Darmstadt: History of a Merchant Family | Darmstadt

The book

“Heinrich – Geschichte einer Kaufmannsfamilie 1807-1945” Paperback, 224 pages, ISBN 978-3-7526-9151-1, 14.90 euros, e-book 7.99 euros.

–

“An entry in Heinrich’s life story aroused my very special attention, especially in the impression of the corona virus pandemic that broke out in February / March 2020,” writes Dieter Heymann. It is about the Spanish flu, which claimed millions of deaths during his father’s lifetime, more than the First World War, and which the father still only mentioned in one sentence: namely that Franz Kafka was infected by the Spanish flu in October 1918.

Fascinated by the thought that a hundred years ago a pandemic overwhelmed his ancestors, Dieter Heymann wondered how they dealt with it and in his book also undertakes an excursion into the history of epidemics and pandemics. The 220-page work is divided into 60 chapters. With the time of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870/71, the family’s history picked up speed and was always closely linked to the company’s history; goes on about the establishment of an empire, thematizes life reform, the golden twenties, the global economic crisis, the two world wars.

Dieter Heymann also devotes himself to Jewish life in Darmstadt, as the Heymanns’ progenitor, Leopold, was an Israelite trader. The family always had to fear for its existence during the Nazi era. They were reported once. “The father had the worst fears that they would be persecuted because of their Jewish ancestors”, Heymann quotes his father. Ups and downs, setbacks and successes run through the family history. Heymann himself worked in the family business for 33 years until he gave up the bed house in 2003 and began to write and study philosophy in retirement. “Heinrich” is his fourth book. The 75-year-old is a co-founder of the Akademie 55 plus association and regularly organizes lectures and readings. “Heinrich”, his first historical book, he wrote for his descendants, as he says.