Oskar Cohn (15 October 1869 – 31 October 1934) was a German lawyer, Zionist and socialist politician. He was a member of the

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

and

Prussian parliament The Landtag of Prussia (german: Preußischer Landtag) was the representative assembly of the Kingdom of Prussia implemented in 1849, a bicameral legislature consisting of the upper House of Lords (''Herrenhaus'') and the lower House of Represent ...

and the

Weimar National Assembly The Weimar National Assembly (German: ), officially the German National Constitutional Assembly (), was the popularly elected constitutional convention and de facto parliament of Germany from 6 February 1919 to 21 May 1920. As part of its ...

representing the Social Democratic Party of Germany and the

Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany The Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (german: Unabhängige Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, USPD) was a short-lived political party in Germany during the German Empire and the Weimar Republic. The organization was establish ...

Early life and education

Cohn was born in Guttentag,

Silesia Silesia (, also , ) is a historical region of Central Europe that lies mostly within Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is approximately , and the population is estimated at around 8,000,000. Silesia is split ...

Kingdom of Prussia The Kingdom of Prussia (german: Königreich Preußen, ) was a German kingdom that constituted the state of Prussia between 1701 and 1918. Marriott, J. A. R., and Charles Grant Robertson. ''The Evolution of Prussia, the Making of an Empire''. ...

(Dobrodzień, Poland), the eleventh child of Bernhard Cohn (1827–1903) and Charlotte née Dresdner (1831–1908). His family were religious but largely assimilated

German Jews The history of the Jews in Germany goes back at least to the year 321, and continued through the Early Middle Ages (5th to 10th centuries CE) and High Middle Ages (''circa'' 1000–1299 CE) when Jewish immigrants founded the Ashkenazi Jewish ...

, his grandfather was an honorary citizen of Guttentag. He attended school in Brieg (Brzeg) and started to study medicine at the

University of Berlin Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (german: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a German public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin. It was established by Frederick William III on the initiative ...

. After two semesters he switched his studies to law and continued at the

University of Greifswald The University of Greifswald (; german: Universität Greifswald), formerly also known as “Ernst-Moritz-Arndt University of Greifswald“, is a public research university located in Greifswald, Germany, in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pom ...

, in

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

, and again in Berlin. As a student he came in contact with

Otto Landsberg Otto Landsberg (4 December 1869 – 9 December 1957) was a German jurist, politician and diplomat. He was a member of the revolutionary Council of the People's Deputies that took power during the German Revolution of 1918–19 and then served as ...

and

Wilhelm Liebknecht Wilhelm Martin Philipp Christian Ludwig Liebknecht (; 29 March 1826 – 7 August 1900) was a German socialist and one of the principal founders of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).Prussian Army in 1892/93. In 1897 he started to practise as a lawyer in Berlin and joined the law-office of

Karl Karl may refer to: People * Karl (given name), including a list of people and characters with the name * Karl der Große, commonly known in English as Charlemagne * Karl Marx, German philosopher and political writer * Karl of Austria, last Austria ...

and Theodor Liebknecht in 1899; as a lawyer working in Berlin, Cohn also co-operated with

Wolfgang Heine Wolfgang Heine (3 May 1861 – 9 May 1944) was a German jurist and social democrat politician. Heine was a member of the Imperial parliament and the Weimar National Assembly, he served as Minister President of the Free State of Anhalt and Prus ...

. In 1909 he became a member of Berlin's city council for the Tiergarten district for the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). In 1912 Cohn was elected a member of the

German Reichstag The Reichstag (, ; officially: – ; en, Parliament) is a historic government building in Berlin which houses the Bundestag, the lower house of Germany's parliament. It was constructed to house the Imperial Diet (german: Reichstag) of the ...

representing Nordhausen. In World War I Cohn served as a guard in

prisoner of war camps A prisoner-of-war camp (often abbreviated as POW camp) is a site for the containment of enemy fighters captured by a belligerent power in time of war. There are significant differences among POW camps, internment camps, and military prisons. P ...

