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Heinrich Seifert * 1905

Bremer Straße 33 (Harburg, Harburg)

HIER WOHNTE
HEINRICH SEIFERT
JG. 1905
VERHAFTET
"WEHRKRAFTZERSETZUNG"
ZUCHTHAUS BRANDENBURG
HINGERICHTET 4.8.1944

Heinrich Seifert, born on 5 Jan. 1905 in Harburg, executed on 14 Aug. 1944 in the Brandenburg-Görden penitentiary

Bremer Strasse 33 (District of Harburg-Altstadt)

Heinrich Seifert was the son of the bread merchant Josef Seifert, born on 15 Apr. 1876 in Leubus, administrative district of Wohlau in Silesia (today Lubiaz in the Polish administrative district of Wolow). From 1895 onward, Josef Seifert resided in Hamburg. A Catholic, he had learned the blacksmith’s craft, before operating a bread store. On 24 Jan. 1904, he married Elisabeth Schmalstieg, born on 19 June 1882 in Harburg. Heinrich was the oldest child. He had three siblings, all of whom were born in Harburg: Anna, on 2 June 1907, Lorenz, on 3 Jan. 1910, and Josef, on 5 Aug. 1911. Josef Seifert owned the family’s residential building at Bremer Strasse 33. His bread store was also located there. Seifert had rented out one of the apartments in 1933.

Heinrich Seifert had a job as a commercial employee, and subsequently he worked as a self-employed merchant, doing so first as a pharmacist and then as a bookseller. Temporarily, he resided (from 1928 onward) at Pestalozzistrasse 112 (today Mehringweg) and, starting in 1935, at Bremer Strasse 33 again. Later, he indicated his occupation as "business traveler.” In 1938, he met Irma Zandering and got engaged to her.

According to her information, Heinrich Seifert sympathized with the Nazi party (NSDAP) before 1933. He even held election speeches for this party, without having joined it. Soon he turned into a determined opponent. He also became conspicuous to the Gestapo due to the fact, among other things, that he had dodged military service. In order to evade discovery, he traveled as an itinerant bookseller using forged papers. The business was registered under his fiancé’s name.

From 18 Sept. 1936 until 18 Feb. 1937, he was imprisoned in Fuhlsbüttel on charges of bodily harm, with his trial taking place in Stade. We do not know whether political reasons were involved as well.

In June 1943, he was arrested again and held in the Fuhlsbüttel Gestapo prison until Mar. 1944. The Hamburg pretrial detention center on Holstenglacis followed as his next place of imprisonment. He was indicted by the Senior Reich Prosecutor (Oberreichsanwalt) in Berlin. Initially, the trial took place at the Hamburg special court (Sondergericht), sitting in the Altona court building.

On 23 June 1944, he was transferred to Berlin-Moabit. Henceforth, the criminal proceedings against him took place before the People’s Court (Volksgerichtshof). The charges were "undermining of military strength” ("Wehrkraftzersetzung”) and breach of the "Treachery Act” (Heimtückegesetz). In a letter from the International Red Cross in Geneva (dated 7 Mar. 1956), a document was cited as saying, "[he] engaged in subversive propaganda in a railroad car in the fifth year of the war.” According to information from his fiancé, who attended the Berlin trial, he apparently said, "The trees along the Alster would not be enough to bear the heads of the (Nazi) bigwigs.” On 12 July 1944, he was sentenced to death, and a plea for clemency was subsequently turned down. On 14 August, his execution took place in the Brandenburg penitentiary. The dead body was cremated and the remains transported to Ohlsdorf.

Heinrich Seifert’s discussion partner on the train had called himself Köhler and pretended to be a Communist. Probably, he denounced him to the Gestapo. The Hamburg-based "Association of [Political] Persecutees of the Nazi Regime” (Vereinigung der [politisch] Verfolgten des Naziregimes – VVN) believes the person in question might have been the same Karl Köhler who lived in Harburg like Seifert and had indeed been a Communist before being "turned” by the Gestapo in prison, however. He betrayed several resistance fighters to the Gestapo, as a result of which he was interned in 1945, facing trial in the criminal proceedings against the Gestapo officer Henry Helms, the informer Alfons Pannek, and others (letter dated 30 June 1949).

The house of Heinrich Seifert’s parents was completely destroyed by bombs. The owners survived the war, however. Josef Seifert passed away on 27 Oct. 1959, his wife Elisabeth on 14 Aug. 1954.


Translator: Erwin Fink
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: January 2019
© Hans-Joachim Meyer

Quellen: StaH, 351-11 AfW, Josef Seifert; StaH, 332-8 Meldewesen; StaH, Adressbücher Harburg-Wilhelmsburg und Hamburg; Totenliste VAN.