(eng: Hecht, Cornelia; Koehlerschmidt Antje: The deportation of Jews from
Laupheim. Laupheim 2004. Huettenmeister Nathanja: The Jewish cemetery in
Laupheim. Laupheim 1998)
Emanuel Bronner (1908-1997)
Emanuel Bronner was a pioneer of natural
cosmetics. Coming from a traditional German soap maker family, he founded Dr.
Bronner’s Magic Soaps in 1948. While the business remained small in terms of
turnover and profits, its liquid peppermint soap was one of the first
all-natural products available on the post-World War II American market.
Emanuel Bronner (born
February 1, 1908, in Heilbronn; died March 7, 1997, in Escondido, CA) was a
pioneer of natural cosmetics.[1]
Coming from a traditional German soap maker family, he founded Dr. Bronner’s
Magic Soaps in 1948. While the business remained small in terms of turnover
and profits, its liquid peppermint soap was one of the first all-natural
products available on the post-World War II American market. Bronner, while
a trained chemist, insisted that his product contained all natural
ingredients. From the late 1960s Dr. Bronner’s soap slowly developed into a
well-respected brand that was particularly popular with the American
counterculture movement and other politically active groups.
Emanuel Bronner, however, did not consider himself
primarily a businessman. Instead, he saw his calling in political, pacifist,
and religious activism. Born into a Jewish-orthodox family, he developed his
own religious thinking, combining beliefs and moral dogmata of different
world religions into his very own and highly peculiar “Moral ABC.” Every
bottle of soap he sold had a label displaying a variety of short religious
and ethical statements as well as other non-religious thoughts and ideas
designed to inspire his customers and promote his world peace plan. His
children and grandchildren, while pursuing different goals than the
company’s founder, have carried on this tradition of political activism and
use the Dr. Bronner’s company to probe new forms of social, ethical, and
ecologically sustainable business.
Klick to hear:
"The Basis of Civilzation"
Emanuel Bronner was born
as Emil Heilbronner into an orthodox
German-Jewish family
in Heilbronn on February 1, 1908. His father, Berthold Heilbronner (born
1872, died 1942), was a traditional soap maker. His mother, Franziska
Heilbronner, née Rosenstein (born 1882, died 1944), came from an affluent
business family.[2]
Emanuel had three sisters: Luise (born 1912, died 1999), Lotte (born 1916,
died 2009) and Helene Gertrud, who died at only nine months of age in 1917.[3]
Emanuel’s family had been
in the soap-making business for at least two previous generations. His
grandfather, who was also called Emanuel (born 1833, died 1903), owned a
soap-making business in Laupheim, a small town one hundred miles south of
Heilbronn.[4]
After his death in 1903 his son-in-law Abraham Erlebacher, husband of his
oldest daughter Pauline, continued the Laupheim family firm, which was still
in business after World War I as “Emanuel
Heilbronner Seifensiederei Inhaber Abraham Erlebacher.”[5]
In the meantime,
three of the founder’s twelve children—his sons Sigmund, Berthold, and
Karl—started a new soap-making company in Heilbronn around 1922.[6]
The three brothers managed the company jointly. Sigmund, who was the only
one of the three brothers with a higher education, supervised the technical
and strategic development of the company. The youngest brother Karl had
significant practical experience in soap manufacturing. He had visited the
United States during adolescence, where he familiarized himself with the
innovative process of manufacturing liquid soap. Emanuel’s father Berthold,
who had learned as an apprentice at his uncle’s company in Munich, was in
charge of bookkeeping.[7]
The company started as a partnership under the name of “Heilbronner und
Cie.” and was later reorganized as a joint stock company called “Madaform
AG,” manufacturer of the “Madaform
Lanolin Seife,” a kind of wool wax
soap.[8]
Emanuel Bronner learned the soap-making business in the family company with
his father and as an apprentice with his uncle’s firm in Laupheim. He
attended the guild system trade school and received his soap-making master
certificate.[9]
Family Picture of the Heilbronners, ca. 1920
Emanuel’s family was
religious, fairly well integrated into German society and politically
active. His father Berthold was a member of the German Democratic Party (Deutsche
Demokratische Partei), a social
liberal party of the Weimar Republic. Having lived in Germany his entire
life, he was deeply enmeshed in German culture and society. While Berthold
practiced Judaism, he strictly opposed Zionism as the answer to Jewish
discrimination in Europe.[10]
This was an ongoing conflict between Berthold and his son Emanuel, who
believed in more radical responses to anti-Semitic discrimination.[11]
Looking back at his years in Germany, Emanuel later repeatedly recounted an
episode from his childhood: When he was five years old and other children
invited him to play with them, they ganged up on him and poured a
five-gallon pail of urine on his head while calling him a “damn Jew.”
According to the story, he ran back home and asked his mother, “Jude, Jew,
what is that?”[12]
Threatened by the rising anti-Semitism in Germany and tired of the
conflict-riddled relationship with his autocratic father, Emanuel left for
the United States in 1929.
While Emanuel was
beginning a new life in the United States, the situation in Germany
deteriorated for the Heilbronner family. Emanuel’s sisters both decided to
leave Germany in the 1930s after the Nazis seized power. Lotte immigrated to
Palestine in 1936 and Luise followed her brother to the United States in
1938.[13]
The Heilbronner family made a strong effort to help all family members flee
Germany. Emanuel’s uncle Karl, co-owner of the Madaform company, emigrated
to the United States in 1936.[14]
Emanuel’s cousin Alfred Erlebacher, son of his father’s older sister
Pauline, his wife Rosa, and their son Albert left for Milwaukee in October
1937, where Emanuel was living at the time.[15]
Emanuel’s parents, however, decided to stay in Germany despite their
children’s repeated pleas—during a vacation in Switzerland in 1938, for
example—to flee. Like many Germans of Jewish faith, they believed that the
Nazi regime would not last and that they would eventually return to having a
normal life.[16]
During the night of
November 9, 1938, which became known as the Night of Broken Glass (Reichskristallnacht),
Jewish community buildings and synagogues all over Germany were destroyed
and many Jews arrested. Shortly afterwards, a law was passed stipulating
that German Jews would have to pay for the damages incurred during that
night. All Jewish taxpayers with assets higher than 5,000 reichsmark
(approximately $31,400 in 2010 USD) were forced to pay 20 percent of their
income by August 1939.[17]
The Heilbronners had to cope with this financial burden in addition to the
obstacles posed to Jewish businesspeople, who were largely excluded from
German economic life and who saw their businesses being boycotted. As of
January 1, 1939, Jews were officially forbidden to own retail stores and to
sell merchandise under the “Decree on the Exclusion of Jews from German
Economic Life” (Verordnung zur
Ausschaltung der Juden aus dem deutschen Wirtschaftsleben).[18]
Approximately at the same time, on May 4, 1939, Berthold’s older brother and
Madaform co-owner Sigmund died, and with his younger brother’s emigration a
few years earlier, Berthold was left as the sole owner of the company.
