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Robert Homeyer * 1908

Ehestorfer Weg 99 (Harburg, Eißendorf)

HIER WOHNTE
ROBERT HOMEYER
JG. 1908
IM WIDERSTAND
VERHAFTET 1942
KZ DACHAU
ERMORDET
12.8.1942

Robert Homeyer, born on 15 Oct. 1908 in Harburg, death in the Dachau concentration camp on 12 Aug. 1942

Eissendorf quarter, Ehestorfer Weg 99

The graphic artist Robert (Bob) Homeyer was the son of the tailor Gerhard Homeyer. His brother Paul was born on 2 Oct. 1906, also in Harburg. The family lived at Marienstrasse 73, and this was also the location of the father’s tailor’s shop (at least since 1914). As of 8 July 1937, Robert Homeyer lived at Ehestorfer Weg 99, then moving to Hamburg (Neustädter Strasse 29) in December and returning to Ehestorfer Weg 99 on 14 Mar. 1938. The same house was also the residence of Luise Homeyer, née Eberhardt, born on 27. Jan. 1871 in Herzfelde, Osterburg District (probably his mother). Another brother was Gerhard, born on 22 Aug. 1901 in Harburg, who lived with his parents, before going to Hamburg-Geesthacht in 1920.

From 1913 to 1921, Paul Homeyer attended the eight-grade elementary school (Volksschule) and then learned the trade of a ship’s carpenter at the G. Renck shipyard in the Harburg inland port. In 1925, he joined the German Young Communist League (Kommunistischer Jugendverband Deutschlands – KJVD) and in 1931 the German Communist Party (KPD). After the Reichstag fire on 27 Feb. 1933, the KPD was broken up and many of its functionaries and members were put in prison or the first concentration camps. The brothers Paul and Robert Homeyer made themselves available for the illegal work of the KPD. Leading members in Harburg at the time were, among others, Berthold Bormann and Paul Oeltzner. In Harburg, banned issues of the KPD’s Norddeutsche Zeitung were printed and distributed. The first issue appeared as early as Mar. 1933, and the anniversary of the Russian October Revolution in November saw the publication of the 22nd issue already. The copying machine was located in a back room of the house at Winsener Strasse 51 (later, this place accommodated a lending library), and police never discovered the room. Robert Homeyer had designed the paper’s nameplate.

On 21 June 1933, Robert Homeyer was arrested, committed to the Harburg court prison on Buxtehuder Strasse and released again on 23 Dec. After the wave of arrests extending to Harburg, Winsen, and Lüneburg, in Oct. 1933 a new illegal Harburg-Wilhelmsburg KPD subdistrict leadership was built up under the direction of Erich Meyer (political leader). Staff members were Gustav Martens (organization), Otto Nehring (agitation and propaganda), and Heinrich Herrmann (collection of funds). The subdistrict leadership was active not only in the city but also in rural areas such as Neugraben, Buxtehude, Jork, and Maschen. Robert and Paul Homeyer continued to participate in this work.

The organization pulled off a spectacular operation at Easter of 1934. Members mailed greeting cards of the Young Communist League to school graduates in Harburg. They had taken the names from the lists of confirmands. The front of the cards featured a linocut crafted by Robert Homeyer, with the caption reading "Our salute toward the battle for a better existence!” In addition to Emil Eddelbüttel and Georg Opfer, Paul Homeyer took care of distributing the illegal Norddeutsche Zeitung, later called the Arbeiterzeitung, and other materials. Paul Homeyer continued to work on the Harburg-based G. Renck shipyard and lived rent-free with his parents at Marienstrasse 73. He was unmarried and childless. In 1934, he was dismissed because of an alleged shortage of work. He then found a new job as a farmhand on the Haidhöh Estate in Emmelndorf, also moving there.

In the summer of 1934, a new wave of arrests against the illegal KPD in Harburg and vicinity took place. On 6 Aug. 1934, Paul Homeyer was arrested on the Haidhöh Estate and was imprisoned, as were many others, in the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp (so-called "Kola-Fu”), later in the Altona pretrial detention center. His brother Robert was left alone. In eleven trials overall, the Third Criminal Senate” (3. Strafsenat) of the Berlin Court of Appeal (Kammergericht Berlin) tried cases on location partially in Altona, partially in Stade against the Communist resistance in the spring of 1935, in eight of them regarding charges against the Harburg-Wilhelmsburg subdistrict. Paul Homeyer was charged together with the political leader Erich Meyer (Indictment A) and the Berlin Court of Appeal sentenced him to three and a half years penitentiary for "preparation to high treason” ("Vorbereitung zum Hochverrat”) on 26 Feb. 1935. He served his sentence partly in the penitentiary and partly in the Emsland camps.

After serving his sentence, he was not released but imprisoned in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp on 5 Feb. 1938. In the last years of the war, he belonged to a labor battalion in Berlin-Lichterfelde. After the evacuation of the concentration camp on 21 Apr. 1945, he had to set out on a death march with other inmates in the direction of Lübeck. Just before reaching Schwerin, he was liberated by US troops. After the war, he worked in his trade again at the Renck shipyard, got organized politically in the KPD, and lived at Meisenweg 2 (today Flutende).

In 1935, the new illegal Harburg-Wilhelmsburg KPD subdistrict leadership was formed under the political leader Felix Plewa. Via couriers, it was supplied by the Section Leadership North (Abschnittsleitung Nord) of the KPD in Copenhagen with materials (see corresponding entry on Felix Plewa). The organization had rebuilt cells in Harburg companies and residential neighborhoods. Robert Homeyer worked together with Ernst Klink in the Eissendorf cell. In the fall of 1937, Paul Reinke and a few other Communists were arrested. However, these remained isolated instances. The Gestapo was aware of the illegal organization but did not know how to "unravel” it because the arrested Communists "kept their mouths shut.” After the outbreak of World War II, Ella and Oskar Reincke, who lived in the Veddel quarter, headed the illegal work in Harburg.

When the German Wehrmacht occupied Denmark in Apr. 1940, several members and contacts of the KPD’s former Section Leadership North were tracked down and arrested by the Gestapo in 1941. The wave of arrests also reached Harburg. In 1941 and 1942, Felix Plewa and Emma Quest were arrested, among others. Robert Homeyer was detained in the Fuhlsbüttel Gestapo prison on 26 Sept. 1941. From there, he was transported to the Neuengamme concentration camp on 28 May 1942. On 15 June 1942, a transport comprised of 500 prisoners primarily with serious illnesses left Neuengamme for the Dachau concentration camp. Robert Homeyer was among them. He died in the Dachau concentration camp on 12 Aug. 1942.

Translator: Erwin Fink

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: October 2016
© Hans-Joachim Meyer

Quellen: VVN-BdA Harburg (Hrsg.), Die anderen, s. Personenverzeichnis; Hochmuth/Meyer, Streiflichter, S. 185f.; StaH, 242-1-II Gefängnisverwaltung; StaH, 332-8 Meldewesen, A44, A46; StaH, 351-11, AfW, Paul Homeyer; StaH, 430-64 Amtsgericht Hamburg II B 25; StaH, Adressbücher Harburg-Wilhelmsburg und Hamburg; Sta Stade, Rep. 175a; VVN, Komitee-Akten; Anklageschrift Erich Meyer u. a., Privatbesitz; Heyl/ Maronde-Heyl, Abschlussbericht; Totenliste VAN, Gedenkstätte KZ Neuengamme, Gedenkstätte KZ Dachau.