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Hamfried Rimek * 1896

Lohbrügger Weg 21 (Bergedorf, Lohbrügge)

HIER WOHNTE
HAMFRIED RIMEK
JG. 1896
VERHAFTET 1944
"FEINDSENDER GEHÖRT"
BIS KRIEGSENDE LAZARETT
ZUCHTHAUS FUHLSBÜTTEL
TOT AN HAFTFOLGEN
19.10.1945

Hamfried Rimek, born on 30 July 1896 in Ottensen, detained on 13 Jan. 1944 in Hamburg, died of the effects of imprisonment on 13 Oct. 1945

Hamfried Heinrich Theodor Rimek was born on 30 July 1896 as the ninth of ten children of the glassmaker Johann Schiemeck/Rimeck and his wife Barbara, née Popek, at Bahrenfelder Strasse 310 in Ottensen. Two of his sisters died in infancy. Located in the immediate vicinity of the home was the Vereinigte Glashüttenwerke Ottensen, a glass manufacturer where Hamfried’s father worked.

Hamfried’s birth certificate contains an addendum dated 1920 indicating that on the orders of the Altona District Court (Amtsgericht), henceforth the last name was Rimek. His father Johann, however, continued to go by the name of Schiemeck until 1929. The reasons for this name change are not known.

Hamfried’s oldest brother took the Hamburg citizen’s oath as early as 1911 under the name of Augustin Rimek.

In 1885, the Schiemecks, a glassmaker family originating from Bohemia, had moved to Ottensen. Before that, they had lived in different places in Bohemia, Lusatia, and in Berlin-Charlottenburg, all of which featured one or more glassworks. In the period between 1879 and 1883 alone, they moved from Altenberg in Saxony to Haida in Bohemia and onward to Berlin-Charlottenburg. In addition to Hamfried’s grandmother, his parents, and his three oldest siblings, apparently two uncles as well as their wives and children also took up residence in Ottensen.

Due to changing customs constellations from the mid-nineteenth century onward, the small town of Ottensen increasingly developed into one of the most important industrial locations in North Germany. The establishment of industrial enterprises such as glassworks, cigar factories, and metal-processing companies resulted in enormous population growth. In 1864, the population was 6,643, in 1886 already 18,630, and in 1889, when Ottensen lost its independence and was incorporated into Altona, approx. 23,400. For all of these people, housing had to be created. The premises of the Vereinigte Glashüttenwerke Ottensen saw a small city take shape through coexistence of factory and warehouse buildings as well as working-class housing. Some 160 workers and their families lived in company-owned apartments. Thus, the workers found themselves caught in a relationship of dependence that left them homeless if they lost their jobs. Often these apartments consisted of two small rooms, an equally small kitchen, and a hallway. The sanitary facilities were located in the yard. Particularly considering the large number of family members, the living conditions were marked by severe confinement. Glassmaker families did not have large incomes at their disposal. Owners of glassworks in rural regions often leased small plots to their workers, enabling them to grow vegetables. This was not possible in the city. Since the families lived in the immediate vicinity of the plants, they were exposed to a constant health hazard. From 1889 until 1899, in Altona and Ottensen the causes indicated for 12.5 % of all deaths were "consumption” (pulmonary tuberculosis) and for 13.3% of all deaths respiratory diseases. The average life expectancy among glass workers was 35 years.

In 1901, with Hamfried five years old, the Schiemecks moved to Bergedorf, on to the premises of the local Hein & Dietrich glass plant, and settled down. Years later, Max, the oldest son of Hamfried’s brother Augustin, related that as a glassmaker’s son he was considered very poor among the other children at school. In the summer, he did not wear any shoes most of the time, and in the winter, only clogs.

