An Open Letter from an Open Mind

Amid the excitement surrounding the bio-pic of German-born Manchester City FC goalkeeper Bert Trautmann one Jewish figure emerges as the real hero.

It is clear that the small but hugely significant role played by Rabbi Dr Alexander Altmann was not only pivotal in the former prisoner of war being accepted by local fans but that his intercession was typical of his extraordinarily broadminded and generous nature.

Like Trautmann, Rabbi Dr Altmann settled in England from Germany. But the similarity ends there.

Trautmann had joined the original Nazi Youth organisation and enlisted in the Luftwaffe early in World War 11 before being captured and sent to a Prisoner of War camp at Ashton-in-Makerfield near Manchester.

Rabbi Dr Altmann, an Austro-Hungarian-born Berlin resident, had meanwhile fled the Nazis despite having established a fine career there and settled in Manchester in 1938 where he served as the greatly esteemed ‘Communal Rabbi’ until 1959.

He and his wife, Judith then re-emigrated to the United States where he became yet more renowned, especially in his specialist disciplines of medieval Jewish philosophy and mysticism.

It is quite extraordinary that Rabbi Altmann should have openly approved of Trautmann’s appointment as goalkeeper to the local club, not only in the face of so much overt hostility from fellow Jews but because the Nazis had murdered many of his own family.

Indeed, in his celebrated open letter published by the Manchester Evening Chronicle supporting Trautmann and opposing a proposed boycott, he wrote:

“Each member of the Jewish community is entitled to his own opinion, but there is no concerted action inside the community in favour of this proposal. Despite the terrible cruelties we suffered at the Germans, [sic] we would not try to punish an individual German, who is unconnected with these crimes, out of hatred. If this footballer is a decent fellow. I would say there is no harm in it. Each case must be judged on its own merits”.

But it seems that no-one acquainted with Rabbi Dr Altmann would have been surprised by his magnanimous gesture as his attitude towards secular matters was a reflection of his approach to scholarship.

So I close here with words from a tribute made to him on his passing by his friend and colleague Rabbi Dr Isadore Twersky who wrote that he shunned parochialism and arid compartmentalisation’.

© Natalie Wood (06 April 2019)