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Otto Dietzsch * 1886

Sechslingspforte 5 (Hamburg-Nord, Hohenfelde)

KZ Sachsenhausen
ermordet 09.06.1940

Otto Dietzsch, born on 29 Dec. 1886 in Niederplanitz (District of Zwickau), died in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp on 9 June 1940

last residential address: Sechslingspforte 7

Otto Dietzsch was a cabinetmaker by trade and for a time, had a joint workshop with his fellow craftsman and German Community Party (KPD) comrade, Otto Bergmann (see biography on Bergmann). He was married to Anna, née Beese, and had three children with her. Probably because of his political activism, he was already sentenced for the first time on 6 Mar. 1933 by the Altona District Court (Amtsgericht) to two months in prison, which he served from 20 May to 20 July. Toward the end of that same year, he was again arrested and spent 14 months in pretrial detention before being sentenced by the "People’s Court” (Volksgerichtshof) to two years in prison for "preparation of high treason” on 11 Feb. 1935, a penalty he served in Hamburg until 11 Dec. 1935. In about 1937, he moved with his family from Frickestrasse in Eppendorf to Sechslingspforte 7, in the immediate neighborhood of Otto Bergmann. Probably in 1934/35, he had been detained together with the latter in the Fuhlsbüttel penitentiary.

In contrast to his comrade, Otto Dietzsch was unable to resume his resistance work at the beginning of the 1940s because he had already been arrested at the outbreak of war on 1 Sept. 1939. In this context, it is not known whether new criminal proceedings had been initiated against him. Initially, he was detained as a "protective custody prisoner” ("Schutzhäftling”) in the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp until 6 Sept. and then committed at an unknown date to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where he met his death on 9 June 1940. Since 2007, a Stolperstein for Otto Dietzsch is located at the site of his former residential building.

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

© Benedikt Behrens

Quellen: StaH 241-1 I Justizverwaltung I, 2911; StaH 213-8 Staatsanwaltschaft OLG – Verwaltung, Abl. 2 451 a E 1, 1d; StaH 242-1 II Gefängnisverwaltung II, Abl. 13; Schritfliche Mitteilung der Gedenkstätte Sachsenhausen, 2004; VAN, Totenliste Hamburger Widerstandskämpfer und Verfolgter 1933–1945, Hamburg 1968; AB 1933-40.