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Wilhelm Tüxen * 1895

Gerhardstraße 18 (Hamburg-Mitte, St. Pauli)

HIER WOHNTE
WILHELM TÜXEN
JG. 1895
VERHAFTET 1936/39
KZ FUHLSBÜTTEL
ERMORDET 23.5.1942
DACHAU

Wilhelm Friedrich Tüxen, born 8/11/1895, imprisoned 1936 and 1939, died at Dachau concentration camp on 5/23/1942

Wilhelm Tüxen was born in Spinkery near Schleswig as the youngest of the eight children of the worker Fritz Tüxen and his wife Maria, née Thomasen. On account of injuries caused by a boiler explosion, he had to quit his apprenticeship as a gardener, and received a disability pension from 1913 to 1919. After the war, he lived from odd jobs, e.g. as a servant or factory worker. He moved to Hamburg in 1923. From 1933 to 1936, he had to do compulsory labor.

In 1936, the denunciation by a hustler got him into the clutches of the 24th commissariat of the criminal police, the department with the sole purpose of combatting homosexuality, and was detained at the Fuhlsbüttel Police Prison from September 9th to 12th and 14th to 26th, when he was transferred to the Hamburg city remand jail. On October 9th, 1936, the Hamburg district court sentenced him to 14 months in prison pursuant to Art. 175 of the Penal Code, old and new version. After his release, he was again assigned to compulsory labor until April 1938.

On May 11th, 1938, the hustler Karl Baumgart (born in Hamburg February 25th, 1916, die November 3rd, 1945 in Hamburg) during interrogation identified Wilhelm Tüxen as his former sex partner. Baumgart was one of the hustlers who became helpers of the police by disclosing the names of their sex partners in the hope of mitigating their sentence.

The same day, Kriminaloberassistent Höppner reported: "Tüxen was found lying in bed on 5/10/1939. He had a venous leg ulcer, and the doctor had ordered him to stick to bed. He was therefore not arrested. When shown a photo of Tüxen at the office, Baumgart identified him as his sex partner.” Tüxen was detained at the Hamburg city remand jail from September 7th, 1939, where he was confronted with Baumgart on September 23rd. Then, Kriminaloberassistent Rettmann, who conducted the investigation, stated: "In my opinion Tüxen had sex with a lot more men. He named several, whom he only knew by their first names. These guys are supposed to be "sissies”… The search for the "kid” brought no result to now. We got nothing when we checked the usual hangouts and asked about him.” This procedure is typical for the criminal police of the time; even if a suspect only gave a nickname or a fantasy name, the whole machinery was started to apprehend further homosexuals.

On October 9th, 1939, the Hamburg district court sentenced Wilhelm Tüxen to one year and nine months for an offense pursuant to Art. 175 of the Penal Code. The Judge: "As the defendant is bisexual and has been severely punished accordingly, this relapse could not be taken lightly … In the oral explanation of the verdict, the defendant was warned of the consequences of a possible repeated offense, namely, the possibility of preventive detention.” This was no longer necessary, as Wilhelm Tüxen’s further ordeal shows: from October 26th, 1939, he served his sentence at Wolffenbüttel penitentiary. One June 7th, 1941, he was transferred to the custody of the Hamburg criminal police and detained at the Hütten police jail. His date of arrival at the Dachau concentration camp and his inmate number there are unknown. Wilhelm Tüxen was murdered in Dachau on May 23rd, 1942.


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

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

Quellen: StaH 213-8 Staatsanwaltschaft Oberlandesgericht – Verwaltung, Abl. 2, 451 a E 1, 1 b; StaH 213-11 Staatsanwaltschaft Landgericht – Strafsachen, 3947/41; StaH 242-1 II Gefängnisverwaltung II, Abl. 13 und 16.