This blog is Part 1 of a 4-Part Series on German Jew Werner Goldstein
Part 2 is here, Part 3 & Part 4 will be here when posted.
I burst into tears the other day. Now, this is not an unusual occurrence when I am researching the lives and deaths of Jewish victims of the Holocaust. The stories are tragic and to discover, person by person, that entire families, grandparents, parents and children, were obliterated, well… it does get to me after a while.
But these tears were different. As readers will learn in the coming weeks/months, a reader of this blog brought the Swiss Archives treasure trove to my attention. I admit to having tried, several years ago, to extract some documents from the Swiss authorities around Josef’s arrest and imprisonment for gold counterfeiting. But got nowhere. His story about travelling to Switzerland with a friend, Werner Goldstein, where they sold counterfeit gold, and fraternized with Yvonne Sommerfeld, a French Jewess who was a member of the French secret service, seemed a bit fantastic. Think about it… a man named Goldstein (Goldstone) was involved in gold counterfeiting? That seemed like a made-up name to me. Something that Josef pulled out of thin-air while spinning a tall tale to garner sympathy from the British authorities.
But the Swiss Archives information has changed everything. The reader who told me about the archives, Stephan H., revealed that he was the great-nephew of Yvonne Sommerfeld. She was real. She was French. She was a Jewess. And she had several dossiers in the Swiss archives. Stephan encouraged me to search for Josef’s name in the archives, but my initial attempts yielded nothing.
After 10 days of sifting through the Swiss Archives, and uncovering dossiers that mentioned Ziebell, Niska, Schachtel, Amtmann and Josef Emil Roos, I had learned a lot about how to coax information from the database. I narrowed my search parameters, said a prayer and… within 5 minutes, I had Josef… and Werner Adolf Goldstein. Cue the tears.
Goldstein was real. Their arrest was real. And Goldstein had a birth date. That was all I needed to engage in one of my famous deep dives into the genealogical underworld, teasing records out of the woodwork. So, let us begin the tale of Werner Adolf Goldstein and his family.
An Overview of the Gold Counterfeiting Story
Before we dive into Werner’s story, let me provide some context for this story, as told by Josef Jakobs during his various statements and interrogations at Camp 020, MI5s secret wartime interrogation centre.
The scene is Berlin in late 1933 and early 1934. Josef was licking his financial wounds after his failed attempt to import food stuffs from Spain. His attempts to sell books and typewriters were not meeting with much success. His dental practice had closed the previous year due to a shortage of clients. One day, he met up with a friend, Werner Goldstein. This young man, a Jew, was apparently a chemist and he told Josef that he had been working on a chemical experiment, mixing gold with base metals (silver and copper) to create a material that could be passed off as 14-carat gold.
Werner told Josef that he had made this gold alloy several times already and had been quite successful. He had even sent a report on his experiment to Hitler and had been told that the matter was being examined by the German Treasury. Josef was rather shocked and told Werner that he was an idiot to involve the German Government! If the German authorities confirmed that the experiment worked, then they would never allow Werner to leave the country, which, as a Jew, he wanted to do. Conversely, if the authorities found that the gold alloy was actually less valuable, then Werner would be treated very harshly, all the more so as he was a Jew.
Off to Switzerland
Werner was also finding it difficult to buy up old gold in Germany and Josef had a bright idea. He told Werner that he would invest in this experiment, to the tune of 3,000 R.M., but suggested that they set up this lucrative little business in Switzerland. Werner liked the sound of that, and the two men packed their bags and headed to Switzerland in April 1934. The currency regulations prohibited the transport of that much currency over the border but the two men simply smuggled the excess in their luggage.
Werner and Josef rented a flat in Zurich where they set up their smelting equipment and got to work. Their first attempt to sell their gold alloy in Biel ran into a hiccup. They learned that they needed a permit in order to sell gold in Switzerland. Thinking fast, they pleaded that it was refugee gold and… they received a permit. Success! They returned to their smelting flat and mixed up another batch. Their second attempt to sell “refugee” gold was also successful! On their third attempt, however, the permit was refused.
A Wife Visits
In between selling counterfeit gold and smelting a new batch, Josef’s wife, Grete, visited him from July to September. Grete’s German passport bears the stamps of various border crossings and tells a tale of travel. Her passport was valid as of 30 June, 1934, and had been stamped in Wilmersdorf, Berlin. On 1 July, 1934, she crossed the border into Switzerland at Thayngen, northeast of Schaffhausen and the Rhein Falls.
From some of the photos that document their trip, it appears that Josef and Grete travelled around Switzerland a fair bit before heading farther afield. On 7 August, Grete applied for a French visa in Zurich, one that would expire on 10 September. It would appear from subsequent passport stamps that the couple departed Zurich either that same day or the next day.
