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DEUTSCH Origin of surname

DEUTSCH Surnames derive from one of many different origins. Sometimes there may be more than one explanation for the same name. This family name is a toponymic (derived from a geographic name of a town, city, region or country). Surnames that are based on place names do not always testify to direct origin from that place, but may indicate an indirect relation between the name-bearer or his ancestors and the place, such as birth place, temporary residence, trade, or family-relatives.

Deutsch means "German" in German. Originally, the surname was a personal nickname for a German Jew or his family, in a non-German environment. Terms identifying Jews from Germany or other German-speaking areas are current in numerous European languages. They include Teutsch(er) and Deutsch(-er), that come from the old High German Thiudisc/Tiutisc, which the Romans transformed into the Latin Theotiseus/Theotises/Teutisca and the Italians adjusted to Tedesci/Tedesche/Tedesco. Several synonyms for German are based on Alemannen, in Latin Alamanni. A west Germanic tribe, called Swabians by their neighbours on the Elbe river, they invaded Gaul and northern Italy in the 3rd century and settled in Rhineland, Alsace and Switzerland. In Romance-language countries, derivatives of Alamanni, among them the French Allemand, the Spanish Aleman and the Italian Alleman(n)o, became synonyms for "German". The first Jews to reach Germany went there in the wake of the Roman legions and settled in the Rhineland in the early 4th century. The Talmud and the Midrash apply the term Germania/Germamia to designate the countries of northern Europe. Medieval Jewish sources first refer to Germany as Allemania. Later, the biblical term Ashkenaz came into use. Jewish family names based on terms identifying Jews from Germany and other German-speaking countries include the German Deutsch and Teutsch, the Yiddish Teitsh, the Hungarian Nemet, the Russian Germanski, the Polish Nemets, the Romanian Neamt, and north Germanic forms such as Duytsch.

Distinguished bearers of the Jewish family name Deutsch include the German orientalist Emanuel Oscar M. Deutsch (1828-1873); the Russian revolutionary, Leo (Lev Grigoryevich) Deutsch (1855-1941); the Czech-born American scholar Gotthard Deutsch (1859-1921), and the Austrian socialist , Julius Deutsch (1884-1968), who was defense minister of the Austrian Republic from 1919 to 1920. In the 20th century Deutsch is recorded as a Jewish family name with the Deutsch family, who lived in the town of Zhadova (Jadova) near Czernowitz, northern Bukovina (now in Ukraine), prior to World War II. The entire Jewish community of Zhadova was deported to death camps in July 1941.
ID Number:
220108
Written by researchers of ANU Museum of the Jewish People
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Scholar

He was born in Dolne Kounice (now in the Czech Republic), studied at the Breslau Rabbinical Seminary in Germany (now Wroclaw, in Poland), and Vienna University, and then taught religion in Brno, Moravia (now in the Czech Republic), and was rabbi in Most. In 1891, he moved to the USA, becoming professor of Jewish history and philosophy at Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1901 Deutsch succeeded Isaac Meyer Wise as editor of the periodical Deborah and edited the modern history division of the Jewish Encyclopedia. He belonged to the moderate wing of the Reform movement and sympathized with Orthodoxy and Zionism.

Helene Deutsch. Psychoanalyst. She was born in Przemysl where her father was president of the Jewish community. Because of the limitations on female education, she ran away to Vienna to study to be a physician. There in 1912 she married the psychiatrist, Felix Deutsch. She was the first woman assistant in the psychiatric department of Vienna University and later headed the female ward. After encountering the ideas of Freud, she gave up her academic career and was trained by Freud himself, becoming a leading figure of the second generation of analysts. In 1924 Deutsch established in Vienna a psychoanalytic training institute which she headed until leaving for the US in 1935. In the US she was on the staff of the Psychoanalytic Institute in Boston. Her main field of study was on the female psyche, summarized in her two-volume Psychology of Women.

Felix Deutsch (1884-1964), psychiatrist, born in Vienna, Austria (then Austria-Hungary). He was educated in a liberal way and the atmosphere in his parents house was religious free. While studying he was confronted with the anti-Semitic atmosphere at the University of Vienna, and joined the Zionist student organization "Kadimah". He played an important role in the organization and advocated the minority rights. He became a friend of Herzl.

Deutsch dealt with emotional factors in physical illness, which brought him to establish a clinic for “organ-neuroses” (1919) in Vienna. From 1921 Deutsch lectured in medicine at the University of Vienna. The subjects of his research connected him with Freud, and they established the first home of the Psychoanalytic Clinic in Vienna (1922). Deutsch published many articles on the interaction of emotional and physical processes, and was one of the pioneers of psychosomatic medicine.

