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Why did my great grandfather leave Germany for Africa in 1880?

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In 1880 at the age of 18, my great-grandfather, Franz Ginsberg (1862-1936) left Germany and migrated to King Williams Town (now ‘Qonce’) in the Cape Colony, which, after 1910, became incorporated into the Union of South Africa. In what is now South Africa, he became a successful industrialist as well as a politician – both at local and national levels. This essay discusses why a German Jew left Germany in 1880, and why he chose to go to a part of Southern Africa where there were few of his co-religionists – and to an area where neither gold nor diamonds were being mined, rather than to the USA, where many other Jewish people from Germany and other parts of Central Europe tended to migrate.

To begin to understand why Franz left Germany in his late teens in 1880, it is helpful to know something about his father Dr Nathan Ginsberg (1814-1890).

Nathan was born in Breslau (now ‘Wroclaw’ in Poland). At school, according to his school report which I have seen, he was recognised by his teachers as being a brilliant student. Based on this report, he was admitted to the University of Breslau. After graduating at Breslau, again with great reports from those who taught him, which I have read, he wished to apply to be awarded with a doctorate (‘PhD’). However, the University of Breslau did not permit Jewish people to be awarded with doctorates unless they converted to Christianity, which was something Nathan did not want to do.

Nathan ‘shopped around’, and applied to the University of Halle, which he discovered would award a doctorate to unconverted Jewish candidates. I have seen his letter of application and the various theses he had written in subjects including mathematics and astronomy. Halle awarded Nathan a doctorate. Next, Dr Nathan Ginsberg, being an academic, attempted to apply for teaching posts in German universities.

In those far-off days, German universities did not admit Jews as members of their academic staff unless they had first converted to Christianity. Several of Nathan’s teachers at the University of Breslau had been born Jewish, but had converted to Christianity. As the author Amos Elon pointed out in his excellent book about Jewish life in Germany, “The Pity of it All”, many of these converts working as university were non-practising Christians.

Nathan Ginsberg was unwilling to convert to Christianity, and had to forego his ambition to become a university teacher.  After working for some years in the observatory at Breslau, he moved to Beuthen (now ‘Bytom’ in Poland), where he became a founding member of a new school for Jewish children. It was a school for educating Jewish children, rather than a religious school, one of which already existed in the town. In 1870, when restrictions on the activities of Germany’s Jews eased considerably, the school was adopted by the state, and became known as the Städtisch jüdische Volksschule. It was in Beuthen that my great-grandfather was born. He was one of 12 children born to Nathan and his second wife, Rosalie (née Berg). He had a half-brother, Leo, who was born in Breslau when Nathan was married to his first wife, who died young.

During Franz’s childhood, Germany experienced economic problems that were blamed on the Jews, and this led to an increase in anti-Semitism. Before this became serious, Prussia and France went to war in 1870. Leo, who was old enough to do so, enrolled in the Prussian Army and took part in the invasion of Alsace and Lorraine, which became German territory after 1871. When he married, he and his wife were obliged, as were all newlyweds, to buy a set of chinaware from one of the Royal Prussian porcelain factories. They settled in German occupied Strasbourg (or ‘Strassburg’ as the Germans called it), where they produced four children.

Nathan, a far-sighted person, realised that the future of Jews in Germany was likely to deteriorate. That he did so as early as in the 1880s is indicative of his great wisdom. From the mid-1870s, German anti-Semites regarded the emancipated Jew as (to quote the historian Heinrich von Treitschke {1834-1896}):

“…a symbol and profiteer of modernity, of liberalism and capitalism.”

As well as stating:

“Die Juden sind unser Unglück!” [‘The Jews are our misfortune!’]

Nathan must have realised that as the Jews acquired more equality in Germany, hostility to them would grow. Many other Jews discovered this much later; some too late. Franz and some of his siblings left Germany when they were old enough to do so. The atmosphere of anti-Semitism in late nineteenth century Germany was likely to have been a potent reason for Nathan’s children to seek a better life elsewhere. Another reason might well have been the difficulties of achieving his ambitions Nathan, a Jewish man unable to give up his religion, had already encountered.

But why did Nathan Ginsberg’s children head for Southern Africa rather than the USA or elsewhere?

I cannot answer this question for certain, but can suggest the following.