During the following
months, Berthold, like many other Jewish businesspeople, became the
victim of Aryanization.
Jewish business owners were forced to sell their companies to “Aryan”
businessmen at prices far below market value or their property was
confiscated by the state and transferred to German ownership.[19]
Berthold Heilbronner had to sell his company to
Dr. H. Bauder
who became the new owner of
Madaform in
the summer of 1939.[20]
Under immense pressure,
Emanuel’s parents eventually took the difficult decision to leave for the
United States in 1941. Emanuel’s sister Luise paid an unknown sum of money
for the steamship passage and other transportation costs to the
Transmigration Bureau to enable her parents’ emigration. The Transmigration
Bureau was a non-profit service agency established in New York City in 1940
by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee to organize the
emigration of Jews.[21]
Emanuel’s parents received the necessary documents on December 5, 1941, but
never got a chance to embark on their journey.[22]
Only a few months later,
Berthold and Franziska Heilbronner
as well as Berthold’s sister-in-law Friederike, the wife of the late
Sigmund, were
deported to concentration camps on March 31, 1942.
Friederike and Berthold were taken to Theresienstadt, where they both died
shortly after their arrival. The death certificates list “pneumonia”
(Berthold) and “enteritis,” an inflammation of the small intestine
(Friederike), as the causes of death.[23]
Franziska Heilbronner was deported to Auschwitz, where she was killed on May
16, 1944, at the age of sixty-two.[24]
In a page of testimony submitted by her daughter in 1999 to Yad Vashem, a
center for research, education, documentation and commemoration of the
Holocaust, the circumstances of her death were described as “Gas!”[25]
Emanuel Bronner
arrived in New York in December 1929
on the “S.S. Deutschland” coming from Hamburg.[26]
He then turned to his cousin Ludwig Brunner who had emigrated three years
earlier and lived in Watseka, Ill.[27]
Ludwig, born 1904 in Adelsheim, thirty miles from Heilbronn, was the son of
Klara Heilbronner, one of Emanuel’s father’s sisters. Like Emanuel he was a
soap maker and chemist.[28]
This family connection facilitated Emanuel’s beginnings in the United
States.
From Watseka Emanuel moved
one hundred miles north to
Milwaukee, where he lived
from 1930 to 1941. Milwaukee was a popular destination for German
immigrants. A hub of German life and culture, it had the third largest
German-born population of the United States in the 1930s, after New York
City and Chicago. The 1930 federal census listed 40,787 German-born
residents out of a population of 587,000, equaling approximately 7 percent.
Many others, born in the United States, still shared the language and
culture of their German-born parents.[29]
Bronner became integrated in this large German community. He was a member of
different German groups and in particular enjoyed the Bavarian club, despite
being from Württemberg. He regularly participated in German dances, and at
one of those occasions met his
first wife Paula Wolfahrt,
also of German descent. Paula worked as a maid at the Schroeder Hotel, and
the two married in 1933. Emanuel and Paula had three children, Ellen (born
1934), Ralph (born 1936), and Jim (born 1938).[30]
Emanuel Bronner had a
quirky personality. He was religious but believed that all religions of the
world should unite in one. While he was born a Jew, his wife was a Catholic
and they had all three children baptized Lutheran.[31]
He also was known for holding strong political opinions. He began to
publicly speak about his plans for global peace advocating a world where all
humans peacefully lived together. In 1932, he even turned to President
Herbert Hoover trying to convince him of the advantages of his ideas for
peace. With other activists, he organized the so-called “brotherhood of
man.”[32]
While their concrete program and aims remained obscure, Bronner told
reporters that he had a “plan for reemployment,”[33]
“a universal brotherhood plan,”[34]
and a “world economic plan,”[35]
suggesting in the absence of much detail a moral and economic agenda with
the ultimate goal of global peace.
