Marcus Mosse

Albert Mosse was born on October 1, 1846 in Grätz (then the Grand-Duchy of Posen, now Grodzisk Wielkopolski, Poland) to Marcus Mosse and Ulrike Mosse (neé Wolff). Having graduated from the grammar school in Lissa (then Germany, now Leszno, Poland) and Guben (Germany), Albert Mosse studied law at the University of Berlin in 1865 thanks to the financial support of his older brothers Salomon and Theodor. He finished his studies in 1868 and entered the ranks of the Prussian state administration. During the Franco-Prussian war 1870/1871 Albert Mosse volunteered for the Prussian army.

After working in several court offices on various levels Albert Mosse became a judge of the county court ( Kreisgericht ) in Spandau, Germany in 1876. Eventually, he was appointed judge of the state court ( Landrichter, Landgerichtsrat ), which was the highest position an unbaptized Jew could achieve at that time.

While serving as a judge in Berlin, he held lectures on public law for Japanese lawyers and diplomats. When the Japanese government decided to modernize Japan's legal system after the Prussian-German model, Albert Mosse was a natural choice for a legal expert due to his contacts with the Japanese embassy. He signed a three-year contract and together with his family left Germany for Japan in 1886. Albert Mosse participated in preparatory work for the new Japanese constitution and worked on other important legal drafts, international agreements, and contracts. The law on local self-government from 1888 was among the most significant of these. After the new Japanese constitution was enacted in 1889, Albert Mosse returned to Germany.

He was appointed state supreme court judge in Königsberg (then East Prussia, now Kaliningrad, Russia) in 1890. He also served as an honorary professor of civil and commerce law at the University of Königsberg. The university named him Doctor iuris honoris causa in 1903.

After his retirement in 1907, Albert Mosse returned to Berlin and became involved in communal politics. He served on the Board of City Council and advised the Berlin municipal administration on various legal matters. He also served as the vice-president of the Verband der deutschen Juden (the Union of German Jews) and president of the Board of the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft der Judentums (College for Jewish Studies) in Berlin.

Albert Mosse died on May 30, 1925 in Berlin, Germany.

Marcus Mosse was born in 1808 in Märkisch-Friedland (then Lower Lusatia, Germany, now Miroslawiec, Poland). His father Salomon Moses (Marcus Mosse changed his last name) died three years later in 1811 and his mother Henriette (Jüttel) neé Markus (Levin) remarried his business partner Jacob Fuchs. He entered the grammar school ( Gymnasium ) in Luckau in 1822 and finished in 1829. He started medical studies at the university in Berlin and received his medical degree in 1832. In 1836 Marcus Mosse married Ulrike Wolff. They had fourteen children - eight sons and six daughters.

In 1833 he was appointed as a municipal physician for the poor in Spremberg (Lusatia, Germany), but two years later he signed a contract with the Jewish community in Grätz (then the Grand-Duchy of Posen, now Grodzisk Wielkopolski, Poland) and functioned as a practical physician for the local Jewish poor. He soon achieved a place of prominence in Grätz and was appointed to the town council from where he later resigned. In the revolutionary year 1848 he strongly supported the liberal movement and his pro-Polish attitudes earned him a police interrogation and incarceration. After his release Marcus Mosse returned to his practice.

Marcus Mosse died after a long heart illness on November 10, 1865.

Rudolf Mosse was born on May 8, 1843 in Grätz (then the Grand-Duchy of Posen, now Grodzisk Wielkopolski, Poland) to Marcus Mosse and Ulrike Mosse (neé Wolff). He attended the grammar school in Lissa (then Germany, now Leszno, Poland), but for economic reasons he did not finish. At the age of fifteen he became a bookstore apprentice in Posen (then Prussia, Germany; now Poznan, Poland). After a short period in Berlin, where he stayed with his oldest brother Salomon, he started working for the publisher of the magazine Gartenlaube, Robert Apitsch, in Leipzig, Saxony. There he came up with idea of soliciting advertisements and established a dedicated advertising supplement to the publication. His idea proved to be a commercial success.

On January 1, 1867 Rudolf Mosse opened his own newspaper advertising agency ( Zeitungs-Annoncen Expedition ) in Berlin. Soon he opened several independent branches in Germany, i.e. Munich (München), Stuttgart, and Hamburg, but also abroad Basel, Zürich, Vienna, and Prague. By 1917 the company had 18 independent branches and 280 agencies both in Germany and abroad.

In 1873, Rudolf Mosse married the daughter of a businessman, Benjamin Loewenstein, Emilie, in Trier. Soon thereafter they adopted Felicia (neé Marx).