Nathan Ginsberg, who was born in Breslau and lived in Beuthen, must have known the Friedlander and Goldmann families – Jewish people – living in those cities. He would have known that some of their offspring had gone to South Africa in the 1860s and before, and had done well.

And what attracted Franz to King Williams Town?

Whatever was the actual reason for leaving Germany, Franz set off for, and arrived in, South Africa in 1880, aged eighteen. His destination was not one of those most chosen by nineteenth century migrants. It was neither the diamond-rich area in the Cape Colony nor the goldfields of the Boer Transvaal Republic. Instead, he headed for King Williams Town, a small town in the eastern part of the British Cape Colony.

To understand why Franz chose to go to King rather than Kimberley or the Witwatersrand, we must turn the clock back to before his birth. Long before the arrival of Europeans in what was to become the Cape Colony, there were few inhabitants in the area. As time went by, this land was colonised from the sea by first the Dutch and then the British, and from the north by various African peoples. Where the Africans and Europeans met, there were frequently territorial conflicts. One of these trouble spots was the Eastern Cape, and in particular the part that became known as ‘British Kaffraria’, in which King Williams Town – founded in 1835 – was located.

Just before British Kaffraria became a British colony, a huge conflict was taking place far north of the Equator in and around Southern Russia. This was the Crimean War (October 1853 to February 1856). The armies of Great Britain, France, the Ottoman Empire, and Sardinia, were pitted against that of the Russian Empire. As the war dragged on, the British need additional manpower.

The British Government decided to recruit men from neutral European states to strengthen its forces in the Crimea. The German States provided a number of soldiers, who came to England, and were formed into the British German Foreign Legion (the ‘Legion’). Only a small part of the British German Legion had reached the Crimea when the war ended. The British Parliament was now faced with the problem of what to do with the men. They had all joined for the duration of the war and for one year after.

After some discussions between the Government in London and the authorities in the Cape Colony, it was decided to recruit as many as possible of the Legion to become military settlers in British Kaffraria. These settlers were offered land and help to build homes on condition that they would be available for military purposes when the need arose. Before departing for Africa, the men were encouraged to marry if they were not already espoused, because this was thought to be good for encouraging stability and also an increase in the European population of the area. Despite the prospects of good conditions in the Cape presented to the men, only 2362 officers and men out of a possible 8000 took up the offer, and of these only 361 of them were married. Many of the Germans left the Cape to fight for the British in India in 1857, when the so-called Indian Mutiny commenced.

It was believed that one of the reasons for the limited success of the settlement of British Kaffraria by the members of the Legion was the general lack of wives amongst them. Sir George Grey (1812-1898),

Sir George Grey, the Governor of the Cape Colony from 1854 to 1859, proposed re-settling the area with emigrants from the German States. He felt that those of the Legion who had decided to settle in the area would welcome them, and then help them to establish livelihoods. Using an agent, JC Godeffroy of Hamburg, Grey managed to help German families circumvent the laws that discouraged their emigration, and thus they made their way to the colony. After much hardship at first, they became good hardworking residents of British Kaffraria.

When the author Anthony Trollope arrived in King in 1877, three years before Franz Ginsberg, he found it to be:

“… a thoroughly commercial little city with a pleasant club, with a railway to East London, and with smiling German cultivation all around it …”

Some of the Germans were distributed to settlements around King Williams Town. Many of these were given German names such as Frankfort, Berlin, Braunschweig, Potsdam, and Stutterheim.

Franz Ginsberg, whose mother tongue was German, might have chosen to move to King – the town in the heart of British Kaffraria – because it was in an area full of German speakers. The Suez Canal, which had not been open when the German settlers arrived in the late 1850s, was in use by the time that Franz set sail. Whether or not he sailed through it, thus making a faster voyage than by the Atlantic route, and where he disembarked in South Africa, remain unknown. Other questions that remain unanswered are: was he travelling with a companion or alone, and did he know someone who was already there? These are not idle queries because their answers might establish how he came to know his first business partner (or maybe employer) Jakob Rindl (1853-1937).

I will end here, but in future publications, I will reveal how my great-grandfather made his fortune, and something about his political activities. I will also, eventually, discuss his attitudes towards his African, Indian, and Chinese neighbours, but this must wait for another day.