On 10 August, Grete entered Italy at the Valico Stradale Ponte San Luigi (Ventimiglia) border checkpoint. This is rather unexpected as this border station is along the Mediterranean coast, just east of Nice, France. It would appear that Josef and Grete took the long scenic route to Italy, travelling via Geneva, Grenoble and possibly Marseille and Monaco. Given that they likely left Zurich on 7 or 8 August, they made good time. Today, the longer route via Marseille takes about 8 hours. I could imagine it taking at least twice as long in 1934.
Josef and Grete, and possibly Werner (more on that in another blog post), then drove south to Rome, before heading north again, this time on a more direct route to Switzerland. Grete exited Switzerland on 16 August at Valico [???] Norte{?} Chiasso 18. This is most likely the former border crossing at the Swiss town of Chiasso, north of Milan and south of Lugano. From here, they would have driven north to Lucerne and back to Zurich. Photographs of their car feature a license plate with a ZH prefix, suggesting that Josef had rented a car in Switzerland. A few weeks later, on 6 September, 1934, Grete arrived back in Berlin while Josef and Werner remained behind.
Somewhere along the way, while visiting Geneva, the two men (and Grete) met Yvonne Sommerfeld and her family. According to Josef, Yvonne had some connection with the French Intelligence Service and Werner was quite taken with the strikingly beautiful woman, starry-eyed with wedding bells ringing in his head. We will hear more about Yvonne and the Sommerfeld clan in coming blog posts. Suffice to say, there was no marriage to Yvonne in Werner’s future.
Arrested
Unbeknownst to Werner and Josef, their plans were about to derail thanks to two very different incidents. One of the “gold” ingots that they had sold to a jeweller in Zurich had been assayed and had come back as “fraud”. Where were those two men who had sold the jeweller the ingot? On top of that, according to Josef, Yvonne Sommerfeld and her “acquaintances” were picked up by the Swiss Police on suspicion of having contact with the French Intelligence Service.
On 4 September, 1934, Josef and Werner were arrested, apparently because of their association with Yvonne. It was while they were in custody, that their gold counterfeiting scam caught up with them. Was it coincidence that Grete arrived back in Berlin two days later? Or was she in Zurich when her husband was arrested?
Both men were sentenced to three years imprisonment, each ultimately serving two years and three months, possibly for “good behaviour” or due to time served awaiting trial. All of their illicit earnings were confiscated and after their release from prison, in 1937, both men were deported back to Germany. Josef said he never saw Werner Goldstein again.
And so the story lay. Was it true? Was it fiction? Was it a smoke screen? Were Yvonne and Werner real people? There was no proof… until a recent email introduced me to the Swiss Archives.
The Swiss Records
First off, let me start by saying, I have yet to find any court documents for Werner and Josef. The Swiss court records may have a 100 year black-out to protect the guilty and the innocent. What the archives do have, however, is thick volumes of the Schweizerischer Polizeianzeiger, the Swiss Police Gazette. Within it’s pages, we find various types of weekly notices: arrest this person, watch out for this bike theft, whereabouts of this person needed, don’t let these folks across the border, deport these folks, etc. Essentially, Switzerland’s most, and least, wanted. It is in these volumes that we find mention of Josef and Werner.
The image below is an OCR extract of the relevant section from the 1934 edition of the Swiss Police Gazette. The OCR (optical character recognition is not always accurate, but in this case, it is enough to grab attention. This extract reads:
“Jakobs, Joseph, geb. 29.VI.1898 in Luxemburg, von Berlin, Zahnarzt – Dauernd; Verf. vom 21.IX.1934”
A search for Werner, yielded this, slightly different OCR extract, from the same dossier. It reads:
“Goldstein, Werner Adolf. 21.XH.1911 (likely 21.XII.1911), von Berlin, Dentist, Jakobs, Joseph, geb. 29.VI.1898 in Luxemburg, von Ber-…”
In total, the 1934 issues of the Swiss Police Gazette, which have a name index (I am in love!), include three mentions of our fraudsters. Two occurrences mention Werner on his own and the third occurrence mentions both men. Let’s dive down into the Gazette
Swiss Police Gazette – 22 June 1934
The first notification is from Volume 1 of the Swiss Police Gazette from 1934 – Nr. 141 – 22 June 1934 – page 1496. Werner Goldstein appears on his own and there is no sign of Josef. Werner is listed under a section entitled “Ermittlung des Aufenthaltsortes (Kelne Verhaftung wenn nicht besonders verlangt)”. Essentially, the police are looking to determine his whereabouts but no arrest is needed unless specifically requested. The entry reads:
“[Article] 12 850 – Goldstein, Werner, 21.XII.1911, von Berlin, Kaufmann, Zahnazt (Dentist). — (760 634) Eidg. Fremdenpolizei in Bern“
Entry for Werner Goldstein
The Federal Aliens Police in Bern were looking for Werner Goldstein (born 21 December 1911) from Berlin. Werner was a businessman and dentist. That last occupation is news to me and it is possible that he claimed to be a dentist as a cover for his gold sales. A refugee Jewish dentist could be expected to have gold to sell….
