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Walter Medau
© Privatbesitz

Walter Medau * 1894

Süderstraße 320 (rechts) (Hamburg-Mitte, Hammerbrook)

HIER WOHNTE
WALTER MEDAU
JG. 1894
VERHAFTET 1944
HAMBURG / BERLIN
‚WEHRKRAFTZERSETZUNG’
ZUCHTHAUS
BÜTZOW-DREIBERGEN
TOT AN HAFTFOLGEN
24.6.1945

Walter Medau, born 6.1.1894 in Geesthacht, died as a result of imprisonment on 24.6.1945 in Bützow

Süderstraße 320 (formerly: Süderstraße 318)

Walter Medau as well as his one year younger brother Alphons, born 3.1.1895, were born and baptized in Geesthacht. Their father, Hermann Jacob Medau, came from West Prussia, had been born in 1866 in Groß Bartelsee in the district of Bromberg and had been baptized Protestant.

Hermann Medau had left West Prussia in search of work and found employment at the "Pulverfabrik Rottweil-Hamburg AG" in Düneberg, which began operations in 1877. The site belonged to the then Reich Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. The factory was organized like an estate and provided for the welfare of its workers through a wealth of social and economic measures, such as factory housing and a school.

Walter Medau's mother, Wilhelmine Sophie Magdalene, née Twesten, born Aug. 30, 1867, was the daughter of a carpenter from Besenhorst, a small village near Geesthacht. The parents had married in Geesthacht on August 9, 1892.

When Walter was born, according to the entry in the church register of the St. Salvatoris church, he received the emergency baptism on 20 January 1894 in the apartment of his parents. Apparently there had been problems at his birth. The family lived in a factory-owned apartment at Düneberger Strasse 56 in Besenhorst. Walter and Alphons were already going to school when their sister Hertha was born in 1902. They probably attended the factory's own school.

Walter Medau learned the trade of a skilled cement worker. Both brothers participated in World War I from beginning to end. Walter Medau served in the infantry and was discharged as a private.

On June 10, 1921, his mother died in Besenhorst, where she lived. "Hairdresser" is recorded as the occupation for Walter Medau, who reported her death at the registry office. After the First World War, the powder factory, which had preferably supplied the Imperial Navy, restructured its production and laid off a large part of the workforce. Unemployment and inflation caused Hermann Medau and possibly his son Walter to seek a small income by working as hairdressers and being paid in kind. (However, there may be some confusion with the occupation entry).

The decline of the munitions factories in Düneberg and Krümmel (Alfred Nobel) was probably the reason why Walter Medau moved to Hamburg in search of work. There he married Emma Juliane Elvers, born April 4, 1892 in Lübeck, on June 9, 1923. His occupation was listed as "laborer" and his address as Luruper Weg 71. Emma Elvers' occupation is not listed, but her address at Hansastraße 38 suggests that she was a domestic servant. The son Hans was born on December 21 in the same year, the daughter Käte on August 18, 1927.

Walter Medau found work as a construction worker, iron weaver, and skilled concrete worker. He lived with his family at Greifswalder Strasse 16 in St. Georg. The children were two and six years old when their mother died on February 8, 1929. Who took care of them from afterwards on is not known.

Walter Medau entered into a second marriage, about which little is known. It was divorced before 1943. The wife came from Rügen and returned there after the divorce.

The family moved to the working-class district of Hamburg-Hamm, first to Wichernsweg 28 and later to Süderstraße 318. Walter Medau was against the war, but stood by his son Hans when he was drafted to the Wehrmacht. In Süderstraße, father and daughter Medau were bombed out on July 27/28, 1943. They survived the attack in the air-raid shelter of the house. Walter Medau was then housed as a lodger with Duncker at Große Allee 7, and daughter Käte with her aunt Hertha in Geesthacht. On December 17, 43, Walter Medau was apparently called up again and declared "fit for military service," but was not drafted again.

No details are known about Walter Medau's politicization. Neither his father nor his brother Alphons were politically active. Presumably he heard about Max Blaeser and his fate when he lived at Wichernsweg 28 (see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de). Max Blaeser had already been arrested in 1933 for "preparation for high treason" and released in 1936, so he knew about illegal activities of the communists, persecution and punishment. He certainly also had knowledge of the fate of Karl Wolff from Süderstraße 323, who had been executed in 1933 as an alleged participant in a murder on "Altona Bloody Sunday." Both were younger than Walter Medau, who was a father and breadwinner and soon to be 50 years old. But he associated with Oswald Laue, almost the same age, also a family man and ironworker, and participated in a discussion group that had gathered around him. Oswald Laue was a KPD functionary in Hamm and the neighboring districts.

Walter Medau participated in the distribution of leaflets. The discussions about the course of the war, he enriched with his knowledge, which he had gained from (forbidden) listening to foreign radio stations. The Gestapo got on the trail of the circle around Oswald Laue, and at Whitsun 1944 Walter Medau, Oswald Laue and Walter Behn were arrested and imprisoned in the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp.

In preparation for the trial before the People's Court, they were transferred to Berlin and charged on December 7, 1944, with "preparation for high treason" and "subversion of military strength." Oswald Laue was sentenced to death and beheaded in Brandenburg-Görden on January 15, 1945 (he is commemorated by a stumbling block), Walter Medau received a six-year prison sentence, which he served first in the Celle penitentiary and then in Bützow-Dreibergen. There he was liberated by the Red Army and taken in "lice-ridden and ragged" together with other liberated prisoners by a Beckmann family.

The prison conditions in the overcrowded penitentiary were appalling, so that many of the former prisoners had to be cared for after their liberation. Walter Medau longed for his children, especially his daughter, but could not travel to Hamburg right away. Starved as he was, he fell ill with dysentery and was taken to the military hospital set up in the middle school on May 25, 1945. He died there on June 24 and was buried in Bützow.
A member of the Beckmann family, who had taken him in, gave an account of his last days in 1946.

On May 8, 1985, a plaque honoring the resistance fighters who had become victims of the National Socialist regime was dedicated in the council chamber of Geesthacht's town hall. Walter Medau is also listed on it. Since most of these victims were members of the KPD, it can be assumed that Walter Medau also belonged to the KPD.

Translated by Beate Meyer

Stand: August 2021
© Hildegard Thevs

Quellen: VAN-Liste 1968; AB 1933 Wichernsweg 28 Hs. 3, Nr. 1, 1936 und 1938 Süderstr. 318; Ehrenhain, S. 87 (Oswald Laue); VVN M 9; Ursel Hochmuth, Niemand und nichts wird vergessen. Biogramme und Briefe, Hamburg 2005, S. 87; St. Salvatoris in Geesthacht, Archiv, Kirchenbuch 1894; Wehrpass vom 11. Februar 1939, Ummeldeformular 1943 und Fotos aus Privatbesitz; Mitteilungen von Angehörigen, Signe Schuster und Hanno Billerbeck.