Charlotte and Leo Landau Collection

The heart of the collection is found in the Family Correspondence folders. These contain letters and postcards between Leo Landau and his wife Charlotte during their respective frequent travels, Leo for work and for recuperation at spas, and Charlotte for the Jüdischer Frauenbund. Their children often wrote a few words as well, and are also sometimes addressed by the writer. The correspondence tends to concentrate on the periods when Leo and Charlotte were apart; for example, there are dozens of letters from July 1922, but little from the remainder of 1922. Of particular interest are the letters discussing Charlotte's involvement with the Jüdischer Frauenbund in the mid 1920s. While Charlotte's brother Erich Mühsam is mentioned in some letters, particularly in 1924, this collection does not contain any of his correspondence.

The Other correspondence folder contains a handful of letters and postcards to and from others. Correspondents found in the folder include Albert Einstein (photocopy), Emmi Galenbeck, Dr. Julius Joel, Flora Landau (Leo's mother), and Hermann Struck, as well as three figures from the Jüdischer Frauenbund, Bettina Brenner, Bertha Pappenheim, and Hannah Karminski.

The Personal materials folder includes items such as calling cards, invitations and thank you cards, a typed copy of a marriage certificate for Gustav Landau and Hannah Stein, a Mühsam-Landau family tree, an account from 1892 by Leo Landau's father about treatment of Russian-Jewish immigrants during the trip to the United States (photocopy), a copy of a 1988 inquiry about Charlotte Mühsam and Leo Landau at the Central Zionist Archives, and copies and a photograph of Charlotte Landau's sketches of Hermann Struck and Siegfried Mühsam, among others.

The Legal materials folder contains a few miscellaneous documents and items from Leo Landau's legal career in Germany. It also includes his dissertation, "Liegt im §389 des bürgerlichen Gesetzbuches eine Abweichung vom gemeinen Rechte?" (1904).

The collection also includes materials concerning Leo Landau's lifelong involvement with Jewish organizations, in particular the B'nai B'rith lodges in Lübeck and Haifa and the Israelitische Gemeinde Lübeck. Correspondents in the latter include Gustav Landau, Leo's father, and Rabbis Salomo Carlebach, Joseph Carlebach, and David Winter. Materials from other Jewish organizations such as Keren Hayesod, Kadimah, Blau-Weiss, and the Kartell jüdischer Verbindungen are also found in the collection.

The collection also contains a few photographs, including an 8x10 reproduction of a 1907 photograph of Leo Landau with 11 other men. Some are identified, and include Leo Jacobsohn, Martin Meyer, Oskar Meyer, and Willi Mecklenburg.

Finally, this collection also contains a bound collection of the proceedings of the Lübeck city council, of which Charlotte Landau was a member from 1919-1921. This volume was prepared by her son Hans for her 50th birthday in the 1931.