The date of this notification in the Police Gazette is interesting. It tells us that as early as 22 June, 1934, the police in Bern were looking for Werner Goldstein. Perhaps this was in relation to his association with Yvonne Sommerfeld. It seems unlikely that this would have been related to his gold counterfeiting as it seems a bit too early, given that they only arrived in Switzerland in April.
Swiss Police Gazette – 17 September 1934
We next find Werner mentioned on his own again, this time in the second volume of the 1934 Swiss Police Gazette – Nr. 215 – 17 September 1934 -page 2408. Article 20 314 is a section called Erledigungen, which can be translated in as… Errands, Despatches, Completions, Accomplishments. In the current context, I take it to mean that the previous Gazette notice has been completed – i.e. they have located Werner.
We see Werner listed in the first column, the fourth name under 1934. We have his name, the page number of his previous notice (1496) and the article number as well (12 850), all pointing to the “Whereabouts Requested” notice. Given that the two men were apparently arrested on 4 September, 1934, this seems like a rather delayed notification, but perhaps it took a while for news to trickle into the Gazette.
Entry for Werner Goldstein
Swiss Police Gazette – 29 September 1934
The final Gazette notice lists both Werner and Josef in volume 2 of 1934 – Nr. 226 – 29 September 1934 – page 2531. Their names are contained with an section titled: “Ausweisungen aus der Schweiz (Gestützt auf das B.-G. über Aufenthalt und Niederlassung der Ausländer, vom 26.III.1931”. This translates as “Deportations from Switzerland (Based on the Federal Law on the Residence and Settlement of Foreigners, dated 26.III.1931)”.
We find Werner and Josef under two consecutive articles:
“21 373–Goldstein, Werner Adolf, 21.XII.1911, von Berlin, Dentist.–Dauernd: Verf. vom 20.IX.1934.”
“21 374–Jakobs, Joseph, geb. 29.VI.1898 in Luxemburg, von Berlin, Zahnarzt.–Dauernd: Verf. vom 21.IX.1934.“
Entries for Werner Adolf Goldstein and Josef Jakobs
I take the final part of each article to mean that this deportation was permanent (Dauernd) and was ordered/effective/decreed (Verfügt) as of 20 September for Werner and 21 September for Josef. These two dates are a bit odd given Josef’s insistence that they spent the next 2 years and 3 months (or thereabouts) in a Swiss prison. Perhaps this deportation was the result of the Yvonne Sommerfeld business and they had yet to be fingered for gold counterfeiting? Or perhaps it was simply a consequence of their conviction for gold counterfeiting. With a prison sentence on the books, the two men were due to be permanently barred from Switzerland upon their release.
It is also interesting to see that Werner is called a “Dentist” while Josef is called a “Zahnarzt”. As noted in an earlier blog, a German “Dentist” did not attend university and could not give injections, whereas a “Zahnarzt” had a university degree and could give injections. Based on my earlier research, I had concluded that Josef was most likely a “Dentist” and this claim to be a Zahnarzt is intriguing. As for Werner being a “Dentist”… I rather thought he was a chemist! Although, again this could simply be his cover for gold counterfeiting, a refugee Jewish “Dentist” selling his stash of gold fillings material.
In the next post, I’ll take a look at Werner’s family. Was he a dentist? Or a chemist? What became of him? Did he survive the war or, like so many, perish in the hell of an extermination camp? Does the Jakobs Family photo album have a photograph of Werner Adolf Goldstein?
Sources
PRO Files at National Archives, Kew – KV 2/25 – Folio 65a – Statement dated 15/4/1941; Folio 65a – Interrogation dated 21.4.1941; Folio 96a – Liquidation Report dated 21.4.1941
PRO Files at National Archives – WO 71-1240 – Court-martial file of Josef Jakobs – Day 1, pages 45-46.
Swiss Archives – Swiss Polizeianzeiger files ( Swiss Police Gazette files) – E4260D-01#1000/838#23* – https://www.recherche.bar.admin.ch/recherche/#/en/archive/unit/5121381
I read this part with bated breath. You sure know how to tell a story, and this one is worthwhile indeed.
Vielen Dank Traugott!! I’m working like a little Wühlmaus burrowing through more records.