Hermann Hammerschmidt

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Hermann Hammerschmidt (left) together with his parents and siblings in 1905

Hermann Karl Siegfried Franz Hammerschmidt (born August 21, 1887 in Cottbus , † December 1944 in the labor education camp Oderblick near Schwetig ) was a German lawyer and notary. Together with his father and one of his brothers, he ran a successful law firm in his native Cottbus. Because of his Jewish origin, he was from 1933, the persecution of Jews the Nazis exposed. While he was initially allowed to pursue his profession due to his front-line deployment in World War I , this was forbidden to him in 1938 by the 5th ordinance on the Reich Citizenship Act. Instead, he was appointed a consultant , a kind of legal advisor for Jews. In 1941 he was completely expropriated. After one of his sons escaped from forced labor , he was arrested, taken to a camp near Schwetig in December 1944 and murdered there shortly after his arrival. Three of his five siblings were also victims of the Holocaust .

Life

Before 1933

Hermann Hammerschmidt was born as the eldest of six children of the Jewish lawyer Abraham Hammerschmidt, who had lived in Cottbus since 1886, and his wife Bertha. After attending grammar school in Cottbus, he studied law in Berlin . He also studied piano at the Stern Conservatory , where he passed his exam as a concert pianist . After that he joined his father's office. In the First World War , Hermann Hammerschmidt volunteered as a medical orderly after his two younger brothers, who were of military age, unfit patterned were. He served in France on the Somme and in Russia in the Pripyat Marshes . Later he got an inflammation of the kidney in the flooded trenches on the Ypres bend . Because of the subsequent rheumatoid arthritis , he was declared unfit for the front in 1918. So he saw the end of the war in Cottbus.

Semi-detached house in Seminarstraße 34/35, which was built by Hermann and Hans Hammerschmidt.

In February 1919, Hammerschmidt married Elisabeth Pawelke. The Catholic daughter of a customs officer was his younger sister's school friend. The three sons Helmut , Wolfgang and Ulrich emerged from this marriage . They were raised denominationally liberal. Hermann's brother Hans, who also worked in the father's office, had married and had two children. The firm's business went better and better after the end of inflation . Their rooms at the family's headquarters at Bahnhofstrasse 62 became too small, which is why Hermann and Hans built a spacious and modern semi-detached house together at Seminarstrasse 34/35, in the northern villa district of Cottbus, at the end of the 1920s .

1933–1938: From the “seizure of power” to the November pogrom

After the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists on January 30, 1933, Hermann Hammerschmidt and his family were exposed to the incipient persecution of Jews by the National Socialists. During the " Jewish boycott " on April 1, 1933, two SA men took up positions in front of the office and sent all employees away. The business of Jewish merchants in Spremberger Strasse was similar . On April 4, Hermann, his father Abraham and his brother Hans received three letters of the same name from the President of the Regional Court with the request to resign from the office of notary . The reasoning stated, among other things, "that the maintenance of public order and security is exposed to serious danger if Germans continue to have to be presented with documents that have been recorded or certified by Jewish notaries in legal dealings." "In their own interest" and in "consideration of the excited popular mood" it is therefore advisable to resign. Then on April 7, the law on admission to the bar issued a ban on representation for all Jewish lawyers. The only exceptions were attorneys who had been admitted before August 1, 1914 or who had participated in World War I. Therefore, Hermann Hammerschmidt, his father Abraham and his oldest brother Fritz were initially spared. However, Hans and his brother Walter, who worked in Berlin, were affected. In the period that followed, the number of clients in the Cottbus law firm fell significantly, not only because Hans was no lawyer in the law firm, but also because many Cottbus textile companies and business people who had previously been represented by the law firm, faced the general anti-Jewish sentiment withdrew. Six of the firm's 13 employees had to be fired.

After the death of his father Abraham Hammerschmidt in February 1934, Hermann, the eldest son, became head of the family. The office has now been reduced to two rooms. The remaining rooms at Bahnhofstrasse 62 were rented out as apartments. Hammerschmidt became a member and chairman of the Cottbus local and district group of the Reich Association of Jewish Frontline Soldiers . Among other things, he organized concert evenings at which he and his son Helmut performed as pianists and his brother Hans as violinist. These concerts were monitored by the Gestapo .

