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Walter Mieloszyk * 1927

Immanuelstieg 3 (Hamburg-Mitte, Veddel)

HIER WOHNTE
WALTER MIELOSZYK
JG. 1927
GEDEMÜTIGT / ENTRECHTET
FLUCHT IN DEN TOD
9.12.1943

Walter Paul Mieloszyk, born on 18 Nov. 1927 in Hamburg, suicide on 9 Dec. 1943 in Hamburg

Veddel, Immanuelstieg 3

The chef-in-training Walter Mieloszyk ranks among the group of homosexuals who probably committed suicide due to fear of being convicted in accordance with Sec. 175 [of the Reich Criminal Code]. Today, only the police report concerning the discovery of his body can provide any clue about his fate.

Walter Mieloszyk was born as the son of the foreman at the Hamburg port ("Hafenviez”) Edmund Mieloszyk, and Marie, née Meyer. After leaving school, he worked at the tax office for a year and a half, something that apparently did not appeal to him, because he stayed away from this workplace at the end of 1943, beginning an apprenticeship as a cook at the Café Gloria in Harburg only six weeks before his death.

In the neighborhood, Walter Mieloszyk had a reputation as a careless but also "a polite and helpful” boy. To police, the boy’s mother described the family circumstances as "broken;” marital quarrels had hampered the way the children were brought up; and after the father had been drafted into the German Wehrmacht, the mother reportedly had even less influence on the son.

On 9 Dec. 1943, Walter Mieloszyk poisoned himself with city gas in his parents’ apartment, located at Immanuelstieg 3 on the third floor. His mother told a precinct senior police sergeant (Revieroberwachtmeister) about her son that he had had "intercourse with perverse men.” One day later she went on record saying, "He went his own way and refused to be guided. His entire nature did not resemble that of a boy. She often detected that he had put on dresses and underwear belonging to his deceased sister. He had never been able to give an explanation for this. Based on these observations, she suspected that he had abnormal tendencies and that he had maintained man-to-man friendships. The mother was unable to provide any detailed reasons or proof. She had only been struck by the fact that the boy often received letters without a return address containing cigarettes. She had never been able to establish the sender and the boy had never commented on that.”

Walter Mieloszyk was not known to police as a male prostitute, but the criminal investigation department deemed it quite possible that he had moved in "such circles” and that this had been the reason for the suicide.


Translator: Erwin Fink

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: October 2017
© Bernhard Rosenkranz(†)/Ulf Bollmann

Quellen: StaH, 331-5 Polizeibehörde – Unnatürliche Sterbefälle, 1695/43; Rosenkranz u. a., Homosexuellen-Verfolgung, S. 237.