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Jane Schüler, um 1940
© Privatbesitz

Jane Schüler (née Hess) * 1874

Siemersplatz 4 (Eimsbüttel, Lokstedt)

HIER WOHNTE
JANE SCHÜLER
GEB. HESS
JG. 1874
DEPORTIERT 1943
THERESIENSTADT
1944 AUSCHWITZ
ERMORDET

further stumbling stones in Siemersplatz 4:
Walter Schüler

Dr. Walter Schüler, born 8/11/1899 in Lokstedt (now Hamburg-Lokstedt), deported to Auschwitz on 10/9/1943, deported on to Mauthausen, died there on 4/29/1945
Jane Schüler, née Hess, born 3/15/1874 in Hamburg, deported to Theresienstadt on 3/24/1943, deported on to Auschwitz on 4/15/1944

Siemersplatz 4

Walter Jacob Schüler came from a Pomeranian physicians' family: grandfather Hermann Schüler (1831–1904) and father Paul Schüler (1862–1927) were both doctors of medicine, bore the honorary title Sanitätsrat and worked as general practitioners.

In 1898, Paul Schüler, born in Kolberg, married Jane Hess (1874–1944), from Hamburg, whose first name was pronounced the English way. She was the eldest of four children of the Hamburg burgher Jacob Hess (1841–1894), owner of a cigar factory, and the only child from his marriage to Flora, née Michael (1852–1876). After Flora's early death, Jacob married her two years younger sister Pauline Michael. The Hess family lived at Oberstrasse 6 at least since 1892, and kept this address after Jacob Hess' early death in 1894.

Paul and Jane Schüler shed their Jewish faith and joined the Lutheran Protestant church. Their sons Walter and Erich, born 1899 and 1902 in the then Prussian community of Lokstedt, were baptized in the Lutheran church. Since 1993, the family lived with a housekeeper in a detached house at Hesterstrasse 2 in Lokstedt (in 1919, the address was changed to Siemersplatz 2, and later a second time, to Siemersplatz 4). The streetcar line no. 2 connected Lokstedt to the Hamburg districts Rotherbaum and Neustadt (New Town).

Walter Schüler attended the renowned Wilhelm-Gymnasium high school in Hamburg-Rotherbaum, where he graduated at Christmas 1917. Only a few days later, he was drafted into the army along with about 40 more young men from Lokstedt. A rifleman in the Hamburg Infantry Regiment 76, he fought on the western front, and remained in the army until January 1919 (for which he belatedly received the "Cross of Honor for Front Fighters" in 1935. After his discharge, he began to study law and joined the conservative Deutsche Volkspartei (DVP) that had been founded in 1919 and formed the Hamburg state government with the Social Democratic SPD and the Deutsche Demokratische Partei DDP from 1924 to 1932.

His younger brother Erich (born 1902) attended the Heinrich Hertz high school in Hamburg-Winterhude from 1911 to 1919, and in 1920 began an apprenticeship at a Hamburg im- and export company for which he went to Tokyo from the middle or late 1920s.

After his first legal exam, Walter Schüler became an articled clerk at the Altona district court. In March 1924, he acquired his doctor's degree at Christian-Albrechts-Universität in Kiel with his dissertation on Die Handhabung der Interpellation im Reichstage ("The Handling of Interpellations in the Reich Parliament), a subject that showed his interest in politics. After passing his great state law exam in 1926, Walter Schüler was appointed assessor at the court of appeals in Kiel. In the following four years, he worked in Altona for a lengthy period: at the district court for land register and legal assistance matters, as assistant judge at the court of appeals and at the district attorney's office. In 1929, he was admitted to the bar at the district court and the court of appeals of the Prussian city of Altona. The same year, at the age of 30, he established his law office at his parents' house in Siemersplatz.

Siemersplatz, named for Lokstedt's deputy mayor and representative in the county assembly Heinrich Siemers (1865–1949) in 1919, was already then an important traffic intersection on the way from Lokstedt to Hamburg. Lokstedt had about 5,000 inhabitants in 1919. In 1927, it was merged with the adjoining Prussian communities of Niendorf and Schnelsen to become Gross-Lokstedt. In the early 1930s, parts of Siemersplatz were reconstructed with dark-red brick buildings. Walter Schüler's home and office were on the ground floor of Siemersplatz 4; his mother lived on the second floor. Probably around 1930, Walter Schüler was active in the DVP. In the campaign for the elections to the city council on March 8th, 1933, the DVP tried express their conservative-nationalistic profile with the slogan "we also fight under black-white-red" – but with slight success.

