Friedrich Rudolf Geussenhainer

Friedrich Rudolf Geussenhainer ; and Frederick Geussenhainer (* 24. April 1912 in Neumünster , † May 1945 in the Mauthausen concentration camp ) was a German medical student ( candidatus medicinae ) and member of the White Rose Hamburg , a resistance group against Nazism . He was arrested in July 1943 and probably died in Mauthausen concentration camp in May 1945 after the liberation.

Life

Friedrich Geussenhainer was born in Neumünster as the son of the factory owner Edwin Geussenhainer and his wife Mary, née Jansen, and was baptized Catholic. In 1931 he passed the Abitur at the local humanistic grammar school . He then completed his training as a bank clerk and civil servant in Neumünster. From April to May 1935 he did labor service and from August to October 1935 attended the Ford sales school in Cologne-Niehl and until September 1938 sold cars in Kiel, at "DKW am Schlossgarten". From 1939 he lived in Hamburg.

In August 1940 he was enrolled at the University of Hamburg in the medical department . As a staunch Catholic and Christian advocate of human rights, he was a supporter of the Bishop von Galen in Münster and was critical of the Nazi regime. On July 18, 1939, he received a penalty warrant for 30 RM or 3 days in prison; presumably because of dealing with forbidden literature and music ( swing youth ), which was repealed in September by the “Leader's pardon”. In 1942 he met the medical student Albert Suhr and became friends with him. Through Suhr, he became a member of the candidates of humanity , a group of students and young assistant doctors at the University Hospital Eppendorf (UKE) who opposed the prevailing conditions. In addition, he took part in the meetings of the White Rose Hamburg in the agency of the Rauhen Haus on Jungfernstieg , where he met the students Margaretha Rothe , Heinz Kucharski and Reinhold Meyer, among others .

Imprisonment and death

In July 1943, after betrayal of the Eppendorfer group by the Gestapo agent Yvonne Glass-Dufour, he was arrested and taken to the Fuhlsbüttel police prison . After the investigation, although no charges were brought against him, Geussenhainer was still on June 6, 1944 as protection of prisoners in the Neuengamme concentration camp admitted. On October 7, 1944, he was transferred to Mauthausen concentration camp . It is known that from December 13, 1944, he was subordinate to the Gusen command , a satellite camp of the concentration camp, and from April 3, 1945 to the Amstetten command , another external command.

He probably died in May 1945 after the liberation of the Mauthausen concentration camp and was buried in a military cemetery set up by the US Army. An exhumation list from the late 1950s testifies that his remains were exhumed and reburied in the former quarantine yard in the current memorial site. According to other representations, he died of starvation in April 1945 on an unknown date due to exhaustion and lack of food .

Commemoration

Memorial plaque on Jungfernstieg 50

Friedrich Geussenhainer is commemorated with a memorial plaque in the Audimax of the University of Hamburg , a memorial in Hamburg-Volksdorf and a stumbling block in Johnsallee 63 in Hamburg-Rotherbaum . In addition, a study building Rothe-Geussenhainer-Haus is named on the site of the Eppendorf University Hospital . On a memorial plaque for the White Rose Hamburg on the house of the former agency of the Rauhen Haus at Jungfernstieg 50, his name is listed alongside those of the other dead of the resistance group.

See also

• People of the White Rose Hamburg

literature

• Christiane Benzenberg: Monuments for the resistance group 'White Rose' in Munich and Hamburg , Master's thesis submitted to the Philosophical Faculty of the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Bonn 1993; Available as a PDF file at: Benzenberg: Denkmäler (PDF; 531 kB), accessed on May 23, 2010
• Angela Bottin: Tight time. Traces of displaced and persecuted people at the University of Hamburg. Catalog for the exhibition of the same name in the Audimax of the University of Hamburg from February 22 to May 17, 1991. Hamburg Contributions to the History of Science Volume 11, Hamburg 1992, ISBN 3-496-00419-3
• Hendrik van den Bussche : The Hamburg University Medicine under National Socialism , here: Angela Bottin and Hendrik van den Bussche: 7.3 Opposition to the regime and persecution in medical and student circles in Eppendorf , Dietrich Reimer Verlag, Berlin Hamburg, 2014, p. 367 ff., ISBN 978- 3-496-02870-3
• Ursel Hochmuth , Gertrud Meyer : Streiflichter from the Hamburg resistance. 1933–1945 , Röderberg-Verlag, Frankfurt / M. 1980, reprint of the 1969 edition, ISBN 3-87682-036-7
• Ursel Hochmuth : candidates of humanity. Documentation on the Hamburg White Rose on the occasion of Hans Leipelt's 50th birthday ; Editor: Association of the anti-fascists and persecuted persons of the Nazi regime Hamburg eV, Hamburg 1971
• Günter Weisenborn : The silent uprising. Report on the resistance movement of the German people 1933–1945 , Reinbek 1962

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Hendrik van den Bussche: The Hamburg University Medicine in National Socialism, here: Angela Bottin and Hendrik van den Bussche: 7.3 Opposition to the regime and persecution in medical and student “circles” of Eppendorf , Dietrich Reimer Verlag, Berlin Hamburg, 2014, p. 370 FN 140
2. ↑ Ursel Hochmuth, Gertrud Meyer: Streiflichter from the Hamburg Resistance 1933–1945 , p. 402
3. ↑ Angela Bottin: Tight Time. Traces of displaced and persecuted people at the University of Hamburg. Catalog for the exhibition of the same name in the Audimax of the University of Hamburg from February 22 to May 17, 1991. Hamburg Contributions to the History of Science Volume 11, Hamburg 1992, ISBN 3-496-00419-3 , p. 83
4. ^ Mauthausen Memorial Archives; Exhumation list of the US military cemeteries in Mauthausen and Gusen (V / 2/3)
5. ↑ Ursel Hochmuth, Gertrud Meyer: Streiflichter from the Hamburg Resistance 1933–1945 , p. 418