Alsace Alsace (, ; ; Low Alemannic German/ gsw-FR, Elsàss ; german: Elsass ; la, Alsatia) is a cultural region and a territorial collectivity in eastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine next to Germany and Switzerland. In 2020, it had ...

Guben Guben ( Polish and Sorbian: ''Gubin'') is a town on the Lusatian Neisse river in Lower Lusatia, in the state of Brandenburg, Germany. Located in the Spree-Neiße district, Guben has a population of 20,049. Along with Frankfurt (Oder) and G� ...

, Lithuania, and Courland from April 1915 to June 1917; during this time he had his first significant contact with

Eastern European Jewry The expression 'Eastern European Jewry' has two meanings. Its first meaning refers to the current political spheres of the Eastern European countries and its second meaning refers to the Jewish communities in Russia and Poland. The phrase 'Easte ...

. Cohn was regularly exempted from military service to take part in Reichstag sessions. When news about the Tel Aviv and Jaffa deportation reached Berlin, Cohn brought up the issue in the Reichstag on 7 May 1917. On 14 May he applied a parliamentary interpellation to intervene in the policy of

Djemal Pasha Ahmed Djemal ( ota, احمد جمال پاشا, Ahmet Cemâl Paşa; 6 May 1872 – 21 July 1922), also known as Cemal Pasha, was an Ottoman military leader and one of the Three Pashas that ruled the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Djemal w ...

in Palestine. The deportations were finally stopped by

Erich von Falkenhayn General Erich Georg Sebastian Anton von Falkenhayn (11 September 1861 – 8 April 1922) was the second Chief of the German General Staff of the First World War from September 1914 until 29 August 1916. He was removed on 29 August 1916 after t ...

. Cohn joined the

(USPD) in 1917 and was a member of the USPD delegation at the Stockholm Peace Conference of June 1917. Along with

Hugo Haase Hugo Haase (29 September 1863 – 7 November 1919) was a German socialist politician, jurist and pacifist. With Friedrich Ebert, he co-chaired of the Council of the People's Deputies after the German Revolution of 1918–19. Early life Hugo Haas ...

Karl Kautsky Karl Johann Kautsky (; ; 16 October 1854 – 17 October 1938) was a Czech-Austrian philosopher, journalist, and Marxist theorist. Kautsky was one of the most authoritative promulgators of orthodox Marxism after the death of Friedrich Engels i ...

, and

Luise Zietz Luise Catharina Amalie Zietz (née: Körner) (1865–1922) was a German socialist and feminist. She was the first woman to occupy a leading party post in Germany. She also helped bring the socialist women's movement into the Social Democratic ...

, he met

Angelica Balabanoff , image = Brodskiy II Balabanova.jpg , birth_name = Anzhelika Isaakovna Balabanova , birth_date = August 4, 1878 , birth_place = Chernihiv, Ukraine , death_date = , death_place = Rome, Ital ...

and the Russian delegation on 3 July 1917. Here in Stockholm he also came in contact with Ber Borochov and the

Poale Zion Poale Zion (also spelled Poalei Tziyon or Poaley Syjon, meaning "Workers of Zion") was a movement of Marxist–Zionist Jewish workers founded in various cities of Poland, Europe and the Russian Empire in about the turn of the 20th century after ...

movement. After the restoration of diplomatic relations between Germany and Russia, Cohn became legal advisor of the Russian delegation in Berlin. In early November 1918, the Russian delegation was expelled on charges of preparing a Communist uprising in Germany. On the night of 5 to 6 November,

Adolph Joffe Adolph Abramovich Joffe (russian: Адо́льф Абра́мович Ио́ффе, alternative transliterations Adol'f Ioffe or, rarely, Yoffe) (10 October 1883 in Simferopol – 16 November 1927 in Moscow) was a Russian revolutionary, a Bo ...

