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Harald Seligmann * 1886

Schwanenwik 29 (Hamburg-Nord, Uhlenhorst)

KZ Neuengamme
ermordet 26.6.1942, KZ Neuengamme

further stumbling stones in Schwanenwik 29:
John Hasenberg, Harald Seligmann jr.

Harald Seligmann senior, born 9.5.1886, imprisoned several times, at last in Neuengamme concentration camp, murdered in June 1942 in the Landes Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Bernburg/Saale

Schwanenwik 29

Harald Seligmann was born in Hamburg on May 9, 1886. His parents were Carl and Johanna Seligmann, née Peine. Carl Seligmann worked as an emigrant-expeditor for HAPAG. The family belonged to the Jewish community of Hamburg. Harald Seligmann attended the Anton-Rée-Realschule and then completed a three-year apprenticeship as a caterer.

From 1908 to 1910, he served as a soldier, first in the Prussian 85th Infantry Regiment and then throughout the First World War. In 1914, he was drafted into the navy and assigned to a counter-espionage unit in Kiel. Between these periods, he worked as an innkeeper or went to sea as a cook's mate or cook.

On April 19, 1916, he married Kreszenz Bianca Dick, who was born in Vilshofen near Passau on June 12, 1888. After the early death of her mother, she had attended a boarding school in Florence and belonged to the Roman Catholic Church. Their son Harald Jr. was born in Kiel on October 19, 1918. On the occasion of his son's baptism, Harald Seligmann converted from the Jewish to the Catholic faith.

From January 1924, Harald Seligmann senior worked as a night porter at the "Vier Jahreszeiten" hotel in Hamburg. At the end of the 1920s, the family moved into an apartment at Schwanenwik 28, in 1931 Schwanenwik 29. Bianca Seligmann ran a small boarding house in Schwanenwik 29; no further details are known.

According to the "Nuremberg Race Laws", Harald Seligmann was considered Jewish because he came from a Jewish family. This meant that he belonged to the group of people who were systematically stigmatized, excluded and expelled in Germany after 1933. In particular people were deprived of their livelihoods. Harald Seligmann's dismissal as a night porter in March 1938, eight months before the pogrom night of November 1938, simply because he was Jewish, must have hit him and his family very hard. On the one hand, his dismissal and subsequent unemployment was a humiliation for a man with a military background who was a respected citizen even in nationalist circles. On the other hand, the family lost his income from then on.

His son Harald Seligmann Jr. was a member of the Hitler Youth until 1936. When it became known that he was the son of a Jew and therefore "half-Jewish", he was expelled. From 1925 to 1935, he attended a Catholic school, then the Oberrealschule in Hamburg-Uhlenhorst. He passed his examination (Abitur) in 1937, completed the compulsory six-month labor service in the same year and began studying chemistry at the Hanseatic University of Hamburg. His father's dismissal put his further studies into question for financial reasons. During this time, he took a part-time job as a laboratory technician at the Hamburg gasworks.

In this situation, Bianca Seligmann felt compelled to open a restaurant to enable her son to study and support the family. She was initially refused a license because she was married to a Jew. Instead, the authorities advised her to get a divorce within four months and promised that she would then be granted the license. Harald and Bianca Seligmann agreed to divorce for economic reasons.

They told the court about a broken marriage, for which Harald Seligmann took all the blame. The divorce pronounced on August 25, 1938 became legally binding on September 30, 1938. Bianca Seligmann took her maiden name "Dick" again. She received a license and opened a restaurant in Hamburg-St. Georg at Bremer Reihe 25. Many of the guests here were Italians - presumably because of Bianca Dick's Italian language skills and her Italian circle of acquaintances. She also moved into a small apartment there. Harald Seligmann stayed in the apartment at Schwanenwik 29 with his son.

After the divorce, the family remained in friendly contact - despite the ban. The divorced couple spoke on the phone every day and visited each other. This was soon reported to the police. Love affairs between non-"Aryans" and Jews were forbidden under the Nuremberg Laws and were considered "racial defilement"; the divorced couple were now accused of this. Harald Seligmann was arrested on March 6, 1939 - presumably at the instigation of the 23rd Commissariat of the Hamburg Criminal Investigation Department (K23), which was responsible for "racial defilement" cases. A so-called confession, it seems, was extorted until the statements fulfilled the elements of the crime of "racial defilement". The verdict of the 6th Grand Criminal Chamber of the Hamburg Regional Court on August 11, 1939 states accordingly: "The defendant initially denied any sexual intercourse with his former wife, but has now confessed."

