JACOB, BERTHOLD

JACOB, BERTHOLD (pen name of Berthold Salomon, 1898–1944), German-Jewish publicist between the world wars. Jacob, born in Berlin, was a volunteer in World War I. He returned a radical pacifist, and from then on unabatedly struggled against German militarism and secret rearmament. His involvement in various causes célèbres of the Weimar Republic led to his being summoned as a witness in various cases on a number of occasions. Together with Paul Maria Dreyfuss and Martin Sander he published Zeit-Notizen. An article of his in the pacifist weekly Weltbuehne, led to the demission of Hans von Seeckt, commander in chief of the German army. In 1932 Jacob left Germany and ran an "Independent Press Service." In 1935 he was abducted by a Nazi agent during a visit in Switzerland, but was released after six months on the intervention of the Swiss government. In 1939 he was interned by the French authorities but escaped in 1941 to Lisbon, where he was again abducted. Jacob died in 1944 in a Nazi prison. His main works are Weltbuerger Ossietzky (1937) and Warumschweigt die Welt? (1936).   -BIBLIOGRAPHY: H. Cawil, Der Fall Jacob (1935); Exil Literatur 1933–1945 (19673), index; H. Hannover and E. Hannover-Brueck, Politische Justiz 1918–1933 (1966), index. (Yehuda Reshef)