On October 6, 1936,
Bronner was
naturalized as a U.S. citizen
and changed his name from Emil Heilbronner to Emanuel Theodore Bronner. The
reasons for changing his first name are unknown. Emanuel was the name of his
grandfather, suggesting that he may have wanted to honor him and his family
roots. Both of his chosen first names also have meanings related to
faith—Emanuel meaning “God is with us” and Theodore meaning “God’s
gift”—which may relate to his deeper engagement with religion. Bronner made
it very clear, however, why he chose a different last name: “Because of
Hitler, I changed my name from Heilbronner to simply Bronner. You know, the
Heil Hitler stuff.”[36]
In 1941, Bronner moved
from Milwaukee to Chicago where he lived until 1946. He struggled greatly
with the death of his parents in 1942. At the very last minute, they had
been able to write to their son in the United States the three simple words
“you were right,” acknowledging his repeated attempts to convince them to
flee and letting him know about their fate.[37]
In this difficult situation, Bronner’s wife Paula got sick and needed to be
hospitalized, leaving him alone with three children, fighting to make ends
meet.[38]
In 1944, Paula died. While the cause of death is unknown, Bronner
retrospectively considered this moment a pivotal turning point. “What really
[…] got me out of the ordinary was on August 30, 1944, when I buried the
mother of my three children in a potter’s field, sixty-one pounds, her
jawbones broken. I, frankly speaking, tried to forget that terrible
experience as fast as I could, because no man can live with something like
that.”[39]
Following these tragic
events, Bronner’s eccentricities grew more extreme. He said about this
moment that he quit his job as chemist “and became a searcher for truth,”
claiming this to be his true calling.[40]
He started calling himself “Dr.” without ever having received a PhD. He
claimed that his earnings of allegedly $60,000 (approximately $743,000 in
2010 USD)[41]
from licensing six patents were a “sign of God” telling him to focus on his
spiritual message. From then on he referred to himself as “the servant of
God.”[42]
Bronner also made the
acquaintance of Fred Walcher, who had emigrated from Austria in 1922.[43]
The two men shared the common interests of maintaining the culture of
German-speaking Europe and promoting global peace plans. On March 9, 1945,
an unusual incident occurred. Fred Walcher was nailed to a cross in Chicago,
crowned with thorns and left bleeding for passersby to see.[44]
In the end, he survived with hand injuries. When the police came to question
him in the hospital, Emanuel Bronner was sitting next to his bed. Although
not directly involved in the incident, Bronner talked to the police and the
press, handing out copies of their peace plan.[45]
He also explained the crucifixion by saying that Walcher had repeatedly said
“that people were so stupid and ignorant that something violent was needed
to awaken them (…) He always said a crucifixion would do it. I believe that
some of the men Walcher had been talking to got so aroused that they decided
to crucify him. I don’t believe they understood that he did not intend to be
the victim.”[46]
Bronner stayed friends with Walcher until the latter’s death in 1964.[47]
Looking back at the crucifixion, Bronner was upset that the media did not
report extensively on their peace plan.[48]
After one of his many
public speeches at the University of Chicago in 1946, Bronner was jailed for
unknown reasons. According to Bronner’s description of the event, he was
arrested because he opposed water fluoridation experiments which he
considered a danger for public health but officials of the university were
allegedly eager to initiate.[49]
Worried about his mental health, his sister Luise committed him to Elgin
State Mental Hospital, twenty miles from Chicago.[50]
According to Bronner, he was strapped to a concrete slab, received
electroshock treatments, and had to mix cement as a part of the work
program.[51]
This led him to publicly call Elgin State a concentration camp.[52]
Bronner tried to escape the institution multiple times and eventually was
successful when his sister Luise visited him in 1947. He took some money out
of her pocket and fled through the bathroom window.[53]
Bronner made his way to
Los Angeles, a city to which he had no obvious prior connections.[54]
He continued his political activism, giving speeches at least once a week on
Friday nights.[55]
World peace and interreligious tolerance were only two of many topics
Bronner addressed on a regular basis. In the late 1940s two new topics began
to play a dominant role in his speeches: anti-communism and anti-water
fluoridation. In a time of emerging Cold War rhetoric, Bronner identified
communism as a political threat to the American state and democracy. He
wanted to have his speeches understood as a “mental attack on communism, an
army of American principles spread over this earth.”[56]
The fear of a communist infiltration of American society shaped his speeches
as well as his letters and telegrams, which he sent out to political leaders
and the FBI.
As Bronner wrote to Vice President Richard Nixon
in 1957: “Beginning 1929 over 6100
such telegrams were sent to Washington by our builder of three American soap
plants, inventory of 53 chemical processes, […] your loyal chemist Better
Health Foundation Dr. Bronner and Associates, Escondido, Calif[ornia].”[57]
Closely linked to his
anti-communist stance was Bronner’s opposition to water fluoridation. In the
early 1940s the U.S. government discovered that cities with a high natural
content of fluorides in their water supply registered less teeth decay among
their inhabitants.[58]
Acknowledging this correlation, many cities began to add fluoride to their
drinking water. Bronner opposed water fluoridation arguing that “sodium
fluoride is a deadly poison, to which no effective antidote has been found.”[59]
He was especially afraid that the fluoridation of drinking water could be a
weapon for a communist attack, providing for “quick national liquidation.”[60]
With his political
activism, Bronner had little time for his family. After the premature death
of his wife in 1944, his children spent most of their lives in foster care.
Ralph, Emanuel Bronner’s oldest son, remembered living in various foster
homes before permanently staying with a Bavarian immigrant family in
Milwaukee.[61]
His father justified abandoning his children by arguing: “What is more
important—uniting Spaceship Earth or raising your own family?”[62]
He would visit his children a few times per year. Bronner’s choice of
priorities led to a difficult relationship with both his sons for most of
their lives.
Emanuel Bronner remarried
but there is no information on his second wife, who—according to the Bronner
family—died shortly after the wedding. On September 20, 1953, Bronner wed a
third time. May A. Thornton was twenty years his senior and their marriage
lasted until her death in 1961.[63]
Shortly thereafter Bronner met his fourth wife, Gladys Peschelke, on a
health food convention in Los Angeles.[64]
Gladys shared Emanuel’s passion for health food and was a dedicated animal
lover.[65]
In 1963, Emanuel and Gladys moved to Escondido, California, a town of about
17,000 inhabitants at the time, thirty miles northeast of San Diego. They
lived there until Emanuel’s death in 1997.
After the move to
Escondido, Bronner advocated an ecological lifestyle even more strongly, and
the couple lived it themselves. The former “brotherhood of man” now became
the “better health foundation.”[66]
Bronner also brought his political activism to Escondido, hosting a weekly
forum at the local women’s club.[67]
According to longtime employee and friend Fran Pitrone, the discussions with
him were very open, but always guided by his strong persona: “He listened as
well as he preached.”[68]
In 1963, Bronner visited his hometown of Heilbronn in Germany and hosted a
discussion forum at the Insel Hotel, debating his and his family’s past
during the Nazi regime and presenting his All-One-God-Faith as a new world
religion to the audience.[69]
As an entrepreneur Emanuel Bronner was unusual in
that he often prioritized his political activism over his business career.
Spreading his political and social messages was at least as important to him
as founding and managing a successful business. In the end, both realms of
his life—his political activism and the development of his business—were
highly intertwined. Bronner developed his soap business to support his
social activism, and his social activism inspired and shaped his company.
