The economic and cultural significance of Berlin’s German-Jewish elite families in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is well-known. In 1918 a member of one of those families, Hildegard Meyer, married a non-Jewish lawyer, Walter Schmidt. Their grandson, James Wolffe, tells their story – an individual and personal story, but one which illustrates the situation and fate of intermarried couples in Germany under the Nazi regime. James recently deposited a selection of his grandparents’ papers in the Scottish Jewish Archives Centre in Glasgow and an account of his visit appeared in the Herald. The latter can be accessed at https://www.heraldscotland.com/life_style/16598766.war-anti-semitism-old-family-secret-dark-history-helped-shape-james-wolffe-lord-advocate-scotland/.
James Wolffe QC has been the Lord Advocate since 1st June 2016. Prior to that, he was Dean of the Faculty of Advocates for two years. He was born in Dumfries and educated at Kirkcudbright Academy, the University of Edinburgh, where he graduated with an honours degree in law, and Balliol College, Oxford, where he took a postgraduate Bachelor of Civil Law degree.
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Edinburgh Jewish Literary Society 