Deutsch emigrated to Boston, MA, USA, (1935), where he became research fellow in psychiatry at Harvard University. During the years he published many articles on psychoanalytical topics. He was president of the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute (1951-1954). In his work he invented many scientific terms and enriched the psychological language. Before his death he planned to conduct a project on the art of children that immigrated to Israel from all corners of the world. Felix Deutsch was married to Helene Deutsch who was also a psychiatrist.

Judith Deutsch-Haspel (1918-2004), swimming champion, born in Vienna, Austria. She joined the Jewish sports club of Hakoah Vienna, because as a Jewess she was denied membership by most other sports clubs in Austria. Competing for Hakoah, Deutsch became Austrian swimming champion and freestyle record holder, from 1933 to 1935. The Austrian Sports Authority designated her as the Outstanding Austrian Female Athlete of 1935. A year later she was awarded the Golden Badge of Honor, having been recognized as one of the three most outstanding sportspersons in Austria. Deutsch was selected to the Austrian National team for the Olympic Games of Berlin in 1936, but she refused to participate in protest to the anti-Semitic policy of Nazi Germany.

She immigrated to Palestine the same year settling in Haifa, at the time the only city with an Olympic sized swimming pool in the country. She continued her career becoming a national champion and winning a silver medal at the World University Games in 1939, when she was a member of the University of Jerusalem team.

Following her emigration, the Austrian authorities stripped her of all her titles. They were returned to her, along with official apologies from the Austrian Parliament, only in 1995, at a ceremony held in Israel in the presence of the Austrian ambassador. Judith Deutsch-Haspel's story has been inserted in Hakoach lischot ("Watermarks"), a 2004 documentary movie by the Israeli director Yaron Zilberman about the women swimmers of the Hakoah Vienna sports club.

Barbu Nemțeanu (born Benjamin Deutsch) (1887-1919), poet and translator, born in Galati, Romania. Orphaned by his father as a child, he held various small positions, such as office practitioner, reporter, clerk, in order to support his family. He spent his early years in Galati, then moved for sometime to Ploiesti, and finally to Bucharest.

As a publicist he collaborated to a large number of publications, including: Înainte (“Forward”, 1904-1905), Viața nouă (“New Life”, 1907-1908), Convorbiri critice (“Critical Conversations”, 1907), Viața literară și artistică (“Literary and artistic life”, 1908), Floarea albastră (“The Blue Flower “, 1912), Flacăra (“Flame”, 1912, 1915-196), Viitorul social (“The social future”, 1913), Universul literar (“The Literary Universe”, 1913), Lumina (“Light”, 1918), Facla (1918), Renașterea (“The Renaissance”, 1918), Scena (“Stage”, 1918), Rampa (1919).

In 1908 he published the socialist magazine Pagini libere, a literary-scientific weekly n which he published original works and translations.

His first work was Poezii alese ("Selected Poetry", 1910), his other works include a volume of poems Stropi de soare (“Sun drops”, 1915) and a much appreciated Romanian translation of Hebrew Songs by Heinrich Heine (1919).  His other translations include both poetry and prose by Charles Baudelaire, Ivan Turgeniev, Ephraim Lessing, Nikolaus Lenau, Oscar Wilde and others.

During his career he used a large number of pen names, among them B. Askenazi, Ion Corbu, Ion Crângu, Vasile Crângu, Luca Zimbru, Cireșeanu, Barbu Exoticu, Germanicus Galitiensis, and Tedesco.

Nemteanu suffered from tuberculosis. With the financial support of his readers and friends, in 1913 he traveled to Lausanne, Switzerland, for treatment. In Lausanne he learned Fench and started writing poetry in that language. He returned to Romania in 1916 and spent most of his last years in several tuberculosis sanatoriums. He died in Bucharest.

Lea Dragica Deutsch (1927-1943), child actor, born in Zagreb, Croatia (then part of Yugoslavia). She started acting at the age of five in professional productions of plays by Shakespeare and Moliere at the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb (HNK Zagreb). Her talent was recognized by both professionals and the general public and soon she was nicknamed the “Croatian Shirley Temple”. Pathe studios of Paris produced a short documentary about Deutsch.

