Berthold Jacob

Berthold Jacob (12 December 1898 in Berlin – 26 February 1944 in Berlin) was a German journalist and pacifist during the Interwar period.

Biography

Jacob was born into a Jewish family in Berlin, on 12 December 1898, the son of art salesman and silk manufacturer David Jacob. He served on the Western Front in 1918 during the First World War, which led him to become a pacifist. He became a journalist in 1920, He had known Wesemann for some time and had served as best man at Wesemann's wedding. Wesemann was later sentenced to three years in jail for the kidnapping. The case was investigated by Swiss police officer Anton Ganz, who went to London to interview such people as Dora Fabian and Karl Korsch. The subsequent death of Fabian alongside her friend Mathilde Wurm led to concern that they had been murdered rather than committed suicide which was the verdict of the coroner's court. This contributed to the climate of opinion which led to a successful campaign for Jacob's release from Nazi Germany. This campaign was based on Swiss diplomatic pressure on the German government and German exile protests. However, he was once again kidnapped by the Gestapo in Lisbon and held in the Gestapo prison at Prinz-Albrecht-Straße, Berlin. Owing to the harsh treatment he endured, Jacob died in the Berlin Jewish Hospital on 26 February 1944.

Works 1925: Weissbuch über die Schwarze Reichswehr (with Emil Julius Gumbel) Berlin: Verlag der Neuen Gesellschaft, 1925: Deutschlands geheime Rüstungen? Berlin: Verlag der Neuen Gesellschaft 1929: Verräter verfallen der Feme: Opfer, Mörder, Richter 1919–1929 (with Emil Julius Gumbel, Ernst Falck) Berlin: Malik 1934: Die Hindenburg-Legende. Verlag La République, Strasbourg 1934: Wer? Aus dem Arsenal der Reichstagsbrandstifter. Strasbourg 1934: Memoiren des Stabschefs Röhm. (Anonymous) Strasbourg 1936: Das neue deutsche Heer und seine Führer: Mit einer Rangliste des deutschen Heeres und Dienstaltersliste (nach dem Stande von Mitte August 1936). 1936: Warum schweigt die Welt? (with contributions from Carl von Ossietzky, Georg Bernhard, Wolf Franck, Jack Iwo, Alfred Kantorowicz, Rudolf Leonhard, Paul Westheim) Paris: Éditions du Phénix 1937: Weltbürger Ossietzky. Ein Abriss seines Werkes (with a biography of Ossietzkys, and foreword by Wickham Steed) Paris: Éditions du Carrefour