Alexander Dünkelsbühler

[From the left:] Dr. Stephan Kellner, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, and Professor Dr. Rudolf Cohen | © BSB/ T. Dimitriadis

Certificate of inheritance of Elisabeth Heims | © State Archive Munich, local court Munich file no. 1935/2948

Deportation order of Elisabeth Heims | © State Archive Munich, local court Munich file no. 1935/2948

Certificate of inheritance of Dr. Annemarie Cohen | © State Archive Munich, local court Munich file no. 1935/2948

Power of attorney of Dr. Annemarie Cohen for Dr. Edwards H. Heims | © State Archive Munich, local court Munich file no. 1935/2948

Professor Dr. Rudolf Cohen [third from the left] in the presence of friends and staff members of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek working on the project NS loot on the occasion of the restitution on 13 March 2018 | © BSB/ T. Dimitriadis

The jurist Alexander Dünkelsbühler was born to a Jewish family in Nuremberg on 6 May 1875. From 1903 on, he worked in Munich as a lawyer. He fought at the front during the First World War, receiving several distinctions, and was finally deployed to work at the Bavarian ministry of war after an injury. After the end of the war, he took up work as a lawyer again. The last registered address of his law firm was Akademiestrasse 5.

Dünkelsbühler had been married since 1908 and had a son, but lived separately from his wife as of 1918. His partner, private secretary and housekeeper was Elisabeth Heims, born in Berlin in 1895 and of Jewish origin. On 24 September 1935, Alexander Dünkelsbühler committed suicide in a hotel in Dresden. A few weeks before, he had written a testament in which he bequeathed his possessions to Elisabeth Heims. Ms. Heims worked as a social worker after 1935, before being detailed by the NS regime to work as a forced labourer at the flax-processing plant in Lohhof. In 1938, Heims became a member of the religious community of Quakers. She was close friends with the married couple Annemarie and Rudolf Cohen, who were also Quakers and whose connections enabled numerous Munich Jews to emigrate in the course of the years 1938 to 1941. Elisabeth Heims was deported to Riga on 20 November 1941 and murdered there a few days later. One year before, she had appointed Annemarie Cohen (1897 – 1985) as her heiress.

The work "Civilrechtsfälle ohne Entscheidungen. Zum akademischen Gebrauch bearbeitet und herausgegeben von Rudolf von Ihering" ("Civil-law cases without rulings. Processed for academic use and edited by Rudolf von Ihering.") published in 1888 could be returned to Professor Dr. Rudolf Cohen on 13 March 2018. It bears an ownership stamp of Alexander Dünkelsbühler and had come to the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in 1938.

The title has been digitized with the permission of the heirs.
It can be searched in BSB DISCOVER!.