In March 1935, Hermann Hammerschmidt was awarded the Cross of Honor for Front Warriors. In September of the same year the Nuremberg Race Laws were promulgated. Now women under 45 were forbidden to work in a household that included a Jewish man. As a result, the nanny and the cook, among other things, had to be fired. There were also further layoffs in the office, so that only Hermann's cousin Frida Glasfeld and two older secretaries remained as employees. In the same year Hammerschmidt was banned from practicing as a notary. In 1937 his brother Hans, who had been largely unemployed since the ban on his profession in 1933, had to sell his semi-detached house to a Cottbus textile manufacturer due to financial difficulties. He left Cottbus with his family for Berlin, where he had found a job as an insurance agent. Hermann Hammerschmidt's son Helmut , who was considered a “ first degree Jewish mixed race ”, began studying chemistry in Berlin in 1937. His actual career aspiration was to become a musician. On the advice of a relative who had emigrated to Argentina, however, he made a different decision in order to increase his chances of leaving the country.

1938–1943: Brother's death, professional ban and expropriation

On the morning of November 9, 1938 , Hermann Hammerschmidt, like many other Cottbus Jews, was arrested. In addition, SA men broke into the offices in Bahnhofstrasse and devastated them. The Cottbus synagogue was also destroyed by arson. Hammerschmidt's son Helmut set off from Berlin to Merseburg , where his mother's brother, Walter Pawelke, was in charge of the Luftwaffe's military training area as a colonel. Pawelke came to Cottbus on the same day and tried to get his brother-in-law released at the police station. There he was advised that his sister should get a divorce. When he replied that this was not decent after the couple's many good years together, the only answer was: “Well, now the bad years are coming.” Hermann was different from other arrested Jews from Cottbus who were sent to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp Hammerschmidt released within a week. If he had previously been allowed to work as a lawyer because of his service in the First World War, this " frontline fighter privilege " has now been withdrawn from him. For this he was now responsible as a “consultant” for legal advice to Jews for the Frankfurt administrative region. Like other Jews, he himself had to pay for the damage caused by the devastation of his office space, as insurance companies were forbidden to pay compensation. In addition, Hammerschmidt had to cede a quarter of his property to the state as a “ Jewish penalty ”. To comply with this requirement, he had the building on Bahnhofstrasse, home and headquarters of the former law firm, for unit value sell. He had already had to submit a list of his assets in the spring of 1938 as part of the ordinance on the registration of Jewish assets . He set up his consulting practice in his house on Seminarstrasse. In addition, due to the Second Ordinance Implementing the Law on the Change of Family Names and First Names, he now had to adopt the middle name Israel .

Tomb of Hermann's brother Walter, who died as a result of his imprisonment in a concentration camp.

For his youngest brother Walter, who lived in Berlin, the events ended fatally in November 1938. As Hermann he was arrested in Berlin on 9 November 1938 and to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp deported Service. With bribes, his wife managed to buy him out to emigrate in December. However, he died in January 1939 of sepsis caused by the wounds inflicted in the concentration camp. He was buried next to his parents in the New Jewish Cemetery in Cottbus. After the death of his brother, Hermann Hammerschmidt no longer uttered the previously often used phrase "They won't kill me".

In the following time he had to endure further discrimination. On January 1, 1939, the garbage collection at his house was stopped. In addition, he was no longer allowed to use the Cottbus tram . In order to escape the situation in Germany, he asked the Reich Association of Jews in Germany about travel options. For the departure to the planned destinations in China or South America, however, one needed dollar currency , which Hammerschmidt could not obtain due to a lack of contacts abroad. His brother Hans, who succeeded in sending his children to live with a family of teachers in England, had better luck. He later managed to travel to Ecuador via Cuba .

