Otto Metzger

Otto Metzger was a

Otto Metzger was the son of Jewish parents: Ludwig Metzger (1852–1931) and Gretchen (Guldmann) (1864–1943).[1]^[2] He grew up in Nuremberg, Germany, where he met his wife, Sophie (Josephthal) (1894–1998).^[3]

First World War

Otto Metzger had previously served as a

This reached a climax on 9 November 1938, when Jews were attacked in their homes and businesses during the night of Kristallnacht. Otto Metzger was returning from Britain, where he had just concluded a licensing agreement with a British company, Enfield Rolling Mills Ltd, to use his patented impact-extrusion technology. He was arrested by the Gestapo at the German border, on his way home to Nuremberg, and imprisoned in the Dachau concentration camp. Meanwhile his wife, having had their home and belongings invaded and smashed by Nazi stormtroopers and having spent the night wandering the streets of Nuremberg, waited in vain for Otto’s return.^[4]

Otto Metzger was released from Dachau on 15 December 1938, and returned home to Nuremberg. By late-February 1939, he had managed to obtain the necessary travel documents to leave Germany, and he and his wife left for Britain. Otto had been unable to obtain documents for his mother Gretchen (who by that time was aged 74); she remained in Nuremberg, and was transported by the Nazis to

Otto and his wife Sophie are commemorated by adjacent rose bushes, planted in the Liberal Jewish Cemetery in London.

Two adjacent Stolpersteine, commemorating Otto and his wife Sophie, are laid in a Nuremberg street directly outside the apartment where they lived prior to fleeing Germany in 1939.^[11]

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