Bamberger, Fritz, 1902-

Siegfried Fritz Bamberger was born on January 7, 1902 in Frankfurt-am-Main, the son of the businessman Max and Amalie (née Wolf) Bamberger. He grew up in Gelsenkirchen, where the family resided, and attended the Städtische Oberrealschule (Public High School) there. At the University of Berlin he studied philosophy, literature and Oriental languages, and at the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums Jewish studies. At the age of 21 he had already earned his doctorate in philosophy and soon thereafter continued as a research fellow and lecturer in philosophy at the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums . Later he became director of the Berlin Lehrerbildungsanstalt and head of the school administration of the Berlin Jewish Community. He also taught at and helped to found the Jüdisches Lehrhaus in Berlin. In 1933 he married violinist Käte (later Kate) Schwabe, originally of Aschersleben. They had two children, Michael and Gabrielle.

In 1939 Fritz Bamberger and his wife immigrated to the United States, where they first settled in Chicago. From 1939 until 1942 he taught philosophy and comparative literature at Chicago's College of Jewish Studies. Even after Fritz Bamberger's father, Max Bamberger, died in 1940, Fritz had been in the process of assisting his mother to immigrate to the United States when the American consulates in Germany were closed in July 1941. Amalie Bamberger died in Warsaw in May 1942.

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