Family tradition has it that Johann Rimek was deaf. One can assume that he probably did not know how to read and write, especially since in his days, most children of glassmakers started working at the glassworks very early on. The mother, Barbara, still signed the death certificate of her daughter Emma Catharina Franziska with three letters x in 1889, subsequently that of her mother-in-law awkwardly with her name. Their children, however, learned to read and write. Hamfried attended the school on Am Brink in Bergedorf, where the boys were assigned to different groups according to their backgrounds. Consequently, there was one for the sons of master craftsmen and businessmen, one for those of skilled workers, and the last one for those of unskilled workers. Hamfried’s brothers all learned the glassmaker’s trade and married women from glassmaker families. The husbands of his sisters also came from glassmaker families and practiced this trade as well. Thus, in 1911, when he had finished the eight-grade elementary school (Volksschule), Hamfried also started an apprenticeship as a glass blower.

Hamfried Rimek fought as a soldier in World War I and contracted malaria in Macedonia. After the end of the war, he was unable to return to the trade for which he was trained, initially working as an "excavator.” In 1922, he married Gertrud Wilhelmine Paula Meta Harm. Between 1922 and 1942, they had six children.

In the course of industrialization, Ottensen but also Bergedorf saw the development of a strong trade union and political labor movement very early on. Five years after the family had arrived in Ottensen, the local glass workers went on strike in the summer of 1890. Glass workers in Bergedorf founded a trade association ("Fachverein”) to enable them to push through better working conditions.

The extent to which the family actively participated in this is not known. In 1914, Hamfried Rimek became a member of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) and joined the free trade unions. His oldest brother Augustin and Augustin’s son Max were also SPD comrades. Later, one brother-in-law and one nephew of Hamfried turned toward National Socialism, which apparently was not easy within the family.

In 1923, two days after Communists in Schiffbeck (today Billstedt) brought, among others, the local police station, the town hall, and the post office under their control and set up barricades, Bergedorf saw a crowd of people gather in front of the church. Two gun shops were plundered. The police went after the crowd using sabers and rubber truncheons. However, people continued to assemble. The police reported the situation to be critical. Seven persons, some of whom innocent bystanders, were injured by shots, in some cases seriously, with two of them dying. Police officers apparently stopped Hamfried Rimek in the street even before the beginning of the major clashes, searching him for weapons and temporarily apprehending him, even though they could not find anything. He was accused of "having participated in a public riotous assembly of a crowd joining forces to commit violence against the state authority.” Since the police expected a severe sentence and thus assumed danger of absconding, he remained in police custody, being brought before a judge on 27 October. He denied having participated in the riot. The arrest warrant was not lifted until 2 Nov. 1923. It had been impossible to prove anything against him. Other arrested persons were sentenced to three years in prison.

For Hamfried Rimek, times of unemployment alternated with a variety of jobs over the following years: For instance, he was a telegraph employee, a worker in a box factory, at the port and in a warehouse for flower bulbs, as well as a watchman and doorman at the Bergedorfer Emaillierwerke, an enameling company. Repeatedly, he suffered from serious illnesses of the heart, lung, and liver. For his part, he regarded these conditions as effects of his malaria infection. Consequently, since 1930, he was classified as 90 percent unfit for work, receiving a modest disability pension. Due to his bad state of health, frequent unemployment, and the resulting poor financial situation of the family, he had not been very sociable, as his wife Gertrud reported.

