Stumbling Blocks for Walter Chrambach

Walter Chrambach, born on October 2, 1887, was a founding member of the Waldorf school in Dresden. The impulse for the founding of the school came from the Chrambach family's encounter with the educator Elisabeth Klein. Chrambach was of Jewish descent, and in his villa at Liebigstraße 7, he hosted a weekly guest salon where Klein spoke about Waldorf education starting in 1925. These remarks inspired Walter Chrambach to have his daughter, Hedwig, tutored privately by Klein, as Hedwig had been unable to attend school for several months following a traffic accident. The parents, astonished by their daughter's renewed enthusiasm for learning, were told about the teaching concept of Waldorf education as the basis of the lessons and arranged further lecture opportunities in Dresden.

Walter Chrambach and his wife Bertha became acquainted with anthroposophy, the Christian Community and biodynamic agriculture through the von Heynitz family in 1922. Chrambach had been a government councilor since 1920 and was partly responsible for building permits in Hellerau and supported the first Waldorf School in Dresden, founded in 1929, as a member of the board. As a so-called «half-Jew», he was dismissed from his post in 1933. In order not to jeopardize the school, he resigned from the board and, as a passionate cellist, was no longer allowed to play in the Mozart Society. After Waldorf schools were closed across Germany in 1938, he hosted teachers and students in his villa. As Elisabeth Klein had contacts in high political circles, including Rudolf Hess, the Dresden school was not closed until 1941.

On September 15, 1944, Chrambach was picked up by the Gestapo. The reason for this was a letter that was found with the sentence «thank God there are also people here who think differently». His daughters, who had just left school, had to watch as their father was taken away accompanied by uniformed men. They never saw him again.

Chrambach was imprisoned for three months, forced to sleep on the concrete floor, and eventually signed a statement declaring himself an opponent of the Nazi regime. This was his death sentence. On November 11, 1944, he was taken on a collective transport to the Buchenwald concentration camp. He conveyed the ideals that guided him throughout his life to his fellow prisoners by reciting from Goethe's Faust in the camp. Walter Chrambach was executed on November 16, 1944.

© Photo: Walter Chrambach, 1935 (Stadtwiki Dresden, gemeinfrei, Familienarchiv Dr.-Ing. Nils M. Schinker)