graduation registry ("Promotionsprotokoll") Staatswissenschaften 1919-1964 No. 18, Rectorate GZ 118 ex 1941/42 No. 47, 185 & 190, GZ 151 ex 1942/43 (=S 127.9) No. 75-80, GZ 561 ex 1944/45 No. 15; Center for Jewish History New York, Hans Heller Collection AR 25858; Deutscher Reichsanzeiger No. 160 of July 12th, 1941 and No. 86 of April 13th, 1943; POSCH 2009, 424; Franz MATHIS, Big Business in Oesterreich. Oesterreichische Grossunternehmen in Kurzdarstellungen, Vienna 1987, 143-144; Hans HELLER, Zwischen zwei Welten. Memories, Documents, Prose, Pictures, Wels 1985; Tamara EHS, The State Sciences. Historical facts on "cheap doctorates" and "women's and foreigners' studies", in zeitgeschichte, 37 (2010), 238-256, 246; www.ancestry.de; www.genteam.at; kind comments from Edith Heller, Vienna 06/2022.
Herbert Posch