Bronner started his
business career in the United States as a director of research for the
“Wrisley Soap and Perfume Co.” in Milwaukee, a position he held from 1930 to
1941.[70]
The company was founded in 1862 by the brothers Allen and George Wrisley and
became successful in the 1930s, especially with the sale of colognes.[71]
Bronner also worked as a consultant specializing in the planning of new
factories. He helped plan the construction of three factories in Milwaukee,
Easton, and Chicago.[72]
He was also an active inventor, filing for fifty-three patents, most of them
soap related, which made for a large percentage of his income.[73]
As early as the 1930s,
when he was a consultant to the soap industry, Bronner emphasized the
necessity to stick to natural soap formulas instead of using synthetic
detergents, which were becoming more and more popular in the United States
at that time. The first synthetic detergent was developed in Germany during
World War I as a response to a shortage in fat. In the United States, the
manufacturing of synthetic household detergents began in the early 1930s but
did not take off until after World War II. Research on detergents was
stimulated by the war-related lack of fats and oils as well as the
military’s need for cleaning agents that, unlike soap, would not combine
with the mineral salts in water to form an insoluble substance. At that
time, they were primarily used for hand dishwashing and laundering but their
use became more widespread in the following decades.[74]
It remains unknown what prompted Emanuel Bronner, despite his training as a
chemist, to reject the trend toward using synthetic detergents and instead
insist on natural ingredients for the most part. His family background may
partly account for it. Coming from a traditional German soap maker family he
had seen and learned the manufacturing of all-natural soaps since childhood.
He also was a strong advocate for a healthy lifestyle and greatly concerned
with his personal food and cosmetic choices.
In 1947, after his brief
stay at a mental health institution and subsequent move to Los Angeles,
Bronner started his health food and soap business from scratch. At first, he
gathered spices from local hills and sold them to health food stores.[75]
He then started producing health foods—most prominently mineral salts—in his
hotel room.[76]
One of his first customers was a health store in Palmyra, PA, which sold
“Dr. Bronner’s Organic-Mineral Salt” as early as 1953.[77]
At the same time Bronner began to mix peppermint soap using a formula that
he had come up with during his time as a consultant in 1935. According to
Bronner, the soap was originally intended as “diaper soap for his own
children.”[78]
Unlike the food
supplements, the soap was not initially meant for sale. Instead, Bronner
distributed samples when giving speeches about world peace and
interreligious tolerance. After receiving much positive feedback, Bronner
launched his “Dr. Bronner’s Pure Castile Soap” in 1948. In the name, Bronner
linked his product to the Spanish region of Castile, thereby highlighting
that the soap was an all-natural product, made from olive oil rather than
synthetic detergents. Synthetic detergents had first been tested for soap
production during the interwar period. In 1946, with the introduction of
so-called “builders,” the efficiency of synthetic detergents increased
significantly. By 1953, sales of detergents surpassed those of soap in the
United States, and most bars and liquid soaps for personal hygiene contained
detergents, alone or in combination with soap.[79]
The biggest manufacturers of soap at the time were Colgate-Palmolive,
Unilever, Avon, Shulton (Old Spice), Andrew Jergens, Johnson & Johnson,
Gillette, Bristol-Myers, and Procter & Gamble.[80]
Bronner’s product was
markedly different than the available soaps. At a time when soap
manufacturers all over the country manufactured in large-scale factories, he
produced his soap in a small apartment and sold it to a local customer base.[81]
He continued selling it out of his garage, even when it slowly became more
popular and was also available at different specialty stores during the
early 1950s. Unlike most soap companies, Dr. Bronner’s did not advertise in
newspapers, on the radio, or on TV. Soap had become a heavily advertised
product during the interwar period and even more so since the end of World
War II.[82]
Soap manufacturers were among the first to use innovative marketing tools
already in the late nineteenth century. Colgate-Palmolive began regularly
advertising Palmolive soap on the radio in 1927 and P&G was the first firm
to use “soap operas” on the radio for advertisement.[83]
Lever Brothers launched its luxury bar soap Lux in 1925 specifically for the
American market, and advertised it as the soap most used by Hollywood stars,
which proved to be a highly successful marketing campaign.[84]
With the increased popularity and availability of television services,
marketing costs in the industry reached new heights. By the early 1960s the
American beauty industry as a whole spent $152 million (more than $1 billion
in 2010 USD) on television advertising, more than any other industry except
food.[85]
In contrast, Bronner’s soap was advertised by word of mouth and by Emanuel
Bronner himself in his public speeches. The small-scale business would not
have been able to shoulder the financial burden of heavy advertising, which
forced many other beauty companies in the 1950s to go public or merge with
competitors.[86]
Instead, Bronner profited
from another trend in post-World War II America. Consumer activists,
feminists, and environmentalists began criticizing the beauty industry for
its misleading and often manipulative advertisements, for the health risks
related to certain products, and for the negative effects that synthetic
chemicals, such as detergents, had on the environment. Growing consumer
skepticism led to a renewed interest in the use of natural ingredients. Dr.
Bronner’s rediscovered natural cosmetics, which used plants, fruits, and
flowers instead of synthetic detergents or other chemical additives. Other
small companies, mainly in Europe, also supported this trend. The two French
companies Biotherm and Clarins, founded in 1950 and 1954 respectively, sold
natural cosmetics made from mineral water from thermal springs and
plant-based skin care. In Switzerland, Edmund Georg Locher founded Juvena in
1954, selling skin creams made from natural ingredients.[87]
All of these businesses sold niche products, operated at low costs, and grew
very slowly, if at all.
In 1956, Emanuel Bronner
asked his son Ralph, who at the time was studying at the University of
Milwaukee, to support him in the business.[88]
Despite their estrangement, Ralph decided to join his father and support him
in administrating the firm. He also spent much time typing the first label
for the soap bottles, on which Bronner collected his spiritual thoughts and
ideas. They included “Absolute cleanliness is Godliness!”, “Teach the Moral
ABC that unites all mankind free, instantly 6 billion strong & we’re
All-One,” “Balanced food for body-mind-soul-spirit is our medicine!
Full-truth our good, half-truth our enemy,” and “Enjoy only 2 cosmetics,
enough sleep & Dr. Bronner’s ‘Magic Soap’ to clean body-mind-soul-spirit
instantly united One! All One!”
[89]
The
labels
evolved slowly over time and Bronner added more and more religious,
philosophical, and ethical thoughts to the bottles, eventually making the
label a compendium of over five thousand words (on
a 24oz. bottle).[90]
Bronner’s “Moral ABC” included suggestions for the use of the product:
For facial packs, scalp& soothing body rub, add
dash on bath towel in sink of hot water. Wring out. Lay over face and
scalp. (…) Within 9 minutes you feel fresh and clean, saving 90% of your
hot water & soap, ready to help teach the whole Human race the Moral ABC
of All-One-God-Faith!
In this manner, Bronner
suggested eighteen different uses for his product, including facial masks,
toothpaste, and shampoo. The label was very important for Bronner, who was
more concerned about spreading his pacifist ideas than building a profitable
business. When his son Jim joined the company in the early 1990s, he
recalled thinking: “It seemed like a very Mickey Mouse business operation.