On April 12th, 1933, the board of the Hamburg DVP passed a decision that the complete Hamburg DVP association collectively switch to the NSDAP, the Nazi party. On March 22nd, 1933, the democratically elected Gross-Lokstedt community council was replaced by a Nazi-dominated council. Mayor Johannes Wohlers (1877–1954) now had Nazi adjuncts; Arthur Timm, an architect from Schnelsen, became the local Nazi group leader. The DVP, the Party of Gustav Stresemann and political home of Walter Schüler, was effectively forced to dissolve itself on June 27th, 1933.

The Nazis' rise to power on January 30th, 1933, did not result in immediate disbarment for Walter Schüler. As a former front soldier, he initially was allowed to continue practicing law. However, he was confronted with two lawsuits in July and August of 1933 that intended to damage his reputation and impede his professionalism. Both suits were scrapped because the accusations were construed and untenable.

Walter Schüler's private life in those gloomy times have a few bright spots: on October 12th, 1934, he married Margarete Fischer, (born 1907 in Berlin-Schöneberg), non-Jewish and daughter of the former Hamburg postmaster general Martin Fischer (1867– 1929). The couple spent their honeymoon in 1935 in Italy. When their son was born in 1940, the family acquired the status of a "privileged mixed marriage" according to the categories of Nazi ideology. Walter Schüler's compulsory membership in the Reich Association of Jews, respectively its Hamburg branch, the Jewish Community, was waived when his son was born.

At that time, Walter's brother Erich Schüler was no longer in Germany. He moved from Japan to the USA, leaving Yokohama aboard the US steamer President Coolidge on September 24th, 1937. Arriving in Los Angeles on October 10th, he became a US citizen on April 11th, 1945.

From December 1st, 1938, Walter Schüler was disbarred. In the "5th Bylaw to the Law on Citizenship of the Reich" of September 27th, 1938, the Nazi regime rules that Jewish attorneys, who now were rated as "Jewish consultants" and only allowed to represent Jewish persons and companies. An application for approval as "consultant" was the only way that enabled Jewish attorneys to continue working – for a fee. In the course of four and a half years, Walter Schüler’s levies amounted to about 20,000 RM. Neither the Gestapo nor the president of the law association had any objection to Schüler’s application for approval as a "consultant.”

Only Ferdinand Korn, President of the Hamburg Court of Appeals from 1937 to 1945, attempted to prevent Schüler’s appointment by an intentionally disparaging written opinion. Thus, Schüler was only temporarily appointed as "consultant” for December 1937 and January 1939, and his application was rejected on January 31st, 1939 "in the name of the Reich Minister of Justice.” (Ferdinand Korn, member of the NSDAP since 1933, of the NS Kraftfahrer-Korps (motorists’ corps, where he was Obersturmführer – first lieutenant), and of the NS-Rechtswahrerbund , the Nazi jurists’ union (where he was sub-division leader), was ultimately classified as "unburdened” at the end of his denazification proceedings in 1949.

Walter Schüler at least succeeded in finding a job as "scientific helper” with another Hamburg (presumably Siegfried Urias). On April 19th, 1939, however, he and Albert Holländer did receive unlimited appointments as "consultants”, Schüler for the vacant area of the districts of the courts of appeals of Hamburg, Bremen, Oldenburg, Verden, Stade, Aurich, Emden and of the district court of Thedinghausen. The fee charged for this administrative act was 20 RM.

Siegfried Urias had run Walter Schüler’s office at Jungfernstieg 24, 5th floor, corner of Grosse Bleichen until his emigration in April 1939. Lotte Heller had worked at Walter Schüler’s office until she left Germany. From January 30th, 1940, the former judge Paul Dahns worked for Schüler as "legally trained helper.” Until December 30th, 1939, Dahms had worked for the "consultant” Edgar Haas. On December 16th, 1941, a similar permit was issued for the former attorney Richard Schwabe (1894–1978).

