Dr. phil.
Emil Albert Rosenthal
1869 - unknown

Background, Education, and Work as a Chemist

Emil Albert Rosenthal was born on June 15, 1869 in Königsberg (East Prussia) as the fourth of five children to the Jewish merchant Louis (Lewin) Rosenthal (Zempelburg 1831 – Berlin 1900) and his first wife, Hulda, née Herrmann (Tuchel 1844 – Berlin 1887). Louis and Huldas’ respective children included Margarethe (born 1863), Paul (1864), Robert (1866), Emil (1869), and Richard (1871). After his first wife’s death, Louis Rosenthal married again to Clara Hahn  in 1889 in Königsberg.

One can assume that the family moved to Berlin during or after 1886, after which Emil and his brothers Paul and Robert had completed their secondary school examinations (Abitur) in Königsberg. Emil originally intended to study medicine.

Rosenthal enrolled at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin in the winter semester of 1887/88. He studied chemistry instead of medicine until the winter semester of 1889/90. He earned a doctorate (Dr. phil.) on March 15, 1890 with a dissertation titled “On Homoterephthalendiamidoxime and Some of Its Derivatives.” The research was relevant to the development of synthetic dyes, since these compounds can serve as chemical building blocks or intermediates for dye production due to their ability to bind metal ions.

His dissertation was completed while working under Professor August Wilhelm Hofmann (1818–1892), a leading figure in aniline dye chemistry and the founder of the German Chemical Society in 1867. In the summer semester of 1892, Rosenthal was listed as Hoffmann’s assistant. However, Hoffmann’s sudden death in May 1892 abruptly ended Rosenthal’s career prospects.

In his correspondence with Heinrich Caro (1834–1910), a prominent dye chemist and codirector of BASF Mannheim, Rosenthal expressed concern that he had received no Letter of Recommendation from Hofmann and worried about his future career.

At this time, Rosenthal lived in Berlin at Victoriastraße 17, the residence of his brother Paul, a court assessor. In 1893, Emil Rosenthal began military service, presumably for one year, as was typical for university educated recruits.

Attempting to determine Rosenthal’s further job postings included researching possible job opportunities for a chemist with expertise in dye chemistry, including reading archives of chemical industries in Germany, Switzerland, and France. Rosenthal’s name appears in Basel city directories from 1897 to 1900 (Feldbergstrasse 124). The Swiss National Archives confirmed that he had moved from Hüningen (Huningue, France) to Basel on January 23, 1896, where he lived until he relocated to England in July 1899. Although it is plausible that he worked for a chemical company in Basel, no evidence of employment in the Novartis corporate archive exists. It is therefore assumed that he may have potentially worked at the Chemical Industry Basel Corporation (CIBA), possibly as a visiting scientist affiliated with another firm. Inquiries at BASF Mannheim, Hoechst Frankfurt, and British archives yielded no results.

This leaves a biographical gap of approximately two years (July 1899 to May 1901).

During this period, Rosenthal likely worked with chemist Wilhelm Epstein (1860–1941), as they coauthored two patents—one U.S. patent (1901) and one German patent (1904)—titled “Process for Dyeing Chrome Leather.”

Marriage, Medical Education, and Medical Career

 Rosenthal most likely met his future wife during this undocumented period of 1899 until 1901. Peshe (Pauline) Joffé, was born on April 24, 1872 in Kovno (Kaunas), then part of Russia, of Jewish faith as the daughter of the merchant Jankel Joffé and the late Ite Beirath. Emil Albert Rosenthal and Peshe Joffé were married on July 1, 1901 in Munich. Their banns were announced between June 20 and 26 in Berlin (Rosenthal’s residence), in Frankfurt, and in Munich. The marriage record notes that Rosenthal was a dissident, meaning he had left the Jewish community.

Pauline (also called Paula) Joffé had studied medicine in Paris from 1894 to 1899 and earned her medical doctorate in 1900 with a microbiological dissertation from the Pasteur Institute under Elie Metchnikoff (1845–1916). At the time of their wedding, she was designated as “physician residing here” (Munich). The marriage was widely reported in provincial newspapers, emphasizing: “The young woman doctor will continue her medical work after returning from the wedding trip.” Even in metropolitan Berlin, this was considered noteworthy.

According to the Centrum Judaicum Berlin, Emil Rosenthal left the Jewish community on May 21, 1901 (address: Dessauerstr. 34a). Pauline experienced a stillbirth on 4August 4, 1910, but on January 19, 1912 their son Hans Peter was born at the Charité private women’s clinic under Prof. Strassmann (Schumannstr. 18). The family’s address at that time was Pariser Str. 48/49 in BerlinWilmersdorf.