This article about Franz Ginsberg has been written with reference to my biography of Franz Ginsberg, “Soap to Senate: A German Jew at the dawn of apartheid”, which is available from Amazon.

In Germany we only eat …

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About twenty years ago, we decided to fly with the German Lufthansa airline from London to Bangalore. A short flight from London took us to Frankfurt am Main, where we had to embark on another ‘plane for the long flight between Frankfurt and Bangalore.

We travelled as ‘economy’ class passengers, although the cost of the flight was far from economical. Soon after boarding the second flight, the lengthy one between Germany and India, we were served an acceptable meal, which included non-veg items. It contained meat.

After some time, when we were nearing our destination, we were served another meal. This time it was pure vegetarian. Now, I have nothing against vegetarian food, but, if it is available, I like a bit of fish or meat with my meal. Feeling rather ‘bolshie’, I summoned the fight attendant, and told her, not entirely truthfully:

“I cannot eat vegetarian food. I can’t eat this. I must have some meat.”

She replied:

“Ah. In Germany, we only eat meat once a day.”

I looked at her, and said truthfully:

“I have visited Germany many times, and each time I have seen Germans eating meat several times a day.”

She did not dispute this. I continued:

“Speak to the purser. See if you can get me some non-veg food.”

She walked away, and after a few minutes, emerged from the business-class and first-class cabin area. She was carrying a tray, which she placed in front of me. It had a wonderful selection of seafood.

Evidently, even thousands of feet above the ground, a German airline was happy to serve non-veg food more than once a day … providing one had paid for a business or first-class seat.

 

In touch with history in Munich (München)

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UNITY MITFORD WAS one of the famous Mitford sisters. She had sympathy for the German Nazis, and in particular  its leader, Adolf Hitler. It is likely that she had a crush on him.

 

In Munich,  Hitler used to like dining at an Italian restaurant called Osteria Bavaria, an old establishment first opened in 1890. Knowing that Hitler used to frequent the restaurant, Unity Mitford used to arrive there, sit opposite the dictator’s usual table. When he arrived, she would try to catch his eye, and would be invited to join his table. All this occurred long ago before I  paid a visit to Munich in the early 2000s.

 

While in the city,   I discovered  that the restaurant was still in existence, but had been renamed Osteria Italiana. We reserved a table for dinner. Our table was in one of the place’s several dining rooms. The walls of the dining area had been maintained as they were when the Osteria first opened. The Italian food we were served was first-class. Our friend, who lived in Munich, warned us not to mention Hitler while we were in the restaurant.  She was terrified that if any of our fellow, mostly German, diners heard his name, they would have been embarrassed.  We did as she asked.

 

As we were leaving the Osteria, I noticed something at the entrance, which I had not seen when we arrived. It was a sign, both in German and English, that read:

“In touch with history.”

I thought that was a great way of alluding to a hateful person, who made a huge impact on the affairs of the world.

A book that should be read by everyone during these troubled times

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GERMAN WRITER FRIEDRICH Reck (1884-1945) was conservative politically,  but not a supporter of Adolf Hitler. In fact, he hated the dictator,  the Nazi regime, and what it did to bring about the downfall, morally and materially, of the Germany he was brought up to love.

From 1936 until his arrest in 1944, he wrote a secret journal, which he had to keep hidden from all eyes. The journal, “Diary of a Man in Despair” was discovered in 1947, when it was first published.  Each of its superbly written entries charts the gradual decline of Germany, its people, the increasing immorality of the population, and its morally corrupt rulers.

Reading Reck’s book it is a frightening experience. It describes things that are not too dissimilar to what is happening in today’s political climate. And in the context of contemporary life in many continents, it can be read as a chilling warning. Reck’s account provides a good idea of what could happen if people believe the lies and promises of populist leaders, then elect them, and after that, fail to resist their megalomaniac, psychotic ideas and actions.

I discovered a copy of Reck’s book in a second-hand bookshop, and after beginning to read it, I found it difficult to put it down.

A writer who lived in Germany throughout the era of Adolf Hitler

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THE GERMAN AUTHOR Rudolf Ditzen (1893-1947) is better known by his nom-de-plume Hans Fallada. Readers of English translations of his novels are most familiar with his book “Alone in Berlin” (known as “Every Man Dies Alone” in the USA). This excellent story has been made into a film.

