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Karl Reese * 1890

Tangstedter Landstraße 158 (Hamburg-Nord, Langenhorn)

verhaftet 1937
KZ Sachsenhausen
ermordet 04.01.1940

Karl Reese, born on 6.11.1890 in Hamburg-Wilhelmsburg, imprisoned on 12.8.1937, perished on 4.1.1940 in the concentration camp Sachsenhausen

Tangstedter Landstraße 158

Karl Heinrich Friedrich Reese was born in Wilhelmsburg, Georgswerder 83. At that time Wilhelmsburg was not yet part of Hamburg. His father Karl Friedrich Ernst Reese had been born on 13 November 1865 in Hagenow and his mother Anna Maria, née Dehnert on 21 May 1866 in Ober-Harpersdorf. Both were Lutheran and had married in Parchim on October 30, 1888. In Parchim, one year later, Karl's older sister Anna Maria Frieda was born. In Wilhelmsburg Karl's younger brother Johannes Friedrich August was born in 1892 and his younger sister Emma Pauline Anna in 1894.

When Karl Reese was six years old, the family moved to Hamburg and his father acquired Hamburg citizenship in 1902. He worked as an unskilled laborer at the Franke & Scheibe book printing company and lived at Spaldingstraße 150.
Karl's parents' marriage had been divorced for a year by this time.
Karl's brother Johannes was killed as a soldier in World War I in May 1915.

Karl Reese married 22-year-old Martha Dora Caroline Rosenbrook, the illegitimate daughter of Sofia Ida Dorothea Helene Rosenbrook, a cook, on April 30, 1917. Martha was Protestant and lived at Eppendorfer Baum 40 on the 1st floor. Karl was a journeyman blacksmith at the time and lived in Hamburg at 101 Bachstraße, and was registered as non-denominational.

Since 1930, Karl Reese had been active in the Harburg congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses. These refused the Nazi state the Hitler salute, did not join the Nazi organizations (later they refused military service) and were persecuted for these reasons. On August 12, 1937, Karl Reese and 14 other defendants were sentenced by the Hanseatic Special Court to six months in prison for continuing to work for the banned "International Bible Students Association" (founded in Magdeburg in 1927).

Today, all that exists of this trial is a "notfile" with the verdict, in which he is accused of having read and talked about "the Bible and old writings of the Bible Students" together with other defendants. He had also obtained the journal "Wachturm" from one of the other defendants. However, neither information about the investigation nor interrogation protocols have been preserved.

Karl Reese was taken to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp two and a half months after his conviction and was imprisoned on October 30, 1937, with prisoner number 888 as a "protective prisoner" in prisoner block 18. At the time of his committal, Tangstedter Landstraße 158 was given as his place of residence.

Karl Reese died at the age of 49, on January 4, 1940, in the infirmary of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, prisoner block 36. The cause of death was given as pneumonia. At the time of his death, he was registered by the Political Department as an I.B.V. (member of the International Bible Students Association) and as an invalid, but the circumstances leading to the invalidity are unknown.

After Karl's death, Martha Reese continued to live with her daughter at Tangstedter Landstraße 158, where she died on December 31, 1948. She was not employed and belonged to the Evangelical Lutheran Church.

Karl Reese has been commemorated by Karl-Reese-Weg in the Harburg district since February 8, 1988.

Translation Beate Meyer

Stand: March 2023
© Margot Löhr/Holger Tilicki

Quellen: StaH, 213-11 Staatsanwaltschaft Landgericht Hamburg, 00641-38 Reese; StaH, 332-5 Standesämter, Geburtsregister, 12959 u. 292/1890 Karl Reese, 12961 u. 300/1892 Johannes Reese, 12963 u. 574/1894 Emma Reese, 9109 u. 566/1895 Martha Rosenbrook; StaH, 332-5 Standesämter, Heiratsregister, 332-5, 9565 u. 265/1917 Karl Reese/Martha Rosenbrook; StaH, 332-5 Standesämter, Sterberegister, 10007 u. 2/1949 Martha Reese; StaH, 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung, 17093 Martha Reese; US Holocaust Memorial Museum Washington, RG-06.025*26/file 2282, file 2283; Archiv des Föderalen Sicherheitsdienstes der Russischen Föderation, Moskau, N-19092/Tom 96, Bl. 004; Russisches Staatliches Militärarchiv, Moskau, 1367/1/16, Bl. 347; Copy of Doc. No. 33829688#1 in conformitywiththe ITS Arolsen; Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv Potsdam, Pr.Br.Rep. 35H (KZ Sachsenhausen)/32, Bl. 26; Recherche und Auskünfte Monika Liebscher, Gedenkstätte und Museum Sachsenhausen, Archiv Sachsenhausen, JSU 1/96, Bl. 4, D 1 A/1016, Bl. 347, D 30 A/32, Bl. 26; Klaus-Dieter Brügmann/Margarete Dreibrodt/Hans-Joachim Meyer/Otto Nehring: Die anderen. Widerstand und Verfolgung in Harburg und Wilhelmsburg, Zeugnisse und Berichte 1933–1945, hrsg. von der Vereinigung der Verfolgten des Naziregimes, Bund der Antifaschisten, Ortsvereinigungen Harburg und Wilhelmsburg, 2. Aufl., Hamburg 1981. Vielen Dank an Klaus Möller und Herrn Puttkammer!