Siegbert J. Weinberger Collection

This collection documents the restitution claims made by the Weinberger family for property in Berlin that formerly belonged to them and Gebrüder Weinberger, the wholesale grocery firm that they owned from the early 1920s through its forced closure in 1936. Other materials in the collection include Adolf Weinberger’s personal correspondence, personal restitution materials, and business papers related to his employers in the United States.

The restitution materials regarding the property that formerly belonged to the Weinberger brothers consist mainly of correspondence between the Weinberger family members and their lawyers, Richard and Bruce Burns of New York City and Dietrich Jacob of Berlin. Much of the correspondence to Jacob around 2000 is related to memorials for the Weinberger family and sales of their properties. Also included are inventories, contracts, financial records, and legal documents (affidavits, powers of attorney, court decisions, etc.) related to the Gebrüder Weinberger business. These materials document the prolonged process for claiming restitution for property that fell into the hands of the East German government after World War II.

The papers related to Adolf Weinberger were originally held in a separate accordion folder labeled “Affairs, Berlin, Adolf Weinberger.” These materials include papers on businesses in the United States that employed Weinberger or in which Weinberger held stocks, including Meat Import, Inc., Eastern Sausage and Provision Co., and La Marquise Footwear. Also among Adolf Weinberger’s papers are vital documents, restitution materials for personal claims (health, loss of property, immigration costs), and some further claims materials related to Gebrüder Weinberger. Adolf Weinberger’s personal correspondence discusses not only family and personal life but also touches on issues of restitution and the business matters of a small grocery business that some of the Weinberger family members founded in Berlin after the end of World War II.

The memorial ceremony from 1995 commemorated the Gebrüder Weinberger business as the most important wholesale grocery business of its time. The photographs depict a plaque that was laid at Brunnenstraße 188-190, the former headquarters of Gebrüder Weinberger.