[…] Every time he got into a conversation with a customer, we wouldn’t sell
if the guy wouldn’t listen to him.”[91]
Despite these problems, Bronner’s philosophy also made the product unique.
The label developed over time into an advertising tool with high recognition
value, and his children and grandchildren largely preserved it, making only
very minor adjustments to the text and layout over the following decades.[92]
During the 1960s the growing concern for the
environment and a new appreciation of all things “natural” opened up a niche
in the soap market for Dr. Bronner’s. The hippie youth culture embraced not
only the all-natural soap but also the pacifist ideas Bronner was spreading,
the lack of advertising (which many criticized for being corporate and
manipulative), and the small-scale business organization of the company.
Bronner continued to sell the soap out of his garage. Small quantities were
also sold directly to individual stores, but only on occasion, not as part
of a concerted marketing effort or an established distribution network.
As Bronner offered his
phone number
and
address on
the soap bottle and on signs in front of his house in Escondido, consumers
were able to contact him directly.[93]
Bronner had a phone in every room of his house and was happy to discuss his
political and religious ideas with people who called. He regularly got into
conversations with total strangers which made him very accessible and
presumably also enhanced customer loyalty to the product. With his eyesight
impacted—he was slowly turning blind—speaking on the phone was easier for
him than giving public speeches in unknown surroundings. When asked about
Bronner’s soap marketing techniques, daughter-in-law Trudy Bronner said:
“The phone number was the marketing. He was always on the phone.”[94]
On several occasions, Bronner also provided visitors with food, shelter, and
lectures on his religion and world view. Some of the visitors temporarily
worked at the plant, others bought the soap to resell it among their peers.
“Originally we were distributed by people, who were selling the soap out of
the back of a Volkswagen bus. . . [So] the first distribution channels were
hippies with VW buses driving across the country,” Dr. Bronner’s head of
public relations, Adam Eidinger, explained retrospectively in 2012.[95]
Emanuel Bronner’s grandson Michael later identified this period as the
turning point in the company history: “The product became successful for all
the reasons that it wasn’t successful before. The quality was always good,
but you had this packaging that included my grandfather’s spiritual message
that was completely anti-corporate.”[96]
The base soap for Dr.
Bronner’s was produced in Los Angeles under the supervision of a chemical
specialties company.[97]
When Bronner took residence in Escondido in 1963, he moved the supply of
further ingredients and the filling to a small facility on the outskirts of
this small town in San Diego County.[98]
At that time, Bronner had about twelve employees working at the facility.[99]
It is unknown what ultimately prompted him to choose Escondido but many
health pioneers settled there, and it was a good place for an advocate for
ecological living.[100]
Bronner himself once remarked whimsically: “Do you know why I picked
Escondido? […] Because the biggest avocado-packing plant in the world is
here, and when you eat them with my mineral salt, avocado is almost perfect
nutrition.”[101]
In 1965, Emanuel’s son Jim Bronner, who had served
in the Navy since the age of seventeen, terminated his military career and
began working as vice president and technical director for the chemical
specialties company that provided Bronner with base soap. Despite the
difficult relationship between father and son, Jim’s choice of career
initiated a new business relationship between the two. Jim continued to work
for that Los Angeles-based chemical company until 1988, providing his father
with the base soap called for by the Dr. Bronner’s recipe.
With the counterculture
movement reaching its peak in the late 1960s, sales of Dr. Bronner’s soap
saw a temporary increase.[102]
During the following years annual revenues increased from about $1 million
to at least $3 million (roughly $6 million to $19 million in 2010 USD).
Then, in the mid-1970s, annual revenue fell again to about $1 million
(roughly $4 million in 2010 USD).[103]
Simultaneously, many of the larger soap manufacturers also began showing an
interest in natural products, often adding natural ingredients to the
chemical formula they had been using before. Michel d’Ornano founded the
luxury brand Sisley in 1976 and used botanical ingredients to make expensive
skin care products; the green shampoo Herbal Essences by Clairol, based on
the essences of herbs and wildflowers, captured a large share of the shampoo
market.[104]
With more and more
manufacturers entering the market for natural cosmetics, some of the
problems related to the new trend (and the labeling of its products) became
apparent. The absence of chemical preservatives increased the risk of
spoiled ingredients. For that reason, several manufacturers mixed chemical
preservatives with natural ingredients, calling the resulting product
“green” or “organic.” This was possible in part because there was no clear
definition or regulation specifying the percentage of natural ingredients
necessary for a product to be labeled that way.[105]
For Bronner’s soap business, which in many respects had been a trendsetter,
the growing interest was simultaneously a blessing and a curse. While
Bronner’s tiny original market niche slowly grew into one of great
potential, the business was also confronted with new competition and—in the
absence of clear regulation what constituted a “green” product—had a hard
time defending the unique quality of its product.
Nevertheless, sales of Dr.
Bronner’s natural soap were picking up. Just as business improved, however,
Emanuel Bronner got into severe trouble with the Internal Revenue Service.
In April of 1971 he founded a church, the “All-One-Faith in One God State
Universal Life Church.”[106]
Bronner claimed all revenue of his company belonged to this church and would
therefore be tax exempt.[107]
When he lost his case in the United States Tax Court in February of 1983, he
had already accumulated a large amount of debt. In August of 1985 Emanuel
Bronner owed $1,602,790 in taxes ($3.25 million in 2010 USD). In 1988, his
son Jim came to Escondido to help with the liquidation of debts, which he
eventually achieved in 1991.[108]
During the 1980s Emanuel
Bronner developed health problems that impacted his work. His eyesight got
progressively worse, eventually rendering him fully blind. In the late 1980s
Bronner fell ill with pneumonia as well as Parkinson’s disease, leaving him
no choice but to ask his children to run the business. In the early 1990s
Ralph Bronner, Emanuel’s oldest son,
became president of the company. In 1994, he in turn handed the firm over to
his brother Jim, who seemed a better fit for the position due to his prior
experience in the soap industry.[109]
Jim Bronner introduced much-needed business logic to the company by working
on a more systematic distribution system and revising the discount system
for repeat customers. He helped to increase the annual revenue to $4.8
million by 1997 (about $6.5 million in 2010 USD).[110]
On March 7, 1997, Emanuel Bronner passed away at the
age of eighty-nine. Around the same time Jim was diagnosed with cancer.
