Search for Names, Places and Biographies

Max Lenz * 1901

Beim Strohhause 17 (Hamburg-Mitte, St. Georg)

Verhaftet 1935
KZ Fuhlsbüttel
Emslandlager
verstorben an Haftfolgen
13.02.1937

further stumbling stones in Beim Strohhause 17:
Willy Claudius

Max Ernst Lenz, born 7 June 1901, imprisoned 1935, died 13 Feb. 1937 in the Papenburg infirmary
Beim Strohhause 17 (formerly Beim Strohhause 33)

Max Lenz was originally from Marienburg in Western Prussia, in what is today Poland. He was divorced and, after his training as a baker and confectioner, worked in various professions in Berlin – he was a shop clerk, he worked for the police in Brandenburg from 1921 to 1923, and was engaged as a ballet teacher and actor. Beginning in 1923 he performed as a dancer in music halls in Germany and abroad. He moved to Hamburg in 1930, and was mostly unemployed in the following years. He was the political leader of the Berliner Tor chapter of the Nazi Party.

In 1933 he was tried for homosexuality, but the case was dismissed for lack of evidence. In 1935 he and his dance partner Karl Weiland (*20 Dec. 1914, †27 Nov. 1944 at the Neuengamme Concentration Camp, Stolperstein Schröderstiftstraße 16) who was also homosexual, performed at Kraft durch Freude events in the Curio-Haus.

Neighbors denounced Max Lenz in 1935, and he was arrested and held in the Fuhlsbüttel Concentration Camp from 8 to 13 November 1935. On 21 April 1936 he was sentenced by the Hamburg District Court to 15 months in prison on two counts of homosexual activity. Karl Weiland and two other defendants were also sentenced at this trial.

While in prison at Fuhlsbüttel, Max Lenz applied for a furlough to secure his household belongings. It was not granted. He was transferred to Brual-Rhede, one of the Emsland Concentration Camps, on 22 December 1936. He died on 13 February 1937 in the infirmary in Papenburg. The official cause of death was listed as pneumonia.


Translator: Amy Lee
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: March 2017
© Bernhard Rosenkranz/Ulf Bollmann

Quellen: StaHH, 213-11 Staatsanwaltschaft Landgericht – Strafsachen, 7394/36; 241-1I Justizverwaltung I, 2911; StaHH, 242-1II Gefängnisverwaltung II, Ablieferungen 13 und 16.