Finding Georg LUNGE

This blog posting is about finding the family connection to Georg LUNGE, industrial chemist, and Professor of Chemistry at the ETH in Zürich.

For some reason, I think it was my mother who first drew my attention to the passage in Dr. Gerit von LEITNER’s book “Der Fall Clara Immerwahr” (1994) that Dr. Philipp IMMERWAHR (1839-1908) was a friend, and a cousin, of the chemist Prof. Dr. Georg LUNGE (1839-1923).  Philipp was the father of Dr. Clara HABER geb, IMMERWAHR (1870-1915), first cousin of my mother’s father.  (All these doctors had Ph.D.s in chemistry.)


That must have been in 1999.  At the time, I did not see how Georg LUNGE could be a cousin of Philipp IMMERWAHR.  Since Philipp was an older brother of my great grandmother Clara FREUND geb. IMMERWAHR (1845-1914), I thought I knew enough about this family to know all the potential links to Georg LUNGE, whatever his ancestry was.


Eventually, possibly in 2002, I wrote to Dr. von LEITNER to see if she had more information in her research notes for her book that might expand on the published comment that Philipp and Georg were cousins.   She responded, but she did not have further details.  She suggested I contact the archives of the Max Planck Institute, since they have considerable HABER materials.   I did, but they were not able to provide any clues.


In late 2002, I contacted the archive of the ETH in Zürich to see what I could learn about Georg LUNGE’s family.  They wrote me about his wife and family and also that his parents were Heinrich LUNGE and Amalie FISCHHOF.


Earlier, I had run across this item in the pre-War German-Jewish genealogy periodical, “Jüdische
Familien Forschung”, Vol. 12, Issue 43 (1936), special edition “Unsere
Ahnen” exhibit of family portraits at the Jüdische Museum Berlin:
Dargestellte Personen:  Amalie LUNGE, geb. FISCHOF, gest 1870, Breslau,
gemalt von RESCH
Besitzer:  die Enkelin Clara GUMPERTZ

(Ernst RESCH was a portrait artist in Breslau who painted portraits of my great great grandmother Lina IMMERWAHR geb. SILBERSTEIN, as well as her sisters Rosalie (KROHN) and Sophie (KROHN), and her aunt Amalie SILBERSTEIN geb. KEMPNER.)


There things stood for about 4 years.


In September 2006, I was looking in the new (for me) resource, Stefi JERSCH-WENZEL’s “Quellen zur Geschichte der Juden in Polnischen Archiven,” Band 2 – Ehemalige preußische Provinz Schlesien, and ran across this entry:
S.245:   Amtsgericht Breslau — 4991 Nr. 303
Testaments-Akten Gottheiner [Gottheimer], Rosalie geb. Friedländer, gest 18.12.1828
  1828-1829
Enth. u. a.: Todesanzeige der Rosalie Gottheiner geb. Friedländer. — Aufsetzung des Testamentes mit Nennung der Erben: Töchter des Brüders Marcus Friedländer (Breslau), Jeanette verehel. Kuh, und Babette verehel. Silberstein, Töchters des Brüders Gerson Friedlaender (Rosenberg O/S) und der Enkelinnen des Brüders Joseph Friedländer in Brünn, die Geschwister Fischoff sowie das weibliche Waiseninstitut der heisigen israelitischen Gemeinde.

I ordered a copy of this Will from the Archiwum Panstwowe w Wroclawiu, the successor to the Breslau Stadtsarchiv, and learned in November 2006 that my [new] great great great great great aunt Rosalie GOTTHEINER geb. FRIEDLAENDER (ca.1763-1828) had left money to 3 granddaughters of her brother Joseph FRIEDLAENDER (at that moment, my newly discovered great great great great grandfather).  Those 3 sisters were Amalie, Friederike and Pauline FISCHHOF of Brünn.

A couple weeks later in December 2006, in the course of corresponding with the German author and playwright Sabine Friedrich of Coburg (she wrote a play about Clara IMMERWAHR), I realized the likely identity of Hirsch Lunge’s wife Amalie Fischof with the great niece of Rosalie Gottheiner, geb. Friedlaender.

With that connection, through the previously almost unknown FRIEDLAENDER family, Philipp IMMERWAHR and his cousin Georg LUNGE were confirmed to be cousins — they were second cousins through their respective mothers’ mothers.

A mystery solved, or so it seemed.