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Karl Schumann in Uniform, mit Sohn Wolfgang und Ehefrau Margarethe
© Privat

Karl Schumann * 1902

Prechtsweg 15 (Hamburg-Nord, Barmbek-Nord)

HIER WOHNTE
KARL SCHUMANN
JG. 1902
VERHAFTET
’HOCHVERRAT’
TOT AN HAFTFOLGEN
26.6.1945

Karl Schumann, born 21 July 1902, arrested for treason in 1937, died in a prisoner of war camp in Yugoslavia on 26 June 1945

Prechtsweg 15

The Social Democrat Karl Schumann was born in Hamburg in 1902, the third child of Carl and Mathilde Schumann. He had two older sisters. His father was a carpenter and from the 1920s an official of the carpenters’ union. His mother was a housewife. Karl Schumann attended elementary school. His school report cards show that he was a very good pupil, often even the best in his class, and that in a class of over 50 students.

Like his father, Karl Schumann also learned carpentry. He was actually supposed to continue his training to become a polisher. The required books had already been purchased, but then he contracted peritoneal tuberculosis which cost him an entire year. He did not continue his education afterwards. Following his recovery, Karl Schumann had several periods of unemployment during subsequent years before he found a job with the Hamburg Carpenters’ Health Insurance on Hamburger Straße, with his father’s assistance, at the end of 1932. He worked in the office.

Karl Schumann’s life was filled with his activity in the Workers’ Sports Club, Youth Workers’ Association, the Social Democrats, the Production Cooperative, unions, national welfare, public theater, the Workers’ Welfare Association (AWO), and a nature lover’s club. He met his future wife at the Youth Workers’ Association. He was also very musical and played several instruments, such as the violin, lute, and mandolin.

Margarethe Stolten was only 14 years old when she fell in love with Karl Schumann who was four years older. He supposedly played the lute for her and in doing so won her heart. She also came from a working-class family. She was born in Hamburg in 1906. Her mother was Olga Stolten. She had no father.

In 1926 Karl and Margarethe were married. She stopped working, but Karl did not yet have secure employment. Their financial worries did not, however, stop them from enjoying simple pleasures. Margarethe later recalled: "After collecting our stamp for the very meager unemployment support, we often went to the Alster with a freshly smoked herring.”

Their first son Wolfgang was born on 6 Sept. 1936 in Hamburg. Karl Schumann financed a small two-room apartment at Prechtsweg 15 for his family from his monthly salary of about 260 RM.

Karl Schumann was a member of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) of Barmbek North, where the resistance group "Hansen and Comrades” formed after the National Socialists took power. In 1934 and 1935 they distributed flyers, collected money for prisoners, and stuck reports on torture in the prisons through the letter boxes of judges and public prosecutors. They also maintained contact with other resistance groups like the Barmbeker Schufo 10. Since they were subject to ever increasing pressure by the Gestapo, the group stopped their activities in 1935. One year later they were nevertheless discovered.

On 1 Dec. 1936, Karl Schumann was arrested by the Gestapo. An SD file card on him states: "Tagesrapport Stapo Hamburg, 1 Dec. 1936, arrested for distributing illegal pamphlets until mid 1935. Socialist Operation, Go Forth (Neuer Vorwärts), Red Books, ‘The Art of Shaving Yourself’”. Karl Schumann was arrested for this illegal activity and later charged with preparing high treason. He lost his job due to the arrest.

The trial of 15 members of the group "Hansen and Comrades” for treason began in May 1937 before the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court. 14 of them were sentenced to prison sentences of one to four years. Karl Schumann received a jail term of two years and nine months which he served first at the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp from 11 May 1937 to 5 Feb. 1938 and then in Emslandlager Aschendorfermoor until 4 Sept. 1939. In Emsland, Karl Schumann had to do heavy physical labor and cut peat in the moor. Following his release he returned to his family.

Margarethe lost her apartment from the building cooperative due to her husband’s conviction. From that time onward she was forced to rely on the aid of the welfare office to feed her family. She also received financial support from her parents-in-law, and her father-in-law helped her find a new apartment in the residential complex at Alsterdorfer Straße and Bilser Straße.

Originally, everyone who was sentenced to a prison term was classified as "unworthy of military service”. By order of the military high command of 2 Oct. 1942, the unworthiness for military service was lifted for the duration of the war because soldiers were urgently needed. In late 1942, Karl Schumann also was called up for duty in the so-called "Parole Battalion 999”. It was a penal division of the Wehrmacht comprised of prisoners from jails and concentration camps, some political prisoners, but also criminals.

Karl Schumann’s training took place at Heuberg military training area in the Schwarzwald. His division included some of his former comrades, like Otto Oetinger and Walter Grot. From 5 May 1943, Karl Schumann had to serve as a soldier in the 2nd Africa Troopers Regiment 963. At that time, his wife Margarethe was already pregnant with their second son Manfred who was born on 26 Aug. 1943 in Ludwigslust. Karl would never see his son.

His regiment had been deployed to the Peloponnese in Greece via Yugoslavia. From there they were to continue on to North Africa. Since the war in Africa had already been lost in the meantime, the unit stayed in Greece where his duties included fighting partisans. Karl Schumann was stationed in Kalamate and Nauplion, among other places. The final entry in his pay book reads: on 15 Jan. 1945 Field Company Replacement Battalion 141. During their retreat, Karl Schumann was captured and held in Yugoslavian prison. He died of dysentery on 26 June 1945 in Pancevo, Yugoslavia as a prisoner of war.

Information as of May 2016


Translator: Suzanne von Engelhardt

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: November 2017
© Carmen Smiatacz

Quellen: StaHH 242-1 II, Gefängnisverwaltung II, Abl. 13, Gefangenenkartei Männer (ältere Kartei); StaHH 242-1 II, Gefängnisverwaltung II, Abl. 16, Untersuchungshaftkartei Männer; StaHH 351-11, AfW, Abl. 2008/1, 21.06.02 Schumann, Karl; Bengelsdorf, Reinhold: Hansen und Genossen: in Barmbek-Nord gegen das NS-Regime. Zeitzeugnisse zu Verfolgung, Widerstand, Wiedergutmachung und Neuaufbau, Hamburg 2005; Private Dokumente aus dem Familienbesitz Schumann; Totenliste Hamburger Widerstandskämpfer und Verfolgter 1933–1945.