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Walter Wicke * 1909

Holstenglacis 3 (Untersuchungsgefängnis) (Hamburg-Mitte, Neustadt)

WALTER WICKE
JG. 1909
IM WIDERSTAND
VERHAFTET 1934
UG HOLSTENGLACIS
FLUCHT IN DEN TOD
29.4.1934

further stumbling stones in Holstenglacis 3 (Untersuchungsgefängnis):
Heinz Jäkisch, Bernhard Jung, Karl-Heinz Keil, Hermann Lange, Eduard Müller, Johann Odenthal, Johannes Prassek, Rudolf Schöning, Karl Friedrich Stellbrink, Walerjan Wróbel

Walter Wicke, b. 7.20.1909 in Liegnitz, arrested in April 1934, committed suicide in the Hamburg Remand Center on 4.29.1934

Holstenglacis 3 (at the front of the Remand Center)

Walter Paul Georg Wicke came from Liegnitz, Silesia. In 1915, his mother had married the woodworker Robert Wicke; thus, Walter received the Wicke family name. He finished his schooling in 1923 and took up and initially practiced the blacksmith’s craft. In 1929, he was let go because of the lack of demand; he left Liegnitz and went on his travels.

In 1930, he came to Hamburg and found work with the Woermann Line Shipping company. In February 1932, he was again unemployed and, at this point, joined the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), and it was also likely that he joined the Alliance of Red Front-Fighters (RFB), which had been banned on 3 May 1929, as well as the Red Navy.

Walter Wicke again found work, this time as a stoker, and went to sea on the tanker "Josiah Mary.” On 2 March 1934, on board the ship he suffered a "nervous breakdown” and attempted suicide. He was taken to a hospital in Stornoway in the north of Great Britain; on 15 March, via Hamburg, he returned to Liegnitz and his parents’ house at Jauerstasse 93. After two more suicide attempts, he was committed to the city hospital. When the Wickes wanted to visit him on 17 April 1934, they found that Walter had been arrested. Walter Wicke was detained in connection to the attack on the Hamburg SA-Naval local in the Adler Hotel; it had been carried out on 21 February 1933 on Schanzenstrasse by members of the RFB and the New City Red Navy (see entries for Otto Christoph Heitmann, Johannes Horlebusch, Karl Schaafhirte and Albert Trieglaff).

On suspicion of breach of the peace, he was sent from Liegnitz to the Hamburg Holstenglacis Remand Center on 24 April 1934. The notation on his admission record, "suicide risk,” was apparently ignored.

Five days later at 11:15 am, Walter Wicke was found hung from the protective grating of the heating pipes in cell no. 34. He had fashioned a noose from wet towels; prior to this he had attempted an escape. Attempts at resuscitation remained fruitless. Shortly before his death, his parents had written a letter to the president of the Hamburg Special Court, asking for a visit permit and for explanation of the grounds for their son’s incarceration. No response was forthcoming.

In the surviving indictment document concerning the attack on the Adler Hotel, there is no mention of a Walter Wicke, only a sailor with a similar name. It is therefore possible that it was a case of mistaken identity.

Translator: Richard Levy
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: June 2020
© Susanne Rosendahl

Quellen: StaH 242-1 II Gefängnisverwaltung II, Abl. 12, 684 (Wicke, Walter); StaH 332-5 Standesämter 1023 u 149/1934; Gedenkstätte Ernst Thälmann Hamburg-Eppendorf, Archiv (Sammlung NS-Akten).