Max Stern's Granddaughter Visits Würzburg
09/02/2025Barbara Kalmans, granddaughter of wine merchant Max Stern, was a guest at the winery Juliusspital. She spoke about her grandfather's escape from the National Socialists. A professor and the University Archives organised the visit.
Max Stern is probably a well-known name in Würzburg: The Jewish wine wholesaler leased the cellar vaults of the Old University in 1928 to store one million litres of wine in 500 wooden barrels. Max Stern made a significant contribution to popularising Franconian wine throughout Europe.
In 1938, the National Socialists forced him to sell his entire property, whereupon Max Stern fled to the USA with his wife and three daughters. His descendants still live there today.
Barbara Kalmans, a granddaughter of the wine merchant, came to visit Würzburg in July 2025. Her visit was organised by Eric Hilgendorf, Professor of Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure, Information Law and Legal Informatics at Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU) and Chairman of Juristen Alumni Würzburg. In cooperation with the University Archives and the Juliusspital Foundation, a visit to the hospital's wine cellar was organised.
A Family History Immortalised on Wooden Barrels
The Juliusspital has a number of Max Stern's artistically decorated wooden barrels. Kalman's grandmother Toni Berta Stern, who told her a lot about the family history, is depicted on one of the barrels. "It's still emotional," the American describes her visit.
Her grandfather had never thought that Hitler's rise to power would affect him because of his social position and because he had fought on Germany's side in the First World War. "Until one day he spoke to a Nazi soldier he knew and the soldier reported him to the police; my grandfather was arrested and taken to the police station. When he came home, he is said to have said 'We're leaving'," says Kalmans.
The Max Stern Cellar in the Old University and the barrels in the Juliusspital mean a lot to Barbara Kalmans: "I come back to Würzburg today because there is a place here where the barrel lids are located." According to her, places like these make life stories and testimonies accessible to future generations and thus counteract historical forgetfulness. The University Archives also sees this as one of its tasks.
Several people accompanied Barbara Kalmans on her visit: Dr Markus Frankl, historian and former research assistant at the JMU Chair of Medieval History and Basic Historical Sciences, and Edna Horst from the University Archives interviewed the visitor from the USA. The Würzburg writer Helmut Försch also welcomed Max Stern's descendant.
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