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© KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme
Karl Hermann Rüther * 1906
Krausestraße 79 (Hamburg-Nord, Dulsberg)
1937 Zuchthaus Fuhlsbüttel
ermordet 15.05.1937
further stumbling stones in Krausestraße 79:
Benno Hurwitz
Karl Hermann Heinrich Rüther, born on 5 June 1906 in Hamburg, perished in the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp on 15 May 1937
Krausestrasse 79 (Ahrensburger Strasse)
Karl Rüther was the son of Christian and Frieda Rüther, and he had a sister named Margarethe. In Hamburg, he learned the carpenter’s trade, working in the carpenter’s workshop run by Julius Lübker on Pilatuspool in Hamburg-Neustadt. In Nov. 1933, he married Elli Stockhusen (born in 1909), and the couple had a son, Hermann, who was born in Aug. 1936. By 1936 at the latest, the couple lived at Ahrensburger Strasse 79 in the Dulsberg quarter.
Karl Rüther belonged to the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the "Black, Red, and Gold Banner of the Reich” ("Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold”) since the 1920s; he was also actively involved as a "Samaritan” in the "Arbeiter-Samariter-Bund,” a charitable organization closely associated with the working-class movement. According to an account by the SPD in exile in its "Germany Reports” dated 1938, he was no longer politically active since 1932. However, shortly after the war, a former neighbor stated that just before his arrest, Rüther told him he was afraid of being apprehended in the coming days because of his "political ways of acting after 1933.” On 6 Apr. 1937 (some seven weeks before the arrest of his Dulsberg comrade Friedrich Dicke; see corresponding entry), "two or three plainclothes police officers” arrested him indeed, taking him immediately into "protective custody” ("Schutzhaft”) at the "Kola-Fu” (the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp). During his detention, he was indicted before the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court (Hanseatisches Oberlandesgericht) for "preparation to high treason” ("Vorbereitung zum Hochverrat”); however, no files concerning the proceedings exist anymore.
What happened to Karl Rüther during his nearly two-week imprisonment in the notorious "Kola-Fu” is not known in detail. His wife Elli was informed only after his death in detention that he had "hanged” himself in prison on Pentecost Saturday, 15 May 1937. Elli Rüther stated after the war that fellow prisoners of her husband had told her he had been "beaten to death” in the "Kola-Fu.”
After Karl Rüther’s death, his wife received only seven weeks of welfare assistance for herself and her small son Hermann, who already died in May 1940. For Karl Rüther, a Stolperstein is located in front of today’s building at Krausestrasse 79.
Translator: Erwin Fink
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.
Stand: October 2018
© Benedikt Behrens
Quellen: StaH 213-8 Staatsanwaltschaft OLG – Verwaltung, Abl. 2, 451 a E 1, 1b; StaH 351-11 AfW, 5127; StaH 332-5 Sterbegeneralregister, 49073; Diercks, Herbert, Gedenkbuch "Kola-Fu", Hamburg 1987, S. 37; VAN (Hrsg.), Totenliste Hamburger Widerstandskämpfer und Verfolgter 1933–1945, Hamburg 1968.
