Baeck, Leo

Leo Baeck was born in Lissa (now Leszno, Poland), in the then German province of Posen on May 23, 1873. He was the son of the rabbi Samuel Baeck and Eva née Placzek and grew up with four sisters. Some of his earliest schooling took place at the Johann-Amos-Comenius-Gymnasium in Lissa. From 1891-1894 Baeck went to Breslau (now Wroclaw, Poland), studying at the Jewish Theological Seminary as well as at the University there. Leo Baeck continued his studies in Berlin at the Lehranstalt für die Wissenschaft des Judentums in Berlin, where he studied with Wilhelm Dilthey. By 1897 he had secured his first post as rabbi in Oppeln (now Opole, Poland).

While in Oppeln, Leo Baeck married Natalie Hamburger in 1899, the daughter of the former rabbi there; they would later have a daughter, Ruth. In 1905, in answer to Adolf von Harnack's Das Wesen des Christentums, Leo Baeck published his work Das Wesen des Judentums, in which he defended Judaism against the accusation of diminishing modernity and stressed its timelessness. After staying in Oppeln for ten years, the Baecks moved to Düsseldorf. In 1912 Leo Baeck was called to Berlin. There he worked both as a rabbi at the large synagogue on Fasanenstraße as well as a lecturer at the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums . During the First World War, Baeck served as a chaplain ( Feldrabbiner ) in the German Army, serving on both the east and west fronts.

In 1918 Leo Baeck returned to Berlin and worked at the Prussian Culture Ministry as an expert in Hebrew. During the 1920s he became involved in the work of several Jewish organizations. In addition to his position as a rabbi and his lecturing at the Hochschule, Leo Baeck also became President of the Union of German Rabbis ( Allgemeinen Deutschen Rabbinerverbands ) in 1922. He was elected President of the German B'nai B'rith Order in 1924. At this time Baeck also joined the Central-Verein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens, and the Jewish Agency for Palestine.

When the Nazis rose to power in 1933 Leo Baeck was elected president of the Reichsvertretung der deutschen Juden (renamed the Reichsvertretung der Juden in Deutschland after the Nuremberg Laws were passed in 1935). As the head of this organization he worked to keep the morale of the German Jews high while simultaneously working to alleviate the discrimination and persecution of the Jews by the National Socialists and helping as many people as possible leave Germany. He traveled frequently in an attempt to bring the situation of the German Jews to international attention. In spite of several offers of emigration, Leo Baeck refused to leave Germany and the members of his community. He is reported to have stated that he would only leave Germany when he was the last Jew remaining there. In 1937 Baeck's wife Natalie passed away; during the November pogroms of the following year the synagogues in Berlin were destroyed, including the one at Fasanenstraße. Leo Baeck remained the nominal president of the Reichsvertretung when it was placed under Nazi control and renamed the Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland . When this organization was finally disbanded in 1943, Leo Baeck, along with his family members, was sent to the concentration camp at Theresienstadt (Terezin) at the age of seventy.

During his time in Theresienstadt, Leo Baeck continued to teach, holding secret lectures on philosophy and religion in the barracks of the camp. In spite of being forced to perform hard labor, he also managed to begin a manuscript that would later become Dieses Volk – Jüdische Existenz, a work which attempted to interpret Jewish history. The camp was liberated in May 1945 by the Red Army. None of Baeck's four sisters survived Theresienstadt.

After the liberation of the camp, Leo Baeck eventually made his way to England where his daughter Ruth resided. He received many citations and honors as a result of his efforts under the Nazis, and spent much of his next years travelling and lecturing, as well as writing and helping to found several organizations with the goals of assisting the remnants of European Jewry. He lectured in the United States, including holding a series of Monday seminars at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. He also lectured in Germany and Israel. Baeck became president of the Association of Synagogues and of the Council of Jews from Germany, and was involved with the work of other organizations, including the B'nai B'rith, the Council of Christians and Jews, the Society for Jewish Study, and the Leo Baeck Foundation. In 1955 the Leo Baeck Institute was founded in Jerusalem for the study of the history and culture of German-speaking Jewry, with parallel institutes in London and New York. During the last week of his life, he completed the second part of his work Dieses Volk .

Leo Baeck died in London on November 2, 1956.