22. Mai 2025 19:00
Ainslie Hepburn
The Deutsch-Britische Gesellschaft
Rhein-Main e.V. and the EuropaUnion Frankfurt a. M.
invite you to an event titled
‚A Jew who defeated Nazism: Herbert Sulzbach’s Peace, Reconciliation and a New
Germany‘
with
Ainslie Hepburn
on Thursday May 22, 2025 at 19 hrs
Venue: Frankfurter Presseclub, Ulmenstraße 20, 60325 Frankfurt and virtual (via Zoom*)
Please register for the Pressclub by May 16 and for Zoom by May 20 at dbg-rheinmain@t-online.de.
*Registered Zoom-participants will receive login details on May 21.
Biographical Notes:
Ainslie is a writer and historian specialising in the Second World War, with particular interest in the extraordinary – sometimes vexed, and often moving – experience of working with German prisoners of war (PoW) in Britain. She has a first-class honours degree from the Open University and has been a tutor in social history with the Workers‘ Educational Association in the north of England. She has published ‚Trust, Reconciliation, and Friendship‘ in Humanitas and in Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte. For this biography, her research has included official sources, private letters and papers, oral history accounts, and interviews with people in Britain and Germany. She lives in Brighton, and writes from an oast house in the Sussex countryside.
Synopsis:
Herbert Sulzbach (1894 – 1985) was an influential figure in Britain and Germany who made a remarkable personal contribution to Anglo-German reconciliation following the Second World War. Working with German prisoners of war in Britain in camps that included fanatical Nazis, he guided men of all ranks – including senior officers – to personal, educational, and cultural achievements in preparation for peace and reconciliation. This is a graphic and moving account of a largely untold aspect of the war where the seeds of reconciliation, and a ‚New Germany‘, were fostered by a remarkable and self-deprecating ‚ordinary‘ man.
It is also a personal and family story, and a microcosm of European history. Sulzbach was born into an elite German Jewish banking family, and nurtured and educated in the ideals of the Enlightenment. In the First World War, he served as a front-line artillery officer with the German Imperial Army. Defeat was a shattering disappointment to him, and the subsequent economic depression badly affected his own business as well as the family banking fortunes. Although Sulzbach’s life in Berlin with his artistic wife, Beate, remained cushioned by wealth and the cultural life of the city, the rise of National Socialism brought this to an end. In the 1930s his business was compulsorily purchased and he fled with Beate to exile in England, where they became interned as ‚enemy aliens‘ on the Isle of Man. When released, Sulzbach served with the British army and found his calling as an interpreter and educator in PoW camps in Scotland and Northumberland. There, his work of ‚de-nazification‘ and re-education, based on his personal qualities and empathy, was astonishingly successful. This crucial work complements the later career in the German Embassy in London of this extraordinary man.
Melden Sie sich an
Hinweis: Mit der Anmeldung und Teilnahme an diesem Event stimmen Sie der Aufzeichnung Ihres Äußeren und/oder Ihrer Stimme zu, die Deutsch-Britische Gesellschaft in Fotos, Videos und begleitenden Tonaufnahmen über beliebige Medien und zu beliebigen Zwecken veröffentlichen kann.
22. Mai 2025 19:00
Ainslie Hepburn
Veranstaltungsort
Frankfurter Presseclub
Ulmenstraße 20
60325 Frankfurt am Main
The Deutsch-Britische Gesellschaft
Rhein-Main e.V. and the EuropaUnion Frankfurt a. M.
invite you to an event titled
‚A Jew who defeated Nazism: Herbert Sulzbach’s Peace, Reconciliation and a New
Germany‘
with
Ainslie Hepburn
on Thursday May 22, 2025 at 19 hrs
Venue: Frankfurter Presseclub, Ulmenstraße 20, 60325 Frankfurt and virtual (via Zoom*)
Please register for the Pressclub by May 16 and for Zoom by May 20 at dbg-rheinmain@t-online.de.
*Registered Zoom-participants will receive login details on May 21.
Biographical Notes:
Ainslie is a writer and historian specialising in the Second World War, with particular interest in the extraordinary – sometimes vexed, and often moving – experience of working with German prisoners of war (PoW) in Britain. She has a first-class honours degree from the Open University and has been a tutor in social history with the Workers‘ Educational Association in the north of England. She has published ‚Trust, Reconciliation, and Friendship‘ in Humanitas and in Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte. For this biography, her research has included official sources, private letters and papers, oral history accounts, and interviews with people in Britain and Germany. She lives in Brighton, and writes from an oast house in the Sussex countryside.
Synopsis:
Herbert Sulzbach (1894 – 1985) was an influential figure in Britain and Germany who made a remarkable personal contribution to Anglo-German reconciliation following the Second World War. Working with German prisoners of war in Britain in camps that included fanatical Nazis, he guided men of all ranks – including senior officers – to personal, educational, and cultural achievements in preparation for peace and reconciliation. This is a graphic and moving account of a largely untold aspect of the war where the seeds of reconciliation, and a ‚New Germany‘, were fostered by a remarkable and self-deprecating ‚ordinary‘ man.
It is also a personal and family story, and a microcosm of European history. Sulzbach was born into an elite German Jewish banking family, and nurtured and educated in the ideals of the Enlightenment. In the First World War, he served as a front-line artillery officer with the German Imperial Army. Defeat was a shattering disappointment to him, and the subsequent economic depression badly affected his own business as well as the family banking fortunes. Although Sulzbach’s life in Berlin with his artistic wife, Beate, remained cushioned by wealth and the cultural life of the city, the rise of National Socialism brought this to an end. In the 1930s his business was compulsorily purchased and he fled with Beate to exile in England, where they became interned as ‚enemy aliens‘ on the Isle of Man. When released, Sulzbach served with the British army and found his calling as an interpreter and educator in PoW camps in Scotland and Northumberland. There, his work of ‚de-nazification‘ and re-education, based on his personal qualities and empathy, was astonishingly successful. This crucial work complements the later career in the German Embassy in London of this extraordinary man.
Melden Sie sich an
Hinweis: Mit der Anmeldung und Teilnahme an diesem Event stimmen Sie der Aufzeichnung Ihres Äußeren und/oder Ihrer Stimme zu, die Deutsch-Britische Gesellschaft in Fotos, Videos und begleitenden Tonaufnahmen über beliebige Medien und zu beliebigen Zwecken veröffentlichen kann.