, the Russian ambassador in Berlin, rendered him about 1 million

Mark Mark may refer to: Currency * Bosnia and Herzegovina convertible mark, the currency of Bosnia and Herzegovina * East German mark, the currency of the German Democratic Republic * Estonian mark, the currency of Estonia between 1918 and 1927 * F ...

and a 10.5 million

Russian ruble ''hum''; cv, тенкĕ ''tenke''; kv, шайт ''shayt''; Lak: къуруш ''k'urush''; Mari: теҥге ''tenge''; os, сом ''som''; tt-Cyrl, сум ''sum''; udm, манет ''manet''; sah, солкуобай ''solkuobay'' , name_ab ...

mandate for a bank account at

Mendelssohn & Co Mendelssohn & Co. was a private bank based in Berlin, Prussia. One of the leading banks in the 19th and early 20th centuries, it was Aryanized by the Nazis because the owners were Jewish. History The bank was established in 1795 by Joseph Mendel ...

. After the delegation returned to Russia, Joffe claimed to have paid this money to the USPD to support the revolutionary activities and to purchase weapons. While the leading USPD politicians

and

Emil Barth Emil Barth (Heidelberg, 23 April 1879 – Berlin, 17 July 1941) was a German Social Democratic party worker and socialist politician who became a key figure in the German Revolution of 1918. Life Barth joined the anti-war Independent Social De ...

denied the payment, Cohn admitted the receipt and regretted that he was not able yet to spend the complete sum to spread the idea of the revolution. He explicitly denied receiving the money to acquire weapons; instead he had used most of the cash money to support employees of the embassy and Russian nationals in Germany. Because he could not use the bank account for formal reasons (the Mendelssohn bank refused the mandate), only 50,000 Mark were used to support a socialist uprising in Germany. Cohn also justified the receipt because the SPD had provided money to Russian socialists in the 1905 Russian Revolution in a similar way. He was however criticised, also by socialist newspapers like Die Freiheit and

Vorwärts ''Vorwärts'' (, "Forward") is a newspaper published by the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). Founded in 1876, it was the central organ of the SPD for many decades. Following the party's Halle Congress (1891), it was published daily as ...

, because his actions stood in contrast to a USPD party resolution, which ruled out the acceptance of foreign money for revolutionary purposes. These payments led to the demission of

Wilhelm Solf Wilhelm Heinrich Solf (5 October 1862 – 6 February 1936) was a German scholar, diplomat, jurist and statesman. Early life Solf was born into a wealthy and liberal family in Berlin. He attended secondary schools in Anklam, western Pomerania, an ...

as German minister of foreign affairs, who refused further cooperation with the USPD. Later on they were regularly used to discredit Cohn publicly—for instance the nationalist politician

Karl Helfferich Karl Theodor Helfferich (22 July 1872 – 23 April 1924) was a German politician, economist, and financier from Neustadt an der Weinstraße in the Palatinate. Biography Helfferich studied law and political science at the universities of Munich, ...

refused to answer any question asked by Cohn in a Reichstag investigatory committee. AsambleaNacionalAlemanaEnWeimar--timeshistoryofwa21londuoft

AsambleaNacionalAlemanaEnWeimar--timeshistoryofwa21londuoft

After the November Revolution, Cohn became undersecretary in the

Reich Ministry of Justice ''Reich'' (; ) is a German noun whose meaning is analogous to the meaning of the English word " realm"; this is not to be confused with the German adjective "reich" which means "rich". The terms ' (literally the "realm of an emperor") and ' (l ...

. In January 1919, Cohn was elected a member of the Weimar National Assembly. His motions to replace the term "Reich" by "Republic" and to address German Jews as a national minority in the Weimar Constitution were denied by the Assembly. In November 1919, Cohn became a member of the so-called "Schücking Commission", an official commission to investigate Allied allegations of illegal treatment of prisoners of war in Germany, named after its chairman

Walther Schücking Walther Adrian Schücking (6 January 1875, Münster, Westphalia – 25 August 1935) was a German liberal politician, professor of public international law and the first German judge at the Permanent Court of International Justice in The Hague. ...