The court sentenced him to two years in prison. Prison sentences were common in these trials. However, according to the verdict, the court mitigated the sentence due to the fact "that the defendant had only had unlawful relations with his former wife, to whom he had been married for 22 years".

For Bianca Dick, this conviction meant that she lost her license to run the restaurant and did not receive any state support for the following period. In addition, she and her son were from then on under special observation by the police.

Harald Seligmann was sent to the Fuhlsbüttel men's prison. His file there bore the word "Jew!" on the cover. In everyday life, this note meant additional hardships for the convict. He was isolated from his fellow prisoners and had to work as a "bag gluer".

At the beginning of his imprisonment in Fuhlsbüttel, the arrest of his son for "malice" (see below) caused him great concern, as can be seen from his letters. He had to apply for permission to write to his divorced wife, his son and his son's lawyer. He was granted permission for some letters. These were censored by the public prosecutor's office before being handed over to the post office. One of his letters to his son has been preserved:

Harald Seligmann's letter to his son, March 1940, excerpt (transcript without corrections):
"My dear good boy! If I only get around to answering your dear lines of February 11 today, you can rest assured that I was unfortunately unable to do so earlier. You can well imagine that your fate causes me much worry and sorrow, but I am equally convinced of your innocence, and so I thank you, my good boy, for your comforting words and your courage and trust in God with which you bear your undeserved fate."

Prison inmates were allowed to write letters at intervals of several weeks and receive a visit from a close family member. These procedures were documented in the prisoners' personal files. It is noteworthy that Bianca Dick received and used permission to visit her divorced husband several times. The last visit took place on May 9, 1940. She was subsequently forbidden to make further visits, presumably at the instigation of the public prosecutor's office. The son visited him every two months from October 1940, most recently on April 10, 1941. Harald Seligmann wrote letters to his son every month, in 1939 and early 1940 also to Bianca Dick. "Wife" is noted as the "recipient" in the file.

Harald Seligmann made intensive efforts for emigration after his release from prison, as far as he was able. He had already told the authorities in 1938 that he wanted to emigrate as soon as possible. According to the notes in his prison file, in 1940/41 he wrote to Jewish institutions in Berlin and Hamburg, to other people and organizations in Germany and abroad. On May 4, 1941, a few days before his release from prison, he asked for permission to write to his relative Hans Seligmann about his imminent release from prison on May 18 and his intended emigration. After his release, he intended to stay with Hans Seligmann, Lehmweg 9, and to organize his emigration. This request was refused.

It was already noted in the prisoner file that Harald Seligmann was not to be released directly to freedom after serving his sentence, but via the police, which in practice meant that he would be taken into "protective custody" by the Gestapo. On March 21, 1941, the Gestapo received notification of the imminent end of Seligmann's detention in the Fuhlsbüttel men's prison. Ultimately, however, it was the criminal investigation department (K23) that first committed him to the Fuhlsbüttel police prison (concentration camp = Kolafu) and then, on July 24, 1941, arranged for him to be transferred to the Neuengamme concentration camp. There he was assigned the prisoner number 5841.

Two letters to his son have survived from his imprisonment in Neuengamme concentration camp. In both letters, which were subject to strict censorship by the SS, he expresses his solidarity with "all my loved ones". The name "Bernhard" is mentioned several times; he was almost certainly referring to Bianca Seligmann. In particular, he asks for help in both letters, for example for warm winter clothing.

Letter from Harald Seligmann to his son, November 2, 1941 (copy without corrections):
"My l. g. [dear good] boy! Thank you very much for your l. [dear] typewritten letter! But I am very sad to hear nothing at all from home or from good Bernhard, how are things at home? What is Bernhard doing? How are all my loved ones? With regard to the winter clothes, my [good] boy, please pay close attention! Above all, the things are necessary to preserve your old father's health ..."

At the beginning of June 1942, Harald Seligmann was deported with 294 other prisoners because he was considered Jewish. Their destination was the state sanatorium and nursing home in Bernburg at river Saale, which functioned as a "euthanasia" killing center. The transport included a total of 113 Jewish as well as sick, unfit for work and presumably also politically unpopular concentration camp prisoners. The group was murdered with gas immediately upon arrival.

