Emil Krasny

Born:	11-28-1876
Faculty:	Law School
Category:	Deprivation of academic degree

Emil KRASNY (born on November 28^th, 1876 in Přívoz, Moravia/Austria-Hungary [Ostrava/Czech Republic], had obtained the degree of Dr. iur. from the Law School of the University of Vienna on July 22^nd, 1902. Since August 10^th, 1909, he had been registered in the Vienna Bar List and had his own law office in Vienna's 1st district, Riemergasse 9, and was also a chamber lawyer substitute in the Disciplinary Council of the Bar Association in Vienna. He was also a member of the Masonic Lodge B'nai Brith since March 3^rd, 1914.
Emil Krasny was married to Ernestine Rittermann (divorced Pollak, born August 1^st, 1888 in Krakow, died July 10^th, 1940 in London) and on June 18^th, 1918 their son Martin Theodor Krasny was born in Vienna. Emil Krasny and his wife were persecuted under National Socialism as a Jews and had to flee Austria, where they had lived in Vienna's 3^rd district, Esteplatz 3. He had to close his law office and was deleted from the list of lawyers on September 6^th, 1938. On November 3^rd, he was officially deregistered with the destination: "to Palestine" [Israel]. They were still able to emigrate to England/Great Britain in time, but did not make it further to Palestine. In 1939 they lived at 28 Nevern Square, Kensington, London SW5 (their son, only 20 years old, had died in Cambridge on 23 September 1939). After both had been exempted from internment as enemy aliens on October 20, 1939, Emil Krasny was interned on June 21, 1940. Both were denaturalized by the German Reich as a result of the forced emigration (denaturalization list no. 102, published in the Deutscher Reichsanzeiger on May 5^th, 1941), they thus became stateless and were expropriated in favor of the German Reich. Emil Krasny's wife Ernestine, however, had already died by this time. Dr. Emil Krasny died on January 1^st, 1942 in London, England/Great Britain. Unaware of his death, he was deprived of his academic degree on July 17^th, 1942, as a legal consequence of emigration and expatriation and for racist reasons, as he was considered "unworthy of an academic degree from a German university as a Jew" by the National Socialists. Only 13 years after the deprivation and long after the end of National Socialism was his doctoral degree posthumously restored on May 15^th, 1955, in ignorance of his death the deprivation was declared "null and void from the beginning".

Lit.: Archive of the University of Vienna/graduation register ("Promotionsprotokoll") IUR 1897–1903 No 1101, rectorate GZ 118 ex 1941/42 No 1, GZ 561 ex 1944/45 No 15; Austrian State Archives OeStA/AdR/EuReang/VVSt/VA 24834, OeStA/AdR/EuReang/FLD 14560; Deutscher Reichsanzeiger, Nr. 102, May 5^th, 1941; POSCH 2009, 439; SAUER/REITER-ZATLOUKAL 2010, 212; www.genteam.at www.ancestry.de.

Herbert Posch