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Karl Schaafhirte * 1912

Großneumarkt 45 / Erste Brunnenstraße (vorm. Schlachterstraße 2) (Hamburg-Mitte, Neustadt)

HIER WOHNTE
KARL SCHAAFHIRTE
JG. 1912
IM WIDERSTAND
VERHAFTET 1933
KZ FUHLSBÜTTEL
TOT 1.4.1935
ZENTRALLAZARETT
UG HAMBURG

Karl Theodor Schaafhirte, born 22 Dec. 1912 in Hamburg, imprisoned in 1933, died 1 Apr. 1935 at Hamburg Remand Prison, Holstenglacis 3

Großneumarkt 45, at the corner of Erste Brunnenstraße (Schlachterstraße 2)

Karl Theodor Schaafhirte was born in Hamburg on 22 Dec. 1912. When his parents wed on 16 Dec. 1905, they were living in the Gänge neighborhood of Neustadt at Speckstraße 56. In 1907 they moved to Carolinenstraße 26 (today Karolinenstraße) and later lived at Amandastraße 43 in St. Pauli. The family had three other children, two of whom died of a respiratory illness at an early age. His father August Ferdinand Schaafhirte (born 27 Nov. 1885) was a warehouse worker until he served in World War I. Karl was only five years old when his father was killed near Agnilcourt on 4 May 1917. His widow Gertrud Louise Schaafhirte, née Heinecker (born 11 May 1887), moved into her father’s household with her children. The storage house worker Julius Johannes Heinecker lived at Schlachterstraße 2, which no longer exists.

Karl’s brother Ferdinand August Julius (born 1 Sept.1904), who was eight years older, worked at Holstenwall (today a state trade school) as a shipbuilder after finishing elementary school. Karl learned the craft of metalwork, doing specialized work at a brass foundry that manufactured buckles, small lamps, figurines and fittings. Since he was unable to find work in his field for a time, he worked as a storage house worker and later as a truck driver for the company J. P. Lange Mühle on Elbstraße in Hamburg-Altona. He spent his free time building radios and lamps and joined the German Communist Youth Association.

Towards the end of the Weimar Republic there were almost daily violent altercations between National Socialists and those on the left. During the, at times, armed attacks on public streets, innocent bystanders were sometimes injured or even killed by stray bullets. After the National Socialists took power, Karl Schaafhirte was arrested on 12 Aug. 1933 in connection with the attack on the pub at Adler Hotel where the SA navy liked to gather. According to the account of the indictment from 5 Dec. 1934, he allegedly was hanging around in the vicinity of the grocery store of August Schreiber at Schulterblatt 79a as the group leader of the 3rd Storm Detachment of the Red Front Fighter’s League on the evening of 21 Feb. 1933 when the grocery was looted upon the agreed signal, "What are the unemployed? Hungry!” The looting served as a distraction, drawing the order police away from the attack by the "Red Navy” on the "Adler Hotel” which took place at the same time at the corner of Neuer Pferdemarkt and Schanzenstraße (see the entries for Otto Heitmann, Johannes Horlebusch, Alfred Trieglaff and Walter Wicke).

The Hanseatic Special Court sentenced Karl Schaafhirte on 8 Jan. 1935 as a "very active communist and member of the Red Front Fighter’s League” for "disturbing the peace” to a prison sentence of eighteen months, despite the fact that the state prosecutor was not able to prove his involvement in the looting. His time in prison while under investigation was counted towards his sentence. On 22 Jan. 1935, Karl Schaafhirte was transferred to Fuhlsbüttel Police Prison. Just under two months later, on 28 Mar., he was moved to the sickbay of the remand prison at Holstenglacis 3. Karl Schaafhirte died there on 1 Apr. 1935 of a "ruptured stomach ulcer” and peritonitis, which suggests he was not given appropriate medical care in time.

A further trial on charges of "preparations for high treason” was suspended following his death. Two years after the end of the war, on 3 June 1947, the judgment of the Hanseatic Special Court was officially annulled.

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

Stand: June 2020
© Susanne Rosendahl

Quellen: StaH 351-11 AfW 9541 (Schaafhirte, Gertrud); StaH 213-11 Staatsanwaltschaft/Landgerichte LO 104/36; StaH 242-1II, Abl. 13 ältere Gefangenenkartei Männer Strafgefängnis Fuhlsbüttel; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 3043 u 867/1905; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 8041 u 38/1917; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 1037 u 120/1935; StaH 213-11 Staatsanwaltschaft/Landgerichte 04266/46 Band 1; Gedenkstätte Ernst Thälmann Hamburg-Eppendorf, Archiv (Sammlung NS-Akten, Anklage Tacke & Genossen, 1934).