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Alfred Henschel * 1869

Friedenstraße 41 (Wandsbek, Eilbek)

Gefängnis Blankenburg
ermordet 10.01.1944

Alfred Henschel, born on 8 Dec. 1869 in Berlin, died on 10 Feb. 1944 in Bad Blankenburg (Thuringia) in police custody

Friedenstrasse 41

Alfred Henschel was born in Berlin on 8 Dec. 1869 as the son of Jewish parents. They were the commercial clerk Carl Henschel, born on 28 Sept. 1842 in Brieg (today Brzeg in Poland) southeast of Breslau (Wroclaw), and Natalie, née Finkenstein, born on 20 Mar. 1844 in Breslau. Alfred Henschel had at least five siblings.

On 18 Sept. 1902, Alfred Henschel and the tailor Martha Mätcke, a Christian born on 16 Mar. 1875, were married in Hamburg. The marriage remained childless. The Henschel couple initially moved into an apartment at Schenkendorffstrasse 23 in Hamburg-Uhlenhorst and then, in 1910, changed to a spacious apartment at Friedenstrasse 43 in Hamburg-Eilbek. They lived there for 32 years until 1941.

In 1898, at the age of 29 years, Alfred Henschel had established an optician’s store called "Optisches Institut” at Bergstrasse 28 in Hamburg-Altstadt in the building of the former Belvedere Hotel.

When the hotel building was torn down in 1902, he relocated his business to Rathausstrasse 29. After their wedding, Martha Henschel also worked in her husband’s optician’s store, taking care specifically of bookkeeping. As early as 1905, yet another business relocation was scheduled. Now the business address was Bergstrasse 3 (vis-à-vis the entry to St. Petri Church).

In the volume entitled Buch der alten Firmen der Freien und Hansestadt Hamburg ("Book of the old companies of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg”), probably published in 1928, one can read, "Even today, the store is under the management of the founder and enjoys a good reputation and an old, valued circle of customers.”

The extent to which the optician’s store of the Henschel couple was affected by the discrimination of businesses owned by Jewish proprietors at the hands of the Nazis as early as 1933 does not emerge from the record. A fact documented, however, is the attempt by a competitor in 1934 to do damage to Alfred Henschel by referring to his Jewish descent. An optician who had opened a new store on Mönckebergstrasse near Bergstrasse 3 applied to the authorities for his license, pointing out that the owners of the two optician’s stores located nearest were "non-Aryans.” For Alfred Henschel, who was implied as well, consequences failed to materialize for the time being. However, by then at the latest, the administrative authorities took notice of him. Like other optician’s stores, Alfred Henschel sold eyeglasses to the needy, getting the cost reimbursed by the welfare agency. At the beginning of 1936, an employee of the economic department of the welfare office negotiated with the head of the craft guild for opticians and precision mechanics with the aim of excluding "non-Aryan” firms from supplying persons requiring welfare assistance. The eager employee of the welfare office was not aware of a decree by the Reich Ministry of Economics (Decree dated 4 Jan. 1935 – IV 23971/35), but the opticians’ guild was very much so. In this decree, the Reich Minster of Economics had prohibited any economic measure against "non-Aryan” businesses. Apparently, the directive had been issued because at that time, the stores owned by Jews were still needed to secure an adequate supply for the population. His attention having been drawn to the directive by the head of the craft guild for opticians and worried about having stuck out his neck too far, the shaken employee of the economic department of the welfare office tried to cover himself. Out of consideration for the fact that "the matter [was] a political one,” he requested guidelines for further action. However, for nearly two years, everything remained the same. Persisting, the same staff member undertook a new effort in early 1938 to have "non-Aryan” optician’s stores struck from the authorization list of the welfare office. He informed the head of the opticians’ craft guild by phone "that the intention is to exclude the three optical businesses [the reference was to Campbell & Co., Neuer Wall 30, S. Broches at Grindelallee 115, and Alfred Henschel] from supplying persons in need of assistance. [...] I mentioned in this context that it was not expedient to announce the exclusion to an extended circle of people.” The head of the opticians’ guild and NSDAP member Hermann Schönberg feared resistance from the employees of the three stores and demanded written instructions. Neither the welfare office nor what was then the Administration Office for Commerce, Shipping, and Industry (Verwaltung für Handel, Schiffahrt und Gewerbe) were prepared to provide them. The hesitant head of the opticians’ guild was summoned to the Administration Office for Commerce, Shipping, and Industry (Verwaltung für Handel, Schiffahrt und Gewerbe) and informed "about the correctness of the oral settlement of the case.” The aim was achieved. From then on, the companies of Campbell & Co., S. Broches, and Alfred Henschel were no longer allowed to supply persons needy of welfare assistance in return for reimbursement by the welfare office.

