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Dr. Hans Völker * 1898

Bernhard-Nocht-Straße 74 (Hamburg-Mitte, St. Pauli)

Flucht in den Tod 07.11.1938

Dr. med. Hans Friedrich August Völker, born 6/13/1898, imprisoned 1935 and 1938, died on 11/71938 in the Atlantic Ocean en route from Lisbon to Rotterdam; suicide by drowning

Bernhard-Nocht-Strasse 74

In a public hearing on February 1st, 1939, the maritime casualty investigation board declared: "In the night of 6/7 November 1938, the passenger Dr. med. Völker disappeared from the steamer ‚Ceuta‘ en route from Lisbon to Rotterdam. The passenger has without doubt chosen and found suicide by jumping overboard. No one is to be blame for this incident; the measures of the ship’s management after the disappearance became known were appropriate.”

Hans Völker was born in 1898 as the son of Dr. med. Franz Völker, the director of the mental hospital in Langenhagen near Hannover. After graduating from high school, he took part in World War I as a soldier. After the war, he studied medicine in Göttingen and Würzburg, and moved to Hamburg for an internship at the St: Georg hospital. In 1926, he obtained his doctorate of medicine, and from 1928, he was the assistant of the port physician. In 1937, he joined the NSDAP, South St. Pauli chapter.

To live out his homosexuality, he looked for sex partners in public toilets and in the streets. As he lived at the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine, he was unable to take his partners up to his room.

In December 1935, he was recorded by the criminal police for homosexual activities for the first time. A night watchman had surprised him with Wilhelm Scherfig (died February 8th, 1945 by escape into suicide, stumbling stone at Borsteler Chaussee 23/Gross Borstel) and taken both of them to the police station. Hans Völker could convince the interrogators that no homosexual acts had occurred between the two of them. The investigation was stayed, but the police reported the incident to the president of the Hamburg health authority, Prof. Dr. Peters. Hans Völker denied his homosexual inclination to him and thereafter tried to avoid acquaintances with men.

In 1938, a former sex partner identified Hans Völker during a police interrogation, whereupon the police resumed their investigation against him. On March 25th, Judge Dr. Joachim Lohse of the Hamburg District Court sentenced him to six weeks in jail for an offense pursuant to Art. 175 of the Penal Code old and new version, with allowance for remand. Judge Lohse: "The court is also convinced that the punitive purpose cannot be achieved by a fine, that instead, deprivation of liberty is mandatory, considering that the defendant, as a highly educated person, had a special obligation to withstand the temptations that approached him.”

After proclamation of sentence, Hans Völker was dismissed without notice, and proceedings to revoke his approbation as a physician were initiated. Before this was decided, Hans Völker committed suicide.


Translated by Peter Hubschmid
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: March 2019
© Bernhard Rosenkranz (†)/Ulf Bollmann

Quelle: Rosenkranz/Bollmann/Lorenz, Homosexuellen-Verfolgung, 2009, S. 99 f, 263f.