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Friedrich Thomas * 1919

Stresowstraße 33 (Kehre) (Hamburg-Mitte, Rothenburgsort)

HIER WOHNTE
FRIEDRICH THOMAS
JG. 1919
MEHRMALS VERHAFTET
ZULETZT 1944
UG HAMBURG
HINGERICHTET 28.8.1944

further stumbling stones in Stresowstraße 33 (Kehre):
Franz Stobrawa

Friedrich Thomas, born 30 Mar. 1919 in Hamburg, imprisoned in 1937, 1940, 1943–1944, executed 28 Aug. 1944 in Hamburg

Stresowstraße 33, Kehre, footpath to Billhorner Röhrendamm
(Hardenstraße 29)

Friedrich Franz Leopold Thomas was born in 1919, the first of four children to the Evangelical-Lutheran coppersmith Ernst Thomas and his wife Erna, née Agricola. His father came from a working-class family in Langenfelde near Pinneberg and was Jewish on his father’s side. His parents wed in Hamburg in 1918. His mother was already living in Rothenburgsort, at Stresowstraße 129. His father worked at that time for the Hamburg Waterworks. The family lived at Hardenstraße 29 until his parents were bombed out and moved to Billwerder Island near the Elbe Waterworks.

Friedrich Thomas attended a special-needs school and finished his schooling when he left at Easter during the seventh grade in 1934. He worked until Sept. for farmers in Mecklenburg and then set out to sea until Jan. 1937. After that he entered service as a farmhand. When he became unemployed one month later, by then aged 18, he tried to earn a living as a male prostitute. That only went well for a few weeks until he was reported to the police in June 1937 and had to appear before court where a medical expert certified him with "moderate grade feeble-mindedness” (Section 51). For that reason, some of the offenses he was charged with under Section 175 were not pursued, and due to his young age a four-month prison sentence was suspended in light of time already served in remand prison in favor of five years’ probation, despite the fact that he had a previous conviction from 1936 for theft. He began his year of compulsory service, from mid 1937 to 1938, at the Reich Labor Service in Pasewalk. Mid 1938 he again set out to sea.

At the start of the invasion of Poland, Friedrich Thomas was recruited into war service as a civilian seaman in Sept. 1939, assigned to the navy. He served as a member of the Naval Supplementary Reserve I. He was primarily deployed on troop transport steamers. At the same time the probation from his sentence in 1937 was suspended in 1939, and in early 1940 he served two months of a remaining sentence at Glasmoor.

In 1942 Friedrich Thomas married his girlfriend Eva Seidler. They had one child. In Jan. 1944 they divorced by mutual agreement, and Friedrich Thomas became engaged again.

On 19 Mar. 1943 Friedrich Thomas was sentenced in Bordeaux to seven months in prison for "guard duty misconduct in the field" and "unauthorized absence". On 7 May 1943 the Bordeaux district military prison transferred him via the Freiburg military prison to Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel Penitentiary which temporarily released him on 6 Aug. 1943 after the heavy bombing of Hamburg in July/Aug. on condition that he return in due course to serve his remaining time of 93 days.

After his temporary release, he immediately received a new deployment on the steamer "Moero" from which he was discharged on 16 Nov. 1943 in Aarhus in Denmark. He was ordered to report to the Naval War Office three days later in Hamburg, but instead he went straight to his parents’, sick with flu, missed reporting for duty and persisted in his delay because he was afraid of punishment. He wandered the streets of the city, sleeping in bunkers, but told his parents that he was sleeping on the houseboat Oxhöft eating simple meals at restaurants that did not require him to use ration stamps.

In Dec. he became engaged to the eighteen-year-old Gerda R., a worker living on Brüderstraße. They had met in a bar that Gerda went to with her married sister. At the same time, he got to know Hans Köllner at another bar and they became friends. His mother worked for the company Helbing on Lübecker Straße. The two of them broke into the business on 2 Dec. 1943 and stole 31 bottles of blended rum from the warehouse which they initially hid in a summerhouse in Wandsbek, some bottles they drank themselves and others they sold in St. Pauli for 100 RM a bottle or more. They repeated the break-in on 21 Dec. backed-up with a third man, stole 100 bottles of liquor and proceeded to dispose of them as they had done on the previous occasion.

When Friedrich Thomas finally confessed to his parents, they advised him to turn himself in, which he did. He was consequently arrested on 21 Jan. 1944. On 24 Jan. he was admitted to the military prison Standortarrestanstalt 2 in Hamburg-Altona at 3:00 pm. He remained there while his case was under investigation until 2 Mar. 1944 and then served the remaining time from his sentence the year before.

He was formally charged on 27 Feb. Public proceedings were held against Friedrich Thomas on 24 Mar. 1944 presided over by Naval War Court Justice Schwanhäuser. Dr. Löning was counsel for the prosecution. The lawyer Mitte was his public defender. Thomas’ co-defendant Hans Köllner was accused of desertion, Friedrich Thomas of being absent without leave – absent from 19 Nov.1943 until 21 Jan. 1944, and both were charged with two instances of burglary. Hans Köllner was sentenced to death.

The military tribunal sentenced Friedrich Thomas to five years in prison and loss of his civil rights for the duration of five years – three years of prison for being absent without leave and one year for each burglary. His sentence was not shortened by his brief pre-trial detention. He was given credit for staying close to his parents and only having one previous conviction for robbery. He was not a "pest of the people” who exploited the circumstances of war, nor was he a habitual offender since only two of his previous sentences lasted longer than six months.

