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Hans-Joachim Oelkers * 1923

Kamillenweg 11 (Altona, Osdorf)

HIER WOHNTE
HANS-JOACHIM
OELKERS
JG. 1923
GEDEMÜTIGT / ENTRECHTET
FLUCHT IN DEN TOD
20.11.1940

Hans-Joachim Arthur Heinrich Oelkers, born 11 Sep. 1923 in Altona, death by suicide 20 Nov. 1940 in Hamburg

Kamillenweg 11

After a drunken argument with his parents in the late evening of 20 November 1940, the 17-year-old Hans-Joachim Oelkers left his parents’ home in Osdorf. In the early morning hours of the next day, his decapitated head was found on the tram tracks between the Klein-Flottbek and Hochkamp stations. A search was instigated for an "unknown male corpse,” until the parents reported their son as missing. There was a police investigation, but Oelkers’ reasons for committing suicide remain unknown. It may have had to do with a friend mentioned in the police report, Werner H., and a possible homosexual relationship.

Hans-Joachim Oelkers was born in 1923. His parents were Wilhelm Oelkers, an electrician, and Henny Meyer Oelkers. He had one sister. He attended public schools in Altona and Osdorf, and was a member of the Altona Football Club. His grandfather Theodor Oelkers, who lived in Ottensen, occasionally gave him pocket money.

After finishing his schooling, Oelkers started an apprenticeship at Heinrich A. Kroll, Carl Stelling Nachf., a company that made laboratory equipment, located at Rödingsmarkt 76. In August 1940 he became friends with Werner H. (*1925), who worked for a short time at the company as a messenger boy. Werner came from a difficult family situation: his parents were separated, the family received welfare subsidies, and were under observation by the authorities. In early 1939, Werner was involved in a criminal case against Albert Latendorf (*1914, died 1942 in the Dachau Concentration Camp), a 24-year-old homosexual. Latendorf had given money to Werner H. and other teen-age boys to perform homosexual acts (mutual masturbation). The incident was discovered and taken to court.

Perhaps Oelkers feared that he might become entangled in a similar case, perhaps his parents had forbidden his friendship with Werner H. and were angry with him for being inebriated – we cannot determine this today, nor can we know why it came to physical blows with his parents on the evening of 20 November 1940. The police report on the investigation into his death indicates that Hans-Joachim Oelkers often had large sums of money from undetermined sources, that he often invited his friend Werner H. to the movies and paid for the tickets, and that he always paid the tab in bars. It is possible that Werner H. had in Oelkers "an older friend,” who supported him financially. When questioned by the police, H. did not mention this possibility, but said that he didn’t understand his friend’s suicide: "He was always fun, never serious and earnest.”

The Stolperstein in his name at his parents’ address in Osdorf is a memorial to his fate in a society that was hostile for young homosexual men.


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


Stand: April 2018
© Bernhard Rosenkranz (†)/Ulf Bollmann

Quellen: StaH, 331-5 Polizeibehörde – Unnatürliche Sterbefälle, 309/41; StaH 213-11 Staatsanwaltschaft Landgericht – Strafsachen, 11033/39; Rosenkranz/Bollmann/Lorenz: Homosexuellen-Verfolgung, S. 242.