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Otto Peters * 1918
Falkenried 99 (Hamburg-Nord, Hoheluft-Ost)
Zuchthaus Brandenburg-Görden
enthauptet 17.04.1944
Otto Peters, born 4/16/1918 in Elpersbüttel, executed 4/17/1944 at Brandenburg-Görden prison
Falkenried 99
Peter Otto Hinrich Peters was the son of a Dithmarschen farmer’s family, born April 16th, 1918 at his parents’ farm in Elpersbüttel near Meldorf, Deichstrasse 10, and grew up there. His father was Peter Nicolaus Emil Peters (02/19/1884–11/18/1964), his mother Anne Mathilde Peters, née Bergfleth (04/26/1892–08/31/1964), daughter of a peasant from the neighboring village of Eescherdeich.
The Nazi rule brought endless grief over the Peters family. Four sons were killed in the war: Ferdinand on January 25th, 1942 in the Crimea, Emil on September 9th, 1943 at Lake Ilmen in Russia, Wilhelm on January 15th, 1945 and Julius on February 5th, 1945, both at the Eastern Front delivered to inexorable annihilation.
Otto, who is commemorated by the Stumbling Stone in the street named Falkenried, was beheaded in Brandenburg on April 17th, 1944, one day after his 26th birthday.
1942, 1943, 1944, 1945 – no year without a casualty in the Peters family, two alone in the last months of the war. By initiative of the "Committee of Former Political Prisoners”, Otto’s urn rests in the Grove of Honor of the Hamburg Resistance Fighters at Ohlsdorf Cemetery. To this day, it is not documented why Otto was indicted and executed. Some authors and organizations like the VVN (the Association of the Persecuted of the Nazi Regime), link him to the Communist party KPD and preparation of high treason. However, another reason, maybe a conviction of desertion, cannot be excluded, and some indicators make this seem likely.
Next to nothing personal is known about Otto’s years in the Wehrmacht. The preserved documents of his military service are fragmentary, some information in his records is downright confusing (more about this later). In addition, by a mishap, all of Otto Peters’ written legacy, e.g. his letters from the war and all personal documents, which his parents had always kept safe, were irrevocably lost after their death.
The Peters’ farm with its 17 hectares of land was an average-sized establishment for its time, with a traditional mix of crops, i.e. grain and beets, red and white cabbage, six to eight cows, a couple of pigs and oxen, three or four draft horses and a small flock of geese, ducks and chickens, the latter mainly for subsistence. Moreover, there was an orchard and a vegetable garden. The machinery was quite modest, also typical for the age, comprising only the basic equipment such as plows and harrows, and the essential carts and wagons. With his neighbor Emil Busch, Emil Peters shared a combined reaper and grain binder.
A family couldn’t live in clover from such a farm at the time, but without financial worries, if the business was well run and everybody pitched in. The farmer Emil Peters was such an energetic man. From 1931 to 1951, with a short interruption right after the war, he was also burgomaster of the Community of Elpersbüttel, and part of the time also Chief of the Presbytery of the church community Meldorf-Marsch – an impressive personality.
Not to forget the farmer’s wife, Anna Mathilde Peters! She was, as they still tell you in Elpersbüttel, an extremely stalwart and diligent woman. Her day’s work started at 4:00 in the morning, and most of the time she was the last to put out the light in the evening. And this for decades.
Mother Peters gave birth to twelve children. Two of them died shortly after birth, but ten thrived and grew up, one girl and nine boys. Life was exuberant at the Peters’ farm, for many years.
Otto Hinrich Peters, born in 1918 was seventh in the row of children. Three more boys followed him, the last being a pair of twins in 1929, Paul und Kurt. Kurt still lives on the farm with his wife today (2012), but has passed on the operation to his son.
