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Hermann Otto Hampel * 1888

Osterbrook 5 (Hamburg-Mitte, Hamm)

HIER WOHNTE
HERMANN OTTO
HAMPEL
JG. 1888
VERHAFTET
KZ FUHLSBÜTTEL
ERMORDET 3.5.1935

Hermann Otto Hampel, born 28 June 1888, date of death 3 May 1935, Fuhlsbüttel Concentration Camp

In 1921, Otto Hampel became the full-time secretary of the Straßfurt chapter of the German Metalworkers’ Union. He was born in Straßfurt, in the Halle Province, on 29 June 1888, attended school there until the 8th grade, and then did a three-year apprenticeship as a metalworker. He worked as a metalworker and fitter until he was called to serve in the military in 1914. In 1916 he went to work in a munition factory. After the First World War he again worked as a metalworker, until his appointment as union secretary.

Otto Hampel married Frieda George (*19 January 1890) in Straßfurt on 5 July 1910. Their first daughter, Frieda Erna, had been born 14 days earlier. Their second daughter, Frieda, was born on 2 September 1911. Like her husband, Frieda Hampel joined the SPD (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, Social Democratic Party of Germany).

As a leading functionary of the SPD in a small town, Otto Hampel was in more danger than his colleagues in larger cities after the Nazis came to power. He and his family thus fled to Hamburg in 1933. The German Metalworkers’ Union had removed him from his position in March 1933 on grounds of his "subversive opinions.” In Hamburg he was unable to find work and for some months he didn’t receive unemployment benefits, even though he was registered as unemployed. His son-in-law Carl Huth supported him financially. From December 1933 until February 1935 he received 17 Reichsmarks per week in unemployment benefits.

On the night of 21 February 1935 the Gestapo stormed his apartment and took him to the Fuhlsbüttel Concentration Camp. He was found dead in his cell ten days later, on 3 May. The reason for his arrest is unkown.

Frieda Hampel lived in Hamburg-Horn until her death on 24 March 1960.

Translator: Amy Lee

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: October 2016
© Hildegard Thevs

Quellen: Gedenkbuch Kola-Fu. Erstellt von Herbert Diercks, hrsg. KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme 1987; AfW 280688.