Georg Herz ran a small village pharmacy in Marnitz near Parchim from 1916 at the latest [1]. Although he was of Jewish descent and had been baptised, the business was nevertheless treated as a business of a Jew by National Socialist standards. After calls for a boycott, his licence was withdrawn in January 1936 and the closure of the pharmacy ordered [1], and the house was finally put up for forced auction in 1938 and acquired by an "Aryan" pharmacist who was a member of the NSDAP [1].
The village pharmacy
According to Kasten, Georg Herz originally came from Jeßnitz in Anhalt and bought a house in Marnitz on credit, in which he opened a small village pharmacy in 1916 at the latest. Presumably for his marriage to his non-Jewish wife he had been baptised, and thereafter he was regarded as a zealous churchgoer and patriot who also belonged to the veterans' association and supported the national parties [1].
1933 to 1936: boycott and withdrawal of the licence
After the National Socialists had seized power, the mayor of Marnitz and the Kreisleiter (Nazi district leader) of Parchim called for a boycott of the pharmacy, since by National Socialist criteria it counted as a business of a Jew [1]. In January 1936 it was finally closed by order of the authorities and the licence withdrawn [1]. As Georg Herz thereby no longer had any income, he could no longer pay the instalments of the mortgage [1].
1938: forced auction
The consequence was, in the year 1938, the forced auction of the house, which was acquired by an "Aryan" pharmacist who was at the same time a member of the NSDAP [1]. The duration of the pharmacy is indeed given as "about 1916 to 1936", but the auction of the house did not fall until the year 1938; how the two relate is not known.
Persecution and death
The attempts of Georg Herz to find a position as an employed pharmacist failed because of resistance from the NSDAP, so that the family depended on poor relief and finally even had to sell the furniture [1]. After the November pogrom, on 10 November 1938, he was taken into "protective custody" and held in the prison at Alt-Strelitz [1]. He died in Marnitz in 1942, whereby a carpenter refused to make the coffin and pallbearers declined to carry him to the cemetery [1]. After the war his widow was, moreover, denied the status of a persecutee of the Nazi regime [1]. All of these statements, however, rest on the account of Kasten, while an independent second source and the files on the withdrawal of the licence and the forced auction are still missing.