Arnold Oberndörffer

Arnold Julius Oberndörffer was born on the 7th of August 1914 in Berlin, to Toni Oberndörffer (later Salomon) née Stadthagen (1887-1942) from Berlin and the neurologist Dr Ernst Oberndörffer (1876-1916) from Munich. Arnold’s mother Toni had worked as a Kindergarten assistant before her marriage in 1913 and counted the Social Democratic (SPD) Reichstag Member Arthur Stadthagen (1857-1917) amongst her uncles. Arnold’s father Ernst had studied medicine at the Ludwig- Maximilian Universität in Munich and after gaining his doctorate worked as an Assistenzarzt (resident physician) at the Moabit Hospital in Berlin, before setting up practice as a neurologist. Ernst was also an editorial member of the Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift (German Medical Journal) and edited Roth’s klinische Terminologie (Roth’s Clinical Terminology).

Two days before Arnold was born, at the outbreak of the First World War, his father Ernst, a Landwehr (reservist) medical officer, reported for duty with Sanitäts Kompagnie 2 (Medical Company 2) of the III. Bavarian Armeekorps, attached to the 6. Bavarian Infantry Division on the Western Front. Ernst served at main dressing-stations during the Battles of the Frontiers in Lorraine and in the St Mihiel Salient in 1914 and 1915, receiving the Iron Cross II. Class and Bavarian Military Merit Medal. In 1915 Ernst transferred to the Ottoman Army and was appointed medical doctor to the staff of Field Marshall von der Goltz, the German commander of the Ottoman 6th Army in Mesopotamia. Ernst reorganized the Abdul Achad Military Hospital in Baghdad along German lines, for which service he received the Iron Crescent and promotion to Sanitätsmajor (medical major). In February 1916 Ernst contracted epidemic typhus while examining a wounded soldier and died of the disease two weeks later, on the 10th of March. The following night Ernst was buried in the Jewish Cemetery in Baghdad with full military honours, after a torchlit funeral attended by the German and Ottoman command, dignitaries and the Jewish community.

After his father’s death the infant Arnold and his mother moved from their apartment at Uhlandstraße 43, in Wilmersdorf to a ground-floor apartment at Hölderlinstraße 10 in the Westend area of Charlottenburg. Arnold’s grandmother Agnes Stadthagen née Jacobi (1864-1938) moved to the same building, living on the first floor above them.

Both Arnold’s uncles served in the First World War. His father’s younger brother Leo Oberndörffer (1882-1916) died of wounds at the Battle of the Somme in 1916 serving in a foot artillery battery, having received the Iron Cross II. Class. His mother’s younger brother Paul Stadthagen (1893-1943) served as a pilot in Kasta 2 (Battle Flight 2), receiving the Iron Cross I. Class.

Arnold’s mother Toni married her second husband, the internal physician Dr Julian Nathanblut (1877-1942), on the 10th of July 1919, but divorced the following year. His mother married her third husband, the Justizrat (Judicial Counsel) Dr Philipp Salomon (1867-1941) on the 18th of April 1922 and his new stepfather moved into the family apartment at Hölderlinstraße. His sister Evamarie Salomon (1924-1942) was born on the 18th of September 1924. Arnold was the eldest of an extended family of cousins who all lived close by, his aunt Lilli Rehfisch née Stadthagen (1891-1941/42) and uncle Paul Stadthagen raising their respective families in the Westend. His cousin Beate Rehfisch (1921-2015) remembered him as a quiet, gentle boy, protective of his younger sister and cousins.

Arnold aspired to follow his father into medicine but was unable to gain a place at university in Germany, due to the fixed percentage placed on the number of students of Jewish descent after Hitler came to power. Arnold, aged 19, made the decision to emigrate to the Netherlands in 1933. Briefly residing in Amsterdam, Arnold worked as a gardener in the Hague in 1935 and later at a holiday camp in Apeldoorn.

However, Arnold developed a serious illness and returned to Germany in 1936. He stayed at a sanatorium in the spa town of Obernigk (Oborniki Śląskie), Trebnitz (Trzebnica) County in Lower Silesia to recover from his illness and was learning English with a private tutor, probably with the intention of emigrating to the United Kingdom.

Arnold’s health deteriorated and he died on the 16th of February 1937. Arnold’s mother Toni brought his body back to Berlin from Trebnitz and Arnold is buried at the Weißensee Cemetery close to his grandparents Agnes and Julius Stadthagen (1855-1912).

Arnold’s stepfather Philipp Salomon died of heart failure at home on the 27th of April 1941 and his ashes are interred at the Weißensee Cemetery. Arnold’s aunt Lilli Rehfisch was deported from Nuremberg to the Jungfernhof Concentration Camp outside Riga, Latvia on the 29th of November 1941, where she was murdered. Arnold’s mother Toni Salomon and sister Evamarie Salomon were deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration and Extermination Camp on the 11th of July 1942, where they were murdered. Arnold’s former stepfather Dr Julian Nathanblut was deported from the Drancy Concentration Camp in France on the 28th of August 1942 to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration and Extermination Camp, where he was murdered. Arnold’s uncle Paul Stadthagen was deported to the Theresienstadt Concentration Camp on the 23rd of September 1942, where he was murdered.

This biography has been written by Robert Duncan, the grandson of Arnold’s cousin Beata Duncan (Beate Rehfisch). London 2022. This Stolperstein has been sponsored by the descendants of Arnold’s cousins.