Looking for a successor, Jim turned to his son David, a biologist who had
graduated from Harvard University in 1995 and was working as a mental health
counselor in the Boston area at the time. He had previously shown an
interest in the soap business when he supported his father in his soap
industry consulting activities during summer holidays. David joined the
family firm and learned the business from his father who eventually passed
away in June of 1998.
Jim left the business to
his wife Trudy and to David. The latter introduced a number of new business
measures and innovations, fully committing to the idea of an ecologically
sustainable product and business. He initiated, for example, the development
of a fully post-consumer recycled PET bottle for the liquid soap. He is also
an active supporter of the “Vote Hemp” movement fighting for the
legalization of industrial hemp production in the United States. Hemp oil is
now used as a “superfatting”[111]
ingredient in all of Dr. Bronner’s soaps. With the all-natural product being
the company’s main selling point, CEO David Bronner went to great lengths to
fight against the dilution of organic standards. The company sued a number
of competitors for falsely promoting their products as “organic,” which led
Whole Foods—one of the biggest retailers of organic products in the U.S.—to
give these companies a twelve-month ultimatum to clean up their products
before being moved off the shelves.[112]
In 2001, David’s younger
brother Michael joined the company as vice president. A graduate of Brown
University with a degree in English, he had worked as an English teacher in
Japan for three years. At Dr. Bronner’s he was responsible for the
international expansion of the company’s products. Between 2001 and 2012,
international sales rose from 1 percent to 12 percent of the company’s
overall revenue. In Japan, the country that Michael Bronner knows best, Dr.
Bronner’s is the top-selling natural brand of soap and the most-used natural
lip balm today.[113]
Since 2008, the year of
the company’s sixtieth anniversary, Dr. Bronner’s has been on the German
market, too, where the products are available in selected food stores and
through online shops.[114]
For the German-language market the iconic label by Emanuel Bronner was
partly translated and redesigned.
Dr. Bronner’s was not only
innovative in terms of its product but also in its way of doing business.
While Emanuel Bronner was a socially-minded employer who cared for his
employees beyond the business—on occasion helping them find accommodation or
providing them with a car, for example—the younger generation introduced
more formal and wide-reaching ethical guidelines. Most unique is the salary
cap that David, Michael, and Trudy imposed. It prohibits the highest-paid
employee, including the owners of the company, from earning more than five
times what the lowest paid employee earns.[115]
The company also took a strict stance against animal testing and
continuously monitored its suppliers in different parts of the world.
Furthermore, in 2003, Dr. Bronner’s was one of the first brands to certify
its products under the USDA National Organic Program, which regulates
organically produced products. In 2005, Dr. Bronner’s began sourcing soap
ingredients from producers worldwide that operate under fair trade and
organic standards. The raw materials include coconut oil from Sri Lanka,
palm oil from Ghana, and olive oil from Palestine.[116]
Even though these changes increased the price of the product by 30 percent,
the annual revenue between 1997 and 2011 rose from $8 million (roughly $11
million in 2011 USD) to $44.6 million.[117]
At least one-third of before-tax profits go to philanthropy: Dr. Bronner’s
supports a range of charities, both nationally and internationally.
Emanuel Bronner was a pioneer of all-natural soap
and other cosmetic products on the American market. While he was never a
competitor of the big American soap companies, his firm today is a
well-established manufacturer of organic soap products, and has successfully
expanded internationally over the last two decades. His top-selling product
in particular, Dr. Bronner’s liquid peppermint soap, has a loyal customer
base.
Dr. Bronner’s and other early green ventures became
successful during the late 1960s and 1970s when customers rediscovered that
natural ingredients can be as effective as those with chemical additives and
may have health advantages over the latter. With his anti-corporate and
pacifist ideology, which the company published on every bottle of soap,
Bronner was especially popular with the American counterculture movement and
its supporters. His unique label, overflowing with religious, ethical, and
personal hygiene statements, became iconic over the years and added to the
high recognition value of the soap bottle.
Emanuel Bronner left Germany during adolescence but
was influenced by his home country in many respects throughout his life. He
learned the soap-making business in his German-Jewish family, who had been
soap makers for at least two generations. The invention of his famous
peppermint soap was built on years of experience with liquid and solid soaps
in the German company and as a consultant to American soap manufacturers.
Moreover, several members of his family were trained chemists and immigrated
to the United States in the 1920s and 1930s, allowing Emanuel to build on an
extended family network even after emigration. Arriving in the United
States, he turned to relatives and lived in cities with large German
communities, where he enjoyed going to clubs and social gatherings of fellow
Germans.
The murder of his parents in Nazi concentration
camps left deep scars and may have changed his outlook on Germany at least
temporarily. While he had previously been a political activist, the
experience of losing his parents to the Holocaust changed his views and made
them more extreme. Believing that one god and one religion should unite all
people on earth, Bronner promoted his peace plan in talks and lectures, on
soap bottles, and in regular letters to U.S. presidents and other political
leaders. For Bronner his soap company was more than a business enterprise.
It was a means to promote his ideas for world peace, which were shaped at
least partially by the horrors his family experienced in Nazi Germany.
During his lifetime, the Dr. Bronner’s company
experienced moderate success but it was the second and third generation of
the Bronner family that expanded the business considerably. Focusing more
strongly on the quality of an all-natural product in combination with
standards of ethical behavior and ecologically sustainable business
practices, the company’s profit and market share reached new heights during
the 1990s and 2000s. At a time when “green” products enjoyed new popularity,
Dr. Bronner’s could already look back at several decades of experience in
this market. In legal battles, the Bronner family also fought for organic
standards defending the unique quality of their soap. Similar to the
company’s founder, his successors also understand the firm as a business
which can generate profits while promoting ecological, social, and political
change at the same time.
Emanuel Bronner offered one of the first “green”
products on the American soap market. He thus helped create and design a new
product category which slowly grew into one of great potential and in which
his family continues to excel. Motivated by larger ideas of global peace and
healthy living Emanuel Bronner was a pioneer in this line of business
despite the fact that he never achieved much commercial success during his
lifetime.
