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Otto Noack * 1880

Stader Straße 320 (Harburg, Hausbruch)

HIER WOHNTE
OTTO NOACK
JG. 1880
KZ FLOSSENBÜRG
ERMORDET 25.6.1941

Otto Noack, b. 8.10.1880 in Szaken (County of Insterburg), killed in Flossenbürg concentration camp on 6.25.1941
Heimfeld quarter, Stader Strasse 320

The worker Otto Noack moved from East Prussia to Harburg. On 6 April 1919, he married Auguste Schiemann, b. On 9.10.1893 in Hamburg. They had a daughter, Mary Noack, born in Harburg on 12.15.1919. In addition, two children from Auguste’s first marriage lived with them: the apprentice Heinrich Tödter, b. 12.28.1911 in Harburg, and Hildegard Tödter, b. 9.26.1913 in Harburg. Otto Noack belonged to the German Social Democratic Party (SPD). Like his party-comrade Johannes Bremer, the family lived in the house at Grumbrechtstrasse 62. On 24 November 1927, they moved to Stader Strasse 320. The house no longer exists and must have stood somewhere under the present freeway bridge.

Otto Noack, actually a boiler man, worked from 1931 until his arrest as an inspector at the Mauser Works in Harburg at Seehafen 1.

On 13 March 1920, the Kapp Putsch broke out. During the night of 15 March the "Baltikumer" (a Freikorps unit active in the Baltic region), supporters of the putsch against the Republic, marched into Harburg under the command of Air Force Captain Rudolf Berthold. The Freikorps troop billeted in the Heimfelder school on Woellmerstrasse. The building was besieged partly by armed workers. After a violent exchange of fire, the "Baltikumer" had to surrender. The enraged mob lynched Captain Berthold (see Johannes Bremer). Among the besiegers were Otto Noack and Johannes Bremer. They were later charged for taking part in the killing of Berthold, which they denied. There were several trials, but nothing could be proved against them.

After Hitler’s coming to power, Johannes Bremer and Otto Noack were taken into custody on 10 May, and delivered into the Wetternstrasse police prison.

On 10 September 1933, Otto Noack went to the court prison on Buxtehuder Strasse. A new trial in the Captain Berthold affair was not even attempted. Instead, Noack was held in concentration camps from 9 October 1933 in Börgermoor concentration camp in Emsland; from April 1934 in the Esterwegen concentration camp. From there he wrote to his wife on 18 December 1934: that his life no longer had any value. "Put an end to this life," he said to himself, "for you have nothing left of it." In 1936, he reached the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. There the Harburg Communist Gustav Bergman met him. He reported that Otto Noack was so broken that he had scarcely any human traits left. The SS-guards made him wear an iron chain and forced him to run and bark like a dog.

Meanwhile, totally penniless, Otto Noack’s wife Auguste moved to the Hausbruch quarter. The National Socialists compelled her to get a divorce in order to get work in the public sector. She did so in 1939 and became a postal worker in Fischbek.

On 6 April 1940, Otto Noack was sent to the Flossenbürg concentration camp in Bavaria and registered as prisoner number 2539. He died there on 25 June 1941, allegedly from pneumonia in both lungs. The dead were incinerated in the camp’s own crematorium. After the war, the ashes strewn in the surrounding field were piled into a pyramid of ashes as a memorial site.

Since 1988, it is known as the Noack Gradient (in Langenbeker Feld).


Translator: Richard Levy

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: November 2017
© Hans-Joachim Meyer

Quellen: VVN-BdA Harburg (Hrsg.), Die anderen, s. Personenverzeichnis; StaH 351-11 AfW, Otto Noack; StaH 332-8 Meldewesen A 46; StaH 430-64 Amtsgericht Harburg II B 25; Sta Stade; Heyl/Maronde-Heyl, Abschlussbericht; Totenliste VAN; Auskunft der KZ-Gedenkstätte Flossenbürg vom 11.4.2011.