Dr. jur. Rudolf Hermann Samson

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S. attended the Johanneum and, after joining the army as a volunteer in September 1914 , completed his school leaving examination in August 1915 . Wounded in front of Verdun in August 1917 , he was released from military service in December 1918 . He then studied law at the universities of Halle, Munich and Hamburg. After passing the second legal exam in February 1924 , he joined the law firm led by his father Hermann Samson. S. was politically close to social democracy. In 1920 he married the Evangelically confirmed Ilse Elkan. Even though he was on the board of the → Israelite Hospital , he and his family with four children remained far from Judaism until 1933 . However, when the anti-Jewish measures and laws came into force in the spring of 1933 , S. saw an obligation to help the persecuted. First he organized legal aid, and soon he took over the chair of the advice center for Jewish economic aid. In September 1933, he played a key role in founding the Reich Representation of German Jews, on whose bodies he took part in many consultations. He became chairman of the regional association of Northern Germany and the Hamburg branch of the Central Association of German Citizens of Jewish Faith. The → Jewish Cultural Association of Hamburg , founded in 1934 , was also under his leadership. He was consulted as a permanent advisor to the board meetings of the Jewish community ( → community ). It can be attributed to the high workload associated with these tasks that S. died of a heartbeat while bathing in the Baltic Sea at the age of only 41 . His children came to Great Britain in December 1938 on a children's transport. His wife and parents followed in April 1939 .