[1] We are
deeply indebted to David, Mike, and Trudy Bronner of Dr. Bronner’s Magic
Soaps, who supported our research every step of the way. We would also like
to thank Adam Eidinger of Mintwood Media Collective, and Fran Pitrone,
former employee of Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps, for their time and insightful
comments as well as Peter Wanner, Stadtarchiv Heilbronn, for his helpful
support in researching this article.
[2]
Norbert Jung and Luise Helene Bronner,
In order that might be
(Helene-Lang-Realschule Heilbronn, 2003).
[3]
Stadtarchiv Heilbronn, Familie Heilbronner aus Harburg, Version 2,
1.
[5]
Stadtarchiv Laupheim, Antje Koehlerschmidt, “Familie Alfred
Erlebacher, Judenberg 26,” 196-203.
[6]
Arthur Katz-Foerstner, “Handbuch der württembergischen Wirtschaft,”
(Berlin: Deutscher Handels- und Industrieverlag, 1931), 84.
[7]
Stadtarchiv Heilbronn, untitled text by Luise Heilbronner, 6-13,
here 6.
[8]
The exact date is unknown. Most likely the company went public
during the inflation years 1918-1923 to raise money. It definitively
existed as Madaform AG in 1931. Hans Franke,
Geschichte und Schicksal der Juden in
Heilbronn (Stadtarchiv
Heilbronn: Heilbronn 1963), 305.
[9]
There is no record of him attending a university, although he later
called himself “Doctor” and sometimes claimed to have obtained a
degree in chemistry at Heidelberg University. E-mail correspondence
of the authors with Universitätsarchiv Heidelberg, Dr. Dagmar
Drüll-Zimmermann, August 13, 2012.
[10]
Eldon Knoche, “On
his soapbox,”
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel,
June 8, 1997, 1 and 6
(accessed November 16, 2012). Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soapbox,
film,
directed by Sara Lamm (2006), (accessed November 16, 2012), minute
12:30.
[11]
Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soapbox film, minute 12:30.
[12]
Ibid., minute 12:50-13:05.
[13]
Jung 2003, 12. “List or Manifest of Alien Passengers for the United
States Immigration Officer at Port of Arrival,” May 16, 1938,
Passenger and Crew Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, NY,
1897-1957, National Archives microfilm serial T715, microfilm roll
6154, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA),
Washington, DC.
[14]
Heilbronner Tageblatt,
February 23, 1937, 12.
[15]
Stadtarchiv Laupheim, Antje Koehlerschmidt, “Familie Alfred
Erlebacher, Judenberg 26,” 196-203.
[16]
Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps,
timeline,
(accessed November 16, 2012).
[17]
See
http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/projects/currency.htm
for the conversion of reichsmark to 2010 USD (accessed November 14,
2012). On the Night of Broken Glass, see Hans-Jürgen Doescher,
Reichskristallnacht. Die
Novemberpogrome 1938, 3rd ed.
(München: Econ-Ullstein-List-Verlag, 2000); Dieter Obst,
Reichskristallnacht: Ursachen und Verlauf
des antisemitischen Pogroms im November 1938
(Frankfurt/Main: Lang, 1991).
[18]
Cf. Werner E. Mosse, The
German-Jewish Economic Elite 1820-1935: A Socio-Cultural Profile
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989).
[19]
On the process of Aryanization, see Frank Bajohr, “The Beneficiaries
of Aryanization: Hamburg. A Case Study,” in
Holocaust: Critical Concepts in
Historical Studies, ed. David
Cesarani (London, New York: Routledge, 2004), 13-33. Ingo Koehler,
The Aryanization of Private
Banks in the Third Reich
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).
[20]
Stadtarchiv Heilbronn, Madaform Seifenfabrik Heilbronn, letter by
Dr. Bauder (ZS 2433) and Zeugnis Herrn Gottlob Loeckle, dated July
31, 1939. See also Franke,
Geschichte, 136-7.
[21]
Jewish Transmigration Bureau Deposit Cards, 1939-1954, see
Ancestry.com
(accessed September 18, 2012).
[26]
“List or Manifest of Alien Passengers for the United States
Immigration Officer at Port of Arrival,” December 22, 1929,
Passenger and Crew Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, NY,
1897-1957, National Archives microfilm serial T715, microfilm roll
4649, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA),
Washington, DC.
[27]
Ibid. Regarding Ludwig Brunner also see “List or Manifest of Alien
Passengers for the United States Immigration Officer at Port of
Arrival,” October 3, 1926, Passenger and Crew Lists of Vessels
Arriving at New York, NY, 1897-1957, National Archives microfilm
serial T715, microfilm roll 3940, National Archives and Records
Administration (NARA), Washington, DC. Ludwig Brunner did not change
his last name. His mother Klara Heilbronner was married to Hermann
Brunner, thus the family name was Brunner.
[28]
Iroquois County Genealogy Society. Ludwig Brunner. Transcript of
Declaration of Intention, December 8, 1926.
[29]
Kathleen Neils Conzen, “Germans,” in
Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic
Groups, ed. Stephan
Thernstrom (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard Univ. Press,
1980), 405-425, here 413.
[32]
“Crucifixion Victim slated to undergo lie detector test,”
Charleston Daily Mail,
March 11, 1945, 2. Bronner v. Commissioner, 45 T.C.M. 738 (1983).
Filed February 9, 1945 T.C.M 740.
[33]
“Man crucified on Chicago El,”
Washington Post,
March 10, 1945, 7.
[34]
“Crucifixion case may be result of victims own plan,”
Dunkirk Evening Observer,
March 10, 1945, 8.
[35]
“Was crucified for publicity,”
Traverse City Record Eagle,
March 10, 1945, 1.
[36]
“Soap Maker puts Peace Plan on Label. All One! All One”,
Albuquerque Journal,
March 2, 1977, B2.
[37]
Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soapbox film, minute 14:00.
[38]
Stadtarchiv Heilbronn, untitled text by Luise Heilbronner, 6-13,
here 9.
[39]
“Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap,”
Esquire, December 1973,
218-221 and 314-316, here 219.
[40]
Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soapbox film, minute 15:45.
[41]
All 2010 USD amounts calculated by using
MeasuringWorth
(accessed November 14, 2012).
[42]
Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soapbox film, minute 15:30.
[43]
Esquire,
December 1973, 219.
[44]
“Man crowned with thorns found hanging on cross,”
Nevada State Journal,
March 10, 1945, 1 and 3.