. In the case of

Charles Fryatt Charles Algernon Fryatt (2 December 1872 – 27 July 1916) was a British merchant seaman who was court martialled by the Imperial German Navy for attempting to ram a German U-boat in 1915. When his ship, the , was captured off occupied Belgium ...

, who had been executed by German authorities in 1916, Cohn and Eduard Bernstein dissented from the commission's verdict and publicly declared that they regarded the execution as a severe infringement of international law and an "inexcusable judicial murder". From 1920 on, he represented

in the Jewish community of Berlin, especially advocating the equal status of eastern european Jewish immigrants. In 1922 Cohn re-joined the SPD; he left politics in 1924 and focused on religious affairs in Berlin. He continued to work as a lawyer in Berlin and became a member of the

German League for Human Rights The German League for Human Rights (german: Deutsche Liga für Menschenrechte) was founded on 16 November 1914 as the pacifist group ''Bund Neues Vaterland'' (New Fatherland League) by pacifist activist Lilli Jannasch and others. Among its membe ...

. Cohn managed to escape from Berlin the day after the Reichstag fire of February 1933. He moved to

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

where he worked for the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HICEM). In August 1934, Cohn took part in a conference of the

World Jewish Congress The World Jewish Congress (WJC) was founded in Geneva, Switzerland in August 1936 as an international federation of Jewish communities and organizations. According to its mission statement, the World Jewish Congress' main purpose is to act as ...

Geneva , neighboring_municipalities= Carouge, Chêne-Bougeries, Cologny, Lancy, Grand-Saconnex, Pregny-Chambésy, Vernier, Veyrier , website = https://www.geneve.ch/ Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevr ...

. While in Switzerland, he was diagnosed with

lung cancer Lung cancer, also known as lung carcinoma (since about 98–99% of all lung cancers are carcinomas), is a malignant lung tumor characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. Lung carcinomas derive from transformed, malign ...

. He died in Geneva and was buried in Degania Alef, a kibbutz in northern Israel. The funeral orations were given by Zionists

Nahum Goldmann Nahum Goldmann ( he, נחום גולדמן) (July 10, 1895 – August 29, 1982) was a leading Zionist. He was a founder of the World Jewish Congress and its president from 1951 to 1978, and was also president of the World Zionist Organization from ...

and

Yosef Sprinzak Yosef Sprinzak ( he, יוֹסֵף שְׁפְּרִינְצָק; ) was a leading Zionist activist in the first half of the 20th century, an Israeli politician, and the first Speaker of the Knesset, a role he held from 1949 until his death in 1959. ...

Remembrance

The Oskar-Cohn-Straße in Nordhausen is named in his honour. In 1934

Arnold Zweig Arnold Zweig (10 November 1887 – 26 November 1968) was a German writer, pacifist and socialist. He is best known for his six-part cycle on World War I. Life and work Zweig was born in Glogau, Prussian Silesia (now Głogów, Poland), the son ...

reported the "Oskar-Cohn-library" in Neve Haim, the library however does not exist anymore, its fate is unknown.Heid (2002) pp. 405 ff.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cohn, Oskar 1869 births 1934 deaths Jewish German politicians People from Olesno County People from the Province of Silesia Humboldt University of Berlin alumni University of Greifswald alumni Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich alumni 19th-century German lawyers Social Democratic Party of Germany politicians Independent Social Democratic Party politicians Members of the 13th Reichstag of the German Empire Members of the Prussian House of Representatives Members of the Weimar National Assembly People of the German Revolution of 1918–1919 Deaths from cancer in Switzerland Jurists from Berlin 20th-century German lawyers