In most of his novels, Ditzen’s characters portray the trials and tribulations of the ‘little man’ as he tries to struggle within the often-challenging conditions that prevailed in Germany before WW1 and between that war and the end of WW2.  How Ditzen achieved the portrayal of ordinary people’s lives in the first half of the twentieth century is brilliantly described in “More Lives than One” by Jenny Williams (published in 1998). Her well-documented, highly researched biography of Ditzen reads like a good novel.

Ditzen’s frequently difficult life was itself the stuff of novels, and he made much use of his own experiences and those of others in the many stories he wrote. Jenny Williams describes in engaging detail the author’s struggles with women, drugs, alcohol, imprisonment, psychiatric disorders, publishers, and the Nazi regime.  Not political animal, Ditzen was keen to promote common decency in Germany. This became an increasingly difficult aim after the end of WW1, and especially during the years when Germany was under the dictatorial rule of Adolf Hitler.

Unlike many fellow authors in Germany, Ditzen decided not to emigrate as conditions became increasingly difficult in Hitler’s Germany. He continued writing prolifically after Hitler came to power, but as the years rolled on, finding publishers became difficult, and for a while Ditzen had to moderate what he wrote to keep out of trouble, In describing the author’s life during the awful times many experienced in Germany between 1932 and 1945, Jenny Williams gives the reader a fascinating view of what it was like living during that period.

At the end of WW2, Ditzen was found to be ‘acceptable’ as a cultural figure in Germany. Without having collaborated with the Nazis (apart from reluctantly editing some of his writing to please censors), he was considered reliable in the Soviet occupied part of Germany, and was for a short while chosen to be the mayor of a small town, a job he hated. The Soveiet controlled German authorities provided Ditzen with a Gestapo file, and encouraged him to write a nove based on what it contained. The result was his final novel, “Alone in Berlin”.

Even if you have never read anything by Ditzen/Fallada, “More Lives than One” makes for fascinating reading. Primarily a biography of Rudolf Ditzen, it is also an intriguing view of conditions in Germany.

An artist from Germany who uses paint spraying techniques

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ABSTRACTION IN ART is not to everyone’s taste, but I enjoy viewing it. Maybe, this is because I was brought up by a parent, my mother, who created abstract sculptures. Until 31 May 2026, the White Cube Gallery in London’s Bermondsey is holding an exhibition of abstract works by Katharina Grosse, who was born in West Germany in 1961.

Grosse was educated at art schools in West Germany including Kunstakademie Münster and Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. Currently, she divides her time between Berlin and New Zealand. Since the 1990s, soon after qualifying at the art schools, she began making creations using acrylic paint applied with an industrial spray gun. Often, she sprays onto canvases, but also on other things. For example, in 2004, she sprayed the bedroom of her flat in Düsseldorf — everything in it including the bed, floor and the clothes, books and shoes strewn across it — in rainbow-hued acrylics. At the White Cube, one large gallery has been filled with piles of rubble. These piles, the floor, and the walls of the room have all been sprayed with coloured paints, producing an environment that looks psychedelic.

In the other rooms at White Cube, one can view huge canvases on which she has created abstract compositions using her paint sprayer and a variety of different coloured paints. I liked most of these creations. They look good as a whole and, also, when examined in detail. Using her paint application methods, she has produced many visually intriguing effects.

The gallery’s website explained:

“Since the late 1990s, Grosse has primarily worked with acrylic pigments and an industrial spray gun, creating marks that register not only the image, but also the movement of her body as she makes it. The spray gun allows her to extend her body beyond its reach, as far as her eyes can see. In this way she proposes a correlation between the act of looking and the act of painting, an approach informed, in part, by her early exposure to street shows and experimental theatre – productions that dismantled the traditional division between stage and audience.”

I like the idea that what can be seen in the paintings is a record of the movements she made while creating them. Of course, this is the case with every artist’s paintings, but in Grosse’s pictures, the results are not images of objects or ideas but documentation of her movements whilst creating the images.

Apart from being a vibrant and exciting collection of artworks, this show introduces the viewer to an exciting approach to artistic creation.

They tried to reduce a city, London, to rubble

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AS I WRITE this on 7 April 2026, the President of the USA has already threatened “… to bomb Iran ‘into the Stone Age’.

