Julius Hellmann

In 2026, 37 books and seven loose bookplates from Julius Hellmann’s library could be returned. The restitution was carried out in cooperation with the Saxon State and University Library, Dresden (SLUB), which was itself able to return six more books.

Most of the books can be proven to originate from a purchase by the Berlin Municipal Library ("Berliner Stadtbibliothek", BStB – a predecessor of today’s ZLB) in 1951, subsumed in the accession book as "Eine beschlagnahmte Bibliothek" ("A confiscated library") comprising 1,028 titles. The supplier is the Berlin Magistrate, Department of Finance or its administrative office for special assets, in the accession books of the BStB partly under the designation Utilisation Office ("Verwertungsstelle"). Further research into this accession is still pending – in the course of processing the above-mentioned books, it has emerged that the BStB incorporated hundreds more books from this supplier until at least 1953.

One book was obtained through the Zentralstelle für wissenschaftliche Altbestände (an institution for inter-library booktrade at the Berlin State Library), one through the administration of the Berlin Magistrate in 1952. Other volumes were found in unprocessed stock in the BStB's depots. The loose bookplates originate from the bookplate collection of the BStB.

The imagery of the bookplate contained in all of the books, the subject matter of the books, and the personal connections to the dedicators and previous owners made it possible to clearly identify the banker Julius Hellmann as the previous owner.

Julius Hellmann was born on 22 December 1877 in Freiburg im Breisgau. His parents were the merchant Ludwig Hellmann (1852–1929) and Johanna Hellmann, née Wertheimer (1856–1897). After a commercial apprenticeship in Stuttgart, he worked for a few years in his father's cotton goods business until he entered the banking business in Frankfurt am Main in 1902. In 1904 he moved to Berlin, where he became director of the newly founded German Colonial Bank ("Deutsche Kolonialbank") in 1908. He was also appointed to several supervisory boards in Berlin, including being the last chairman of the German Colonial Society for Southwest Africa until its dissolution in 1915. After the end of World War I, he transformed Deutsche Kolonialbank into Deutsche Länderbank and remained active there for several more years. After his banking career, Hellmann became consul general for Greece in Berlin.

Hellman was married twice during this period. First to Gretel Ullmann (1887-1984), with whom he had two children, son Franz in 1909 and daughter Johanna in 1912. The marriage was divorced in 1917, and in the same year Hellmann married Katharina Schwarz, who was born in Hamburg on 22 December 1892. The two had one son, Rudolf Hermann, born on 18 June 1919. The marriage to Katharina was divorced in 1925.

Julius Hellmann was persecuted as Jewish in Nazi Germany. At the beginning of 1936, the auction house “Union” Leo Spik auctioned off the furnishings of Hellmann's apartment at Stülerstr. 14¹, but the list of items auctioned does not include a library or any books. The exact circumstances surrounding the loss of his library remain unclear.

In September 1936, Julius Hellmann first emigrated to South Africa. A little over a year later, in 1937, he returned briefly to Berlin and escaped to the Netherlands in January 1938. He lived there in various places, Amsterdam, The Hague and Hilversum. From 1942 he went underground and survived the Holocaust hidden by the Dutch Resistance Movement in various places in Amsterdam and Amstelveen. In 1948 he moved to New York, became a US citizen and lived there until his death in 1956.

In some books there are also provenance marks of the publisher Eduard Buchmann (1876-19??) and of his father-in-law, the journalist Victor Schweinburg (1846-1914). Bookplates of Buchmann are partially pasted over with that of Julius Hellmann. Eduard Buchmann was the publisher of "Colonies and Homeland in Words and Pictures" ("Kolonie und Heimat in Wort und Bild") and ran the "Verlag kolonialpolitischer Zeitschriften Eduard Buchmann" ("Publishing House of Colonial-Political Magazines Eduard Buchmann")². It can be assumed that Hellmann and Buchmann knew each other, and Hellmann may have acquired books from Buchmann's library. In any case, due to the uniform access route via the “Verwertungsstelle”, it is clear that these items were last owned by Julius Hellmann.

The ZLB was kindly assisted in its research by Annelies Kool (Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed, Netherlands) and Anna Rubin (Holocaust Claims Processing Office, USA).

¹ Today Lichtensteinallee corner Thomas-Dehler-Straße, the building was demolished around 1937 and no longer exists. In its place, a new building was erected between 1938 and 1940 for Franco's Spain, which now houses the Spanish Embassy. The former Stülerstraße was also extended to become part of Tiergartenstraße in 1938, while the nearby Hitzigstraße was renamed Stülerstraße. In 1975, the original Stülerstraße was finally renamed Thomas-Dehler-Straße. See HistoMap Berlin (https://histomapberlin.de) and Kauperts. Straßenführer durch Berlin: Stülerstraße (online: https://berlin.kauperts.de/Strassen/Stuelerstrasse-10787-Berlin, last accessed 7 July 2026)
² See Kolonie und Heimat in Wort und Bild. Organ des Deutschkolonialen Frauenbundes. I. Jahrgang. (Deutsches Historisches Museum, Inv.-Nr.: GZA 7523 -1.1907/08, online: https://www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de/item/RZ5D2PWXSHK2INBLW4BSXROZAB4YKTBV, last accessed 7 July 2026)