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Paul R. Reinke * 1896

Gazertstraße 19 a-c (Harburg, Harburg)

HIER WOHNTE
PAUL R. REINKE
JG. 1898
IM WIDERSTAND
VERHAFTET SEPT. 1937
GEFÄNGNIS FUHLSBÜTTEL
ERMORDET 25.11.1937

Paul Reinke, b. 4.26.1896 in Elbing, died after severe mishandling by the Gestapo on 11.25.1937

Harburg-Altstadt district, Gazertstraße 19a-c

The worker Robert Reinke, b. 7.1.1872, his wife Maria, née Prange, b. 9.6.1876, and their son Paul Robert Reinke came from Elbing in East Prussia.

In Harburg they lived on the part of Gazertstrasse that led from Denickestrasse to the Alten Postweg, formerly called Sternstrasse. The Reinkes lived in Haus 29a, which was destroyed during the war and where the residential block Gazertstrasse 19a-c stands today.

Paul Reinke was a Communist. Even as a young man he had come into conflict with the police and judiciary during the November Revolution of 1918 on account of alleged abetting of prisoners to escape. He was a member of the KPD and the Alliance of Red Front-Fighters. On 1 May 1929, it came to bloody battles in Berlin when the police fired on prohibited demonstrations. Thereafter, the Alliance of Red Front-Fighters was banned in Prussia, whereupon Paul Reinke joined the semi-legal "Antifascist Action.”

After the Reichstag Fire of 27 February 1933, for which the Nazis made the Communists responsible, the KPD and its cadres were crushed as legal organizations by mass arrests. This was unlike the case of the SPD (Social Democratic Party of Germany) which was never officially banned, but whose structures were destroyed. Many Communists who had not been arrested became "illegals,” including those in Harburg-Wilhelmsburg.

After the mass arrests during the summer of 1934 and the "Harburg High Treason trials" against hundreds of Communists in Harburg and its vicinity, a new KPD-sub regional directorate was built up under Felix Plewa (see his biographical entry). He made contact with Paul Reinke, who established an illegal group in Heimfeld. The KPD-North Section in Copenhagen supplied the resistance fighters with materials.

In September 1937, several Harburg Communists and a Danish courier were seized, among them Paul Reinke. These were not random arrests, but rather triggered by spies or informers; the Gestapo would not have otherwise captured the entire illegal organization. Paul Reinke was taken to the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp (Kola-Fu) and was so severely mishandled there that on 25 November 1937 he died. Officially, he supposedly committed suicide by hanging himself.

He was buried in the New Cemetery in Harburg. Richard Lohmann, one of the mourners at the funeral got a look at the corpse’s face. He noted that an attempt had been made, with makeup and ointments, to cover up the signs of abuse. When he wanted to examine the victim more closely, the woman attending the corpse told him: "Go away, the Gestapo is all over here!” Because Gestapo officials were observing the mourners and cemetery attendants, Lohmann could not verify the details concerning the death of Paul Reinke.


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

Stand: October 2018
© Hans-Joachim Meyer

Quellen: VVN-BdA Harburg (Hrsg.), Die anderen, s. Personenverzeichnis; Hochmuth/Meyer, Streiflichter, S. 186; Diercks, Gedenkbuch, S. 35; StaH, 332-8 Meldewesen, A44, A46; Heyl/Maronde-Heyl, Abschlussbericht; Totenliste VAN.