The girl that could not be named Esther. Winfried Seibert

of the times because otherwise you won’t understand anything.

      Even though the Berlin proceedings concerned only the given name of a Christian girl, the controversy over Esther’s name revolved completely around the Jewish Question. Almost everything at that time revolved around this phenomenon, whose meaning for the party comrades of the year 1938 cannot be grasped from today’s point of view by rational consideration alone.

      The Jews in Germany formed a minority of less than 1% of the population. At the last census in 1933, 502,799 persons of Jewish faith were counted, including 94,717 foreigners, mainly Poles.⁶› Reference 160,000 of these people, a good third of all the Jews in Germany, lived in Berlin, making up 5.33% of its population. At the beginning of 1938, before the annexation of Austria, the German Reich had 68 million inhabitants, including some 300,000 so-called persons of the Jewish faith. That came to 0.44% of the total population.

      It was well known that Jews were heavily represented in several economic sectors and professions. This was based on historical grounds, which were connected with the restricted rights of the Jews in Germany over the centuries. German Jews also contributed to Germany’s scientific fame. Of the fourteen German Nobel Prize winners in chemistry, four were of Jewish origin.⁷› Reference Of the Nobel Prize winners in physics, three of the twelve German laureates were Jewish,⁸› Reference and in medicine, three out of seven.⁹› Reference These were numbers to be proud of, but they didn’t help at all.

      By the beginning of 1938 — a good 200,000 Jewish Germans had meanwhile left the increasingly dangerous country — the concentration in Berlin had become even greater.

      128,000 Jews still lived in the capital, some 43% of all Jews remaining in Germany. Their proportion of the Berlin population had sunk to barely 3%.¹⁰› Reference Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels exerted deliberate pressure on them, as he noted in his diary on June 11, 1938:

      Lectured to over 300 police officers in Berlin about the Jewish question. I really stirred them up. Oppose all sentimentality. Don’t worry about the law; harass them. The Jews must be driven out of Berlin. The police will help me in doing that.

      The Germany of 1938 had grown larger. With the annexation of the so-called Eastern Marches (Ostmark – a centuriesold term for Austria), the population of Greater Germany had grown to 76 million. Bringing in Austria had brought in another 180,000 Jews, now totaling 0.63% of the German population.¹¹› Reference

      And yet this tiny minority stood at the very center of the thinking and aspirations of the National Socialist government. The judiciary was also fixated on this minority in the way it persecuted them, excluded them, and deprived them of their rights. These judicial activities cannot be explained away or excused with reference to loyalty to a positivistic reading of the law, in which the judges were bound to follow the letter of the law literally. The wording of many, many decisions makes it clear that nothing here can be excused.

      Seen from a modern foreshortened perspective, the year 1938 was especially notable for the annexation of Austria, the crisis of the Sudeten area of Czechoslovakia which ended with the Munich Agreement, and, most significant for us today, the Night of Broken Glass (Kristallnacht) with all its fearsome consequences. The Germans of 1938 were unaffected by the persecution; they went about their daily lives. The propaganda machine of the ever-more-arrogant Greater German State churned out reports of successes. There were quite a few of these, serving to distract people from the difficulties of daily life. The economy of the Third Reich was, strictly speaking, heavily indebted, if not over its head in debt. Rearmament and the attempts at full employment had their price, though of course nothing of this appeared in the papers. Foreign policy successes might make people euphoric, but they did not fill the state treasury. From time to time the state needed to throw the dog a bone. The grass roots, the party faithful, demanded their due.

      The press reported in much greater detail the August 1, 1938 introduction of the plan for the common people to save for a private automobile than it reported the burning synagogues of November 10. Isn’t this what people actually wanted to know about? All the same, we may still be curious to know what there was to fear, to see, to hear, and to suspect before November 10, 1938.

      Life for the non-Jewish Volksgenossen, National Comrades — by definition, there could be no Jewish National Comrades — life for the National Comrades in 1938 went on as normal. To most Germans, conditions may have appeared better than in previous years. This came out in the birth rates. The number of births in 1938 in the country as a whole rose to 1,493,000, the largest number since 1922. That corresponded to 19 births per 1,000 inhabitants (compared to 8.7 in 2005). Still, the Journal of the Office for Racial Policy of the National Socialist Workers‘ Party (the Nazis) noted in a warning tone:

      There were still lacking another 148,000 live births, some 9%, for the birth rate needed to maintain the strength of the people and its military power.¹²› Reference

      The Olympic Games of 1936 had brought success, fame, and international prestige. The Nazi system had restrained itself for the sake of this international renown, and had even cut back on the harassment of the Jews in Germany, at least on the surface. What lay dormant in the heads and in the desk drawers of the Party comrades and the Party organizations was not visible. The situation was comparatively quiet; the Sturm und Drang (Storm and Stress) and the rowdyism of 1933-1935, the early years of Nazi rule, seemed to have subsided. Actually, it was only the lull before the storm.

      The little girl who was to be named Esther was born on August 11, 1938, in Gelsenkirchen. The baby was healthy, 52 centimeters (20.5 inches) long, and weighed 3150 grams (6 pounds, 15 ounces).

      ESTHER

      We announce the birth of a healthy baby girl to FRIEDRICH LUNCKE AND WIFE Luise, nee Peuckmann.

      Gelsenkirchen, August 11, 1938, the Protestant Hospital Wattenscheid-Leithe, Protestant Parish House

      One month later, on September 11, 1938, the father, Pastor Friedrich Luncke, baptized the baby in Wattenscheid with the name Esther. To be sure, the child had no official given name because the State Registry Office had refused the name Esther. For the state, Esther had no name.

      The baptism was not only somewhat late; it was now a conscious act of protest by the father. After the Registry Office had refused the child the name which he desired, he had gone ahead and baptized his daughter with the beautiful name of Esther. He and his wife stood firm with this name; let the Registry Office official decide whatever he wanted. To be sure, the Lunckes had thought about the choice of a name long and hard.

      They were familiar with the biblical book of Esther and the wonderful story of the beautiful Jewish girl in the Persian diaspora who found favor in the eyes of the king and had been elevated to the position of Queen Esther. They were touched by the dilemma of Esther, torn between conflicting duties. She would have to disregard a command of her husband the king, something punishable by death, if she wanted to save her people from a threatened pogrom. She overcame her dilemma with the determined words, If I perish, so I perish.

      According to Jewish tradition, Esther is numbered among the four most beautiful women in the history of the world. That doesn’t have to be taken literally, but one can certainly see from the story that the biblical Esther combined beauty with courage. As parents are wont to do, you could read a lot into this name, a name resounding with wishes and hopes.

      As thoughtful readers of the Bible, the Lunckes must have been aware that the Book of Esther also presents problems. No matter whether this was a pious tale or not, they would have had their doubts about the fact that Esther’s courage in saving the Jews in Persia was sullied by the alleged death of 75,000 Persians – a thoroughgoing counter-pogrom going beyond pure defensive measures. This was no simple story with simple answers. It was vigorously debated among theologians.

      But it was just that circumstance that made the name so much more endearing to the Lunckes. They had