Alfred Grotte

Alfred Grotte was born in Prague on January 12, 1872, as the son of Moritz (1837–1919) and Bertha Grotte (née Maier/Mayer, 1842–1907). He had two siblings: Hermann Rudolf (1868–1933) and Mathilde Grotte (?–1903). The Grotte family belonged to the Jewish religious community.

Starting in 1887, the Grotte family lived in Vienna, where Alfred attended the Realgymnasium. From 1891 to 1897, Grotte studied at the technical universities in Vienna and Danzig. During his student years, he must have met Klara Fränkel, who was from Vienna, and married her at a time unknown to us. The young couple moved to Posen, where Grotte began teaching architecture at the municipal school of construction in 1901. At the same time, he worked as an architect and construction consultant for the Jewish Community of Posen.

Their daughter, Herta Mathilde, was born in Poznań on March 20, 1905, and their son, Horst-Albrecht Max, on September 26, 1916. In 1914, Alfred Grotte earned his doctorate from the Technical University of Danzig with a dissertation titled “German, Bohemian, and Polish Synagogue Architecture from the 11th to the Early 19th Century.”

After World War I, the Grotte family moved to Breslau. There, Alfred Grotte served as a professor at the State School of Architecture from 1919 to 1935. In 1921, he was also appointed curator of Silesia’s artistic monuments. Beyond his academic career, Grotte devoted himself to mapping the synagogue architecture of Central and Eastern Europe, as well as to architecture and historic preservation in general. He published a series of essays, articles, and papers on these and other topics. Interest in Jewish heritage culture grew particularly in the 1890s. For example, the Society for the Collection and Restoration of Jewish Monuments was founded in Vienna in 1895, and the Society for the Study of Jewish Art Monuments was established in Frankfurt am Main in 1897. The latter society supported Alfred Grotte as the publisher of his dissertation, which was published in 1915.

Grotte took a particular interest in the typology of synagogues and their conversion into Christian places of worship, as well as in the design of Jewish cemeteries and the architecture of Jewish tombstones. His work in these fields led Grotte to publish articles on synagogue architecture in the first German-language Jewish encyclopedia.

Today, Alfred Grotte is best known for his extensive work as an architect in Prague, Vienna, and Poznań. Even while he was a student, from 1893 to 1894, he helped with the renovation of the Maisel Synagogue in Prague. Alfred Grotte’s architectural projects ranged from vacation homes, residential buildings, and commercial structures in the spirit of Viennese Art Nouveau to synagogues, retirement homes, orphanages, and reform schools, as well as additions to hospitals and banks.

Among his most renowned buildings are the Jewish Temple and the neighboring Rabbi's House in Tachau (Czech: Tachov). A distinctive feature of the new synagogue was that Grotte incorporated elements from older synagogue buildings—such as pews—into the prayer hall. Other elements of the building also drew on the ancient traditions of Jewish sacred architecture. During the pogrom night of November 9–10, 1938, the synagogue was desecrated and destroyed. The rabbi’s residence survived and is now a protected historic monument.

Other synagogue buildings designed by Alfred Grotte include the synagogue in Buk, the renovation of the synagogue in Pinne (Polish: Pniewy), and the synagogue at the S.B. Latzsen Home for the Elderly and Infirm in Poznań. Alfred Grotte also served on the advisory board of the “Jewish Museum in Breslau E. V.” association. In this capacity, he advocated for the preservation of Jewish art and its accessibility to the public. Among other achievements, his collaboration in 1935 led to the creation of a collection catalog listing 1,200 objects that had been exhibited at the Breslau Jewish Orphanage and Care Facility.

When power was transferred to the National Socialists on January 10, 1933, Alfred Grotte and his family became the target of the Nazi persecution system. At that time, Grotte had no idea that his work on Jewish religious architecture would, after World War II, become an invaluable source of information on the synagogues and cemeteries destroyed and desecrated by the Nazis.

On August 30, 1942, Alfred and Klara Grotte were deported from Breslau on Transport IX/2, No. 38, to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. The surviving transport lists suggest that the couple had previously been forcibly interned at the Grüssau (Polish: Kreszów) transit camp. This was a monastery complex that had been confiscated by the Nazis in September 1940 and converted into a forced assembly point for preparing deportations. On June 17, 1943, Alfred Grotte died of pneumonia at the Theresienstadt concentration camp, as reported in the surviving death notice. Klara Grotte was deported to the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp on October 9, 1944, and murdered there. The Grotte couple were victims of the Shoah.

Herta Mathilde, the daughter of Alfred and Klara Grotte, managed to emigrate to England in the spring of 1939. There, she was interned on July 1, 1940, at the Rushen Internment Camp on the Isle of Man. On May 23, 1941, Herta Grotte was officially released and moved to Leicester. There she met Oskar Winterberger (1906–1990), who was originally from Berlin. The couple married in 1941 and remained childless. Herta Mathilde Winterberger (née Grotte) died in 1960 in Houston, Texas.

Horst-Albrecht Max Grotte managed to emigrate to South America in 1940. There he met Regina Weidenfeld (1928–1994), who was originally from Buenos Aires. The couple married in 1946 and had three children. The family settled in Colombia. Horst-Albrecht Max Grotte died on May 18, 1994, in Bogotá, Colombia.