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Dr. Ernst Wulff * 1872

Beim Gesundbrunnen 14 (Hamburg-Mitte, Borgfelde)

HIER WOHNTE
DR. ERNST WULFF
JG. 1872
GEDEMÜTIGT / ENTRECHTET
FLUCHT IN DEN TOD
1.12.1938

Ernst Wulff, born 19.4.1872 in Hamburg, suicide on 1.12.1938 in Hamburg

At the Gesundbrunnen 14

On April 19, 1872, a boy named Ernst was born to the Lutheran Wulff family at Langenreihe 14 in St. Georg. He left few traces of his own. All the more diverse are those of his families of origin.

Ernst was the only child of the merchant Joachim Kiehn Wulff and his wife Bertha Julie, née Heynemann or Heinemann, who had already turned away from the Jewish religion before his birth. Joachim Kiehn Wulff had been as Joachim Samuel Cohen in Altona on February 25, 1825, and his older brother, Louis Cohen, on May 30, 1822. Their family had become prosperous in the paper trade and for its takeover the brothers were trained.

Louis Cohen continued the business with headquarters in Hamburg, while Joachim Samuel Cohen intended to establish a branch in England. There he estranged himself from Judaism and adopted the Christian faith, but without converting. The reason he gave for this was the unresolved question of his name. Apparently he had encountered the Brethren congregation around John Nelson Darby, because when he returned to Altona at the end of the 1840s for family reasons, he joined the free German congregation. The family lived in Altona, but operated their business in Hamburg. It was therefore natural to seek Hamburg citizenship. In 1850, Joachim Samuel Cohen made the corresponding application.

In the meantime, the ordinance of February 23, 1849 had settled the question of names: Jews now also had to bear a first and surname, and Joachim Samuel Cohen wanted to make the formal change of faith. In the Lutheran St. Petri Church, which had been restored after the Hamburg fire of 1842, he was baptized by the liberal pastor Valentin Anton Noodt on September 21, 1850, and at the same time given the Christian name Joachim Kiehn Wulff.

Joachim Kiehn Wulff, like his brother Louis, had inherited a considerable fortune, so that he considered all the requirements for admission to the Hamburg state to be fulfilled and still in 1850 applied to the Hamburg Senate for naturalization. However, as early as October 16, 1850, he received a negative decision on the grounds that his identity had not been proven beyond doubt. The doubts were also accompanied by mistrust of his affiliation with a free church. Although membership in the Evangelical Lutheran Church and his assets were decisive prerequisites for acquiring Hamburg citizenship, his change of name became a problem. Despite all the references, it took until October 5, 1855, for him to receive his Hamburg citizenship certificate. His brother Louis, who had switched from the Altona to the Hamburg German-Israelite community, received Hamburg citizenship at the first attempt on May 19, 1854. As his father Samuel Meyer Cohen had already been called "Wulff," he too added Wulff to his name. The paper merchant L. C. Wulff, of which both brothers were partners, had its headquarters at Rödingsmarkt 13.

Joachim Kiehn Wulff was 44 years old when he married 20-year-old Bertha Julie Heinemann on June 10, 1869, before the Civil Registry Office. This was not without special circumstances, because the bride was born out of wedlock, had not been adopted by her stepfather and, moreover, was not yet of age. Bertha Julie Heinemann (or Heynemann) was the daughter of Adele Heynemann, who had been born in Hamburg on January 21, 1823 as the daughter of the merchant David Leffmann Heynemann from Odense/ Denmark and his wife Jette del Banco. She had turned away from Judaism and considered herself non-denominational. She gave birth to her daughter Bertha Julie in Potsdam on November 12, 1848, and had her baptized in the Garrison Church in Potsdam.

David Leffmann Heynemann, Adele Heynemann's father, founded the trading company Heynemann, Pick & Co. in San Francisco, California, around 1850, apparently with the naturalized Briton Morris Pick. Adele Heynemann married Morris Pick, born Marcus Joachim Levi Pick at Studnic in Bohemia on November 28, 1819, on April 21, 1853, in Manchester. A passport application for Morris Pick suggests that Bertha Julie lived with her mother and traveled with her mother and stepfather to San Francisco. Upon her return to Hamburg, Adele Pick gave birth to a son, Leopold, on February 5, 1861.

