Winfried Seibert - The girl that could not be named Esther

That this form of hero worship was to be expected or even to be feared after 1933 as well is attested to by the Directive of the Minister of the Interior on July 3, 1933 (just a few days after Hitler took over the office of chancellor): 36 › Reference

If a registrar receives the request to register the name of the Reich Chancellor as a given name, even in the feminine form of Hitlerine, Hitlerike, or the like, he is to require that another name be chosen since the adoption of this name is unwelcome to the Reich Chancellor.

Too close an identification with the currents of the day when choosing a name had its down side as well. After a few years, the acknowledgment of this or that political orientation as expressed in a name became quite embarrassing for many a father. The post-war years had examples that were not restricted to the name Adolf, and it was the same in the Weimar period (1918-1933) and in the Third Reich (1933-1945). In such cases the district court could often be helpful after the fact. For example, in 1936 the given name Lenin, pushed through by a father for his son born in 1928, was stricken by the district court in Darmstadt on the grounds of its being offensive. The court wrote:

The surname ‘Lenin’ as a given name for a German child may have been admissible in the year 1928 in consideration of the then-reigning perception of the law. It was the expression of a time when the administration of justice demanded neutrality even in the face of forces that threatened the people. At that time there were no legal means to forbid the name ‘Lenin’ while permitting family names of historical personalities to be used as given names – e. g., Bismarck, Zeppelin, and so on. This value-free expression of justice has been superseded. Although foreign names for German citizens are not essentially inadmissible, there is no longer any room in a German birth register for the name of the Russian Bolshevik Lenin as the given name of a German child. 37 › Reference

We are not told exactly which new legal means had emerged, in contrast to 1928, to allow the district court to decide as it did. The applicable legislation had not changed.

The district court in Darmstadt had in any case been able to overcome the administration of a type of justice that demanded neutrality, whatever that’s supposed to mean.

All of this should have been no hindrance for the name Esther. This biblical name had nothing to do with current politics. The name was certainly not ridiculous or senseless, nor was it offensive. There was not only a book of the Bible named Esther; many authors had written about Esther, Mordecai, and Haman, including Hans Sachs, Lope de Vega, Racine, and Grillparzer. Georg Friedrich Handel had composed an oratorio on this biblical story. Even Goethe had written about Purim (in his early play Plundersweilern Fair), a Jewish festival commemorating the rescue of the Jews from Haman’s plot against them, and thus every year celebrating Queen Esther, who saved them.

Apparently even more important for the registrars in 1938 was the fact that in the German Unified Family Record Book, the name Esther stood alongside Edith, Elisabeth, and Eva. 38 › Reference

The family record book, which was given to Pastor Luncke on his wedding by the registrar in Wanne-Eickel, had an almost official character. 39 › ReferenceA name from the list in this unified family record book could simply not be inadmissible; it belonged, so to speak, to the canon. To be sure, the list of names differentiated between Given Names of Foreign Origin, including Esther, and the puffed-up list entitled Given Names from the Treasures of the German Past, but it nonetheless contained over one hundred female names of foreign origin without any limitation or warning. Nothing stood in the way of parents naming their daughter Esther. A limitation on the choice of this name, and thus a danger for the name Esther, could come about only if there were a legal regulation expressly forbidding such a name or if a court should find that the name Esther was offensive or a breach of morals and order.

Pastor Luncke could not foresee how his choice of the name Esther would move him to the edge of a precipice. The Lunckes could not know what state regulations were in the works and would come into effect one week after the birth of Esther. Except for a few people in the know in Berlin, no one could have explained to them that they had wandered into a sideshow of the National Socialist war against the Jews, a war in which the judicial system would participate with all its might. In matters of naming, the mills of the ministerial bureaucracy had started to turn again in 1937 and were grinding away slowly and relentlessly, but the average citizen had hardly any clue about what was going on. The judicial system gave their day in court to Pastor Luncke from Wattenscheid and the West Prussian forest ranger Cuno Lassen from the district of Marienwerder in order to set a precedent on the highest judicial level of how the administration of a type of justice that demanded neutrality could indeed be overcome. The new order had to obtain in matters of naming. The forest ranger and the pastor had never met, but the Supreme Court brought them together.

Up until the middle of 1938 the question of names, whether correct or incorrect, admissible or inadmissible, had stirred up just a few people. To be sure, even at the time of Esther‘s birth there was no biding regulation, just some very general principles for the choice of names, principles that had existed since the end of the previous century. This liberal situation was increasingly treated with hostility. A look at these voices is therefore absolutely necessary since in populist times such signals can be significant.

Sie hatte nicht gedacht,

so langen Gang zu tun mit allen Steinen,

die schwerer wurden von des Koenigs Scheinen

und kalt von ihrer Angst. Sie ging und ging –

Und als sie endlich, fast von nahe, ihn,

aufruhend auf dem Thron von Turmalin,

sich türmen sah, so wirklich wie ein Ding:

empfing die rechte von den Dienerinnen

die Schwindende und hielt sie zu dem Sitze.

Er rührte sie mit seines Szepters Spitze:

...und sie begriff es ohne Sinn, innen.

She had not thought to walk so far,

to come laden with all these jewels,

which all the time absorbing the King’s majesty

grew heavier, and colder too as they took up her fear.

Gradually she drew nearer. Now she saw

him, upright on his throne of tourmaline,

as potent as a tree or tower.

A servant by her side still steered her on

as weak with terror she began to swoon,

fell senseless to the ground before the King.

His sceptre touched her. She knew everything.

Rainer Maria Rilke, Esther, 1908

translated by Stephen Cohn

Everyday citizens had no idea what was brewing under the surface, but press reports conveyed an inkling of what was going on. If you look at the professional literature of the registrars, especially the publications of the Journal of Registry Office Affairs (StAZ), even before 1933 and then afterwards you could hear the demand sounding louder and louder, German names for German children! At first, this resembled the path laid down by the campaign for the purification of the German language from Romance language influences, but after 1933 the drive became increasingly aggressive. Leaders began to lose self-control, though at first only in their language.

It began moderately in the foreword to the names section of the first edition (1921) of the German Unified Family Record Book, written by a Mr. Wlochatz, retired director of the registry office and a regular contributor to the Journal of Registry Office Affairs.