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Dr. Walter Ludwig Samuel
© Bettina Wolf, geb. Samuel

Dr. Walter Ludwig Samuel * 1875

Neuer Wall 32 (ehemalige Anwaltskanzlei) (Hamburg-Mitte, Neustadt)

gedemütigt / entrechtet
Flucht in den Tod
25.03.1943

Dr. Walter Ludwig Oscar Samuel, born on 28 Sept. 1875 in Hamburg, driven to death on 25 Mar. 1943 in Hamburg

In Feb. 2009, a Stolperstein that commemorates the lawyer Walter Samuel was laid at Neuer Wall 32. From 1904 until the occupational ban in Nov. 1938, he worked as a lawyer in Hamburg’s city center, in the very end at a law firm with his son Herbert and Alexander Georg Bachur (born on 9 Sept. 1883). His granddaughter, Bettina Wolf, reported about her grandfather that he was a respected and well-known resident of the city: For instance, when he came from his law office in the evening and got into a hackney carriage on Gänsemarkt, he merely said "homeward” and the coachmen would know that the trip went to Klosterstieg 4 in Hamburg-Harvestehude.

Walter Ludwig Oscar Samuel was born on 28 Sept. 1875 as the son of the Jewish couple Siegfried Samuel and Emma Zerline Samuel, née Gutmann, in Hamburg. His parents lived in "Pöseldorf, Klosterstieg 7, Anfahrt [access via] Mittelweg 113,” as the Hamburg directory listed them since 1874. The father, Siegfried Samuel, co-owner of the Samuel & Rosenfeld consignment and shipping business, founded in 1865 and located at Admiralitätsstrasse 22, later at Grosse Bleichen 65 a, was trading in furs. When he passed away in about 1893, he left his family behind residing in a privately owned row house at Mittelweg 115a and provided for adequately.

Walter Samuel completed university studies in law with a subsequent qualification as a legal trainee. He had already converted to Christianity when he married the non-Jewish woman Amalie Goerz on 25 Sept. 1900. She had been born on 10 Apr. 1878 in the Russian city of Bershad (Berszada in today’s Ukraine) near Kiev. Until her marriage, she had lived with her parents, the Geheimer Kommerzienrat [roughly, Privy Councilor of Commerce] Joseph Goerz and Clara Marie Ottili, née Lohde, in Berlin-Charlottenburg.

Amalie and Walter Samuel moved to Eppendorfer Baum 7, where their first child, son Herbert Walter, was born on 26 Dec. 1901. When his brother Werner Walter followed on 29 July 1904, they already resided at Klosterstieg 4, where they stayed during the following decades. In the same year, Walter Samuel opened a law firm at Gänsemarkt 21/23, which he subsequently relocated to Neuer Wall 32. Walter Samuel’s youngest son Werner became a merchant and emigrated to East Africa, whereas the older son, Herbert, decided to practice his father’s profession. After completing his high-school graduation diploma (Abitur) and his university studies, he joined his father’s law firm in 1929.
On 25 Apr. 1933, Herbert Samuel was deprived of his license to practice law based on the "Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service” ("Gesetz zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums”), for according to National Socialist terminology, he was classified as a "Jewish crossbreed of the first degree” ("Mischling 1. Grades”), due to the Jewish descent of his father and the non-Jewish descent of his mother. However, since he had been an early member of the Free Corps of "Bahrenfeld Short-Service Volunteers” ("Bahrenfelder Zeitfreiwillige”), he received his license back on 10 July 1933.

His father, Walter Samuel, was still allowed to continue practicing, as according to the stipulations of the law, he was exempted from the occupational bans for the time being due to his early licensing in 1904. However, as it was, the revocation of the license merely took place later: on 30 Nov. 1938.

At this point, the Patriotic Society (Patriotische Gesellschaft) in Hamburg had already excluded him. Even the "privileged mixed marriage” ("privilegierte Mischehe") did not afford protection from many anti-Jewish measures: For example, on 20 May 1941, Walter Samuel was sentence to a fine of 20 RM (reichsmark) because he had neglected to notify the editors of the Hamburg directory of the modification resulting from his obligation to bear and have entered the additional compulsory name of "Israel” everywhere. Though Walter Samuel was protected from deportation by his marriage, he was to vacate the apartment in his own house on the orders of the Gestapo. As a result, he left his home on Klosterstieg on 24 Mar. 1943 in the afternoon between 5 and 6 p.m., without returning to his family. His son reported him as missing to police the next day.

On 25 Mar. at 12.30 p.m., two workers noticed on a work-related trip under a bridge called Krugkoppelbrücke, very close to the landing stage pontoon, that the corpse of an unknown person was floating in the water. The body was recovered and taken to the Harbor Hospital, where it was established that the description of the missing Walter Samuel matched that of the deceased. Farewell letters revealed that Walter Samuel had decided to commit suicide to make life easier for his wife. Apparently, he had not wished for her to cope with moving into a "Jews’ house” ("Judenhaus”).

Both sons of Walter Samuel survived the Nazi regime. Like other "persons interrelated to Jews” ("jüdisch Versippte") and "Jewish crossbreeds” ("jüdische Mischlinge”), Herbert Samuel had to perform physically strenuous forced labor: From Nov. 1944 until Jan. 1945, he was forcibly enlisted in "Special Detachment J” ("Sonderkommando J”) to complete dangerous clearance and salvage work with the municipal building authorities.

After the war, Herbert Samuel was a co-founder of the Free Democratic Party (Freie Demokratische Partei – FDP) and from 1953 until 1966 a member of the Hamburg City Parliament (Hamburger Bürgerschaft). The bearer of the Emil-von-Sauer Prize died in Hamburg on 16 Apr. 1982.
A second Stolperstein for his father, Walter Samuel, was laid at Klosterstieg 4. A Stolperstein at St. Benedictstrasse 5 commemorates Walter Samuel’s long-standing partner, the lawyer Georg Bachur. On 25 Oct. 1941, after the death of his non-Jewish wife, he was deported to the Lodz Ghetto, where he died on 9 Oct. 1942.


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

Stand: April 2018
© Susanne Rosendahl

Quellen: StaH 331-5 Polizeibehörde unnatürliche Sterbefälle, 2 Journale 1943, 628/43 Samuel; StaH 351-11 AfW 3751 (Samuel, Amalie); StaH 351-11 AfW 25023 (Samuel, Herbert); StaH 232-5 Amtsgericht Hamburg Vormundschaftswesen 1814; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 8185 u 184/1943; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 13619 u 3059/1901; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 8603 u 435/1900; Heiko Morisse, Jüdische Rechtsanwälte in Hamburg, Ausgrenzung und Verfolgung der Hamburger jüdischen Juristen im Nationalsozialismus, Band 1,Hamburg 2013, S. 30, 73, 126, 168–169; Gesche-M. Cordes, Stolpersteine und Angehörige, Herzogenrath 2012, S. 162.
(Diese Biographie entstand im Projekt "Stolpersteine in Hamburg – biographische Spurensuche", siehe www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de).