Post-War Settlement Following Expulsion: Germany or Ceska?

[RTG999]

This gets a bit far-afield for the topic of these forums so allow me to apologize, however, I'm trying to determine the likely country to which someone would have been deported after post-war emigration under the following circumstances (with no additional information available beyond this):

- a physicist Dr. Kurt Sitte was an ethnic German born around 1910 in the former Czechoslovakia, born and living in Prague (not the Sudetenland)
- he was interred as a communist collaborator at Buchenwald (to clarify, he was not Jewish)
- in 1948 he emigrated to the United States, obtaining permanent residency (but not citizenship)
- in 1958 he emigrated to Israel, obtaining permanent residency (but not citizenship)
- at some point in the 1960s he was deported/expelled from Israel to an unknown country

Under the above circumstances of complex nationality and ideology (communist German from Czechoslovakia who left Europe prior to the establishment of the DDR), what would be the most likely country to which he might actually hold citizenship or right of residency? (the Federal Republic, the DDR, Czechoslovakia?)

[Auseklis]

As an ethnic German, he was entitled to get a german citizenship if he applied for it. In his place I would maybe go to the GDR?

[RTG999]

As an ethnic German, he was entitled to get a german citizenship if he applied for it.

Thanks, this is immensely helpful!

How does one go about obtaining a copy of, or looking up, the death certificates of individual Germans who died in the GDR? Would these be in the Bundesarchiv or in archives of the reconstituted Lander or elsewhere? Are these records even accessible by the general public or does one have to have a familial relationship with the deceased?

I found this site where one can order death certificates for US$75 but I have no idea of even a rough place or date of death, which seems to be required.

http://www.germany-service.com/death-ce ... rmany.html

[Heimatschuss]

Hello,

Prof. Dr. Kurt Sitte died on June 20th, 1993 in Freiburg im Breisgau, aged 82 .
http://tinyurl.com/3wz4zwc

Kurt Sitte was born on Dec 1st, 1910
http://tinyurl.com/4xf3tkg

In 1971 Prof. Dr. Kurt Sitte, regular professor of physics at Laboratorio di Cosmo-Geofisica del CNR, Turin was appointed to Honorary Professor at the University of Freiburg im Breisgau.
http://tinyurl.com/65g4w2m
CNR = Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, National Research Council

So perhaps the University in Freiburg im Breisgau may be able to help you with some information. But don't expect too much. Germany's laws on the protection of privacy are very strict. If you can show a serious research interest in Sitte they may be willing to help you. If it's more of a curiosity thing your chances are bad.

Best regards
Torsten

[danesbury]

I was interested in this discussion on Kurt Sitte, and would like to know more about him and his life.

He was a good friend of my mother, both belonging to a political group "Die Tat" in Prague in the late 1930s. My mother wrote in 1984 in her memoirs of that period "The first one to be arrested by the Nazis and taken to the Perstyn prison was Kurt Sitte, who had prepared his journey abroad with his Jewish wife for just that day. This could have turned out badly for me, because Kurt, knowing that I had also prepared my journey abroad, to Belgium, thought that I had already departed and put the blame for some of the actions of the "Tat” on me personally. He himself suffered a hard fate. Imprisoned throughout the war in the KZ of Buchenwald, while his wife Hede, as Jewess, was in Ravensbruck, neither of them knowing whether the other was alive. Kurt now lives in Freiburg i./B., where he is involved in research on cosmic rays."

Peter
Hertford, England

[Jan-Hendrik]

a physicist Dr. Kurt Sitte was an ethnic German born around 1910 in the former Czechoslovakia, born and living in Prague (not the Sudetenland)

He was born as an austrian

Jan-Hendrik

[danesbury]

He was born in Reichenberg (Liberec). At the time of his birth Reichenberg was in Bohemia, and within Austria-Hungary. So Austro-Hungarian , Bohemian would be more correct than Austrian.
Just after WW1, Reichenberg became the capital of the Sudeten German province of German-Austria. A couple of months later Reichenberg was in Czechoslovakia. In 1938, Reichenberg became capital of the Sudetengau within Nazi Germany.
Peter

