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Henry Naujoks * 1896

Krummholzberg 2 (Harburg, Harburg)

Verhaftet 1934
Zuchthaus Fuhlsbüttel
ermordet 23.01.1945

further stumbling stones in Krummholzberg 2:
Wilhelm Lührsen, Harry Naujoks

Henry Naujoks, born 10.14.1896 in Hamburg; died 23.1.1945, as a consequence of imprisonment
Harry Naujoks, born 18.9.1901 in Harburg; imprisoned 12 years in a concentration camp, died 10.20.1983

Harburg-Altstadt district, Krummholzberg 2

The worker Henry Naujoks married Else Müller, born on 9.21.1895 in Tangermünde. They lived in Harburg in the house at Krummholzberg 2. Also living there was Henry’s brother, Harry Naujoks, born on 9.18.1901 in Harburg, and their mother Luise Naujoks, born on 6.1.1863 in Schakeningen, in the County of Tilsit in East Prussia. She raised her sons alone, working as a washerwoman, cook, or bathroom attendant.
After the November Revolution of 1918, the brothers joined the German Communist Party (KPD). Harry Naujoks was one of the founders of the Harburg party group. Henry Naujoks sat for the Communist Party in the Harburg municipal assembly. In addition he belonged to the council of the Harburg Phoenix Rubber goods factory.
Following the Hamburg uprising in October 1923, Harry Naujoks was the chairman of the Hamburg Communist Youth Association (KJVD). He married the communist Martha Pleul, who was temporarily imprisoned after the October battles. Harry Naujoks became the head of the Party in Barmbek. In 1932 he was active in the Party’s Wasserkant district committee and concerned with organizing work in the factories.
After Hitler was put into power, Harry Naujoks, on behalf of the district committee, undertook Communist Party work in Lübeck and presumably lived there as well. He organized a Social Democratic-Communist united front demonstration against the looming Nazi dictatorship. At the beginning of March 1933, he was arrested and in May sent to the concentration camp at Fuhlsbüttel (Kola-Fu). Upon his release on June 1, he worked illegally as the political leader of the Communist Party in the Northwest District of Bremen. He also traveled to the Netherlands in order to prepare for a conference of the Communist Youth Association. In August 1933 Harry Naujoks was once again arrested and sent to the concentration camp Langenlütjen I, a fort on the Weser River estuary. At the beginning of 1934 he was sent to the prison ship Ochtumsand and the adjoining Bremen detention center. On 29 October 1934, he was convicted of "preparations for high treason" and sentenced to two years and three months in prison. He served his sentence in the penitentiary at Bremen-Oslebshausen.
After his release he was not allowed to return home but instead arrived on 11 November 1936 in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin. His wife Martha Naujoks had emigrated to the Soviet Union. She asked for a divorce but Harry Naujoks refused.
His brother Henry Naujoks also participated in the resistance. He was arrested and sent to Kola-Fu; beginning on 2 December 1935, he served a five-year sentence in the Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel penitentiary. He died as a result of his imprisonment on 23 January 1945.
In 1939 Harry Naujoks was named camp elder for the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. In this capacity he was able to help several inmates survive. However, the SS noted that his influence was continually growing in the camp; on 27 November 1942, they transferred him along with 17 other Communists to the Flossenbürg concentration camp in the Upper Palatinate. There he was brutalized and put in darkness detention for twelve months. As American troops approached on 20 April 1945, the inmates were sent on a death march in the direction of the Tyrol. Three days later they were liberated by U.S. soldiers. Harry Naujoks battled his way home on foot. In May 1945 he reached Harburg and his mother’s house on Krummholzberg.
Harry Naujoks belonged to those "women and men always ready to step forward," and he soon took on functions in Harburg and Hamburg. In 1949 he made himself available to run for the Bundestag as a candidate of the Communist Party in the Harburg election district. Later he became president of the Sachsenhausen Committee of the Federal Republic and vice-president of the International Sachsenhausen Committee. He held these offices until his death on 20 October 1983.
Commemorative stones (Stolpersteine) were mounted for Henry as well as for Harry Naujoks,


Translator: Richard Levy

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: November 2017
© Hans-Joachim Meyer

Quellen: Naujoks, Leben; StaH, 332-8 Meldewesen, A46; Heyl/Maronde-Heyl, Abschlussbericht; Totenliste VAN.