The High Command of the Navy in Berlin instructed Naval High Military Justice Wilhelm Heltge to prepare an expert legal opinion on the sentences. He recommended confirmation of the judgment against Hans Köllner and suspension of the judgment against Friedrich Thomas in favor of "another examination of the facts, the legal situation and sentencing”. The High Command followed his recommendation and ordered Hans Köllner’s death sentence be carried out. He was executed by a firing squad on 2 May 1944 at Höltigbaum in Hamburg-Rahlstedt at 7:30 pm.

The head of the tribunal and admiral of the Hamburg Naval War Office was tasked with "the speedy formation of a new military tribunal”. On 5 May a new date was set for the 16th of the month, the prosecutor and public defender were the same ones from the first trial. Since Friedrich Thomas was in Langenhorn Hospital at that time, sick with diphtheria, the new trial was rescheduled for 29 June.

The military tribunal followed the expert opinion which would charge him with desertion instead of absence without leave and which criticized the earlier partial sentence of "only three years in prison” by reasoning that it was necessary "to intercede against the co-conspirator with the harshest punishment for such a long period (2 months) of absence without leave. It is unacceptable for young men fit for military service to believe that they can take their obligatory public service less seriously than military service. … The feeblemindedness of the accused cannot lead to a milder judgment. Whoever finds serving his prison sentence so unpleasant as to stay away from his service unit is capable of recognizing the wrongdoing of committing new crimes and behaving accordingly. … The necessities of war demand ruthless intervention against weaklings, people of inferior quality, psychopaths, and those with similarly tendencies.” Consideration is then given as to whether the death sentence might be appropriate.

Friedrich Thomas addressed a plea for clemency to the "Lord Admiral of the Berlin Naval War Office", sent from the Wehrmachtsuntersuchungsgefängnis Hamburg-Altona (Hamburg-Altona Military Detention Center), Gerichtsstraße 2, received on 4 July 1944. It stated:

"I, the civilian seaman Friedrich Thomas, born in Hamburg on 30 Mar. 1919, have been sentenced by the Naval Military Tribunal to die on 29 June 1944. I regret my crime with my whole heart and would like to make it all undone. I ask for clemency and probation at the front. I want to use all of my strength to demonstrate that I want to become an upstanding human being again. I never thought that I would not report back for service, I wanted to report back again and again, my parents can attest to that. On the 16th I was sent from the Aarhus Naval War Office to the Hamburg Naval War Office, but on the train I felt sick and just as I was about to [report for duty], I was arrested a quarter of an hour beforehand. After the massive bombing of Hamburg, I was released from Fuhlsbüttel and I reported immediately to the Hamburg Naval War Office. I was a total bombing victim. I beg you for clemency and probation at the front so that I can prove myself. It was never my own idea to commit a crime. I was always talked into it. I swear with God as my witness that I wanted to report for duty. Day and night I beg God for mercy. I declare over and over again that I wanted to report for duty. I beg you with my whole heart for mercy and compassion. I want to use my life to serve my leader, my people and my homeland. Friedrich Thomas, Seaman"

Yet the High Command of the Navy rejected his plea for clemency on 10 July 1944. At the same time the order was given to carry out his death sentence. The presiding court justice ruled that Friedrich Thomas was to be beheaded instead of being killed by firing squad. Hence the executioner had to be brought in from Hanover, and Hamburg Remand Prison, Holstenglacis 3, had to notify him of the date for execution. He set the date for 31 July 1944 at 4 pm. "Since the place of execution cannot be used due to damage from bombing”, the date was postponed. Erna Thomas for her part addressed a plea for clemency for her son to the "Admiral of the Navy”, but to no effect. Navy Chief Justice Nordsee inquired on 15 Aug. as to the status of enforcing the death sentence, but no new date had been set. The date was then set at short notice for 28 Aug, at 4 pm. A final plea from the convict on 28 Aug. was rejected.

Friedrich Thomas wrote his parents a farewell letter.

"Dear Parents,
Unfortunately I won’t be able to see you again for they have rejected my plea for clemency. Please do not think badly of me and always remember me lovingly, as I have always loved you. I thank you for all the good things you have done for me. Please write Gerda that I am no longer alive. I will have my things sent home to you and please keep it, maybe Papa can use it or Heinz Kurt or Rolf. I still can’t believe it, but the prosecutor was just here.
Now I must close.
A thousand greetings and kisses
from your son Fritz
Please say hello to everyone from me"

Friedrich Thomas was decapitated by guillotine on 28 Aug. 1944 at 16:03 pm in the presence of Naval High Justice Löning, Naval Medical Officer Passmann and Erich Eske, part-time pastor at the remand prison. His corpse was sent to the Anatomical Institute of Eppendorf University Hospital. His mother received notification of enforcement of his death sentence, and at the same time she was forbidden to publish any notice of her son’s death. The next day Friedrich Thomas’ body was cremated in Hamburg-Ohlsdorf. Today his grave is located between Mittelallee and Kriegerallee, in field BM 52, row 3, grave 30. His death was not entered in the official death registry until nine years after his execution.

Since Friedrich Thomas lived the longest period of his life at Hardenstraße 29, a Stumbling Stone at the location of the former residential building will bear witness to his fate.


Translator: Suzanne von Engelhardt
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: March 2019
© Hildegard Thevs/Ulf Bollmann

Quellen: BA Freiburg, RM 123/54116 F. F. L. Thomas; StaH 213-11 Staatsanwaltschaft Landgericht – Strafsachen, 5043/37; 242-1 II Gefängnisverwaltung II, Ablieferungen 4 (84), 12, 13 und 16; 332-5 Standesämter, 1329+122 /1953 und 3328+284/1918; Archiv des Ev.-Luth. Kirchenkreises Hamburg-Ost, Pas­­toren­ver­zeich­nis; Berichte von Erich Eskes, BILD 1971.