Henry (Heinz) Landman (Landmann)

Henry Landman was born as Heinz Landmann on the 12th of June 1920 in Augsburg. His parents were Regina Landmann, born Grünebaum (1891 – 1955) and Joseph Landmann (1895 – 1964).  He grew up in Augsburg, together with his sisters Johanna (1921 – 1970) and Irma (1923 – 1985).¹

After 1922 the family lived in a household with Minna Wolf who was a sister of the mother, and her own daughter Auguste.

In the 1920`s the family lived in a flat in the Bahnhofstrasse 18.² A later address of Heinz Landmann was named as Maximillianstrasse 4c.³ Later they all moved together in the Hermanstrasse 3.⁴

At the age of six, Heinz Landmann was a pupil at the Volkshauptschule St. Anna (today St. Anna-Grundschule, Schaetzlerstrasse).⁵ When he was ten, he then went to the Augsburger Realgymnasium. (Today that is Peutinger Gymnasium, An der Blauen Kappe 10).

Privately, Heinz Landmann was evidently a sporty young man. Many documents and pictures show his many activities. His big sporting passion was, according to himself, football.  „I belong to a German soccer club, which was my love of (laughs) my life, playing soccer at that time“.⁶ He belonged to the school eleven of the football club Schwaben Augsburg.⁷

Not only at school, but also in his sport club, he experienced discrimination and anti-Jewish hate. These experiences accompanied his whole life, and he spoke often of them, as well as mentioning them in an interview with Gernot Römer, during the evening when he took part in a regular meeting of players. During this time, he had to live through a long rabble-rousing lecture about Jews and other enemies of the empire, given by a member of the Sturmabteiling (S.A.). This personal experience was so serious for him, that the next day he announced his immediate resignation from the football club.⁸

During the school lessons, there were repeated anti-Jewish actions. Henry Landman reported in detail, how a Jewish schoolboy was discriminated in front of the whole class. The teacher humiliated the schoolboy by telling the other pupils to keep clear of him.  He was a „living Jewish material for deterrence“⁹

Presumably Heinz Landmann left school in 1935 and began to work as a farrier in his parentsbusiness. He also went to a vocational training school in Augsburg. A letter from the owner of the business Josef Berchtold from Augsburg confirmed that he was in his farriers business from 1st April 1936 until 9th September 1938.¹⁰

Although the family were trying to obtain permission to leave throughout 1938, Heinz Landmann still obtained a driving licence.

In the „Reichspogromnacht“ between the 9th and 10th November 1938, Heinz Landmann was taken from his bed in his parents` house, and  taken to the police headquarters. He was the first of about two hundred arrested Jewish men from Augsburg who landed in the police headquarters in that night.¹¹

From there, together with the other men, he was brought to the Augsburger Gestapo prison at Katzenstadel. He remembers that he was locked up with three other men in a cell.¹² The next morning all the prisoners (including his father) were brought to the concentration camp in Dachau.¹³

As soon as he arrived in Dachau Heinz Landmann was confronted with the extreme violent actions of the guards and was exposed to massive psychological terror. He spoke little about the singular experiences in an interview and biography. Altogether he was detained for six weeks in the concentration lager.

Some of the members of the family had to leave the country separately from each other. Heinz Landmann left Germany in March 1939 on his own.¹⁴ He emigrated via England, where he stayed for seven months, to the USA. In November 1939 his parents and his siblings were reunited.

In January 1943 Heinz Landmann was drafted for military service in the American army.¹⁵ His path as a soldier took him then back to Germany in the Second World War, and eventually to Augsburg.

Henry Landman reached Augsburg on the 28th of April 1945. There he looked for his Aunt Minna.  She was the only one in the family who did not receive emigration papers. Just in time, his cousin Auguste had been put on the childrens` transport to England.  However, a friendly family could give him back just one suitcase with the personal objects of his aunt, which she had given them before she was deported from Augsburg.

When he returned to the U.S.A. he worked together with his father in the family business. In 1947 he married Lisa Öttinger who had been born in Nürnberg. They had two sons, Robert and Richard.¹⁶

Henry Landman repeatedly reported his experiences throughout his life. It had become an urgent need to work against forgetting. In his newspaper interview from 1996, on being asked what was personally important to him to tell, he said „to be aware that it can happen again“.¹⁷

In 2014 Henry Landman died in New York at the age of 94.

Maria Kastner