In 1940, the Germans, under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, had slightly less ambitious evilintentions. They tried to reduce London to no more than rubble, and to some extent they succeeded, as can be seen at an exhibition being held at London’s Imperial War Museum until 1 November 2026. The show, “Beauty and Destruction: Wartime London in Art”, contains a collection of paintings and drawings done by artists who were in London while it was being bombed by the Germans, during the so-called Blitz. There are images by a wide range of war artists, some I had heard of, and others that were new to me. Each image is accompanied by a good explanatory panel.

By John Farleigh

I knew thar during the Blitz, peopled sheltered in deep Underground stations, and that the artist Henry Moore is famous for depicting these makeshift shelters and those sheltering within them. What interested me in the War Museum’s exhibition was that there were pictures of these Underground shelters  and other subterranean places by other artists, including: John Farliegh, Edward Ardizzone, Olga Lehmann, and Anthony Gross.

The other pictures on display show the damage done to buildings, aspects of attack and defence, life during the Blitz, and portraits of those who suffered during the attacks. Given what has been threatened by a President of the USA, it was somewhat unnerving seeing the pictures in the War Museum’s superb exhibition.

Diwali and a film from Germany about the futility of warfare

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GEORG WILHELM PABST (1885-1967) was a film director born in Austria. His film “Westfront 1918” was produced in 1930. This harrowing film vividly portrays the horrors of trench warfare and its effects on both the active German soldiers and their families back home in Germany. It is really an anti-war film. It was banned by the Nazis because it did not portray German soldiers as victorious heroes. Today, the 11th of November 2023 (Armistice Day), we watched a screening of this horrifying film about the last months of WW1 at Bangalore’s Max Mueller Bhavan (a branch of the Goethe Institute).

After the screening and interesting discussion about the film were over, we walked down the staircase instead of using the lift in which we had ascended. On each of the steps, there were small terracotta oil lamps (diyas), such as are typically lit during the Hindu festival of light – Diwali. Seeing this charming set of lamps placed to celebrate the imminent festival raised my spirits after having watched such a depressing film about the futility of warfare.

Hitler and India

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MANY BOOKSHOPS IN INDIA carry copies of “Mein Kampf” by Adolf Hitler, translated into English. They are not hidden away from view but are displayed openly in bookshelves alongside books with less offensive texts. The books are not old and tatty, but look brand new, suggesting that they are bought frequently and replaced by new stock. Why this book should still be on the shelves in India so many decades after it was first published has always puzzled me. So, when I saw a book “Hitler and India” published by the historian Vaibhav Purandare in 2021, I bought a copy. I was hoping that it might help me understand the prevalence of “Mein Kampf” in Indian bookshops.

Purandare’s book is an easy read and quite interesting. He points out very effectively that Hitler had no love for Indians. Furthermore, he felt that it was right that the British rather the Indians than should rule India. And, in his opinion, he felt that should Germany ever rule India, the Indians would yearn for the return of what he considered to be the too lenient rule of the British. Hitler wrote that: “I would, despite everything, still far rather see India under English than under some other rule …”
Hitler had no desire to support those fighting for the freedom of India because, believe it or not, prior to WW2 he hoped that Britain and Germany might eventually become allies. Purandare also details how Indians in Germany suffered at the hands of the Nazis and their security forces. It was only after Britain and the Soviet Union became enemies of Germany that he entertained the idea of providing limited assistance to those, like Subhas Chandra Bose, who were fighting to free India from the British. Even then, the assistance he authorised was very limited. He did ship Bose out to Japan, but there was little more to his help than that. It must be remembered that he only did this as a way to undermine the British war effort; he did not believe that an independent India was either feasible or desirable. All of the foregoing is well described in the book.

Unfortunately, what the book failed to do is what I hoped when I purchased it. It brings me no closer to understanding why “Mein Kampf” appears in so many Indian bookshops, and evidently sells. What Purandare does make clear is that Hitler’s book contains passages that are insulting to Indians. As for its appeal to Indian bookshop browsers, his book has not brought me any closer to understanding it.

