Adolf Maass

Adolf Maass (born October 9, 1875 in Borgholzhausen ; † presumably in Auschwitz at the beginning of 1945 ) was a Hamburg merchant with Jewish roots. By 1933 he owned 45% of the Hamburg branch of what is now the third largest logistics company in the world, Kuehne + Nagel .

Life

Like his future wife Käthe (née Elsbach), Adolf Maass came from Jewish parents. They married in 1911 and had three children: Herbert (later Edward Arthur Marsden, born March 14, 1912), Lisa (married Maasse, born December 7, 1916) and Gerhard Adolf (born July 16, 1918).

Promotion at Kuehne + Nagel

After graduating from high school, Adolf Maass started working as an apprentice at the Bremen headquarters of the then young forwarding company Kuehne + Nagel . After just one and a half years he was able to finish his apprenticeship and was entrusted with his own department. In 1902 the company founder August Kühne sent him to Hamburg to set up a branch . “With burning ambition, great skill and success” ( Ulrike Sparr ) he devoted himself to this task. In 1910 he became a partner in Kuehne + Nagel. In 1928 he was contractually awarded 45 percent of the ownership interests in the Hamburg branch of Kuehne + Nagel.

The company founder August Kühne died in 1932 and his sons Alfred and Werner took over the business. Alfred Kühne Junior managed the Hamburg house and his brother Werner Kühne stayed at the parent company in Bremen. Also in 1932 there was a business dispute between the brothers Alfred and Werner Kühne and Adolf Maass. As a result, Maass left the company in April 1933 without any severance pay . According to Ulrike Sparr, it remains unclear to what extent political reasons also played a role. Werner Kühne became a party member on May 1, 1933 . According to the daily newspaper, this would not have been possible for him with a Jewish co-owner.

In the 1940s, the Kuehne + Nagel company benefited from the transport and use of its logistics structure from so-called “Judengut”, the household effects of the deportees from all over Europe, which the Nazi state had appropriated.

Arrest, deportation and murder

After the Reichspogromnacht in 1938, Adolf Maass was arrested and spent several weeks in Sachsenhausen concentration camp . The then considered emigration plans of the Maas couple came to nothing with the start of the Second World War. In the summer of 1941 the family had to sell their lavishly furnished house on Hamburger Blumenstrasse for below value. The proceeds went to a Sperrmark account to which they had no access. The family somehow managed to avoid being transported to Lodz on October 25, 1941 . Their names on the deportation list were crossed out by hand. At the end of 1941 they were forcibly relocated to the " Judenhaus " at Bogenstrasse 25. On July 15, 1942, the family followed the deportation order to Theresienstadt . On May 15, 1944, the two were deported and probably murdered in Auschwitz at the beginning of 1945 .

Work-up

Stumbling block for Adolf Maass at Blumenstrasse 37 in Hamburg-Winterhude .

The Kuehne + Nagel company does not want to comment publicly about its former Jewish shareholder. There is no historical summary on the company's homepage and the name Adolf Maass does not appear anywhere.

In 2006 two stumbling blocks were laid for the Maass couple in Hamburg-Winterhude . The politician Ulrike Sparr had looked for documents in various archives. She came across the statements of Adolf Maass' son Gerhard Maass. He characterized the Kühne brothers as "influential Nazis" who would have pushed his father out of the company.

In the commemorative publication for the 75th anniversary of the Kuehne + Nagel company in 1965, the work of Adolf Maass is definitely recognized. Regarding his departure, it says: “In April 1933, Adolf Maaß left the company to become a partner in a wholesaling company belonging to his relatives. Alfred and Werner Kühne continue to run the company as sole owners. "

50 years later, in the commemorative publication for the company's 125th anniversary, Adolf Maass is mentioned. However, the Festschrift is not open to the public and was printed in such a small edition that not even all members of the board received a copy. Hamburg's Mayor Olaf Scholz said in his 2015 celebratory speech about the script: “It names the separation from the Jewish partner who later perishes in the Holocaust, the dependence on orders from the Nazi regime, the activities in occupied territories and the logistical support for the confiscation of Jewish property. Coming to terms with the years that the Festschrift calls the “dark times” is an important step. It is gratifying when, as here, it is understood as a moral duty that belongs to the company. ”However, essential circumstances and dimensions of the company's activities during the Nazi era are still left out of the chronicle, according to Werner Kühne's entry into the NSDAP on May 1, 1933. The separation from Maas eight days earlier is characterized in the chronicle as a “friendly vote”.

Publications

• Controversial (Bayerischer Rundfunk): henchmen of the Nazis? The past of Kuehne + Nagel

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Henning Bleyl: Kühne + Nagel masons: Utilization without "relevance" , Taz.de from February 6, 2015, accessed on July 28, 2015.
2. ↑ Checked and viewed on http://www.kn-portal.com on July 27, 2015.
3. ^ Ulrike Sparr: Stumbling blocks in Hamburg: Adolf Maass , May 22, 2015.
4. ↑ 125 years of Kuehne + Nagel , speech by First Mayor Olaf Scholz on July 1, 2015.
5. ↑ taz.de from October 15, 2015: From properties and pasts. A bargain for the profiteer