The situation did not improve in the ensuing years. In 1943, he was treated in several Hamburg hospitals. On 13 Jan. 1944, he was certified as fit for work again. At 8:30 a.m. on that day, the Bergedorf Gestapo arrested Hamfried Rimek. As early as 1941, he and the worker Wilhelm Dauck, who was arrested with him on the same day, were reported by the relevant local branch of the National Socialist Party in Lohbrügge to the Gestapo on charges of having listened to enemy stations. At the time, it had been impossible to prove any wrongdoing on their part. In 1944, they were taken into custody, before the Gestapo searched the apartments to secure pieces of evidence. In the process, the radio set in Rimek’s home was seized. Kuno, Hamfried Rimek’s oldest son, who was staying at the apartment, was also taken to the station for questioning. He and Wilhelm Dauck acknowledged to the officers that for some time already Hamfried Rimek had been listening to British stations together with Wilhelm Dauck at the home of the Rimek family. Later, a neighbor corroborated these statements. Hamfried Rimek for his part "deigned” to make a "partial confession” only "after a confrontation with Dauck and serious admonitions,” as the interrogation transcript indicates. The Gestapo accused him of having violated the broadcasting ordinance since 1939. In addition, as co-workers confirmed, Wilhelm Dauck also disseminated what he had he heard on the radio. Gertrud Rimek, Hamfried’s wife, was also taken into police custody for questioning on the same day. Though admitting that her husband had listened to the radio, she denied having known that this had been an enemy station. She had not noticed anything along those lines. She said that Dauck, visiting frequently for a period, had talked a lot about politics though never in opposition to the government, as far as she knew. For her part, she had never dealt with political matters. Certainly, her husband had been a member of the SPD, she added, but he did not disapprove of the National Socialist state. Kriminalsekretär [a rank equivalent to detective sergeant or master sergeant] Lange did not deem her credible, releasing her, however, because she was the "mother of underage children.” Kuno was also released, because he testified having admonished his father and having left the apartment together with his sister whenever Dauck called to listen to the radio.

During the interrogation, Wilhelm Dauck also testified having listened to the radio with the brother-in-law of Hamfried Rimek, Karl Reins, who was the husband of one of Gertrud’s sisters. As a result, he, too, was arrested. All three of them were taken to the Fuhlsbüttel police prison, as the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp was officially called.

On 9 May 1944, the Hanseatic special court (Hanseatisches Sondergericht) sentenced Wilhelm Dauck in open court to six years, Hamfried Rimek to five years, and his brother-in-law Reins to two years’ imprisonment and loss of civil rights for crimes against the broadcasting ordinance. In its judgment, the court also referred to the Marxist convictions and political past of the defendants. Hamfried Rimek’s lawyer was unable to counter the sentence. According to the restitution file, due to his poor state of health, he spent the time until the end of the war in 1945 in the prison hospital of the Fuhlsbüttel penitentiary.

Hamfried and Gertrud Rimek’s six children were one to 21 years old in 1944. After his apprenticeship, the oldest son Kuno lived with his parents, supporting them with his income as a fitter and mechanical engineer until he was drafted into the Technical Emergency Service (Technischer Notdienst). However, after his father’s arrest, he was drafted into the army, even though one year earlier, he had been classified as unfit for military service due to a cardiac valvular defect. Deployed near Riga, he was considered missing as of 1 July 1944. In this way, the family lost its only breadwinner.

Hamfried Rimek did not recover after his release. He died at home on Lohbrügger Weg on 13 Oct. 1945. Being his wife, Gertrud was recognized by the Association of Persecuted Social Democrats (Arbeitsgemeinschaft verfolgter Sozialdemokraten) as a member. Her husband received the status of a political persecutee. His name is listed on the memorial steles of the burial and memorial site of the Hans and Sophie Scholl Foundation (Ehrenfeld der Geschwister-Scholl-Stiftung) for victims of Nazism in the Ohlsdorf Cemetery.


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

Stand: October 2018
© Bärbel Rimek

Quellen: StaH, 213-11 NS Akte 33/46; D 308/23 Haftsache 1923; 332-5 Geburtsregister Ottensen, 777/1896; 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung, 21674; Plagemann, Volker, Hrsg.: Industriekultur in Hamburg. Des Deutschen Reiches Tor zur Welt. München, 1984, S. 77–79; Dahms, Geerd, Das vergessene Bergedorf neu entdeckt. Hamburg, 1990, S. 33; Altona-Ottensen auf der Hamburgischen Gewerbe- und Industrie-Ausstellung 1889; Altonaer Adressbücher; Stadtteilarchiv Ottensen: http://www.stadtteilarchiv-ottensen.de/pages/schwerpunktthemen/arbeiterbewegung.php; Kultur- & und Geschichtskontor, Hrsg., 850 Jahre Bergedorf. Eine Stadtgeschichte. Hamburg 2012, S. 57; Dreckmann, Alfred: >> Wer nicht getauft ist, aufsteh’n.