Wolfgang Leppmann

Born at Berlin, Germany, 22 October 1902; died at Auschwitz (Oswiecim), Poland, 14 September 1943. He attended the Empress Augusta Gymnasium and the Mommsen Gymnasium in Berlin. An interest in Slavic language and literature was stimulated by contact with Pyotr Michaelovich Argutinski-Dolgorukov, a Russian pediatrician of noble roots who was married to a cousin of Agnes Leppmann. Wolfgang attended Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin, the University of Göttingen, Charles University in Prague, and the University of Vienna. It is reported that he had speaking fluency in Russian, English, French, Italian, Polish, Serbian, and Czech. He wrote extensively on Eastern European affairs and maintained a close relationship to the German Society for the Study of Eastern Europe (Deutsche Gesellschaft für das Studium Osteuropas).
In the middle 1930s, difficulties with the National Socialist regime arose primarily around the focus of a son whose paternity Wolfgang never disclaimed. Charges of Rassenschande (“racial defilement”) were made against him, and after an elaborate (if obviously pro forma) trial, he was convicted. He was initially imprisoned within the conventional German prison system, but objections that this was an inappropriate assignment for a “full Jew” led to his deportation to Auschwitz.
The mother of his son was Charlotte Schick (born at Berlin, Germany, 14 July 1910, daughter of Arthur Friedrich and Johanna Hedwig (Futterlich) Schick).