Kurt still keeps Otto in fond and vivid memory, still impressed by his big brother’s "unshakeable benevolence” to the little twins and their pranks that always came as a double act. He will never forget Otto’s physical strength: only of medium stature, but stout and wiry, he would lug the sack of bran weighing 100 kilos up the steep ladder to the attic on his back, apparently without evening noticing that the twins had quickly climbed on top of it. Apparently? "Only seemingly! My brother Otto had such good humor!”
Kurt is still impressed by Otto’s talent at handling animals. Even the stubborn cow who refused to obey anyone else – for Otto, she turned into a gentle lamb. So much for Kurt’s memory of his dead brother.
At the Elpersbüttel village school, Otto excelled less. During the nine years from Easter 1924 to Easter 1934, the grades he earned in the various subjects were always ”average. C.” Diligence and attentiveness were considered "generally good”; his conduct was always impeccable. Only in the eighth-grade report card, the teacher rated Otto’s behavior merely as "good.”
Otto had made up his mind early in life that he wanted to become a farmer. So, immediately after finishing school in 1934, he "took a job” at another farm, at Thiessen’s in Elpersbüttelerdonn. That was just a few kilometers away from home, but Otto was homesick and walked to his parents’ place after work as often as possible, so he could at least sleep at home. Getting up before dawn, he hurried back to his job at Thiessen’s. You could rely on Otto.
We know little about Otto’s before the beginning of the war. An undated portrait photograph shows him in a storm trooper’s uniform; the collar patches identify him as a member of detachment 85 "Dithmarschen”, his rank that of a Sturmmann, one above the entry rank, the simple storm trooper. When and why did Otto join the organization – perhaps because it was quite common in the Dithmarschen region or if his father, NSDAP member and burgomaster, wanted it, and what did his SA membership mean to him? We don’t know.
From November 1938 until April 1939, he served his six months’ duty with the Reichsarbeitsdienst, the state labor service (RAD), where he was deployed for land reclamation on the west coast of Schleswig-Holstein.
Some basic official data about Otto’s military career is preserved: he was drafted into the Wehrmacht on August 26th, six days before the beginning of the war and aged 21, and was first stationed in Itzehoe with the infantry replacement battalion 76. In the following years, his assignment to units and the posts where he was stationed changed continuously. Ten different units are recorded only up to the end of 1942, always with the replacement infantry, and eight different posts. This rapid change reflects the need to continuously reorganize the Wehrmacht during the rapidly expanding war that became ever more complex. From Itzehoe, he was transferred to Hamburg-Wandsbek, from there to Harburg, then to the mouth of the Schelde River in only partially occupied Belgium. A deployment with the Heimatpferdepark X ("home horse park”) a veterinary unit, followed, first in Lüneburg, then in Lübeck. On February 5th, 1942, he was sent to Arys in East Prussia/Masuria, an important military training ground founded in 1891 and already used for staging actions against Poland and Russia in World War I.
Already at the end of February, Otto was stationed with the butchering company 552, part of the supply organization, near Dno in Russia. This small town, about 300 km south of Leningrad (St. Petersburg) and 100 km west of Lake Ilmen, is situated at the intersection of several strategically important railway lines and was fiercely fought over. In a way, Otto Peters was lucky when he was admitted to the military hospital on March 3rd , 1942 after his left foot had suffered severe frostbite in the terrible cold, and stayed until July 8th, 1942. After having been transferred home for further treatment, he was now posted in Düsseldorf and, promoted to Oberschütze (first rifleman) in December 1942, assigned to the fusilier replacement battalion 39 in Goch on the lower Rhine. That was Otto Peters’ last unit and last post.
The last entry in his military record reads: "Executed in Brandenburg-Görden on 04/17/1944 according to report from the Army Central Court in Berlin-Charlottenburg of 4/19/1944.” Neither date nor reason for the death sentence are given.