In December 1941, Hermann Hammerschmidt received a decision from the district president in Frankfurt (Oder) that according to the 1933 law on the confiscation of property hostile to the people and the state, his property would be confiscated because of "anti-people and subversive efforts". Subsequent petitions and complaints, including from Hermann's brother-in-law, enabled the family to rent some rooms in their house. At the beginning of 1942, Hammerschmidt and the chairman of the Jewish community, Georg Schlesinger , were summoned to the Gestapo in Frankfurt (Oder). There they were told that the emigration of the district's Jewish population was going too slowly. If this does not change, one would have "new areas in the east" to which the Jews could be moved. About three months after this summons, the Hammerschmidt family's apartment was searched for the third time. In addition to a black, red and gold flag owned by Abraham Hammerschmidt, books on fiction from alleged “Jewish publishers” such as Propylaen Verlag , Ullstein Verlag and Malik Verlag were also confiscated. Political books by Karl Marx , Leon Trotsky and Walther Rathenau , among others, had already been confiscated in previous house searches . At the end of the search, Hermann Hammerschmidt was arrested and taken to Frankfurt again with Schlesinger. There they had to stare at a wall for hours before they found out the reason for the arrest in the nightly interrogation. A Swedish newspaper had printed an article in which it was reported that the two of them were last summoned and the threat they contained. Therefore, they were accused of having contacts abroad. The two men were briefly released home the next morning, but had to serve a week's imprisonment the following day.

1944: arrest and murder

Memorial stone for the Hammerschmidt family on the New Jewish Cemetery in Cottbus

Hermann Hammerschmidt's two younger sons, Wolfgang and Ulrich, were called up for forced labor in Sonderkommando J at the Todt Organization in 1944 . Wolfgang, who was deployed in France, fled from there via various stations to Berlin, where he stayed with his older brother Helmut, among others. After Wolfgang's name and picture had been published in the “Reichssteckbrief”, Hermann was arrested for “ risk of blackout ” and transferred to the Cottbus police prison. In December 1944 he was deported to the Oderblick labor education camp near Schwetig . He died there that same month. According to fellow inmate Alfred Donath, a communist from Cottbus, his naked body was found in a manure pit with a shot in the head just one day after Hammerschmidt's arrival .

Fate of the family

Hermann Hammerschmidt and his brother Walter, who died in 1938 as a result of his imprisonment in a concentration camp, were not the only Holocaust victims in the family. Hermann's sister Hertha had already been deported to Auschwitz concentration camp in 1943 and murdered there. His brother Fritz, who was deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp together with his wife, son and mother-in-law in 1944, suffered the same fate. Her cousin Frieda Glasfeld, who worked in Hermann's law firm, was deported to the Warsaw ghetto in 1942, from which she never returned. Hermann's sister Frieda had died in Berlin in 1937. His brother Hans, who emigrated to Ecuador, remained the only one of the six siblings who survived the National Socialist dictatorship in Germany . His wife and children also survived the Holocaust, as did Hermann's sons and his wife Elisabeth.

Honors

Stumbling block for Hermann Hammerschmidt in Cottbus

In 1993, in the Cottbus district Sandow a previously by Edgar André named street in Hermann-Hammerschmidt-Straße renamed . A stop on tram line 2 also bears this name. In addition, since the late 1940s, a memorial stone on the family's grave in the New Jewish Cemetery in Cottbus has been a reminder of the fate of Hermann Hammerschmidt and his family. On September 28, 2006, Stolpersteine for Hermann and four of his relatives were moved to Bahnhofstrasse 62, the home of his parents and the seat of the law firm . His last living son Ulrich was also present at the time of the move. The stumbling blocks were stolen on November 14th of the same year and replaced on December 13th.