Walter Schüler’s tasks included the administration of the remaining assets of emigrated and deceased persons, "trusteeships from the Poland operation of October 1938” and of inmates of institutions as well as executorships.” In March 1940, Walter Schüler added: "In addition, I have bank mandates from a few persons who are currently imprisoned and therefor prevented from managing their assets.” When his client Franz Emil Levi (1898–1941), convicted of "racial defilement” and violations of the weapons law, died in November 1941 at the prison in Neusustrum/ Ems, he had to pay the reduced costs of detainment for him. His client Alice Insel had already been transferred from the Langenhorn mental hospital to the killing institution in Brandenburg on September 23rd, 1940.

Further measures against Walter Schüler included tax disadvantages, e.g. the waiver of exemption limits, an unfavorable taxation category and increased income tax rate. In addition, his infant son was refused the necessary medical treatment when he was ill.

In July 1941, Walter Schüler was fined 20 RM plus the costs of the proceedings because "he had negligently omitted to have his additional first name "Israel” entered in the public telephone directory.” On February 27th, 1941, the Hamburg regional office of the Reich postal agency had informed the Hamburg district attorney that Walter Schüler had a telephone book entry without the compulsory amendment "Israel” to his name. Subsequently, Walter Schüler was summoned to the police precinct 13 in Hamburg-Lokstedt in Sottorfallee, where his statement was transcribed. Until September 1942, Walter Schüler’s assets were not subject to a "security order”, "because there are no assets worth mentioning. Payments for Schüler can therefore be made directly to his unblocked account at the Dresdner Bank in Hamburg. ” This reply from the Hamburg currency office to an enquiry from the Quakenbrück finance office shows the tight net of financial observation and regimentation Jews were subject to.

The activities of most "consultants” ended on June 10th, 1943, when the "Reich Association of Jews in Germany” was dissolved.

Because of his "privileged mixed marriage”, Walter Schüler was exempt from deportation for the time being. However, like all Jews still protected, the exemption could be revoked if he was accused of a real or alleged violation of any kind. In summer of 1943, Schüler, having attended a meeting at a private home in Bremen to discuss the political situation. On July 20th or 22nd, the Bremen Gestapo arrested the people who had attended the meeting. The records of Walter Schüler’s detainment are not preserved. He presumably was transferred from Bremen to Berlin, interrogated and jailed for about ten weeks. On October 9th, 1943, he was taken to Auschwitz extermination camp and given the inmate number 156499.

The president of the Hamburg Supreme Court now appointed the "consultant” Edgar Haas (1877–1946) as legal representative of Walter Schüler. Haas was one of three "Jewish consultants” who were active up to the end of the Nazi era. Margarethe Schüler immediately pleaded with the Bremen Gestapo her husband – and was referred to the colleagues in Berlin, to where Walter Schüler had supposedly been taken. She pleaded in Berlin, but instead of examining the case, the Berlin Gestapo only tried to persuade Margarethe Schüler to get divorced, which she refused.

On November 5th, 1943 – when Walter Schüler had already been in Auschwitz for five weeks, Albert Schmidt-Egk, President of the Hamburg Supreme Court (member of the NSDAP since 1937), wrote to the Reich Minister of Justice: "With regard to the activities the Jewish consultant is accused of, it is impossible for him to remain in his position, and thus it is justified to revoke his license. Hearing Dr. Schüler on this is unadvisable under the circumstances. Schmidt-Egk left it at that. Deportations were in the responsibility of the Gestapo, who had made facts by abducting Schüler. Schüler succeeded in surviving in Auschwitz for fifteen months. Perhaps he was assigned to forced labor at one of the IG Farben chemical plants at Auschwitz III (Monowitz).

A last sign of life from him came from the extermination camp Auschwitz Block 9a. Already severely diminished physically, he was among the approx. 100,000 prisoners that were "evacuated” before the approaching Soviet Army. Before fleeing, the SS guards burned the camp records and the transport lists, blew up the crematories and set fire to the warehouses with the robbed belongings of the prisoners. On bitter cold January 18th, Walter Schüler was crammed into an overcrowded cattle car and taken to the Ebensee satellite camp of the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria, where he got the inmate number 121347. Two months later, on April 29th, 1945, Walter Schüler, aged 45, died in Mauthausen. On the same day, American troops liberated the Dachau concentration camp farther west, a few days later the Mauthausen and Ebensee camps.