As a result of the introduction of the anti-Semitic policy by Fascist Croatia after the invasion of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers in April 1941, Deutsch was banned from appearing on stage and was expulsed from the school. The conversion to Catholicism of the entire family initiated by her father in 1941 and the intervention on her behalf by members of the National Theatre could save her from deportation to Auschwitz Nazi death camp in May 1943. She did not survive the six-day journey in a cattle wagon and died before the train arrived at Auschwitz. Her mother and brother, who had been deported in the same transport, died in Auschwitz, and her father alone survived the Holocaust hidden by a friend in a Catholic hospital in Zagreb. 

Julio (Julije) Deutsch (1859-1922), architect, born in Linhartovy, Czech Republic (then part of the Austrian Empire). He studied at the Technische Hochschule in Vienna graduating in 1882, then he continued his studied in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and in Paris, France. In his youth he published articles on the history of architecture, particularly on the synagogues in Koln, Germany, and Prague, in the professional journal Förstersche Bauzeitung. He moved to Zagreb in 1888 and one year later along with Leo Hönigsberg (1861-1911), he founded the architectural studio Hönigsberg & Deutsch that towards the end of the 19th century and in early 20th century became a leading studio of modern architecture in Zagreb. His studio was responsible for the design of the building serving the headquarters of the Jewish community of Zagreb (1897-1898), the synagogue in Križevci, a city in central Croatia (1895, rebuilt in 1956), and the synagogue in Slavonski Brod, a city in eastern Croatia (1895, demolished at the end of WW2). After Hönigsberg’s death in 1911, Deutsch took over the company, and after his own death in 1922, it was inherited by his son Pavao (Paul) Deutsch (1897-1948).  

Bogdan Njemčić (born Deutsch) (1885-1963), lawyer and activist, born in Zagreb, Croatia (then part of Austria-Hungary). He attended high school in Zagreb and then studied law at the University of Zagreb earning a doctorate in 1909. He began working as a lawyer in 1914. In 1920 he opened his own law office located in central Zagreb. He was a member of the Croatian Chamber of Commerce, the Lisinski music society, and other associations. After the invasion of Yugoslavia by the Axis Powers in 1941 and the establishment of the Fascist regime in Croatia, he was barred from practicing law and expelled from the bar association. He survived the Holocaust, hiding in Zagreb. After WW II, he served as a judge of the Military Court.

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DEUTSCH Origin of surname
DEUTSCH Surnames derive from one of many different origins. Sometimes there may be more than one explanation for the same name. This family name is a toponymic (derived from a geographic name of a town, city, region or country). Surnames that are based on place names do not always testify to direct origin from that place, but may indicate an indirect relation between the name-bearer or his ancestors and the place, such as birth place, temporary residence, trade, or family-relatives.

Deutsch means "German" in German. Originally, the surname was a personal nickname for a German Jew or his family, in a non-German environment. Terms identifying Jews from Germany or other German-speaking areas are current in numerous European languages. They include Teutsch(er) and Deutsch(-er), that come from the old High German Thiudisc/Tiutisc, which the Romans transformed into the Latin Theotiseus/Theotises/Teutisca and the Italians adjusted to Tedesci/Tedesche/Tedesco. Several synonyms for German are based on Alemannen, in Latin Alamanni. A west Germanic tribe, called Swabians by their neighbours on the Elbe river, they invaded Gaul and northern Italy in the 3rd century and settled in Rhineland, Alsace and Switzerland. In Romance-language countries, derivatives of Alamanni, among them the French Allemand, the Spanish Aleman and the Italian Alleman(n)o, became synonyms for "German". The first Jews to reach Germany went there in the wake of the Roman legions and settled in the Rhineland in the early 4th century. The Talmud and the Midrash apply the term Germania/Germamia to designate the countries of northern Europe. Medieval Jewish sources first refer to Germany as Allemania. Later, the biblical term Ashkenaz came into use. Jewish family names based on terms identifying Jews from Germany and other German-speaking countries include the German Deutsch and Teutsch, the Yiddish Teitsh, the Hungarian Nemet, the Russian Germanski, the Polish Nemets, the Romanian Neamt, and north Germanic forms such as Duytsch.