[45]
Esquire,
December 1973, 221.
[46]
Dunkirk Evening Observer,
March 10, 1945, 8.
[48]
Esquire,
December 1973, 221.
[49]
“Fluorides’ use Hit as a Plot by Reds,”
Lawrence Daily Journal-World,
October 12, 1955, 1 and 9, here 9.
[51]
“Soap opera,” Chicago Tribune,
December 7, 1999, 1 and 4,
here 4. Esquire,
December 1973, 221. “Mit Lebensweisheiten unter die Dusche,”
Heilbronner Stimme,
July 14, 2007, 3.
[52]
Lawrence Daily Journal-World,
October 12, 1955, 9.
[54]
Nell Newman and Joseph D’Agnese,
The Newman’s Own Organics Guide to a Good
Life. Simple Measure that Benefit You and the Place You Live
(New York: Villard, 2003), 133-137, here 134-5.
[55]
Esquire,
December, 1973, 316.
[56]
“Atom Tests in Salt Beds,”
Oakland Tribune, December 7,
1961, 12.
[57]
Richard Nixon Presidential Library: Folder Bronner, E.H. (Dr.), in:
Pre-Presidential Papers of Richard M. Nixon. General Correspondence,
Series 320, Box 104.
[58]
Lawrence Daily Journal-World,
October 12, 1955, 1.
[59]
“Letter to the Editor,”
Kingsport Times, May 28,
1953, 4.
[60]
“No Stand on Fluoridation Taken by Catholic Diocese,”
Pittsfield Berkshire Evening Eagle,
January 25, 1952, 2.
[61]
Chicago Tribune,
December 7, 1999, 4.
[63]
E-mail to the authors by Trudy Bronner, October 18, 2012.
[64]
“Leaving a legacy of compassion,”
North County Times,
January 8, 2012, B1-B2, here B1.
[66]
Bronner v. Commissioner, 45 T.C.M. 738 (1983). Filed February 9,
1945, T.C.M 750.
[67]
Interview of the authors with Fran Pitrone, longtime employee and
friend of the Bronner family, August 16, 2012.
[69]
“Dr. Bronner bringt neue Weltreligion,”
Heilbronner Stimme,
January 10, 1963, 8.
[70]
The San Diego Union,
December 14, 1981.
[71]
Nigel Groom, The New Perfume
Handbook, 2nd ed. (London:
Blackie Acad., 1997), 357.
[72]
“Soap salvation,” Vogue,
September 1997.
[73]
Chicago Tribune,
December 7, 1999, 1 and 4, here 4.
[75]
Esquire,
December 1973, 314.
[76]
Newman/D’Agnese, Organics
Guide, 134-5.
[77]
“Dr. Bronner’s Organic-Mineral Salt Advertisement,”
Lebanon Daily News,
October 29, 1953, 37.
[78]
Esquire,
December 1973, 218.
[79]
Luis Spitz, “History of Soap,” in
SODEOPEC: Soaps, Detergents,
Oleochemicals, and Personal Care Products,
ed. Luis Spitz (AOCS Press: Champaign, Ill., 2004), 1-72.
[80]
Geoffrey Jones, Beauty
Imagined: The History of the Global Beauty Industry
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 369.
[81]
Chicago Tribune,
December 7, 1999, 4.
[82]
Jones, Beauty,
78, 80-3.
[88]
Chicago Tribune,
December 7, 1999, 4.
[89]
Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap label.
[91]
Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soapbox film, minute 23:25.
[92]
Interview of the authors with Adam Eidinger, Mintwood Media
Collective, marketing consultant and friend of the Bronner family,
July 19, 2012.
[93]
“Who is Dr. Bronner, anyway?”
New Age, September 1976,
43-47, here 46.
[94]
Interview of the authors with Trudy Bronner, August 16, 2012.
[95]
Interview of the authors with Adam Eidinger, July 19, 2012, minute
65:40.
[96]
Richard Seireeni with Scott Fields,
The Gort Cloud: The Invisible Force
Powering Today's Most Visible Green Brands
(White River Junction, Vt.: Chelsea Green
Publ., 2008), 32-51, here 35.
[97]
“James Albert Bronner,” Change
Lives. Newsletter for the Boys and Girls Club of Greater San Diego,
Winter 2012, 1.
[98]
Bronner v. Commissioner, 45 T.C.M. 738 (1983). Filed February 9,
1945, T.C.M 739.
[99]
This is an estimate provided by Emanuel Bronner’s daughter-in-law
and current CFO Trudy Bronner in conversation with the authors,
August 16, 2012.
[100]
“A longtime Passion for Health, Advertising Supplement,”
North County Times,
April 1, 2012, 4-5.
[101]
New Age,
September 1976, 46-47.
[103]
“The Undiluted Genius of Dr. Bronner’s”,
Inc. Magazine,
April 2012, 1-4, here 2.
[104]
Jones, Beauty,
282.
[106]
Bronner v. Commissioner, 45 T.C.M. 738 (1983). Filed February 9,
1945, T.C.M 739.
[107]
“If cleanliness is next to godliness, why not put your creed on a
soap label. Tax Report: A Special Summary and Forecast of Federal
and State Tax Developments”,
Wall Street Journal, April
13, 1983, 1.
[108]
Interview Trudy Bronner, August 16, 2012. E-mail correspondence
between the authors and Mike Bronner, September 27, 2012.
[110]
Dr. Bronner’s gross sales by month, unpublished document in
possession of the authors.
[111]
“Superfatting” means adding more oil than needed to a batch of soap.
The usually small amount of extra oil left over in the soap enhances
the moisturizing qualities to the soap.
[112]
Inc. Magazine, April 2012, 3.
[113]
Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap Box,
press kit,
available online at (accessed November 16, 2012).
[117]
Dr. Bronner’s gross sales by month, unpublished document in
possession of the authors.
HEILBRONNER,
Bertha and Eva 
2 Judenberg , 36 Radstrasse 
The two representatives of the Heilbronner family, Bertha and Eva, are closely
related to the siblings Alfred Erlebacher and Bella Levy. Bertha Heilbronner was
the aunt of the siblings as she was the younger sister of their mother Pauline
Erlebacher, maiden name Heilbronner. Eva Heilbronner, maiden name Stein, was the
widow of Bertha Heilbronner's cousin. 