It is documented, however, that the "former fusilier” Otto Peters was sentenced to death by beheading on April 12th, 1944 by the Court of the Wehrmacht Berlin Command in Lehrter Strasse.” It is also assured that in the early morning of April 17th, a Monday, Otto was taken from the Wehrmacht remand jail in Berlin-Tegel to Brandenburg-Görden. At 11:00 a.m., the execution of the death sentence was announced to him, and that he was guillotined at 1:06 p.m. The executioner was Wilhelm Röttger, one of the busiest and experienced executioners of the Third Reich. Kriegsgerichtsrat Then conducted the procedure, with Army Justice Inspector Fislake assisting him in his administrative activity.
The Military Court in Lehrter Strasse had sent two other soldiers to Brandenburg together with Otto Peters: The "former rider” Robert Zapf and the "former fusilier” Johann Obertanner. Other Berlin military courts and one in Frankfurt/Oder sent a total of 14 more "former soldiers” to be executed on that same day. The Supreme Reich Prosecutor at the Volksgerichtshof ("People’s Court”) Berlin topped every one of his colleagues at the courts-martial: He alone delivered thirteen men to be killed.
The administration of Brandenburg-Görden prison counted the names on the list from Berlin and at the bottom penciled a round number in clear large characters: 30.
The Brandenburg execution records for April 17th, 1944 reveal that that meant work in two-minute cycles for Röttger and his three assistants. It is documented that, on some days, the condemned had to queue so that everything could be done as quickly as possible. According to reliable sources, Röttger was always in a hurry to get home to his family in Berlin-Moabit and keen on catching his train. At the Prison in Berlin-Plötzensee, the center of his activities, Röttger got a bonus of 30 Reichsmarks "per head” on top of his annual salary of 3,000 RM.
But what "crime” had Otto Peters actually committed?
Almost all the records of the persons sentenced to death and executed by the courts martial are lost, as are those of Otto Peters: the army archive / collective depot for court martial records at Hans-von -Seeckt-Strasse 8 in Potsdam was bombed on April 14th, 1945 and burned down almost completely.
However, there are some indications that Otto Peters might have been guilty of a military crime: he was sentenced by a military tribunal, and was detained at the Wehrmacht remand jail (WUG) in Berlin-Tegel. Unfortunately, no documents pertaining to Otto Peters are preserved in Tegel, e.g. in the register of prisoners, neither is there a record of his transport from Tegel to Brandenburg.
Another factor contributing to the uncertainty is the fact that the Nazi military justice system was being reorganized in April 1944, the time of the proceedings against Peters. From April 20th, 1942, the military court of the Wehrmacht Berlin Command was responsible for all political cases in the Replacement Army, to which Otto Peters belonged. In addition, it was in charge of deserters, whose cases automatically were referred there from the military courts of other districts when the suspects had been searched for for more than three months, as well as for all deserters apprehended in the Berlin military district. (Otto’s brother Kurt is certain to have read a letter to his parents from a parson reporting that Otto had been arrested near Berlin.)
The central court of the army in Berlin-Charlottenburg was founded on April 11th, 1944, and started operations the next day. From then on, it was alone in charge of all political offenses of members of the Wehrmacht, e.g. also for "preparation of high treason.” The prosecution of deserters, however, stayed in the responsibility of the Wehrmacht district courts.
Exactly in those days, around April 12th, the court of the Wehrmacht Berlin Command handed down its sentence against Otto Peters. Was this a political case that just had not yet been referred to the Army Central Court, or was it an issue falling under the new, restricted responsibility of the command, i.e. a case of absence without leave, also regarded as a capital crime?
We do not know.
None of the relevant departments of the German Federal Archive (e.g. the Military Archive in Freiburg) have documents that might help to clear this issue; neither was anything found in the collections of the former archive at the Institute for Marxism-Leninism in Berlin, that was taken over by the Federal Archive after the demise of the GDR and has been completely explored. The same applies to the archive of the parties and mass organizations of the GDR (SAMPO). Neither did queries to the "German Agency for Notification of the Next of Kin of Members of the Former German Wehrmacht” in Berlin (WAST), the Main State Archive of Brandenburg or the Main State Archive of Berlin.
