Talk:Wolf Rilla

Wolf Rilla - here: father Walter Rilla

Hello everybody, the current page on Wolf Rilla claims that his father Walter Rilla was "part-Jewish" but fails to prove it. As Walter Rilla's scholarly biographer researching him since 2002, I have found to date that Walter Rilla's sole confirmed Jewish connection was his first marriage to Theresa Klausner who hailed from a Jewish family of stage artists in Vienna. Rilla's parents, grandparents and great-grandparents on the Saarlandish side and the parents and grand-parents on the Eastern Prussian side were all Protestants. The respective sources are accessible in archive item no. 357 of the Paul-Rilla-Archiv held by the German Akademie der Künste in Berlin; the sources in that item consist in certified copies of local church records from both German regions, reconfirming: 1) the 1867 protestant church birth and baptism certificate of Friedrich W. Rilla (father) to protestant parents Wilhelm Rilla and wife Agathe born Pleßa, with Friedrich W. Rilla born in Kuckuckswald/Eastern Prussia and baptised soon after in the protestant church of Passenheim/Eastern Prussia; 2) the 1871 protestant church birth and baptism certificate of Karoline Günder(mother), Neunkirchen/Saar, born to resident parents Karl R. Günder and wife Maria Luise born Wittich; 3) the 1893 protestant church marriage certificate of Friedrich W. Rilla and Karoline Günder, Neunkirchen/Saar, naming them on their part as descendants of Wilhelm Rilla and wife Agathe born Pleßa respectively Karl R. Günder and wife Maria Luise born Wittich; 4) the 1859 protestant church marriage certificate of Günder's parents Karl R. Günder and wife Maria Luise born Wittich, Neunkirchen/Saar, naming them on their part as a descendants of the resident couples Friedrich Günder and wife Karoline born Anschütz respectively Johann Nikolaus Wittich and wife Margarethe born Büch.

The fact that including Walter Rilla all known ancestors of Wolf Rilla were protestants is also deductible from the administrative way in which the 1938 record copies were certified and handled later on by National Socialist authorities: Had any of Walter Rilla's ancestors actually been Jewish or part-Jewish, the local Berlin police which in 1938 required proof of ancestry for his brother Paul Rilla's intended marriage to Austrian Dr. phil. Martina Zollner (descendant of an Innsbruck-based family) would have stated that asap in explicit writing; it would have declared their sexual intercourse and intention of marriage a crime according to the antisemitic NS race segregation laws of 1935 (aka "Nürnberger Rassegesetze" aka "Nuremberg Laws"). In such a case, the names of Paul Rilla and Martina Zollner would asap have been passed on to the NS judiciary for prosecution since the Nazis presumed any sexual intercourse or the marriage between a Christian and a Jew or part-Jew to be a grave racial offence, termed "Rassenschande" in NS language, punishable e.g. for the male with prison or prison with hard labour according to article 5 of the 1935 law. Yet, no such administrative remark or judicial handling is evident from the respective sources. During the whole NS era, formerly famed left-wing Weimar journalist Paul Rilla was forbidden for political reasons to continue his pre-1933 work and constantly harassed by the Nazis in every legal way open to them. But the weapon of the race segregation laws was not in their repertoire in his case: Paul Rilla and Martina Zollner were allowed to marry in Berlin in 1939 which would have been legally impossible had he been a part-Jew. There is also no other evidence known to me that the Rilla-Zollner couple was ever prosecuted for the said offence at any given time until the race segregation laws were quashed in 1945. Best regards, Gerhild Krebs (Saarland University, Saabrücken and University of Warwick, Coventry) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 11UrsAries22 (talk • contribs) 21:35, 18 February 2017 (UTC) --11UrsAries22 (talk) 21:51, 18 February 2017 (UTC)