Search for Names, Places and Biographies

Hubert Mayer * 1900

Mühlendamm 12 (Hamburg-Nord, Hohenfelde)

HIER WOHNTE
HUBERT MAYER
JG. 1900
VERHAFTET 1936
KZ FUHLSBÜTTEL
FLUCHT IN DEN TOD
30.3.1938

further stumbling stones in Mühlendamm 12:
Bruno Rosenbaum

Hubert Wilhelm Albrecht Mayer, b. 12.9.1900 Hamburg, suicide on 9.23.1938 in Hamburg

Mühlendamm 12 (formerly, Mühlendamm 32)

”Dearest Brother Herbert,
I cannot forget the difficult time that lies behind me. Just now a the criminal police have been at my place; my strength is now at an end. Dearest Brother, I wish you all good things, but I can assure you in all honesty that I have let no man in, but a once convicted man is not believed. I thank you from the bottom of my hear, my dearest brother. You grateful brother
Hubert.
Forgive me this act, please; hopefully you can understand it. Give my sincerest greetings to all my brothers and sisters.”

This farewell letter was directed by Hubert Mayer, shortly before his death, to his brother Herbert, who lived on Georgsplatz in the Hamburg Old City. Then, in the apartment at the rear of Rostocker Strasse 16a, belonging to his friends, the married couple Bradler, he took his life. Having first taken Veronal tablets, he then opened the gas cock in the kitchen.

Hubert Mayer was born in 1900 in the Krayenkamp district, not far from St. Michael’s Church, the son of the Catholic manufacturer Alois Hermann Mayer and the Evangelical Protestant Bertha Helene, née Fürhoff. Only little is known about the openly-living, at least to his family and friends, homosexual man. The files concerning the proceedings initiated against him were not archived. From the single police file concerning "a case of unnatural death” we learn few details about his life and especially about his death. At the time of his death he had long been unemployed; previously, he went to sea as a steward on the steamer "Ammon.”

In 1936, Hubert Mayer, presumably for the first time, came into conflict with §175 because of his same-sex orientation; §175 also applied to consensual sexual contact between adult males. After being taken into custody, he found himself in Gestapo detention in the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp from 28 October until 17 November. After what was apparently an "expedited proceeding” before a panel of lay judges in the Hamburg District Court, his criminal trial, on 19 November, resulted in a sentence of a year in jail for "continual violations of §175.” Conjoined with a further proceeding in the same court on 2 April 1937, the total sentence only increased by a week. He served it in Fuhlsbüttel.

According to the testimony of Anna Bradler, whose husband also went to sea and knew Hubert from work, Hubert was always called "Aunt Emmi” because of his homosexual orientation. In the period following his release on 2 November 1937, Hubert Mayer spent time almost every day in the Bradlers’ apartment on Rostocker Strasse. Since he was probably without work after his imprisonment, Anna Bradler fed him. According to information from her, after his stay in prison, he no longer sought same-sex contact. This was supposedly confirmed by a physician. In any case, she worriedly informed Hubert Mayer that the criminal police had made inquiries about him to the bedridden Mrs. Gräfe, his landlady on Mühlendamm Strasse. Hubert Mayer was quite confused and upset about this and reckoned on a new arrest.

On 30 March 1938, the 37-year old Hubert Mayer was found at 7:30 in the morning in the Bradler’s apartment; his death, according to the testimony of a physician, must have taken place the evening prior. For Anna Bradler, who was absent on the afternoon before his death, he left behind two farewell notes of a few lines.

The consultant in this case of death, Criminal Secretary Heinrich Finnern, who was responsible for determining "homosexual offenses,” and who was known as a ruthless and sharp interrogator, noted tersely: "Nothing against Mayer exists here and it cannot be determined which official made inquiries at his apartment.”

At the last freely chosen residence of Hubert Mayer, Mühlendamm 32, which is today, house number 18, was in Hohenfeld. A commemorative stone there recalls his fate.


Translator: Richard Levy
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: December 2019
© Bernhard Rosenkranz (†)/Ulf Bollmann

Quellen: StaH, 213-8 Staatsanwaltschaft Oberlandesgericht – Verwaltung, Ablieferung 2, 451 a E 1, 1 a; 242-1 II Gefängnisverwaltung II, Ablieferung 13; 331-5 Polizeibehörde – Unnatürliche Sterbefälle, 1163/38; 332-5 Standesämter, 1078 (Eintrag Nr. 67) u. 13407 (Eintrag Nr. 3479); B. Rosenkranz/U. Bollmann/G. Lorenz: Homosexuellen-Verfolgung in Hamburg 1919–1969. Verlag Lambda Edition, Hamburg 2009, S. 99, 107 u. 235.