As early as June 5, 1942, SS-Unterscharführer Wilhelm Brake, who was in charge of the special registry office at Neuengamme concentration camp, began to enter the names of the dead into the death register one by one and in alphabetical order. The Neuengamme concentration camp was given as the place of death, as well as a fictitious natural cause of death. The work took almost a month for all those murdered. It took about three weeks to reach the letter "S". Harald Seligmann's details were recorded on June 26, 1942. On this day, he died allegedly of natural causes, namely tuberculosis of the lungs and intestines, in Neuengamme concentration camp. Thus the forgery. His actual date of death in Bernburg is not known.
Harald Seligmann was the victim of a Reich-wide murder operation "14f13" carried out by the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office responsible for the concentration camps.
(The combination of numbers and letters is made up of the number "14" for the inspector of the concentration camps, the letter "f" for deaths and the number "13" for the type of death). A total of around 20,000 concentration camp prisoners were murdered in "euthanasia" killing centers in 1941/1942 as part of this campaign.

Harald Seligmann's son and ex-wife were subject to further persecution:
On December 4, 1939, a few months after his father, Harald Seligmann Jr. was also arrested. This time it was the Gestapo who investigated the student. He was accused of "malice" (Heimtücke).

A former classmate from the school in Uhlenhorst, Albert Nippa, had denounced him. Harald Seligmann had made critical comments to him about National Socialism and the course of the war. He had anticipated the assassination attempt on Hitler in November 1939 (i.e. the attack carried out by Georg Elser on November 8, 1939) and had reacted with ironic disapproval when Nippa's NSDAP membership came to light unexpectedly. Albert Nippa had reported this to the political leader of his local NSDAP group. The Gestapo were then informed.

The arrest was followed by police interrogations, which certainly involved mistreatment in the town hall (Stadthaus) and in the Fuhlsbüttel police prison, then, on December 23, the 21-year-old was transferred to the remand prison on Holstenglacis and on March 15, 1940, he was sentenced to ten months in prison by the special Hanseatic City Court (Sondergericht), because the court did not believe his account of the conversations.

Harald Seligmann was initially sent to the Fuhlsbüttel men's prison to serve his sentence, and at times also to the Hahnöfersand and Glasmoor prisons. While serving his sentence, Harald Seligmann was visited five times, four times by his mother and once even by his imprisoned father and mother together. He was allowed to write five letters, all of which were addressed to his mother.

He was released from prison on October 15, 1940. The Gestapo did not arrange for his subsequent "protective custody" in a concentration camp; Harald Seligmann returned to the apartment at Schwanenwik 29, where his mother Bianca Dick also lived again.

At the beginning of November 1943, the criminal investigation department arrested Harald Seligmann, Bianka Dick and an Italian friend of the family, Antonio Ferrone, for alleged wartime economic offenses. Antonio Ferrone was a merchant, traded in textiles and had involved and thus supported Harald Seligmann and Bianka Dick in his activities. However, according to the accusation, Antonio Ferrone had not obtained a traveling salesman's license for 1943, meaning that the trade was illegal. The aim of this procedure was clearly to criminalize those arrested and deprive them of their livelihood. This is made clear by the further course of the proceedings. Harald Seligmann and Antonio Ferrone were released after a short police detention and the Hamburg district court sentenced both to minor penalties: on December 17, 1943, Antonio Ferrone received a fine of 200 RM, or 20 days in prison, for "unauthorized purchase of restricted products, price overruns". The sentence for Harald Seligmann was somewhat higher. The verdict of March 23, 1944, provided for a prison sentence of two months for "embezzlement in part [in unity] with exploitation of smoker's cards to which he was not entitled" - presumably on probation.

Bianca Dick, on the other hand, remained in prison for a longer period. She was also accused of war economy offenses in general, without this accusation playing a role in interrogations or during her imprisonment. In her case, there were no further investigations, no indictment by the public prosecutor's office and no verdict by the district court. She remained in custody for almost 1 ¼ years, finally in the women's prison in Arrath near Krefeld. She was released on January 27, 1945 and allowed to return to Hamburg.

Meanwhile, Harald Seligmann found a job as a chemist in a branch of the company Vitabio G.m.b.H., which produced herbal remedies. Antonio Ferrone worked in an armaments factory until mid-1944, as he could not work as a merchant without a traveling trade license. This job was probably assigned to him by the employment office. In mid-1944, he moved to the company Vitabio G.m.b.H.

