Werner Blumenfeld grew up in Berlin; his father was Jewish and he was baptized as a Protestant. In 1934 he began working as a chemist at a Berlin pharmaceuticals factory. Before his brother emigrated to England in 1935, he signed over ownership to Werner Blumenfeld of the Vereinigte Metallmöbelfabriken A.G. in Berlin-Marienfelde, a company manufacturing metal furniture. Werner Blumenfeld was picked up by the Gestapo for this reason in 1938. He was held and mistreated for two months in the Gestapo headquarters on Prinz-Albrecht-Straße, until he declared himself willing to give up his assets apart from a quarter of his shares. He was arrested again in 1941, imprisoned by the Gestapo for two and a half months, and then lost the remainder of his assets.
In October of that year he received a call-up to the Organisation Todt, which he did not obey. Instead, he stayed without official registration in Gutengermendorf in Löwenberger Land north of Berlin. After the war, he emigrated to the United States and changed his name to Werner Bentler.
Werner Blumenfeld’s application for official recognition as a victim of fascism, around 1946. Source: Stiftung Neue Synagoge Berlin – Centrum Judaicum, Opfer des Faschismus
