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Ingo Krieghoff * 1915

Looft 6 (Wandsbek, Marienthal)

1936 - 1942 mehrfach verhaftet und verurteilt
KZ Buchenwald
ermordet 02.03.1945

Ingo Richard August Fritz Krieghoff, born 4 Apr. 1915 in Hamburg, prison terms in 1936, 1938, 1942, murdered 2 Mar. 1945 in the Buchenwald Concentration Camp

Looft 6 (Schwadronsweg 6)

Ingo Krieghoff was born in Hamburg. His father, Richard Krieghoff, was a banker. After finishing his primary education, Ingo Krieghoff trained as a waiter at the Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten (Four Seasons Hotel). He served voluntarily in the Wehrmacht from April 1934 until September 1935, then worked as a waiter in the dining cars of the Mitropa railway company. In 1936 he hired on as a steward with the Hamburg-Süd Shipping Company.

During his training at the Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten, he often frequented homosexual establishments in order to meet like-minded people. He first came into conflict with the law in 1936. On 9 November 1936 he was sentenced to one year in prison for "repeated acts of homosexuality”.

He returned to his job as a steward in the fall of 1937, after he was released from prison. But his freedom didn’t last long. He was once again tried for the crime of homosexuality on 22 February 1938, and sentenced to ten months in prison.

In 1939 he was drafted into the military and stationed on the Western Front. He was severely wounded in 1942, and was taken prisoner by Belgian forces for a short time, until the Wehrmacht occupied the country and he returned to duty. In November 1941, Ingo Krieghoff was once again accused of homosexuality, but was found not guilty by a military field court. He was released from service on 12 February 1942, due to a severe injury. He was forced to give up his profession as a waiter, and lived from a wounded veterans pension. He worked occasionally in a movie theater, and began an apprenticeship as a dental technician.
Ingo Krieghoff once again found himself in the clutches of the Nazi machinery when it was discovered he was having a relationship with a fellow apprentice. He had also attempted to "touch [a 20-year-old apprentice] inappropriately.” The Hamburg District Court pronounced the following judgement on 22 December 1942:

"The accused is sentenced to a term of two years in prison on one count of homosexual activity. Extended preventive custody is ordered. The accused’s pre-trial detention time served is recognized. The accused is to be addressed as a habitual homosexual from this time forward. The expert opinions given characterize him as a soft, weak-willed, libidinous homosexual, in whom the homosexual drive is firmly anchored. The frequency of his criminal acts and the repeated sentences, each quickly following the last, speak for a particular lack of restraint and for the strength of his criminal will. The probability that he will continue to disturb the peace is very high. The accused expressed a great disinclination to be castrated. There is no doubt that the accused will fail to distance himself from further homosexual activity after he has served his prison sentence.”

Ingo Krieghoff was sent to the Rendsburg penitentiary on 17 March 1943. As a prisoner there, he worked as forced labor for a company that was strategic for the war effort. When the company was destroyed by bombs on 15 July 1943, he was transferred to a branch plant, whose workers were supplied by the Brieg penitentiary in the Breslau district. Just four months later he was transferred to the Glatz prison, and from there back to Brieg on 29 June 1944.

Although Ingo Krieghoff’s prison sentence ended on 10 August 1944, he was detained, in compliance with the judge’s orders, in Brieg in preventive custody.

The last trace of Ingo Krieghoff is a letter to his mother, dated 7 January 1945.
Hans B., an acquaintance from the penitentiary, later reported that Ingo Krieghoff died on 2 March 1945 in the Gleina/Zeitz Concentration Camp, a satellite camp of the Buchenwald Concentration Camp. The Wandsbek municipal court issued a death certificate on 23 February 1948.

The Stolperstein in memory of Ingo Krieghoff is at Looft 6 (formerly Schwadronsweg), as that is his last freely chosen residence.

Translator: Amy Lee

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: October 2016
© Bernhard Rosenkranz, Ulf Bollmann

Quellen: 1 StaHH, 213-11, Staatsanwaltschaft Landgericht Strafsachen 1946/43.