Since Morris Pick had become a U.S. citizen in the meantime, Leopold's birth was registered at the Hamburg Consulate of the United States of America. Morris Pick died in San Francisco on January 20, 1863, while Adele remained in Hamburg with her children and moved into an apartment at Lohmühlenstraße 54 in St. Georg.
Also in St. Georg, Lange Reihe 14, the brothers Louis and Joachim Wulff ran their business. Louis married Henriette, née Cohen, called Jenny. Their first child, Albert Siegfried, was born on June 28, 1866, and their daughter Olga Rosa eight years later. The family lived in Harvestehude. After their marriage, Joachim and Bertha Wulff lived at Lange Reihe 14 with the brotherly business. It was almost three years before their first child was born, son Ernst (born April 19, 1872). He remained their only child.

The cousins Ernst and Albert Wulff studied and graduated with doctorates, the elder with the Dr. jur. degree, Ernst Wulff the chemistry degree with the Dr. phil. degree, only later was the Dr. rer. nat. degree introduced. Albert Wulff's dissertation is known to have been submitted to Breslau in 1891; no references to Ernst Wulff's have been found. Ernst Wulff became a textile chemist, worked as a clerk and remained single, Albert Wulff became a self-employed lawyer, started a family and had four children.

Around 1890 Joachim and Bertha Wulff moved to Grindelviertel/Rotherbaum and lived at Rutschbahn 37. In 1902 Ernst Wulff, already a chemist with a doctorate, was also registered there, but had a second address at his place of work, the J.H.C. Karstadt Chemische Reinigung und Färberei in Billwärder at Bille 35 c. (see Stolpersteine in Hamburg-Billstedt, Theodor und Clara Tuch, pp. 51-57). There he worked as a quality and process controller until the eve of his death.

At the age of almost 80, Ernst Wulff's father Joachim Kiehn died on April 9, 1904, followed by his uncle Louis Cohen Wulff, aged 84, on December 12, 1906, and his grandmother Adele Pick, also aged 84, on September 14, 1907, the last of the grandparents. At the end of her life, she lived with her son Leopold at 18/20 Ackermannstraße in Hohenfelde, where he ran a cigar and wine business. Ernst Wulff moved with his mother Bertha Julie to Grindelhof 62 in 1912, where she died on December 8, 1913. Their burial places are not known. The last of her parents' generation to die was Henriette/Jenny Wulff on September 8, 1922, in the care of her cook Minna Küntzel in her apartment at Klosterstern 5.

Ernst Wulff left the Grindelviertel during the First World War and moved to Hamburg-Borgfelde to a rented apartment, Beim Gesundbrunnen 14, 1st floor. He hired Frieda Jettmann, born September 20, 1881 in Alten-Hagen, to run his household. He lived there for 25 years.

Ernst Wulff first applied for a passport in 1917, valid for one year domestically, unaccompanied. The personal description indicates that he was of medium build, had brown eyes and dark brown, mottled hair - he was 45 years old - and an elongated face. A scar on his right wrist was noted as an unchangeable feature. After the expiration of the validity of this passport, he acquired a new one with the same details in 1918. It was not until June 1922 that he again obtained a passport, this time for both domestic and foreign travel. The following passport was already valid for two years, extended until 1928, in which Holland was specifically listed as the destination; the following and last one was valid for abroad until May 28, 1934. What Ernst Wulff used the passports for cannot be determined.

Family celebrations fall into these years. In 1927 Ernst Wulff represented his family as a witness at the marriage of his uncle Leopold Pick. On March 31 of that year, Leopold Pick, at the age of 66, apparently married for the first time Ella Johanna Marie, née Müller, 22 years his junior, born April 25, 1883 in Stapel, Bleckede County, a non-Jew. After two divorces, this was their third marriage, which lasted until Leopold Pick's death in 1941.

Although the owners of the J.H.C. Karstadt company were considered Jews, the change of power in 1933 did not immediately affect the company's operations. Even when the boycott by major customers forced the company into restrictions, Ernst Wulff's activities were not affected. However, both he and his employers were affected by the Nuremberg Race Laws of September 1935, which made them Jews, albeit of varying degrees, regardless of their denominational or religious affiliation. Of Ernst Wulff's grandparents, three were Jewish, possibly all four.

Thus he was definitely considered a Jew. These laws also created the criminal offense of "racial defilement," which could also affect employment relationships. Ernst Wulff's housekeeper, an "Aryan," was over 45 years old and thus did not fall under the ban on employment in a Jewish household. On April 19, 1938, Ernst Wulff celebrated his 66th birthday.

