The great-grandfather of the donor, Zacharias Dannemann, was born circa 1849 in Hasenpoth/ Aizpute (Courland, Latvia), died on 2 February 1905 in Stettin-Bredow, where he resided after having also lived in Goldingen (also Courland). He was a shoemaker who qualified under his father-in-law, gaining Zacharias' approval for marriage upon delivering his qualifying masterpiece. The donor's paternal great-grandmother was Hanze Dannemann, née Mallach, born circa 1853 in Goldingen (Courland), died 12 February 1909 in Löwenberg, Lower Silesia, having moved there via Stettin-Bredow and Stettin-Grabow, before living with her daughter Dora Malligson. The donor's paternal grandfather was Richard Dannemann, born 29 June 1887 in Stettin. Genealogical data indicates he died in 1950 in Brazil, but it is thought he died there before World War II ended. Richard served with distinction in World War I as a reserve officer, first in the artillery, then in the aerial reconnaissance, on account of being known to the authorities as a freethinker "religious dissiden") rather than as Jewish. He was also one of the first 100 citizens of the German Empire to hold a civilian hot air balloon navigator's licence. He owned or directed several businesses, including two shoe shops in Cologne on Hohe and Breite Straße. Richard lived in Jena, Thuringia, and in Cologne, and he emigrated with his son, Ulrich (the donor's father), to Brazil in 1935, after spending two years liquidating businesses and assets. He never succeeded in business again in Brazil, on account of not learning the language. It is thought that he also bought land, but sold it (was forced to sell it off?) before it turned out to be part of the newly constructed capital, Brasilia. The donor's paternal grandmother was Katharina Neumann, known as Käthe, born 29 June 1898 in Stettin, died 1933 in Berlin. She studied Greek and philosophy in Berlin and Freiburg, at a time when this was a rarity for women. Her younger sister Ilse Neumann emigrated to the US in 1938/39. Ulrich Dannemann was born 5 August 1923 in Cologne, died 8 December 2004 in Mönchengladbach, Germany. He spent the first few years of his life in Jena before moving to Cologne, where he attended a Catholic grammar school, the Gymnasium an der Kreuzgasse. He was sent by Richard and Käthe to a Catholic boarding school in Visé in Belgium from 1933-1935 before leaving for Brazil together with his father in 1935. Beginning with attendance at Escuela Mackenzie, a renowned secondary school founded by American missionaries, which he never completed as Richard became impecuniary, he spent about 20 - 25 formative years in Brazil, feeling Brazilian for the rest of his life. At age 13, he opted for the violin as his profession to support him and his father, studying under the renowned musical teacher Max Rostal, among others, later also adding the viola. He returned to Europe via Italy in the late 1950s and sued for restitution under the Federal Restitution Law, while working for the Nationalorchester Mannheim. Ulrich had a spell as a visiting music lecturer and orchestra musician, in the United States, in Missouri and Kansas. He met and married Christina Crossman, who was his student, at Columbia College, Missouri.
Open
6 boxes
This collection includes records and frontline images of Richard Dannemann's service, family life in the interbellum years; of Ulrich's adolescence and intellectual life in the German-Jewish emigré community in Brazil and matters pertaining to his orchestra string career and restitution proceedings after the war.
Ulrich Dannemann collection