Nor is there any mention of Otto Peters in the monumental, comprehensive work Widerstand als Hochverrat 1933–1945 ("Resistance as High Treason”), where thousands of cases of high treason are documented.
The Ehrenbuch für die im Zuchthaus Brandenburg-Görden ermordeten Antifaschisten ("Book of Honor for the Antifascists Murdered at Brandenburg-Görden Prison”) does list Otto Peters: "Indictment for preparation of high treason/KPD Hamburg; sentenced to death for antifascist activity”, with reference to Alois Eisenhändler’s Antifaschistische Gedenk- und Terminkalender ("Antifascist Memorial Calendars”) for 1979 and 1984 (Berlin, GDR). Eisenhändler, however, principally gives no sources, and the editors of these calendars, respectively their successors, the VVN-BdA in Berlin, have no further knowledge.
The last entry in Otto’s military record gives reason to ponder: it reads that the Central Court of the Army in Berlin-Charlottenburg had informed his unit about the execution. Why did not the Court of the Military Command that had sentenced him to death and ordered his execution at Brandenburg prison do this?
False data and disinformation in some documents additionally contribute to the ambiguities regarding the life and death of Otto Peters.
Thus, since being drafted into the Wehrmacht in September 1939, Otto never gave the Peters’ farm in Elpersbüttel as his home address, but always Horst-Wessel-Strasse 52 in Meldorf (now Marner Strasse / Jungfernstieg). However, there was no entry for him in the register – his actual address was always with his parents at the farm. Otto’s brother Kurt has no explanation for the discrepancy.
Of all things, Otto’s death certificate of April 19th, 1944 contains irritating faults. His place of birth is given as Hamburg, and Hamburg was supposed to be his parents’ current place of residence. Both is wrong.
The address Otto-Blöcker-Strasse only appears in his death certificate, the street today called Falkenried. In spite of extensive research, this could be neither confirmed nor proved as false. There are one or two years when Otto might have been in Hamburg, i.e. after his sojourn at the Thiessen farm and before he served with the RAD, around 1937/1938.
In the death certificate, his profession is given as Fleischer – butcher. This is doubtful, as Otto had absolved training as a farmer at Thiessen’s in Elpersbüttelerdonn. Kurt Peters never heard of his brother absolving an apprenticeship as a butcher. The fact that Otto was an expert with animals and served in logistic units involved in supplying meat, e.g. the butchering company 552, might explain this.
However, the question remains: where and who is the source of this information? Are the faults simple mistakes that occurred in some office? Or did Otto Peters intentionally give false information? But why should he have? Being involved in illegal political activities or maintaining dangerous contacts or connections might be the reason he could have tried to cover up the ties to his family.
Sippenhaft – clan liability, the persecution and harassment of uninvolved, innocent family members was a dreaded instrument of the Nazi regime. In addition, the daily and nightly activities of the Gestapo and the SS made sure that everybody was well aware of this.
Preparation of high treason? In 1944, any skeptical or critical sentence could be interpreted as an attack on the State that warranted the death penalty:
Desertion? This; too, was rated as a capital crime. A great amount of courage, truly heroic courage was needed to say NO and refuse to further take part in the criminal madness.
It is sad and bitter that even today many Germans consider men who deserted from the Nazi army as traitors, or at least as questionable characters.
For whatever reason Otto Peters was sentenced to death and killed, as a traitor, deserter, saboteur of military morale, or for refusing to obey orders, he deserves, also as a representative of many others, a grave in the Grove of Honor.
His mother too, Anna Mathilde Peters, should be kept in honorable memory.
She was deprived of five sons.
She committed suicide on August 31st, 1946.
Emil Peters, Otto’s father, died only a few months later, on November 18th.
Translated by Peter Hubschmid
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.
