Metadata: Estate of Martin Littmann
Collection
- Country:
- Switzerland
- Holding institution:
- Archives of Contemporary History at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich
- Holding institution (official language):
- Archiv für Zeitgeschichte der ETH Zürich
- Postal address:
- Hirschengraben 62, CH-8092 Zurich
- Phone number:
- +41 44 632 40 03
- Web address:
- https://www.afz.ethz.ch/
- Email:
- afz@history.gess.ethz.ch
- Reference number:
- NL Martin Littmann
- Title:
- Estate of Martin Littmann
- Title (official language):
- Teilnachlass Rabbiner Martin Littmann
- Creator/accumulator:
- Littmann, Martin
- Date(s):
- 1851/1995
- Language:
- German
- Extent:
- 0.5 shelf metres
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
- The collection contains personal documents, family photos and a memorial album, which Martin Littmann’s son Joseph compiled in 1945. From his 25th anniversary as rabbi at the ICZ in 1918 there are a certificate, a cup and a plate.
- Archival history:
- The estate was handed over to the AfZ by Littmann’s granddaughter Bettina Girsberger in several deliveries between 1999 and 2007. The last delivery was made at her request to complete the holdings from the ICZ library in November 2010. These are five volumes of handwritten notes by Rabbi Littmann, which he kept continuously from 1901 to about 1942.
- Administrative/biographical history:
-
Martin Littmann, a rabbi, was born in Bischofwerder (West Prussia) in 1864 and died in Zurich on 18 May 1945. He was the son of Joseph Littmann and Henriette Marcuse and attended grammar school in Königsberg (Kaliningrad) and the Jewish Theological Seminary in Breslau (Wroclaw) until 1891. In 1897, Littmann married Betty Schwabacher and in the same year their first son, Joseph, was born. In 1904 there followed a second son, Leo. Littmann’s wife Betty died in 1926. From 1891 to 1893, Littmann held the rabbinate in Elbing (district of Gdansk) until he was appointed as the rabbi of the Jewish Community in Zurich (ICZ), an office he held for 44 years. In 1937, he resigned as rabbi of the ICZ.
In 1901, he co-founded the "Israelitisches Wochenblatt für die Schweiz" with Josef Strauss. Until 1918, he acted as publisher and editor of the paper. Littman also co-founded the Jewish old-age asylum in Lengnau and was a member of the board of "Etania" in Davos. In 1937, he published a part of his collected sermons under the title “Gelesenes und Gehörtes. Aus jüdischem Geist”.
- Access points: locations:
- Zurich
- Access points: persons/families:
- Littmann
- Subject terms:
- Personal records
- Rabbis
- Finding aids:
- An online finding aid is available.
- Links to finding aids:
- http://onlinearchives.ethz.ch/
- Yerusha Network member:
- Jewish Museum Hohenems
- Author of the description:
- Severin Holzknecht; Jewish Museum of Hohenems; 2020