POINT OF INTEREST

Gut Jägerslust

Jägerweg, 24941 Flensburg

When the National Socialists gained power in 1933, Alexander Wolff, owner of the Jägerslust farm (Gut Jägerslust), decided to found a teaching establishment for young Jews who wanted to emigrate. He, his family and employees remained there up to the Kristallnacht on 9/10 November 1938. They then had to flee.

Established in 1857, Gut Jägerslust was acquired by Georg Nathan Wolff, a factory owner from Berlin, in 1906. After three years of voluntary service in World War I, his son Alexander took over the management of the estate in 1917 after his father’s death. While he had previously been a German patriot and not especially religious, the new antisemitism after the Nazis seized power resulted in the Wolffs turning to Judaism. They turned the estate into a teaching establishment of the “HeHalutz (Hechalutz)” youth organisation, which prepared young Jews for a life of work in Palestine. The attack by Nazi troops in the Kristallnacht (9/10 November 1938) put an end to all that. The estate was destroyed by SA troops mainly from Friedrichstadt[1] led by the police president Hinrich Möller. Everyone was arrested and Alexander Wolff was beaten and driven across the German-Danish border. His wife Irma found temporary refuge[2] in the Danish old people’s home “Hjemmet”. Later, she fled to Berlin with her mother Käthe and sister Lilly. She and other inhabitants of Jägerslust were murdered in concentration camps. Alexander Wolff had to fight for compensation for several years. In 1966, he visited the ruins of his farm with his second wife Else. He signed his name in the city’s Golden Book, but ruled out a return to Germany, saying he would never know whether he might meet murderers of his family. The former estate was turned into a military training area for the German armed forces (Bundeswehr). Later, it was acquired by a nature conservation foundation (Stiftung Naturschutz Schleswig-Holstein). Today, an information room and so-called “Stolpersteine” recall Gut Jägerslust and its inhabitants.