He Survived the Holocaust and Ran a Popular NYC Disco, Only To be Fatally Bludgeoned At 90
Felix Brinkmann was bound, beaten and asphyxiated at age 90 in his apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan as part of a robbery gone wrong.
Holocaust survivor Felix Brinkmann escaped death in the gas chambers time and time again, but the popular New York City disco owner ended up losing his life to violence decades later.
Brinkmann was bound, beaten and asphyxiated at the age of 90 in his apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in 2009 as part of a robbery gone wrong.
It was a tragic end for a man whose son, psychologist Rick Brinkman, described in a videotape played in court in 2012 as “a real sweetheart of a guy,” according to the New York Post.
“I think I’ve seen him angry five times in his whole life,” the son said on the tape.
Brinkmann's story will be featured on the upcoming third season of Oxygen's New York Homicide, premiering Saturday, February 1 at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
Here’s everything to know about the Holocaust survivor’s remarkable life and tragic end ahead of the true crime series' new season.
Who was Felix Brinkmann?
Brinkmann was born in Latvia before he moved with his family to Germany. When World War II broke out, Brinkmann and his family were moved first to a ghetto and then to concentration camps because his mother was Jewish, according to The New York Times.
Brinkmann spent time in Mauthausen, Ebensee and Auschwitz camps, repeatedly finding ways to escape death at each site.
“While in Auschwitz he was picked for the gas chamber five times and five times got out of it because he could speak perfect German and explain his value as an electrician,” his son Rick Brinkman wrote in a blog on his web site.
Rick Brinkman would later share, via a video submitted in court, that while at Austria’s Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp, Brinkmann was often forced to stand outside in only his underwear in below-zero temperatures for four hours at a time.
“He survived that,” Rick Brinkman said, according to the New York Post. “He was not afraid of anything — because, I mean, he faced death.”
About Felix Brinkmann's wife, Mona
Brinkmann found love while in the ghetto, according to his son. While there, Brinkmann, who was good at fixing things, ran a telephone repair factory, Rick Brinkman wrote of his dad in a post on his web page. When a German officer who was in charge of the ghetto asked Brinkmann to fix a record player that was in his office, Brinkmann brought it back to his shop and quickly repaired it.
"As a treat to his employees he brought all the workers at the factory together to hear the music," Rick Brinkman wrote. "People didn’t have such things in the ghetto and hadn’t heard music for years. Most of the employees were young women and some of them insisted, 'Herr Brinkmann you must dance.' My father chose my mother. A day later he made her his secretary, even though she couldn’t type, but as my dad said, 'She sure could kiss.'"
Brinkmann and the woman, named Mona, later married.
After the war, Brinkmann let go of any hatred or need for vengeance, his son said.
In a statement that Rick Brinkman submitted to court for the sentencing of one of his father's killers, which was reposted on his web site, he wrote: "A couple of months after the war had ended my father was heading back to Poland to see if my mother was alive. He was crossing a bridge guarded by a Russian soldier. My father spoke fluent Russian and explained he had spent the last nine months in three concentration camps. He didn't know if any of his family or his wife was alive."
When another person tried to cross the bridge, a German with a tattoo that marked him as an SS officer, "The Russian handed my father the machine gun and said, 'Kill him for your family,'" Rick Brinkman stated. "My father handed the machine gun back and said, 'No I can't do that.' That was the kind of person he was and the compassion he had."
Felix Brinkmann moves to New York and opens a club
After World War II, Brinkmann and his family ultimately settled in New York City, where he re-invented himself.
He opened the popular nightclub Adam’s Apple in the 1970s during the height of the disco era. His charismatic personality was often on full display at the club, which he ran for more than two decades.
"He was the most likable person in the world, he befriended everyone," Bo Dietl, a former New York City Police Department detective, media personality, and long-time friend of Brinkmann, told CBS News in 2009.
Brinkmann, who eventually got divorced, was known for his suits, gold Scorpio medallion and love of women, often using the same line to kick off conversation: “My name is Felix. Like Felix the Cat," according to The New York Times.
“I must have heard that 1,000 times,” Joe Druckman, a former bartender at Adam’s Apple, told the Times. “He loved the women, loved the ladies, and they all loved him.”
After the club closed in the 1990s, Brinkmann got a job as a manager at a building in the Bronx that was owned by his former business partner at the disco. It was a job he held until his death.
How was Felix Brinkmann killed?
Brinkmann’s life came to a tragic end in July of 2009. He was discovered in his apartment, lying face down on his bed in a pool of blood with his hands tied behind his back. He’d been beaten and asphyxiated. The elderly man’s head was bashed in and four of his ribs were broken.
Even in his later years, Brinkmann’s love of women never diminished and he was known to invite younger women to his apartment for sex. But did that lead to his murder?
Find out when the "Death After Disco" episode of New York Homicide Season 3 debuts on February 22 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Oxygen.
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Brinkmann’s friends and family have chosen to remember him for his larger-than-life personality.
“He loved being the center of attention,” family friend Greg Goloborodko told the Times. “But he wouldn’t have wanted to be remembered for how he went out. He would have wanted to be remembered for how he lived: the family, the friends, the women. Good God, there were a lot of women.”
