Hermann Kallenbach

Hermann Kallenbach (* March 1, 1871 in Žemaičių Naumiestis ( German: Neustadt ) in the Russian Empire, † March 25 1945 in South Africa ) was a German architect and associate of Mahatma Gandhi.

Life

Kallenbach was the third oldest of seven children of former Hebrew teacher Kalman body Kallenbach and his wife Rachel. 1894-1895 he completed his military service. After completing a carpentry apprenticeship and the study of civil engineering and architecture in Strelitz, Stuttgart and Munich in 1898, he emigrated to South Africa. He practiced as an architect in Durban and later as a senior partner in the firm Kallenbach & Reynolds in Johannesburg.

In South Africa, Kallenbach met in 1904 one of the later leader of the Indian independence movement, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, whom he greatly admired, and both became friends. Together they founded in 1910 the Tolstoy Farm near Johannesburg, where they realized together with other people their ideal of a luxury loose and equal life. Kallenbach, Gandhi supported the peaceful resistance ( satyagraha ) against colonial rule. Because he was white, the South African government could not imprison him for publishing of Gandhi's Indian Opinion newspaper in contrast to Gandhi.

1914 Kallenbach was interned during a trip to England and thereby separated from Gandhi, remained after his release, but with him through letters in combination. Upon his return to South Africa he worked again as an architect. Kallenbach, the son of Jewish parents supported, because of the persecution of the Jews under the Nazis, the Zionist movement, but with the aim that in Israel today, a community should occur without a state, army and industry. He wanted to avoid by following the example Aharon David Gordon at the Zionist settlements colonialism and imperialism. Gandhi showed in 1937 understanding of the ideas Kallenbach's at a meeting, but also publicly denounced the plan of a Jewish settlement of Palestine by force of arms, as there were already living the Palestinians. Both then tried jointly Muslims in India to bring to the side of a conversation between Arab and Jewish claims solution in Palestine.

Kallenbach died on March 25, 1945 of heart failure, his urn is located in Kibbutz Degania in Israel. His extensive library was sent to the University of Jerusalem in 1955 and is kept there ever since.