Despite the economic success of his advertisement business, of broader notoriety is Rudolf Mosse's connection to the leading liberal daily the Berliner Tageblatt that he founded in 1871. It was originally founded as a commercial periodical, but under the leadership of the editor-in-chief Arthur Levysohn, who joined the Berliner Tageblatt in 1881, the political news section was organized, and the paper took on a liberal character. Arthur Levysohn retired in 1906. He was succeeded by Rudolf Mosse's cousin and correspondent of the Berliner Tageblatt from Paris, Theodor Wolff. Under his influence the paper became the stalwart of the left liberalism in Germany.

Besides the Berliner Tageblatt Rudolf Mosse acquired several other newspapers in Berlin, Germany, i.e Berliner Morgen-Zeitung , and Berliner Volks-Zeitung . Rudolf Mosse also controlled several publications abroad, among others Zürcher Post (Zürich, Switzerland), Deutsche Warschauer Zeitung (Warsaw, Poland), or Balkanska Poshta (Sofia, Bulgaria). In addition to daily newspapers, Rudolf Mosse's company published circa 130 professional and trade periodicals. It also had a book publishing division and its own printing house.

The charitable and art-patronage activities of Rudolf Mosse also deserve mentioning. Together with his wife Emilie Mosse he founded a home for children of impoverished families, the " Emilie- und Rudolf Mosse-Stiftung " in Wilmersdorf (Germany). He opened a hospital in Grätz and established an insurance fund for his employees. His gifts to various educational and public institutions were recognized with an honorary degree from the University of Heidelberg. Rudolf Mosse also served on the board of the Berlin Jewish Reform Community.

With the changed social and economic situation in Germany after the First World War, Rudolf Mosse withdrew from public life and died on September 8, 1920 in Schenkendorf, Germany.

Hans Lachmann-Mosse was born on August 9, 1885 in Berlin to industrialist Georg Lachmann and Hedwig (neé Eltzbacher). He studied law in Freiburg im Breisgau and Berlin. In 1909 he married the only (adoptive) daughter of the press magnate Rudolf Mosse; later their last names were united. He served in the German army throughout the First World War.

He worked for the Rudolf Mosse publishing house beginning in 1910, developing and administrating the social and charitable activities of the Rudolf Mosse company. After the death of his father-in-law in 1920 he took over managerial responsibilities as well as partial ownership of the concern. He tried to expand the business, but his investments were not always met with the approval of others in the top management, including the editor-in-chief of the Berliner Tageblatt, Theodor Wolff. The economic difficulties in which the Rudolf Mosse company found itself at the end of the 1920s were made even worse by the depression in Germany at the beginning of the 1930s. In 1933 the NSDAP seized control over its business in Germany.

Hans Lachmann-Mosse left Germany for France in 1933. He divorced in 1939 and soon after married Karola Strauch on March 23, 1939. Later, they emigrated to the United States and settled in California.

Hans Lachmann-Mosse sat on the Board of the Reform Jewish community in Berlin and presided over its liturgy commission. Some of the restitution material in this collection relates to the reform Jewish liturgy. He also was an art collector and benefactor. In 1923 he commissioned Erich Mendelsohn to renovate of the Rudolf Mosse edifice in Berlin.

Hans Lachmann-Mosse died on April 18, 1944 in Oakland, California.

Hilde Lachmann-Mosse was born in Berlin as the daughter of Hans and Felicia Lachmann-Mosse on January 28, 1912 . She attended the Staatliche August-Schule in Berlin between 1919-1931. Thereafter she studied medicine, first at the Albert-Ludwigs Universität in Freiburg im Breisgau, later in Bonn. After the NSDAP take-over in Germany she continued her studies at the University of Basel ( Basler Universität ), Switzerland, where she received her medical degree in 1938.

During her studies in Berlin she participated in the Jugendgemeinschaft der Jüdischen Reformgemeinde (Youth Association of the Berlin Reform Jewish Community) that was traditionally supported by her family. Hilde Lachmann-Mosse was always interested in social issues. When she studied in Basel, she participated in relief efforts on behalf of the German emigrés, particularly physicians. In 1938, she left Switzerland for the United States.

Hilde Lachmann Mosse's original specialization was pediatrics, but soon she became interested in child-psychology and psychiatry. Together with Fredric Wertham she founded the Lafargue Clinic in Harlem, New York, which was the first free mental health clinic on the eastern coast of the United States. Another of her research interests was reading disorders. She was also captivated by the relationship of violence and mass media.

Later, Hilde Lachmann-Mosse became a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at the New York Medical College. She lectured as Fulbright Professor for Child Psychiatry at the University of Marburg, Germany in 1964-1965.

Her book The complete handbook of children's reading disorders was published posthumously.

Hilde Lachmann-Mosse died on January 15, 1982 in New York.

From the guide to the Mosse Family Collection, 1676-2001, bulk 1828-1982, (Leo Baeck Institute)