Distinguished bearers of the Jewish family name Deutsch include the German orientalist Emanuel Oscar M. Deutsch (1828-1873); the Russian revolutionary, Leo (Lev Grigoryevich) Deutsch (1855-1941); the Czech-born American scholar Gotthard Deutsch (1859-1921), and the Austrian socialist , Julius Deutsch (1884-1968), who was defense minister of the Austrian Republic from 1919 to 1920. In the 20th century Deutsch is recorded as a Jewish family name with the Deutsch family, who lived in the town of Zhadova (Jadova) near Czernowitz, northern Bukovina (now in Ukraine), prior to World War II. The entire Jewish community of Zhadova was deported to death camps in July 1941.
Written by researchers of ANU Museum of the Jewish People
Deutsch, Gotthard
Scholar

He was born in Dolne Kounice (now in the Czech Republic), studied at the Breslau Rabbinical Seminary in Germany (now Wroclaw, in Poland), and Vienna University, and then taught religion in Brno, Moravia (now in the Czech Republic), and was rabbi in Most. In 1891, he moved to the USA, becoming professor of Jewish history and philosophy at Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1901 Deutsch succeeded Isaac Meyer Wise as editor of the periodical Deborah and edited the modern history division of the Jewish Encyclopedia. He belonged to the moderate wing of the Reform movement and sympathized with Orthodoxy and Zionism.
Helene Deutsch

Helene Deutsch. Psychoanalyst. She was born in Przemysl where her father was president of the Jewish community. Because of the limitations on female education, she ran away to Vienna to study to be a physician. There in 1912 she married the psychiatrist, Felix Deutsch. She was the first woman assistant in the psychiatric department of Vienna University and later headed the female ward. After encountering the ideas of Freud, she gave up her academic career and was trained by Freud himself, becoming a leading figure of the second generation of analysts. In 1924 Deutsch established in Vienna a psychoanalytic training institute which she headed until leaving for the US in 1935. In the US she was on the staff of the Psychoanalytic Institute in Boston. Her main field of study was on the female psyche, summarized in her two-volume Psychology of Women.

Felix Deutsch

Felix Deutsch (1884-1964), psychiatrist, born in Vienna, Austria (then Austria-Hungary). He was educated in a liberal way and the atmosphere in his parents house was religious free. While studying he was confronted with the anti-Semitic atmosphere at the University of Vienna, and joined the Zionist student organization "Kadimah". He played an important role in the organization and advocated the minority rights. He became a friend of Herzl.

Deutsch dealt with emotional factors in physical illness, which brought him to establish a clinic for “organ-neuroses” (1919) in Vienna. From 1921 Deutsch lectured in medicine at the University of Vienna. The subjects of his research connected him with Freud, and they established the first home of the Psychoanalytic Clinic in Vienna (1922). Deutsch published many articles on the interaction of emotional and physical processes, and was one of the pioneers of psychosomatic medicine.

Deutsch emigrated to Boston, MA, USA, (1935), where he became research fellow in psychiatry at Harvard University. During the years he published many articles on psychoanalytical topics. He was president of the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute (1951-1954). In his work he invented many scientific terms and enriched the psychological language. Before his death he planned to conduct a project on the art of children that immigrated to Israel from all corners of the world. Felix Deutsch was married to Helene Deutsch who was also a psychiatrist.

Judith Deutsch-Haspel

Judith Deutsch-Haspel (1918-2004), swimming champion, born in Vienna, Austria. She joined the Jewish sports club of Hakoah Vienna, because as a Jewess she was denied membership by most other sports clubs in Austria. Competing for Hakoah, Deutsch became Austrian swimming champion and freestyle record holder, from 1933 to 1935. The Austrian Sports Authority designated her as the Outstanding Austrian Female Athlete of 1935. A year later she was awarded the Golden Badge of Honor, having been recognized as one of the three most outstanding sportspersons in Austria. Deutsch was selected to the Austrian National team for the Olympic Games of Berlin in 1936, but she refused to participate in protest to the anti-Semitic policy of Nazi Germany.

She immigrated to Palestine the same year settling in Haifa, at the time the only city with an Olympic sized swimming pool in the country. She continued her career becoming a national champion and winning a silver medal at the World University Games in 1939, when she was a member of the University of Jerusalem team.

Following her emigration, the Austrian authorities stripped her of all her titles. They were returned to her, along with official apologies from the Austrian Parliament, only in 1995, at a ceremony held in Israel in the presence of the Austrian ambassador. Judith Deutsch-Haspel's story has been inserted in Hakoach lischot ("Watermarks"), a 2004 documentary movie by the Israeli director Yaron Zilberman about the women swimmers of the Hakoah Vienna sports club.

Barbu Nemteanu

Barbu Nemțeanu (born Benjamin Deutsch) (1887-1919), poet and translator, born in Galati, Romania. Orphaned by his father as a child, he held various small positions, such as office practitioner, reporter, clerk, in order to support his family. He spent his early years in Galati, then moved for sometime to Ploiesti, and finally to Bucharest.

