Bruno Asch

Location 
Hüninger Str. 36 / Breisacher Straße 19
District
Dahlem
Stone was laid
March 2009
Born
23 July 1890 in Wollstein (Posen) / Wolsztyn
Occupation
Schneider / Stadtkämmerer
Escape into death
15 May 1940 in Amsterdam
The proposed budget in 1930 for unemployment benefit was 46 million Reichmarks, and the actual expenditure in 1930 was 78 million [...] In the 1931 budget some 158 million have been put aside for this purpose [...] . This is surely a sign that large parts of the population live in alarming poverty but also that the city of Berlin is committed to doing its utmost to help those in need in times of distress.

Bruno Asch to the city council, 3. 6. 1931



Bruno Asch came from a Jewish family. He was employed by David textiles factory in Charlottenburg after completing an apprenticeship there. He served as a soldier in the First World War from 1914 to 1918 and then returned to work in the factory. After a brief spell working as a writer, Asch was elected salaried councillor in the Frankfurt district of Hoechst in 1920 and mayor in 1922. In 1924, he published a paper on local authority funding in Prussia. The next year, he became city treasurer of Frankfurt am Main. On 14.4.1931, the Berlin city council elected him treasurer. After the Nazis came to power, he was suspended on 13.3.1933 and later dismissed. In autumn 1933, he emigrated with his family to Amsterdam, where he co-founded a company to administer and audit property and businesses with the former president of the state bank of Thuringia, Löb. In 1938, the Asch family was expatriated by the German Reich. In 1939, Asch’s oldest daughter Mirjam (19) managed to emigrate to Palestine. After the German occupation of the Netherlands, Bruno Asch committed suicide. His wife Margarethe and their daughters Ruth and Renate were deported to Sobibor extermination camp in 1943, where they were murdered. A street in Hoechst is named after Bruno Asch. On 22.9.1994, a commemorative plaque was installed in his memory at the Bolongaro Palais in Höchst.

Bruno Asch was a municipal councillor 1931 – 1933 (SPD)