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Julius Hirtz * 1924

Bei der Osterkirche 8 (Altona, Ottensen)

HIER WOHNTE
JULIUS HIRTZ
JG. 1924
MEHRERE INHAFTIERUNGEN
GEFÄNGNIS GLASMOOR, JUGEND-KZ MORINGEN
TOT 19.3.1945

Julius Hirtz, born on 30 Oct. 1924, detained in the Glasmoor prison and the Moringen youth concentration camp, died there on 19 Mar. 1945

Bei der Osterkirche 8

Julius Hirtz was born on 30 Oct. 1924 as the son of the worker Friedrich Hirtz and his wife Meta, née Laps. He had seven siblings. From 1940 onward, the family lived in the working-class area of Altona-Ottensen, first in a basement apartment at Bei der Osterkirche 10 and starting in 1942 in a basement apartment in house no. 8.

Since Julius Hirtz had difficulties in school, he was transferred as a "lower ability student” to a "special school.” Afterward, he signed up as a casual laborer but due to "impudence and dawdling,” conflicts arose repeatedly with his employers, which caused him to change jobs quite often.

On 8 Aug. 1940, the 16-year old was placed in correctional education and committed to the secure Hamburg-Wulfsdorf youth center, one of three such homes in the Hanseatic city. One year later, he was discharged at the request of his parents but he continued to be under the supervision of the welfare office. After he failed to show up for vocational education, the office ordered re-committal to the closed home in Dec. 1941. Julius Hirtz broke out from there, though he was apprehended a few days later and returned, escaping again in Feb. 1942. Following a prison sentence for theft from relatives, he was once again committed to the youth center, from which he escaped once more. On 20 Mar. 1942, the Hamburg-Altona juvenile court sentenced him for breaking and entering a cottage to eight months in prison, which he served from 28 Mar. until 28 Nov. 1942 in the Glasmoor prison.

During the period of detention, a medical officer examined him, diagnosing "congenital feeble-mindedness,” submitting to the Hereditary Health Court (Erbgesundheitsgericht) an expert’s report with the recommendation of "sterilization” in accordance with the "Law for the Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Diseases” ("Gesetz zur Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses”). On 6 June 1942, the Hamburg Hereditary Health Court, represented by the presiding associate judge at the District Court (Amtsgerichtsrat) Deutsch, medical councilor Maintz and the physician Hessch, decided in favor of "sterilization.” Julius Hirtz’ social worker, i.e., the person in charge at the welfare office, agreed.

The court attested to Julius Hirtz "distinct intellectual debility,” "serious character disorders,” and judged that overall, "he is suffering from a mental-psychological disorder of the whole personality along the lines of congenital feeble-mindedness.” This, the report went on, could also be traced back to hereditary burden, for the father had been legally incapacitated because of alcoholism in 1927 and committed to the Glückstadt workhouse.

It is not known whether and when Julius Hirtz was castrated. The records of Glasmoor prison document two stays in the hospital of the Hamburg pretrial detention facility; from 24 June until 1 July 1942 and from 19 Aug. until 16 Sept. 1942.

At any rate, his committal to the Moringen youth concentration camp took place on 24 Dec. 1942. The police authority in charge, in this case the 52nd Office of the Criminal Investigation Department (52. Kriminalkommissariat) located in Altona, had reviewed his release. Despite having served his sentence, he was not released but committed to the Moringen youth concentration camp, officially called "Police youth protection camp” ("Polizeiliches Jugendschutzlager”).

Julius Hirtz received prisoner number 825. During the time of its existence from 1940 until 1945, this camp served to detain approx. 1,400 youths and young adult males. They had to perform hard physical labor in workshops within and outside the camp, getting little to eat, and living under the heel of "educators” recruited from the Waffen-SS and the Security Service of the SS (SD). Some of the youths starved to death, others committed suicide.

The Moringen youth concentration camp was a "laboratory” of criminal biologists around the "race scientist” Robert Ritter. Ritter headed the "Criminal-Biological Institute of the Security Police” ("Kriminalbiologisches Institut der Sicherheitspolizei”) and he started an "archive” in which all "asocial and criminal clans within the territory of the German Reich” were to be recorded. Therefore, the adolescents were distributed to different building blocks according to their supposed character traits and biological features. Julius Hirtz lived in Block B 2 (Beobachtungsblock, i.e., "observation block”), Block G 2 (Gelegenheitsversager, i.e., "occasional failures”) and Block F 1 (Fraglich Erziehungsfähige, i.e., "persons with doubtful educability"). Only those boys classified as "educable” and transferred to the corresponding Block E had any prospect of being released. Others were transferred to adult concentration camps or "sanatoria and nursing homes” after a negative prognosis. Julius Hirtz was not among those hoping to be released. Twice, in Sept. 1943 and in early Mar. 1945, staff of the "Criminal-Biological Institute of the Security Police” ("Kriminalbiologisches Institut der Sicherheitspolizei” – KBI) examined him. To date, no further information is available concerning Julius Hirtz’ experiences during the more than two and a half years he spent in the camp; we know nothing about his everyday life, the type of forced labor he had to perform, or his relations to other youths.

The youth concentration camp was liberated on 9 Apr. 1945. Julius Hirtz did not live to see this day: He died on 19 Mar. 1945. The cause of death entered in the camp register (Lagerbuch) was "influenza with pneumonia on both lobes, pulmonary edema, cardiac insufficiency.”

Julius Hirtz was buried in the local cemetery.


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

Stand: April 2018
© Birgit Gewehr

Quellen: StaH 242-1II Gefängnisverwaltung II, Signatur Ablieferung 13; StaH 224-2 Erbgesundheitsgericht, Signatur 12 (darin der Vorgang 340/41); Auskunft Markus Hunold, KZ-Gedenkstätte Moringen, 13.11.2013; Auskunft Martin Guse (auf der Grundlage seiner Recherchen beim ITS) v. 28.3.2015; Ayass, "Asoziale" im Nationalsozialismus, S. 182; Baumann, Dem Verbrechen auf der Spur, S. 111; Guse, Die Jugendschutzlager Moringen und Uckermark, S. 101–114.