Financial Situation and Nazi Persecution
His family’s fortune left Pringsheim a wealthy man. He also had a sizeable monthly income as a full professor at the university. After the death of the family patriarch in 1913 he had at his disposal assets amounting to 13 million marks and an annual income of 800,000 marks, which is today equivalent to 10.5 million euro and 646,000 euro, respectively.
His financial decline began with World War I. As a “German patriot” he subscribed to war loans which lost their nominal value after the war, which meant the loss of a major part of his capital. The disastrous inflation of 1923 and 1924 resulted in additional high losses. As a result he had to sell part of his art collection, which probably included a mural by Hans Thoma. His ironic comment, “I live from wall to mouth”. He had to sell also his marvellous mathematics library which contained many precious books back to the sixteenth century. The auction catologue is still preserved in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek.
Primarily because of his age (he was in his mid-70s) he did not want to go abroad, as did most of his family, and remained in Germany. When the persecution and expropriation of the Jewish population began, he was forced to travel the bitter path of humiliation and deprivation of rights which the Nazi regime had planned for citizens of Jewish descent. At first he was not allowed to leave the country. Winifred Wagner was not able to help the elderly Wagner devotee. Through the intervention of the then rector of Munich University (LMU), his former neighbor Karl Haushofer, who was a friend of Rudolf Hess, and the professor of mathematics Dr. Oskar Perron, one of Alfred Pringsheim’s former students, as well as through the initiative of a courageous member of the SS who arranged for passports at the last minute, he and his wife were able to leave for Zurich, Switzerland on 31 October 1939 after suffering further grave humiliations. With the proceeds remaining after the Nazi-initiated forced auction at short notice of his majolica collection he was even able to pay the so-called “desertion tax” (Reichsfluchtsteuer).
His house had to be sold to the Nazi party. It was torn down and replaced by a party administration building. The files of all German Nazi party members were stored there until 1945. Today it houses the Institute of Art History of Munich University (LMU) and the offices of the Munich State Collection of Antiquities, among others entities.
Alfred Pringsheim died on 25 June 1941 in Zurich. His wife then apparently burned all of the personal effects which had been brought to Switzerland, including the letters from Richard Wagner. She died one year later.
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