On January 11, 1945, the Gestapo arrested both Harald Seligmann and Antonio Ferrone. They were accused of anti-state activities. On this occasion, they confiscated personal jewelry, valuables and cash. It raided Harald Seligmann's place of work and ordered the closure of the Vitabio G.m.b.H. branch. Both arrestees were interrogated in the Gestapo offices in the civil justice building on Sievekingplatz/Glacischaussee and severely ill-treated there and in the Fuhlsbüttel police prison.

The actual background to this arrest is unclear. The interrogations were mainly about a large sum of money that Antonio Ferrone had hidden for Harald Seligmann. The Gestapo abused both of them to the point of unconsciousness until the hiding place was finally revealed. There were no investigations into political offenses. On April 10, the Gestapo informed the Italian Consulate General that Antonio Ferrone was being held in custody on charges of anti-state activities and possession of weapons, but also that "his transfer to a court is not intended."

After Bianca Dick was released from prison on January 27, 1945, she learned that her son and the Italian friend had been arrested a fortnight earlier. She immediately appealed to the Gestapo for their release. There she was insulted and threatened with re-arrest. She was told that she would never see her son and her friend again. She also informed the Italian Consulate General of Antonio Ferrone's arrest, which then asked the Gestapo for information.

After learning in Fuhlsbüttel at the beginning of April 1945 that her son was no longer in custody there, she called the Gestapo again to find out his whereabouts. As a result, she was arrested again, briefly detained in Fuhlsbüttel and then transported to the Kiel prison camp. Like Antonio Ferrone, she also survived the ordeals of this prison camp and was formally released from prison in Kiel on May 2, 1945.

Antonio Ferrone was one of the approximately 800 prisoners who had to march on foot from the Fuhlsbüttel police prison to Kiel from April 12 to April 15, 1945, driven by members of the guards. Several men were shot on the way. The destination was a Gestapo penal camp on the outskirts of Kiel, which the Gestapo euphemistically referred to as the "Nordmark labor education camp" (Arbeitserziehungslager). In the last weeks of the war in particular, the prison and working conditions in this camp led to the deaths of hundreds of prisoners. Between the end of July 1944 and the end of the war, at least 578 prisoners died in this camp. However, Antonio Ferrone survived his imprisonment and was released on May 2, 1945.

The Gestapo had planned a different path for Harald Seligmann. He was transferred from Fuhlsbüttel police prison to Neuengamme concentration camp in mid-March 1945. He was registered there under prisoner number 78691. It is not known when and under what circumstances he died there. After the end of the war, his mother assumed that he died on May 3, 1945 during the evacuation of the concentration camp. The Hamburg district court declared him dead in 1947 and set May 8, 1945 as the date of his death, the end of the war.

Translated by Beate Meyer

Stand: November 2023
© Herbert Diercks/ Carmen Bisotti

Quellen: 1; 2; 4; 5; 8; Hamburger Adressbücher 1935-1937; StaHH 213-11_72289 bis 72292; StaHH, 213-11_58112; StaHH, 242-1 II_2746; StaHH, 331-1 II_7252; StaHH, 351-11 20746; StaHH, 351-11_28673, Bl. 62; StaHH, 352-6_5199; https://gedenkstaetten-sh.de/gedenkstaetten/gedenkort-arbeitserziehungslager-nordmark-10 (letzter Zugriff 15. November 2023); Arolsen Archives, https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/de/document/130641520 (letzter Zugriff 15. November 2023); Gedenkort "Arbeitserziehungslager Nordmark". Materialien, Fotos und Dokumente zu einer Haftstätte der schleswig-holsteinischen Gestapo in Kiel 1944–1945, überarb. u. erw. Neuauflage, hrsg. vom Arbeitskreis zur Erforschung des Nationalsozialismus in Schleswig-Holstein e. V., Kiel 2011; Hans Robinsohn: Justiz als politische Verfolgung. Die Rechtsprechung in "Rassenschandefällen" beim Landgericht Hamburg 1936–1943, Stuttgart 1977, S. 17; Christian Römmer: "Sonderbehandlung 14 f 13". Die Ermordung von Häftlingen des KZ Neuengamme in der Tötungsanstalt Bernburg, in: Ausgegrenzt. "Asoziale" und "Kriminelle" im nationalsozialistischen Lagersystem. Beiträge zur Geschichte der nationalsozialistischen Verfolgung in Norddeutschland, Heft 11, Bremen 2009, S. 209–211; Der Spiegel Nr. 32 / 3.8.1975; KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme, Totenbuch; Sonderstandesamt Neuengamme, Sterberegister.
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