Frankfurt Stories Beit von Speyer family
Kennedyallee 70, 60596 Frankfurt am Main
MEMORIAL FILM about the BEIT VON SPEYER FAMILY
by Dieter Wesp
‘The city knew that it was buying the properties below market value.’ Dieter Wesp
Dieter Wesp describes the ‘Aryanisation’ of Jewish real estate in the city of FRANKFURT AM MAIN using the example of the BEIT VON SPEYER family’s VILLA, today known as VILLA KENNEDY.
Dieter Wesp conducted extensive research into the eventful history of the house, which was built in Frankfurt in 1902 by the Jewish banker Eduard Beit von Speyer. As a result of the National Socialist ‘Aryanisation’, the heirs were forced to sell the villa to the city of Frankfurt at a price far below its value.
In this short film, city historian Dieter Wesp commemorates the Beit von Speyer family.
We would like to thank Dieter Wesp and everyone involved in the film.
Camera & editing: Simon Stadler
Music: Elias Lenzen
Denk Mal Am Ort is a project by KUBIN e.V.
DMAO project management Frankfurt: Marie Rolshoven
We would like to thank our partner Deutsche Postcode Lotterie for their support!
The historic part of today’s luxury hotel Villa Kennedy in Frankfurt am Main (the address today is Kennedyallee 70) was once home to the Jewish Beit von Speyer family. During the Second World War it became a centre for ‘radiation research vital to the war effort’.
Lucie Beit, née Speyer, never recovered from the death of her eldest son in the First World War and died in 1918. Eduard Beit von Speyer died in March 1933, the three surviving children emigrated, but the villa remained.
The city of Frankfurt began to take an interest in the building, which stood on a piece of land measuring 8 000 sq. metres. It was keen to attract a Kaiser Wilhelm Institute to the city and to offer them the villa and the park as a location. The heirs were pressurized into selling the property below value. The deal proved successful and in 1938 the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Biophysics moved into the building. In the course of the Second World War, a bunker was built there and radiation research vital to the war effort carried out.
In 1948, the city compensated the heirs with DM150 000. The real value of the property, however, came to light in the year 2000 when the institute, now renamed Max Planck Institute for Biophysics, moved to the natural science campus of Frankfurt University: the city of Frankfurt sold the premises to a private investor for DM180 million.
This was not an isolated incident. At the Institute for Local History, the urban historian of the Polytechnische Gesellschaft Foundation, Dieter Wesp, discovered
a list of 170 properties appropriated by the city under National Socialism.
This list has not yet been the subject of systematic research. In 2018, with reference to Dieter Wesp’s publications and lectures, the city of Frankfurt took the decision to investigate these events thoroughly. The work was assigned to the Fritz Bauer Institute.