As a publicist he collaborated to a large number of publications, including: Înainte (“Forward”, 1904-1905), Viața nouă (“New Life”, 1907-1908), Convorbiri critice (“Critical Conversations”, 1907), Viața literară și artistică (“Literary and artistic life”, 1908), Floarea albastră (“The Blue Flower “, 1912), Flacăra (“Flame”, 1912, 1915-196), Viitorul social (“The social future”, 1913), Universul literar (“The Literary Universe”, 1913), Lumina (“Light”, 1918), Facla (1918), Renașterea (“The Renaissance”, 1918), Scena (“Stage”, 1918), Rampa (1919).

In 1908 he published the socialist magazine Pagini libere, a literary-scientific weekly n which he published original works and translations.

His first work was Poezii alese ("Selected Poetry", 1910), his other works include a volume of poems Stropi de soare (“Sun drops”, 1915) and a much appreciated Romanian translation of Hebrew Songs by Heinrich Heine (1919).  His other translations include both poetry and prose by Charles Baudelaire, Ivan Turgeniev, Ephraim Lessing, Nikolaus Lenau, Oscar Wilde and others.

During his career he used a large number of pen names, among them B. Askenazi, Ion Corbu, Ion Crângu, Vasile Crângu, Luca Zimbru, Cireșeanu, Barbu Exoticu, Germanicus Galitiensis, and Tedesco.

Nemteanu suffered from tuberculosis. With the financial support of his readers and friends, in 1913 he traveled to Lausanne, Switzerland, for treatment. In Lausanne he learned Fench and started writing poetry in that language. He returned to Romania in 1916 and spent most of his last years in several tuberculosis sanatoriums. He died in Bucharest.

Lea Deutsch

Lea Dragica Deutsch (1927-1943), child actor, born in Zagreb, Croatia (then part of Yugoslavia). She started acting at the age of five in professional productions of plays by Shakespeare and Moliere at the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb (HNK Zagreb). Her talent was recognized by both professionals and the general public and soon she was nicknamed the “Croatian Shirley Temple”. Pathe studios of Paris produced a short documentary about Deutsch.

As a result of the introduction of the anti-Semitic policy by Fascist Croatia after the invasion of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers in April 1941, Deutsch was banned from appearing on stage and was expulsed from the school. The conversion to Catholicism of the entire family initiated by her father in 1941 and the intervention on her behalf by members of the National Theatre could save her from deportation to Auschwitz Nazi death camp in May 1943. She did not survive the six-day journey in a cattle wagon and died before the train arrived at Auschwitz. Her mother and brother, who had been deported in the same transport, died in Auschwitz, and her father alone survived the Holocaust hidden by a friend in a Catholic hospital in Zagreb. 

Julio Deutsch

Julio (Julije) Deutsch (1859-1922), architect, born in Linhartovy, Czech Republic (then part of the Austrian Empire). He studied at the Technische Hochschule in Vienna graduating in 1882, then he continued his studied in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and in Paris, France. In his youth he published articles on the history of architecture, particularly on the synagogues in Koln, Germany, and Prague, in the professional journal Förstersche Bauzeitung. He moved to Zagreb in 1888 and one year later along with Leo Hönigsberg (1861-1911), he founded the architectural studio Hönigsberg & Deutsch that towards the end of the 19th century and in early 20th century became a leading studio of modern architecture in Zagreb. His studio was responsible for the design of the building serving the headquarters of the Jewish community of Zagreb (1897-1898), the synagogue in Križevci, a city in central Croatia (1895, rebuilt in 1956), and the synagogue in Slavonski Brod, a city in eastern Croatia (1895, demolished at the end of WW2). After Hönigsberg’s death in 1911, Deutsch took over the company, and after his own death in 1922, it was inherited by his son Pavao (Paul) Deutsch (1897-1948).  

Bogdan Njemcic

Bogdan Njemčić (born Deutsch) (1885-1963), lawyer and activist, born in Zagreb, Croatia (then part of Austria-Hungary). He attended high school in Zagreb and then studied law at the University of Zagreb earning a doctorate in 1909. He began working as a lawyer in 1914. In 1920 he opened his own law office located in central Zagreb. He was a member of the Croatian Chamber of Commerce, the Lisinski music society, and other associations. After the invasion of Yugoslavia by the Axis Powers in 1941 and the establishment of the Fascist regime in Croatia, he was barred from practicing law and expelled from the bar association. He survived the Holocaust, hiding in Zagreb. After WW II, he served as a judge of the Military Court.