The year 1938 brought further decrees that also affected Ernst Wulff despite his affiliation with the Evangelical Lutheran Church. By the end of the year, he had to apply for an identification card with a stamped J. As of January 1939, he was to bear the additional first name "Israel" and report it to the registry office. Ernst Wulff decided to evade these measures, especially since the seriousness of the situation had become unmistakable on November 9/10, 1938, as a result of the pogrom: one of the company's three partners, Otto-Erich Blumenfeld, was imprisoned in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, with no sign of his release. Tuesday, November 29, 1938 made Ernst Wulff, his last day of work.

Ernst Wulff carefully prepared his suicide and arranged all private matters. He named merchant Reinhold Reschke as executor of his will, appointed his housekeeper as sole heiress, chose Wilhelm Harbeck & Sohn, Beim Strohhause 85, as funeral director and paid for his coffin. He then gave notice to vacate his apartment with Louis Borgstede, the owner, effective March 1, 1939, and obtained hydrochloric acid and cyanide. He planned his plan taking into account the working days. December 1, 1938, was a Thursday.

He wrote a farewell letter for his housekeeper. He also prepared a second one, explaining his procedure, for the police, and wrote to the district physician, Dr. H. Meier, Horner Landstraße 210.

The latter was to come to his home immediately after receipt of the letter in order to issue the death certificate. The doctor informed the police station, whereupon two chief constables also went to Ernst Wulff's apartment. They found Ernst Wulff dead, apparently having already died during the night of November 30 to December 1, 1938, from the ingestion of hydrochloric acid and cyanide. A detective was summoned and took charge of further proceedings. Ernst Wulff's body was apparently transported to the funeral director's mortuary in Wallstraße, and the farewell letters were secured by Kriminalsekretär Schröder for the Criminal Investigation Department's collection of learning materials.

A final questioning of Frieda Jettmann revealed: "Dr. Wulff had been very depressed and dejected in the last few months and had thoughts of suicide. ... He was also now to take the first name 'Israel', which he resisted. He wanted to sleep late and said that he might die this very night. I talked him out of it. He no longer has any relatives."

This last statement was incorrect in that cousin Albert Wulff had not yet emigrated and cousin Olga was still living in Berlin. She took her own life there on September 10, 1942.

Epilogue

In 2016 Ulrich Bauche, nephew of Theodor Tuch (owner of the company J.H.C. Karstadt), asked René Blumenfeld, Otto-Erich Blumenfeld's son, about Ernst Wulff. René Blumenfeld recalled that a chemist of the company had committed suicide, "but it was not a Jew."

Translation: Beate Meyer

Stand: February 2023
© Hildegard Thevs

Quellen: 1, 4, 5, AB; StaH 331-5 Unnatürliche Todesfälle, 3 Akten Nr. 1805/1938 (Ernst Wulff); 332-3 Zivilstandsämter, A 128 Nr. 2335/1872 (Geburt Ernst Wulff); B 26 Nr. 1164/1869 (Heirat Joachim u. Bertha Wulff); 332-5 Standesämter, 1093/223/1938 (StA 22) (Tod Ernst Wulff), 6656/108/1927 (StA 21) (Heirat Leopold Pick), 6873/825/1907 (StA 21) (Tod Adele Pick), 7247/1018/1941 (StA 6) (Tod Leopold Pick), 7985/475/1906 (StA 3) (Tod Louis Wulff), 8016/551/1913 (StA 3) (Tod Bertha Wulff), 8069/563/1922 (StA 3) (Tod Henriette/Jenny Wulff), 8566/344/1894 (StA 3) (Heirat Albert u. Clara Wulff), 8639/207/1905 (StA 3) (Heirat Olga u. Martin Rosenthal); 332-7 Melderegister (Rosenthal, Wulff); 332-7 Bürgerrechtserwerb, B I a, 1854, Nr. 52 (Louis Cohen Wulff); B I a, 1855, Nr. 1160 (Joachim Kiehn Wulff; darin das Taufzeugnis); B III a, Nr. 28581 (Leopold Pick); 332-8 Reisepässe, A 24, Bände 155/11879, 178/19833, 269/13240, 292/23440, 373/7831, 398 (Register); 351-11 AfW, 1094 (Albert Wulff); Renate Hauschild-Thiessen, Die ersten Hamburger im Goldland Californien, Hamburg 1969, S. 89; https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentin_Anton_Noodt
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