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Hans Podeyn * 1888

Elsastraße ggü. Mesterkamp (Hamburg-Nord, Barmbek-Süd)

HIER WOHNTE
HANS PODEYN
JG. 1888
MEHRMALS VERHAFTET
ZULETZT 1939
KZ FUHLSBÜTTEL
ERMORDET 13.3.1942
BUCHENWALD

Hans Karl Louis Hermann Podeyn, born 2.7.1888, imprisoned 1937-1938, 1939-1941, died 13.3.1942 at Buchenwald Concentration Camp

Elsastraße, opposite the junction Mesterkamp

"... I have always had the suspicion that there is something wrong with the man", begins a denunciation letter that Helene Manuel, née Nitschke, resident at Mesterkamp 6 in Barmbek-Süd, sent to the Hamburg criminal police. The neighbor of Hans Podeyn, who lived in a ground-floor apartment at Mesterkamp 36, knew him by sight and led the police on the trail of a friend of her lodger. With his following arrest on May 13, 1939 at 12:30 p.m. by order of the Gestapo, the last chapter in the life of Hans Podeyn began; he was never again to gain freedom.

Hans Podeyn was born in Neumünster on July 2, 1888, the eldest of three sons of the gendarme constable (policeman) Johannes Podeyn and Marie, née Schuldt. He completed a commercial apprenticeship.

In July 1937, he was sentenced for the first time by the Neumünster court to eight months in prison for "performing lewd acts with men." After a further conviction in October 1937 for the same reason by the Regional Court of Kiel, the sentence was increased to 15 months.

The commercial employee Hans Podeyn served these sentences until the end of August 1938 and was unemployed since then. He was financially supported by his mother, who died shortly thereafter.

After the police had come on Podeyn's trail again, he was again proven to have had sexual contacts with men, for which, as a repeat offender, he now received a significantly higher sentence of 2 years and 6 months in prison.

The presiding judge, District Court Councilor Bertram, constructed a danger to juveniles against Podeyn, who had consensual contacts with adult men, solely from the circumstance that the need establishment in Lange Reihe, where Podeyn had met one of his partners, was located near a children's playground.

Hans Podeyn spent his imprisonment in Wolfenbüttel Prison, from which he was released on November 12, 1941, but continued to remain in "preventive police custody" for the Hamburg Criminal Investigation Department in Hütten Police Prison.

From December 2, 1941, to February 3, 1942, he was transferred to the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp.

On February 13, 1942, he was admitted to Buchenwald concentration camp under prisoner number 6856. Just one month later, he died there, allegedly of heart failure, at the age of 53.

Translation by Beate Meyer
Stand: January 2022
© Ulf Bollmann

Quellen: StaHH, 213-11 Staatsanwaltschaft Landgericht – Strafsachen, 5110/39; StaHH, 213-8 Staatsanwaltschaft Oberlandesgericht – Verwaltung, Abl. 2, 451 a E 1, 1 d; StaHH 331-1 II Polizeibehörde II, Ablieferung 15 Band 1 und Band 2; StaHH, 242-1 II Gefängnisverwaltung II, Ablieferung 16; Auskunft Rainer Hoffschildt, Hannover, im Februar 2010.