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Friedrich Kaefer * 1920

Holzdamm 42 (Hamburg-Mitte, St. Georg)

1942 Haft Brandenburg-Görden
enthauptet 26.09.1942

further stumbling stones in Holzdamm 42:
Emma Kalek

Friedrich Kaefer, born on 28 Jan. 1920 in Berlin, executed in the Brandenburg-Görden penitentiary because of desertion on 26 Sept. 1942

last residential address: Holzdamm 42

Friedrich Kaefer was born in Berlin in 1920. He was the son of Friedrich Kaefer and his wife Margarete, née Stern. He grew up with his mother and his grandmother, Maria Stern, initially in Schwerin and, after the family moved, in Hamburg. At the end of the 1930s, he began studying music at the Hamburger Neues Konservatorium, a conservatory, joining a swing club [social gatherings of the pro-American and Western lifestyle "Swing Youth” in Germany, whom the Nazis persecuted] during his studies. Possibly, he was arrested because of his membership in the club in Mar. 1939, since the lists of "protective custody prisoners” ("Schutzhäftlinge”) of the Fuhlsbüttel police prison show a Friedrich Kaefer, detained there on the orders of the State Criminal Investigation Department, K Office (Staatliche Kriminalpolizei, Abteilung K) from 27 to 31 March, though being released after only four days.

In May 1940, Friedrich Kaefer was enlisted to work in the Reich Labor Service and on 15 Aug. 1940 drafted for military duty in the 13th Cavalry Regiment in Lüneburg, from which he probably deserted already soon afterward. Following this, he went underground, certainly maintaining contact with his family and friends by letter but staying at different places in Germany until his arrest. Even when wanted by police and leading an underground life, he nevertheless sought to help other persecuted persons. For a female Jewish acquaintance, he obtained counterfeit identity documents, including proof of ancestry (Ahnenpass), for which a Hamburg girlfriend sent him a blank form.

Eventually, he was arrested in a Berlin waiting room and sentenced to death for desertion by the field court martial of the Berlin Military Headquarters on 13 Aug. 1942. He was decapitated in the Brandenburg-Görden penitentiary at the age of 22. Since 1946, his urn is in the Memorial Grove for Hamburg Resistance Fighters (Ehrenhain der Hamburger Widerstandskämpfer) on Ohlsdorf Cemetery. A Stolperstein for him is located at Holzdamm 42.

Translator: Erwin Fink

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: October 2016
© Benedikt Behrens

Quellen: StaH 213-8 Staatsanwaltschaft OLG, Verwaltung, Abl. 2, 451 a E I, 1d; VAN (Hg.), Totenliste Hamburger Widerstandskämpfer und Verfolgter, Hamburg 1968; Hochmuth, Ursel, Niemand und nichts wird vergessen. Biogramme und Briefe Hamburger Widerstandskämpfer 1933–1945, Hamburg 2005.