On March 23rd, 1943, Walter Schüler’s 69-year-old mother Jane Schüler had been deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto from her forced accommodation at Beneckestrasse 6. On April 15th, 1944, she was transferred from the ghetto to the Auschwitz extermination camp, where she was probably murdered immediately after her arrival.

Walter’s unmarried 74-year-old uncle Alfred Schüler (born 7/25/1868 in Kolberg, Pomerania), who had lived as a merchant in Berlin, was deported from there to the Theresienstadt ghetto on July 24th, 1942 and taken to the Treblinka extermination camp on September 26th, 1942. After the war, the Berlin district court declared him dead effective December 31st, 1942.

In 1948, a path in Hamburg-Niendorf was named Walter-Schüler-Weg in memory of the attorney from Lokstedt. In 1953, the widow’s application for restitution of the fees imposed on "consultants” was rejected because "the equalization levy is no ascertainable item of property and thus is not eligible for compensation in a restitution process.”


Translation by Peter Hubschmid 2018
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: January 2019
© Björn Eggert

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; StaH 213-11 (Staatsanwaltschaft Landgericht), 5412/41 ("Fahrlässiges Nichtführen des Vornamen Israel", 1941); StaH 213-13 (Wiedergutmachungsamt beim Landgericht Hamburg), Z 5067 (9 Seiten); StaH 221-11 (Staatskommissar für die Entnazifizierung), L 1318 (Ferdinand Korn); StaH 221-11 (Staatskommissar für die Entnazifizierung), Z 2754 (Albert Schmidt-Egk); StaH 241-2 (Justizverwaltung), A 3559 (mit Passfoto); StaH 314-15 (OFP), R 1940/146; StaH 314-15 (OFP), R 1941/168; StaH 351-11 (AfW), Eg 110899 (Walter Schüler); StaH 522-1 (Jüdische Gemeinde), Abl. 1993, 41 (Kartei M-Z, 1943); StaH 332-8 (Alte Einwohnermeldekartei), Dr. Paul Schüler, Jane Hess, Pauline Hess, Jacob Hess; StaH 621-1 (Klientenakten Schüler), Vorbemerkung Staatsarchiv; Bundesarchiv Berlin, Bestand R 8150/2a (Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland, Meldung Bezirksstelle Nordwestdeutschland), pag. 166 (Deutschblütige Hausangestellte bei Juden, ohne Datum); Archiv Heinrich-Hertz-Gymnasium, Schülerkarte Erich Schüler; Yad Vashem, Kopie der Häftlings-Personal-Karte aus Mauthausen; AB Hamburg, Anhang Altona 1913, 1920; AB 1943 (Abt. IV – Straßenverzeichnis); AB Berlin 1920 (Alfred Schüler); Ursula Büttner/Werner Jochmann, Hamburg auf dem Weg ins Dritte Reich, Hamburg 1985, S. 63/64 (DVP); Heiko Morisse, Jüdische Rechtsanwälte in Hamburg – Ausgrenzung und Verfolgung im NS-Staat, Hamburg 2003, S. 159 (mit Passfoto); Curt Rothenberger (NS-Justitsenator), Das Hanseatische Oberlandesgericht, Hamburg 1939, S.110 (Ferdinand Korn); Horst Grigat, Hamburg-Lokstedt von der Steinzeit bis zum Jahre 2000, Hamburg 1999, S. 102, 120, 132, 301, 402, 637, 639; Martin Gilbert, Endlösung – Die Vertreibung und Vernichtung der Juden – Ein Atlas, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1982, S. 215, 230; Horst Beckershaus, Die Hamburger Straßennamen, Hamburg 1997, S. 374 (Walter-Schüler-Weg), S. 332 (Siemersplatz); www.ancestry.de (Erich Schüler; eingesehen 13.4.2009); Telefongespräche mit U.S. (Hamburg), März u. August 2010.
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