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Rudolf Krukenbaum * 1904

Altenwerder Kirchweg 3a (Harburg, Altenwerder)

HIER WOHNTE
RUDOLF KRUKENBAUM
JG. 1904
VERHAFTET 1937
KZ SACHSENHAUSEN
ERMORDET 17.4.1941

Rudolf Fritz Krukenbaum, born 17 May 1904 in Altenwerder, imprisoned 1938–1940, died 17 April 1941 in the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp

Hamburg-Altenwerder, Altenwerder Kirchweg 3a

Very few documents have survived to tell us about Rudolf Krukenbaum’s life. He was born on 17 May 1904 in Altenwerder, a fishing village on the Elbe which at that time was a part of the Prussian district of Harburg. His parents were Ferdinand and Margarethe (Hauschild) Krukenbaum. He became a stoker and sailed on several steamers, including the Ostland, for the Lübeck Line.

Rudolf Krukenbaum was arrested on 1 September 1938 on charges of homosexuality and held in the pre-trial detention center in Hamburg. In late December 1938 the Hamburg District Court sentenced him to two years in prison. He began serving his sentence in the Wolfenbüttel penitentiary on Christmas Eve 1938. He remained there until 13 October 1940, when he was transferred to the Hütten jail in Hamburg. It is likely that he, like many other homosexuals, was transferred from prison directly to a concentration camp.

The date of his registration at the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp is unknown. The only information from the surviving documents is that his prisoner number was 35295, that he was classified as a "repeat offender,” and that he was transferred to the isolation cellblock on 25 January 1941. He was admitted to the camp infirmary on 16 April 1941, where he died the next day.

His last freely-chosen residence was with his mother in the 107th district of "Altenwärder.” Since Altenwerder was nearly completely demolished in the expansion of the port, Rudolf Krukenbaum’s Stolperstein was placed at the only remaining structure, the Lutheran St. Gertrud Church at Altenwerder Kirchweg 3a, where he was christened.

Translator: Amy Lee

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: October 2016
© Bernhard Rosenkranz(†)/Ulf Bollmann

Quellen: StaH, 242-1II Gefängnisverwaltung II, Abl. 16; Auskünfte Rainer Hoffschildt, Hannover, und Christian-Alexander Wäldner, Ronnenberg-Weetzen, von 2008, die u. a. die Gefangenenpersonalakte von Krukenbaum im Niedersächsischen Landesarchiv – Staatsarchiv Wolfenbüttel eingesehen haben; Rosenkranz u. a., Homosexuellen-Verfolgung, S. 227.