Rosenthal’s name first appeared in Berlin address books in 1902, residing at Calvinstraße 23 until 1910 (BerlinMoabit). From 1902 to 1906, he ran the “Dr. E. Rosenthal Chemical Laboratory, Chausseestr. 2e”, which performed medicalchemical analyses for clinics.

From the summer of 1905 until the winter of 1908/09, he studied medicine at the University of Berlin. He received his medical license in 1910, but never submitted a medical dissertation. Thus, beginning in 1911, he was listed as “Dr., physician” and not as “Dr. med.” at his address Pariser Str. 39/40.

He was a member of the Association of German Chemists from 1903 and  a member of the Medical Society from 1917. Dr. Rosenthal joined the German Society for Digestive and Metabolic Diseases (DGVS) in 1925. He appeared in the Reichsmedizinalkalender as a specialist in gastrointestinal diseases from 1912 to 1935.

Although Dr. Rosenthal did not publish in scientific journals, he presented lectures and abstracts at medical and chemical congresses.

From 1913 to 1923, his medical practice was located in the private polyclinic of Dr. Cramm, Friedrichstr. 131d, together with several colleagues. These buildings—131 a through d—were largely occupied by private clinics run by professors of the nearby university hospitals. After 1923, the couple’s practice was located at Pariser Str. 39/40. Records show that Emil occasionally assisted in his wife’s pediatric practice when she oversaw the care of discharged school-age orphans at the girls’ convalescent home in Miersdorf.

After 1933: Disappearance and Traces in South America

Following the Nazi seizure of power, Emil Rosenthal rejoined the Jewish community on April 18, 1933.

According to the Mapping the Lives database, he emigrated on November 1, 1939 to an unknown destination. Thereby, he was listed as residing in Schöneberg/Tempelhof, although in 1938 the couple was still registered at Pariser Str. 39/40 in Wilmersdorf. Pauline Rosenthal is also listed as living in Schöneberg/Tempelhof and she has an emigration date of October 1, 1939 with a destination as France.

According to the German Federal Archives, neither left a “supplementary card” in the May 1939 population census, indicating that as this time the couple was no longer residing in Germany.

Despite extensive research, the fate of both Dr. Emil Albert Rosenthal and Dr. Pauline Rosenthal, née Joffé, remains unknown. They disappeared in 1939 from Berlin Wilmersdorf with an unclear destination (Pariser Str. 39/40) in 1939. Fragmentary clues suggest South America:

1. A man named Emil Albert (Horace) Rosenthal departed from Bordeaux to Buenos Aires in March 1939, arriving on March 30, 1939.,Birth year (1869), birthplace (Königsberg), and profession (physician) match. The additional given name of “Horace” might have been used for identification, as the names Emil, Albert, and Rosenthal were very common among Jewish refugees. Pauline Rosenthal does not appear on this passenger list, and it remains unknown how or whether or not she emigrated.
   

   

   
   

   

   
   Argentina still allowed entry with a tourist visa at this time, particularly if relatives were already residing there. After mid 1940, departure from German occupied Bordeaux became impossible. Rosenthal had taken a journey in 1937, noted in the Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt from October 17, 1937 as  having “returned from a trip.”

2. Their son Hans Peter Rosenthal was forced to abandon his law studies in Berlin in 1933 and emigrated in June 1935 via Paris, Marseille, and Casablanca to Argentina. This information comes from a life history he submitted in Buenos Aires in 1962 for compensation proceedings, using the name Juan Pedro Rosenthal.

3. Hans Peter Rosenthal provided no information at all about his parents’ fate. He appears in travel records for 1948, 1960, and 1964 entering Brazil (Rio de Janeiro), with his parents listed as Emil Rosenthal and Pauline Rosenthal Joffé.

4. Juan Pedro Rosenthal married Lydia Wirth in Uruguay in 1947. She had been born in Berlin on February 23, 1902. She traveled to Rio de Janeiro in 1949, 1950, and 1955, living at the same Buenos Aires address as Juan Pedro. She returned to Berlin alone in 1966, living in Schöneberg until her death in 1974. The couple apparently had no children.

Therefore, it remains entirely possible, but unverified, that Emil and Pauline Rosenthal emigrated to South America in 1939 or earlier and lived there until their deaths. Their final fate remains unknown.