(1873-1956) The central personality of German Jewry during the Nazi period, a great rabbinical scholar, teacher, and community leader. Born in Prussia, Baeck was called in 1912 to serve the most prominent Jewish congregation in Berlin, and except for several years spent as a chaplain during WWI, would hold that position for the next thirty years. From the autumn of 1933 until July 1939, Baeck served as President of the central representative body of Germany Jews and refused a number of attractive offers from abroad that would have enabled him to escape. Appointed chairman of the Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland in 1939, Baeck was in constant danger and frequently summoned by the Gestapo. Arrested several times, he was sent to Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1943, where he became head of the council of elders and continued to teach philosophy and theology. After his liberation in 1945, Baeck emigrated to Britain where he was elected President of the Council of Jews from Germany and Chairman of the World Union for Progressive Judaism. He died in London on November 2, 1956.