[Heimatschuss]

Hello Peter,

sorry I didn't notice your posting earlier. Here's an article on Sitte's trial in Israel in 1961 with some information on his life: http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-43159380.html

After WW II Sitte first worked at the University of Manchester. In 1948 he became physics professor at Syracuse University in the US. In 1953 his residence permit for the US wasn't renewed due to objections by US intelligence. Sitte moved on to Brazil and then Israel. There he became head of a research department at the prestigous Technion in Haifa. The department's work included space research on behalf of the US Air Force. Sitte contacted Czech diplomats and passed secret research results to them. In June 1960 he was arrested and sentenced in a secret trial in Haifa in 1961. (Israel had secret trials till the 1980s.)

A few more details on the case here http://archive.jta.org/article/1961/06/ ... kurt-sitte

Going by a web page of the Technion he was found guilty but was just forced to leave the country. http://physics.technion.ac.il/eng/en/about/history

Best regards
Torsten

[gyorgy krasso]

I am glad to see interest in Kurt Sitte (KS).

I happen to have known him.

I have reached my opinion on him by checking all the possible facts I have known about him through independent and/or publicly-available sources.

Needless to say, because of the circumstances which led to his arrest in Israel, there will never be, in the foreseeable future, a definitive clarification. The circumstances are related to the security of the State of Israel. KS’s trial was held in camera. Until the security of the State of Israel remains a contested issue, the case of KS cannot be clarified in a definitive manner. It clearly will not in my lifetime.

That said, publicly available sources can be used to clarify the KS case as much as possible.

I have not have time to go through all the AHF, but I can state with certainty that some of the statements are factually incorrect or at least unproven.

For example, the Communist affiliation attributed to KS is incorrect. KS certainly KNEW Communists in Buchenwald. It would have been impossible for him not to have known any (as anyone who knows anything about Buchenwald and other camps would know).

Where did he go after Israel? Not so difficult to answer: the Federal Republic of Germany. He also worked in Italy. Since he was an academic, all these facts are easy to check.

Finally, I am not in the habit of not using my own name in any debate. I only used a username to fulfil AHF requirements. I would prefer to debate issue in a real-name environment.

I an academic, but I am not planning to produce any scholarly work on the case of KS. I may produce a short article for the public domain.

I have reason to believe someone is currently carrying out research on the KS case.

I am quite willing to share PUBLICLY and under my own real name) any information I have on the KS case. I await some kind of response to go public.

“gyorgy krasso”

[danesbury]

Thank you "Gyorgy Krasso" for your contribution, and look forward to direct discussions outside of this Forum.

My Mother, who already knew Kurt Sitte well in Prague in the later 1930s, wrote about a search for a leader of the political group in which she was involved (which was mainly Social Democrats but likely included free-thinking Communists): "needed as chairman someone above the parties and found the ideal person in Kurt Sitte, an idealistic, highly intelligent, not party attached young lecturer in physics at the German university of Prague."

So as far as my mother was concerned he was certainly not a member of the Communist Party, or an allied group at that time (about 1937/1938).
So I think that indeed a "communist affiliation" at that time is unlikely. However Kurt Sitte would have have had many communist contacts long before he was in Buchenwald, through his activities in Prague.
My guess is that such communist contacts were not relevant as far as Kurt's post-war political interests, but it is likely when some suspicion of espionage was laid against Sitte that this history was reinvestigated and used as evidence against him.
Peter

[gyorgy krasso]

dear "Peter",
thanks for your prompt reply.
Of course I am sure Kurt Sitte knew Communists before the Nazi invasion. Czechoslovakia had the largest Communist Party in Europe outside the Soviet Union. It included many intellectuals. It would have been strange if he had not. But I think the Communist tag he got was connected with the specific case of Buchenwald. (More on that later.)
meanwhile, is your mother's memoir published? is it accessible?
yours sincerely,
GK

[gyorgy krasso]

Dear Peter,
I just sent you a private email, but it bounced back to me. can you make sure you gave me teh right email address? tks
gk