literature

Web links

Commons : Grave of the Hammerschmidt family  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Hammerschmidt, Hermann Karl Siegfried Franz. In: Memorial book for the victims of the Nazi persecution of Jews in Germany. Retrieved October 14, 2017 .
  2. ↑ a b Wolfgang Hammerschmidt: Search for traces. 1996, p. 131.
  3. ↑ a b c Wolfgang Hammerschmidt: Search for traces. 1996, pp. 99-100.
  4. ↑ a b Alexander Kuchta: Hammerschmidt, Hermann. In: Cottbus Municipal Collection. Retrieved October 22, 2017 .
  5. ^ Wolfgang Hammerschmidt: Search for traces. 1996, p. 112.
  6. ↑ a b Wolfgang Hammerschmidt: Search for traces. 1996, pp. 104-105
  7. ↑ a b c d Wolfgang Hammerschmidt: Search for traces. 1996, pp. 118-121.
  8. ↑ a b Wolfgang Hammerschmidt: Search for traces. 1996, p. 129.
  9. ^ Wolfgang Hammerschmidt: Search for traces. 1996, p. 132.
  10. ↑ a b Wolfgang Hammerschmidt: Search for traces. 1996, pp. 136-137
  11. ^ Wolfgang Hammerschmidt: Search for traces. 1996, pp. 141-142.
  12. ↑ a b Wolfgang Hammerschmidt: Search for traces. 1996, p. 146.
  13. ↑ a b c d e f Wolfgang Hammerschmidt: Search for traces. 1996, pp. 148-150.
  14. ^ Wolfgang Hammerschmidt: Search for traces. 1996, p. 153.
  15. ↑ a b Wolfgang Hammerschmidt: Search for traces. 1996, pp. 156-157
  16. ↑ a b Wolfgang Hammerschmidt: Search for traces. 1996, pp. 154-156
  17. ↑ Hammerschmidt, Walter. In: Memorial book for the victims of the Nazi persecution of Jews in Germany. Retrieved October 14, 2017 .
  18. ↑ a b Wolfgang Hammerschmidt: Search for traces. 1996, p. 160.
  19. ^ Wolfgang Hammerschmidt: Search for traces. 1996, pp. 163-165
  20. ↑ a b c Helmut Schweitzer: Nazi violence in Cottbus: The lot of the Hammerschmidt family. 1991.
  21. ^ Wolfgang Hammerschmidt: Search for traces. 1996, pp. 172-173
  22. ^ Wolfgang Hammerschmidt: Search for traces. 1996, pp. 173-174
  23. ↑ a b c d Wolfgang Hammerschmidt: Search for traces. 1996, pp. 179-180
  24. ^ Wolfgang Hammerschmidt: Search for traces. 1996, p. 32.
  25. ^ Wolfgang Hammerschmidt: Search for traces. 1996, p. 197.
  26. ^ Wolfgang Hammerschmidt: Search for traces. 1996, p. 27.
  27. ^ Wolfgang Hammerschmidt: Search for traces. 1996, p. 33.
  28. ^ Wolfgang Hammerschmidt: Search for traces. 1996, p. 35.
  29. ↑ Hermann Hammerschmidt. In: Lausitzer Rundschau . August 21, 2007. Retrieved October 23, 2017 .
  30. ↑ Hammerschmidt, Hertha. In: Memorial book for the victims of the Nazi persecution of Jews in Germany. Retrieved October 14, 2017 .
  31. ↑ a b Wolfgang Hammerschmidt: Search for traces. 1996, pp. 176-177.
  32. ↑ Hammerschmidt, Fritz. In: Memorial book for the victims of the Nazi persecution of Jews in Germany. Retrieved October 14, 2017 .
  33. ↑ Glasfeld, Frieda. In: Memorial book for the victims of the Nazi persecution of Jews in Germany. Retrieved October 14, 2017 .
  34. ↑ Helmut Donner: Cottbus street names explained . Euroverlag, Cottbus 1999.
  35. ↑ Stefanie Endlich: Memorials for the Victims of National Socialism. A documentation. Volume II, Federal Agency for Civic Education (ed.), 2000, ISBN 3-89331-391-5 , p. 253 ( pdf ).
  36. ^ Stumbling blocks in Cottbus. In: Lausitzer Rundschau. September 27, 2006, accessed October 14, 2017 .
  37. ↑ F. Muscheid: "You should face the lie". In: Lausitzer Rundschau. September 30, 2006, accessed November 12, 2017 .
  38. ^ Wolfgang Swat: Vandalized memory. In: Lausitzer Rundschau. November 15, 2006, accessed October 14, 2017 .
  39. ↑ New “stumbling blocks” for the Hammerschmidt family. In: Lausitzer Rundschau. December 13, 2006, accessed March 4, 2018 .
This article was added to the list of articles worth reading on March 12, 2018 in this version .
personal data
SURNAME Hammerschmidt, Hermann
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hammerschmidt, Hermann Karl Siegfried Franz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer and notary
DATE OF BIRTH August 21, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH cottbus
DATE OF DEATH December 1944
Place of death Orblick labor education camp near Schwetig