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Stolpertonstein
Sprecherin: Constanze Semidei
Biografie: Klaus Möller
;)
© Gedenkstätte Neuengamme
Elisabeth Lange * 1900
Hoppenstedtstraße 76 (Harburg, Eißendorf)
KZ Fuhlsbüttel
in den Tod getrieben 28.1.44
Elisabeth Lange, née Höppner, born 7 July 1900 in Detmold, died 28 Jan. 1944 in the Fuhlsbüttel Concentration Camp
Hamburg-Eißendorf, Hoppenstedtstraße 76
Elisabeth Lange’s parents, Anton and Luise Höppner, were originally from Thuringia and Berlin, respectively. After they married in 1890, they moved to Detmold, where they opened a wool factory. Their children spent a part of their early childhood in a childcare institution run by nuns.
In 1921, Elisabeth Höppner married Friedrich Wilhelm Obenhaus, a tax accountant. Their son Karl-Friedrich was born on 1 November 1921 in Geestemünde (today a part of Bremerhaven).
Elisabeth married a second time ten years later. Her second husband, Alexander Lange (*8 July 1903 in Eisenach) was a sales representative for the Maggi company. She moved to Harburg, where the family lived at Hoppenstedtstraße 76 in a modern 3½-room apartment in a new housing development. Elisabeth Lange was described by friends and acquaintances as an attractive, friendly woman who was always well-groomed, was well-liked in the neighborhood, and was always ready with good advice. They remember her as a caring and helpful woman, who was not particularly interested in politics but held a clear position on her principles.
She was unimpressed with the Nazis’ anti-Semitic policies, and upheld her friendship with Katharina Leipelt, a Jewish woman whom she had met when their children were attending the Harburg School for Boys on Alte Postweg in Heimfeld (formerly the Stresemann-Realgymnasium, today the Friedrich-Ebert-Gymnasium). This friendship would have tragic consequences for Elisabeth Lange.
When Hans Leipelt visited his family in Hamburg for Easter in April 1943, he brought the sixth White Rose leaflet with him. It became the source of lively discussion among friends and relatives. Many of them donated money to the family of Professor Kurt Hubers, who had collaborated with Hans and Sophie Scholl, and, like them, was sentenced to death.
After Hans Leipelt’s arrest, many of his friends in Hamburg and Munich were also arrested. Among them was Elisabeth Lange, who was arrested on 10 December 1943, three days after the arrest of her friend Katharina Leipelt. It is not known if she had even seen the White Rose leaflet or participated in the collection for Professor Huber’s family. Like the others, she was accused of intention to commit high treason, subversion of the war effort, giving aid and comfort to the enemy, and listening to foreign radio news. The State’s Attorney claimed that their "seditious influence” reached far beyond their inner circle of friends.
Hans Reinhard and Paul Stawitzki, both Gestapo agents and members of the SS, were in charge of the investigation. Both were notorious for their cynicism and brutality, and they were considered experienced specialists in dealing with political opponents of the Nazi regime. Willi Tessmann, the commandant of the Fuhlsbüttel police prison, was also actively involved in the investigation, and participated in many of the interrogations and instances of abuse.
Elisabeth Lange was sent to the Gestapo prison at Fuhlsbüttel and put in a small cell in Station B2. It contained nothing but a wooden stool and a metal bedframe that was folded up during the day. Survivors later reported that the women were often awakened in the middle of the night, then beaten and tortured for more information. In the first weeks, many of them were taken daily to the Gestapo Headquarters at the Stadthaus for more torture and interrogation. Elisabeth Lange soon gave up all hope. She hanged herself in her cell on the night of 27 January 1944 – one month after her friend Katharina Leipelt had taken her own life.
Among the personal effects she left behind in her cell, Fritz Obenhaus found a letter that she had written two days before she committed suicide.
Elisabeth Lange’s body was cremated, and an urn with her ashes was later given to her son. She was buried in his grandparents’ family plot at the Landfriedhof on Blomberger Straße in Detmold.
Elisabeth Lange’s name is among those on the memorial plaque for the Harburg and Wilhelmsburg victims of National Socialism at the Harburg Court House; on the memorial plaque for the Detmold victims of the National Socialist Regime at the Alte Synagoge memorial in Detmold; and on both memorial plaques for the Hamburg members of the White Rose – one at the former bookstore at Jungfernstieg 50, run by Anneliese Tuchel, which was one of the group’s meeting places; and one at the White Rose Monument in Hamburg-Volksdorf. In 1987, streets were named for her in both Harburg and Detmold.
Translator: Amy Lee
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.
Stand: March 2017
© Klaus Möller
Quellen: StaH, 331-5 Polizeibehörde, unnatürliche Todesfälle, 3 1944, 148; StaH, 351-11, AfW, Abl. 2008/1, 070700; VVN-BdA Hamburg (Hrsg.), humanity; Brunckhorst u. a., Elisabeth Lange, Prüter-Müller, Elisabeth Lange, S. 849ff.
