A Tale of Emigrants, Clerics, and Gestapo Agents: The Experiences of Johann Friedrich, Catholic Emigration Agent in Hamburg, 1911-41

In 1950 Johann Friedrich wrote a detailed account of his time as the agent for the St. Raphael Society in Hamburg from 1911 to 1941. Given that most of the Society's records were destroyed during the Second World War, Friedrich's unpublished memoir provides a unique portrait of the Society's activities in Hamburg during the first half of the twentieth century. Through Friedrich's eyes we see the halting of migration during the First World War, the growing importance of assisting itinerant clerics during the Weimar years, and the mounting pressure applied by the Gestapo due to the Society's work on behalf of religious orders and Catholic converts from Judaism (the so-called 'non-aryan' Christians). The present article introduces the St. Raphael Society and the work of Friedrich's predecessor, describes Friedrich's activities in the port, and examines the ways Friedrich and the Society adapted to the dynamism of migration over time. Friedrich's account not only highlights the issues of most practical importance to migrants but also reveals the high degree to which the migration process was structured by ethnicity and class. Keywords: St. Raphael Society, Johann Friedrich, Peter Paul Cahensly, German Catholic Migration, Hamburg, Emigrant Halls, Theodor Meynberg, Georg Timpe, Max Grosser, 'Non-aryan' Christians
Prelude: An Announcement AS HE READ HAMBURG'S Catholic newspaper Nordischen Volkszeitung, Johann Friedrich saw that the St. Raphael Society for the Protection of German Catholic Emigrants was looking for a [...]