Alfred Henschel’s business was struck by another blow in connection with the Third Ordinance to the Reich Citizenship Law dated 14 June 1938, which ordered the compilation of public lists of all "Jewish business enterprises.” There were also considerations of "compelling the business enterprises entered in the list of Jewish business enterprises to bear a specific marking as of a date yet to be determined.”

Based on the "Decree on the Elimination of the Jews from German Economic Life” ("Verordnung zur Ausschaltung der Juden aus dem deutschen Wirtschaftsleben”) dated 12 Nov. 1938, Jews were "banned […] from running retail sales premises as of 1 Jan. 1939.” On the instruction of the head of the opticians’ guild, Schönberg, Alfred Henschel had to sell his store at Bergstrasse 3 to the member of the Nazi party Hermann Lau, Hamburg, Eidelstedter Weg 9 in a rush, after the business had been in his ownership for 40 years. Nothing was paid for the business (the company) itself, only for goods as well as the furniture and equipment. The price was forced down drastically. Supposedly, many items were of no interest to the purchaser. The buyer, Hermann Lau, recorded the furniture and equipment only in part and the merchandise far below their value due to alleged partial non-salability. However, from a fellow optician, Martha Henschel later learned that all of the goods were eventually sold in their entirety at full price, i.e., at a great profit. According to the bill of sale dated 23 Dec. 1938, the Henschel couple received for the furniture and equipment as well as the goods in stock 9,344.46 RM. Mrs. Henschel later indicated sales for the year 1938 to have been 22,000 RM.

After the loss of their business, the couple no longer had any income. Alfred Henschel was not allowed anymore to practice his profession as an optician. He now became permanently ill, both physically and mentally. Martha Henschel was under a severe psychological strain. The couple lived on the proceeds from the sale of the optician’s store and on Martha Henschel’s savings. Alfred Henschel received the reduced food ration cards for Jews. At that point, Martha Henschel shared her food rations her husband. She was starving to feed her sick husband, growing very thin down to a mere 78 pounds during this time. When the couple had to vacate the apartment at Friedenstrasse 43 in 1941, Martha Henschel sold the pieces of furniture that could no longer be put up in the new confined accommodation. She wrote in a subsequent report that they were "kept in agitation” by the Gestapo. Alfred Henschel reacted to the instances of discrimination with a strong nervous tic in his lower jaw. What protected him from deportation was the fact that Jewish partners, even in "non-privileged mixed marriages,” were still deferred for the time being.

On 24/25 July 1943, the Henschel couple was bombed out. Probably at this time, they were already committed to the "Jews’ house” ("Judenhaus”) at Heinrich-Barth-Strasse 17 in Hamburg-Rotherbaum. No longer finding any accommodation in Hamburg by that time, they traveled to one of Alfred Henschel’s brothers in Bad Blankenburg (Thuringia). On 9 Feb. 1944, two Weimar Gestapo officers – one by the name of Eisfeld – showed up and arrested Alfred Henschel while hurling incessant insults. They shouted that the Henschels were only guests in Germany and that the Jews would really have cause to get incensed soon. That Alfred Henschel was in for something in Weimar and that there was no need for him to take a suitcase and clothing along, only his identification card. Martha Henschel, too, was threatened with arrest because she asked for leniency for her sick husband.

Alfred Henschel was detained at the police station in Bad Blankenburg, Marktplatz 1. There he and his wife learned that on the next morning he was to be committed to the Buchenwald concentration camp. According to official information, Alfred Henschel took his own life on 10 Feb. 1944 at 6:15 in the morning.

Translator: Erwin Fink

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: October 2016
© Ingo Wille

Quellen: 1; 5; 9; AB; StaH 314-15 OFP Oberfinanzpräsident R 1939/6994; 332-5 Standesämter 2979-686/1902; 351-10 I Sozialbehörde I, WA 10.18; 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung 2719; Centrum Judaicum, Berlin, Archiv; Das Buch der alten Firmen der Freien und Hansestadt Hamburg, Leipzig, o. J.; Lohalm, Uwe, Fürsorge und Verfolgung, S. 18; Hamburger Tageblatt Nr. 161 vom 16.6.1938.
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