Karl Loewenstein

Karl Loewenstein (2 May 1887 – 9 August 1975/1976) was a German banker and naval officer. He was imprisoned in the Theresienstadt Ghetto in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia during World War II. In the ghetto, he served as the head of the Jewish police. After World War II, Loewenstein was rearrested and imprisoned without charge for a period of time by authorities of the reconstituted Czechoslovakia, purportedly due to mistaken identity.

Though a controversial to Jewish parents. H.G. Adler, who knew Loewenstein, refers to him as "Dr. Loewenstein" throughout his work Theresienstadt 1941–1945.

Politics Loewenstein began his political life as a member of the conservative-nationalist Fatherland Party before joining the German People's Party after World War I.

Arrest and internments

Minsk Ghetto Loewenstein's involvement in the Confessing Church, in combination with his Jewish parentage, led to his arrest in November 1941. The following year, he was transferred to the Theresienstadt Ghetto in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.

Unlike in other concentration camps, Loewenstein's Ghetto Guard was not used to support SS deportation operations.

During the year he spent at its head, the Ghetto Guard under Loewenstein swelled to an efficient unit of between 400 and 500 inmates. Loewenstein introduced uniforms, marching drills, and Prussian-inspired military customs for the force. In 1943, Loewenstein was deposed as head of ghetto security services and much of the Ghetto Guard deported, along with Jakob Edelstein, replaced by yet another inmate-staffed security service.

Loewenstein was suddenly released in 1947 after a magistrate determined there was no evidence to hold him. According to Loewenstein, "when I was released the Czechs provided me with all kinds of support. They even offered me a pension if I wanted to stay in the Republic".

Personal life Loewenstein was married to Margot Hamburger and had at least two sons. He is briefly referenced in Tom Lampert's One Life, an account of eight semi-fictional, composite persons from World War II created from the author's documentary research. According to Lampert, Loewenstein was "cultivated, polite, punctilious, and rigorously military".