Starting points
History in four epochs
From Roman times through the High Middle Ages, the era of “protected Jews” and emancipation to the Shoah and the present — a chronological journey through two millennia of Jewish history on the Moselle.
Trier — the oldest community
Trier, the oldest city in Germany, is also home to one of the country’s oldest Jewish communities. First documented in 1066 but presumably older — with ruptures, expulsions and returns.
Otto Loeb (1898–1974)
Trier wine merchant with a doctorate, driven to London by the Nazi regime. There he built up one of Britain’s most respected wine houses — and remained tied to the Moselle all his life. His book “Moselle” is his legacy.
Cemeteries, synagogues, Stolpersteine
Where remembrance lives today: Jewish cemeteries in Wittlich, Bernkastel and Beilstein, former synagogues, Stolpersteine (stumbling stones) in numerous Moselle towns, and the Emil Frank Institute in Wittlich.
Books on the Jewish Moselle
Annotated bibliography: the standard work “Moselle” by Otto Loeb, the Vorläufiges Gedenkbuch für die Juden von Trier (Preliminary Memorial Book for the Jews of Trier) by Reiner Nolden, the publications of the Arye Maimon Institute, and much more.
Karl Marx and Trier
Karl Marx was born in 1818 as the grandson of the Trier rabbi. His father Heinrich Marx, formerly Marx Levi Mardochai, was baptised a Protestant in 1817 in order to keep practising as a lawyer. The Jewish heritage continued to shape his thinking.
About this portal
This site is a private research and remembrance project by Dr. Thomas Prüm, member of the German-Israeli Society. It fills a gap between the great themes of the Moselle region: wine, slate and river shipping are amply documented — the Jewish heritage less so. Both stories are intertwined.
The site combines three approaches:
- a chronological overview of two millennia,
- places along the Moselle from Trier to Koblenz, with separate pages on Trier, Bernkastel-Kues, Wittlich, Beilstein, Cochem & Zell and Koblenz, and
- biographical personalities who stand as examples of Jewish life on the Moselle — first and foremost Otto Loeb, the Moselle wine merchant in London exile.
Stations of a history
The Jewish history of the Moselle is not a straight line. It is a story of rise and expulsion, destruction and return. A brief overview:
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c. 321An edict of Emperor Constantine attests to a Jewish community in Cologne. For nearby Roman Trier — Augusta Treverorum, the most important Roman city north of the Alps — a Jewish presence may be assumed at least from this time.
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1066First documentary mention of the Jewish community of Trier in a town chronicle. In the 13th and early 14th centuries some 300 Jews lived here in their own quarter around the Judengasse (Jews’ lane) at the main market.
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1096In the course of the First Crusade a band of crusaders made its way up the Moselle. Archbishop Egilbert first tried to protect the Jews of Trier, then pressed them to be baptised. Several chose death; some threw themselves from a tower.
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1349Plague pogroms swept the entire Rhineland and Moselle. Mass killings took place in Trier and many smaller towns. The communities only partially recovered.
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1418Archbishop Otto von Ziegenhain expelled the Jews from Trier. Only around 1610/1620 were individual families permitted to return; in 1651 the Jewish cemetery in Weidegasse was laid out beyond the walls.
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1808Under Napoleonic rule, Jews on the left bank of the Rhine received legal equality. In 1815 the Moselle passed to Prussia, which implemented emancipation more hesitantly.
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1859Inauguration of the new synagogue on the Zuckerberg in Trier — one of the most important Jewish houses of worship in the Rhineland. In the nineteenth century Jewish communities flourished in Trier, Wittlich, Bernkastel, Cochem, Zell, Beilstein and Koblenz.
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1871With the founding of the German Empire, full legal equality. Jewish families were among the leading wine exporters of the Moselle — for instance the Loeb family in Trier and the Grach family in Traben-Trarbach.
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10 Nov. 1938During the November Pogrom of 1938 (Kristallnacht), the great Moselle synagogues burned. In Trier the synagogue on the Zuckerberg was looted and devastated, in Wittlich the synagogue consecrated in 1910 was destroyed inside, and in Koblenz the house of worship was demolished.
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1941–1943Deportations from the entire Moselle valley. From Trier, Cochem, Zell, Wittlich and many smaller places the last Jewish inhabitants were dragged off to the extermination camps in the East.
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1957Inauguration of a new, plain synagogue on Kaiserstraße in Trier. One of the rubble stones of the destroyed old synagogue serves as a foundation stone.
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1997Founding of the Emil Frank Institute in Wittlich, jointly run by the University of Trier, the Faculty of Theology, and the town of Wittlich — a research centre on the Jewish history of the Moselle-Eifel-Hunsrück region.
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todayIn Trier the Jewish religious community numbers around 500 members, most with roots in the former Soviet Union. Remembrance work, cemeteries and Stolpersteine along the Moselle keep the history present.
A special connection
It is a German Jew who has set this monument to Moselle wine. — Dr. Daniel Deckers, FAZ, on Otto Loeb’s book “Moselle” (1972)
A separate page is devoted to Otto Loeb (1898–1974), the Trier wine merchant who emigrated to London during the years of persecution and from there became one of the most important ambassadors of German wine. His father Sigmund Loeb was for decades president of the Moselle Wine Merchants’ Association and a co-founder of the Philharmonic Society of Trier. Both maintained close ties with the great wine estates of the middle Moselle, among them Joh. Jos. Prüm in Wehlen.