Although supportive of right-wing politics ( according to some , he might have voted for Hitler in 1932 ) , he was subject to increasing persecution , being Jewish by birth . Eventually , Rothfels was forced to leave his university position due to his Jewish ancestry , despite intervention by Hermann Rauschning the Nazi president of Danzig Senate and Theodor Oberlander , director of League of German East ( Bund der Deutschen Osten ) and NSDAP 's East Prussian intelligence agency and forbidden to teach a year later . While Rothfels tried to get an honorary Aryan status with support by Joachim von Ribbentrop , his efforts were fruitless . Subject to increasing persecution and discrimination by the State , he reluctantly left Germany in 1938 for Britain . What decided the issue for him was his experience during the Kristallnacht pogrom when his house was looted and trashed by the SA and he himself was arrested and held by the Gestapo for several hours , during which he was deprived of his crutches and beaten up . Together with his wife and their three children , Rothfels left for the United Kingdom , where he hastily began to learn English , a language that he subsequently mastered
Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht
Hans Rothfels