Dr. Johann Robert (Hans) Schlesinger

Johann Schlesinger, known as Hans, was born in Vienna, the son of the lawyer Richard Schlesinger and Louise, née Kotanyi. After elementary school, he attended the kuk Franz Josefs Gymnasium [today: Gymnasium und Realgymnasium Stubenbastei] in Vienna's 1st district, where he graduated in 1910.

His father, Richard Schlesinger, had already joined the masonic lodge "Zukunft" and thus the Grand Lodge of Vienna [today: Grand Lodge of Austria of Ancient, Free and Accepted Masons] in 1909. In 1919, he became Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Vienna.

After graduating from high school, Hans Schlesinger enrolled in law at the University of Vienna. At the beginning of the First World War, he is drafted into the war. As the family was without news of their son for a long time, Louise Schlesinger took her own life on June 14, 1918 and did not live to see her son return from the war. After Richard Schlesinger was also suicidal, his return prevented his suicide.

Hans Schlesinger received his doctorate in law in 1919, then entered professional life and opened a law firm in Vienna. In 1923, Hans Schlesinger married the Jewish Julia Fleischner, who converted to Catholicism in the same year and became a member of the Masonic lodge "Future" in the same year. In 1930, he became a board member of the Austrian League for Human Rights.

When the free and independent Austria came to an end on March 12, 1938, the new rulers were already ready to forcibly dissolve the Austrian Masonic lodges. As early as March 13, a special Masonic detachment of the SS from Berlin began arresting leading Freemasons and confiscating all lodge property. With the occupation of Austria, German legislation is adopted and with it the 'Nuremberg Race Laws', according to which Hans Schlesinger is considered a 'Mitschling II. degree' and Julia Schlesinger a 'full Jew'.

Like his father, Hans Schlesinger is arrested by the Gestapo on March 16, 1938. Richard Schlesinger, already old and suffering from an operation, is driven to his death by the Gestapo, Hans Schlesinger is released on the condition that he leave occupied Austria by August 15, 1938.

Hans and Julia Schlesinger flee to the United States of America via Switzerland. Their assets in Austria are confiscated as 'Reichsfluchtsteuer'. In Switzerland, Hans Schlesinger joins the Osiris Masonic Lodge in Basel. Hans and Julia Schlesinger finally reach the United States of America and settle in St. Louis, Missuri. From then on, Hans called himself John R. Schlesinger and Julia Julie Schlesinger.