Stand: February 2018
© Johannes Grossmann
Quellen: Auskünfte von Peter Busch, Archiv Elpersbüttel, März bis September 2012; Auskünfte von Kurt Peters, Elpersbüttel, 31.03.2012; Peter Busch, Der Petershof in Elpersbüttel, unveröffentlichtes Manuskript, 2011; Geburtsurkunde von Peter Otto Hinrich Peters, Standesamt Süder-Meldorf, Nr. 4/1918; Sterbeurkunde Otto Peters, Standesamt Brandenburg (Havel), 1944 /908; Meldekartei Otto Peters, Amt Mittel-Dithmarschen, Meldorf, o.J.; Archiv Grundschule/Volksschule Elpersbüttel, Jahrgänge 1926-1934; Adressbücher Hamburg 1935 -1944; Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam, Rep. 29 Zuchthaus Brandenburg, Gen. Nr. 101; Deutsche Dienststelle (WAST), Berlin, 19.03.2012, Tages-Truppenmeldungen zu Otto Peters; Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv, Freiburg, Mitteilung vom 9.02.2012; Bundesarchiv Berlin, VVN-Hinrichtungsverzeichnis, DY 56/V 287/978; Bundesarchiv Berlin, Mitteilung vom 25.05.2012; Bundsarchiv-Koblenz, Mitteilung vom 16.05.2012; Landesarchiv Berlin, Mitteilung vom 6.06.2012; Staatsarchiv Hamburg, Mitteilung vom 20.12.2011;Yvonne Dörschel, Stiftung Brandenburgische Gedenkstätten/Dokumentationsstelle Brandenburg, e-Mail-Korrespondenz, 11.11.2011 bis 7.10.2012; Detlef Garbe, KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme, e-Mail vom 9.05.2012; Friedhof Ohlsdorf/Hamburg, Auskunft vom 8.05.2012; Krematorium Brandenburg (Havel), Auskunft vom 16.05.2012; Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand Berlin, Mitteilung vom 7.01.2012; Topographie des Terrors, Berlin, Mitteilung vom 11.05.2012; Ursel Hochmuth, Niemand und nichts wird vergessen, VSA-Verlag Hamburg, hrsg. von der VVN-BdA, Hamburg 2005, S. 102 f; Gespräch mit Ursula Hochmuth/Hamburg, 24.04.2012; Hamburger Volkszeitung, 31.08.1946, "Die Urnen der Konzentrationäre"; Alois Eisenhändler, Antifaschistischer Gedenk- und Terminkalender, hrsg. vom Komitee der Antifaschistischen Widerstandskämpfer der DDR, Zentralleitung, Berlin, Jahrgang 1979, S. 57 sowie 1984, Band II, S. 60; "Ehrenbuch für die im Zuchthaus Brandenburg-Görden ermordeten Antifaschisten", im Auftrag der ehemaligen politischen Gefangenen des faschistischen Zuchthauses Brandenburg-Görden bearbeitet von Rudolf Zimmermann, Eigenverlag, o.O.1986, Band 5, S. 71; Widerstand als "Hochverrat" 1933-1945, Texte und Materialien zur Zeitgeschichte, hrsg. vom Institut für Zeitgeschichte München, Band 7, Erschließungsband zur Mikrofiche-Edition, Verlag Saur, München 1998; VVN- BdA Hamburg, Auskunft vom 22.03.2012; VVN-BdA Berlin, Auskunft vom 19.09.2012; Manfred Messerschmidt, Die Wehrmachtjustiz 1933-1945, Paderborn 2005, S. 134 ff; Fritz Wüllner, Die NS-Militärjustiz, Baden-Baden 1991, S.132 ff; Martin Schnackenberg, Ich wollte keine Heldentaten mehr vollbringen/Wehrmachtsdeserteure im II. Weltkrieg, Oldenburg 1997; http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm Röttger, Stand 1.09.2012; http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zentralgericht_des_Heeres, Stand 9.10.2011; http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Rangabzeichen-SA.png, Stand 6.02.2012;