An artist in Germany, Norway, Scotland, Isle of Man, then Somerset

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AN UNUSUAL CRUCIFIX hands within the church of St Mary in Bruton, Somerset. It is a sculpture typical of early 20th century German Expressionism, yet it was created in 1969, long after the heyday of this artistic trend. The creator of this religious sculpture was Ernst Blensdorf (1896-1976). He was born Ernst Müller in North Germany, but after his marriage to his first wife, Ilse Blensdorf, in 1923, he changed his surname to ‘Müller-Blensdorf’, then later to ‘Blensdorf’.

At first, Blensdorf became a seaman. After having been interned as an enemy alien by the British during WW1, Ernst travelled to Johannesburg in South Africa with a fellow internee. It was here that he made a table-top wood carving of an African village. On his return to Germany, this fine carving persuaded Ernst’s father that his son had a future as an artist and was willing to support him towards this aim. While in Africa, Ernst had seen African art first-hand and exposure to this certainly helped influenced his future creations.

After a brief spell at an art school in Barmen, he left to become apprenticed to a master joiner. By 1922, he had become a journeyman for a furniture company, which specialised in manufacturing luxury items. During this period, he was influenced by the Bauhaus artist Paul Klee and the sculptor Alexander Archipenko. The skill that Ernest acquired and developed whilst manufacturing wooden objects for the furniture company became useful as he moved from applied craftsmanship to artistic endeavours. In addition to other activities, he taught at the art school in Barmen during the 1920s. By the 1930s, he had become an established sculptor and had exhibited his works at various exhibitions in Germany, where he received both private and public commissions.

When the Nazis took power in Germany, Blensdorf became one of the first artists whose works were categorised as ‘degenerate’ by Hitler and his regime. This led to him losing his teaching post at Barmen and his studio being wrecked by the Nazi’s loutish followers. Ernst, his wife, and children, moved to Norway, where he was planning a giant peace monument to honour the Norwegian statesman and Nobel Peace prize winner Fridjtof Nansen. In Norway, he worked on this project and made a living creating and selling artistic ceramic works, alongside the Norwegian ceramicist Eilif Whist. 

When the Germans invaded Norway in spring 1940, Blensdorf and his children fled to Scotland. His wife, Ilse, remained behind, saying that she was a follower of Adolf Hitler. Following his arrival in the UK, Blensdorf was once again interned as an ‘enemy alien’. Along with many others, including a good number of men with artistic talent and German nationality, he was interned on the Isle of Man (from 1940 to 1941). His children were placed in a couple of orphanages. While interned, he, along with fellow artists, were allowed to satisfy their creative urges and even to sell their creations. Using whatever materials he could find during this period of scarcity, Blensdorf’s creative output was impressively large. For the first time in his life, he had plenty of time to undertake artistic work in the absence of anxieties such as he had experienced before arriving on the Isle of Man.

Blensdorf was released from internment in 1941. He went to live with an Austrian couple, the Schreiners, whom he had met in the internment camp. They lived in Charlton Musgrove in Somerset. With him, the Schreiners planned to set up an art school, but this failed for financial reasons. Ernst remained in Somerset. His first job was teaching pottery at a school in Bratton Seymour. It was here that he met his second wife, Jane Lawson. They married in 1942 and moved into a house near Wincanton, where they were joined by his children. Blensdorf taught in various schools in Somerset including the King’s School in Bruton.

In 1943, Blensdorf and his family bought a run-down 17th century house close to Bruton. Gradually, the house was restored and improved. It remained his home for the rest of his life. Although he exhibited often and in prestigious venues, Blensdorf never realised the great reputations that other artists, such as Henry Moore, Elizabeth Frink, Anthony Caro, and Barbara Hepworth, gained in the UK and beyond. For this reason, seeing his work for the first time during my first visit to the lovely Bruton Museum in July 2021, was a wonderful surprise and an exciting eye-opener.  In one corner of this small museum, there is a large glass cabinet that contains examples of Blensdorf’s sketches, ceramics, and sculptures. When I told the lady, who was looking after the museum, how much I liked what I had seen of his works, she told me about the crucifix in the local church, which fortunately I was able to see. She also sold me a copy of a well-illustrated catalogue of an exhibition of his works that was held some time ago in the Bruton Museum. It is from this publication that I have extracted much of the information above. Bruton is a gem of a town. Visiting its museum is a ‘must’ because not only does it allow you to ‘discover’ the works of Blensdorf but also to see a display of artefacts relating to the author John Steinbeck, who lived close to Bruton between March and September 1959 … but that is another story.