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Erich Lorenz * 1916

Marktstraße 40 (Hamburg-Mitte, St. Pauli)

HIER WOHNTE
ERICH LORENZ
JG. 1916
KZ NEUENGAMME 1943
ERMORDET

Erich Bernhard Lorenz, born on 23 Jan. 1916, detained in 1939, died probably on 3 May 1945 in the sinking of the Cap Arcona

Marktstrasse 40

Erich Lorenz ranks among the homosexuals whose fate can be reconstructed only in rough outline using prisoner file cards, since the criminal justice record was destroyed.

The Hamburg-born seaman, mess steward, and semi-skilled tailor Erich Lorenz got off the straight and narrow as a young adult. In the years 1937, 1938, and 1940, he was convicted on charges of larceny and dealing in stolen goods.

In 1939, he was caught in the clutches of the criminal investigation department for the first time because of "unnatural sexual offenses” ("widernatürliche Unzucht”). From 4 until 11 April, he was detained in the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp as a police "protective custody prisoner” ("Schutzhäftling”). In the aftermath, he was imprisoned in the Hamburg-Stadt pretrial detention center until 23 June 1939. On 30 Dec. 1940, the Hamburg Regional Court (Landgericht) sentenced him to a six-and-a-half-year term in prison with subsequent preventive detention and forfeit of civil rights for six years on charges of "sex offenses” in accordance with Sec. § 175 of the Reich Criminal Code (Reichsstrafgesetzbuch – RStGB), and of larceny.

On 18 Apr. 1941, he was transferred to the Lingen/Emsland prisoner camp. On 7 Jan. 1943, he was registered for the "Sipo” (Security Police) as a committal under prisoner number 13,711 in the Neuengamme concentration camp and deployed there as a bricklayer. According to a clue in a lab examination book of the concentration camp, he was still imprisoned there on 10 Dec. 1943. His "estate” in the shape of a dental crown is archived with the International Tracing Service in Bad Arolsen. Probably Erich Lorenz perished on 3 May 1945 during the sinking of the Cap Arcona.


Translator: Erwin Fink
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: March 2017
© Bernhard Rosenkranz/Ulf Bollmann

Quellen: StaH 213-8 Staatsanwaltschaft Oberlandesgericht – Verwaltung, Abl. 2, 451 a E 1, 1 d; StaH 242-1 II Gefängnisverwaltung II, Abl. 13 und 16; Bundesarchiv Berlin NS 3/1755, Hollerith-Vorkarteikarte des SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungs-Hauptamtes Amtsgruppe D. Konzentrationslager vom Sommer bis Herbst 1944.