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Theodor Daltrop * 1881

Großer Schippsee 34 (Harburg, Harburg)

1941 Lodz

further stumbling stones in Großer Schippsee 34:
Else Daltrop, Fritz Daltrop

Else Daltrop, née Baruch, born 05.07.1887 in Volksmarsen, deported to Lodz on 25.10.1941, date of death unknown
Fritz Daltrop, born 24.3.1915 in Harburg, Heil und Pflegeanstalt Langenhorn, deported to the Euthanasia Centre Brandenburg 23.09.1940
Theodor Daltrop, born 13.2.1881 in Gütersloh, deported to Lodz on 25.10.1941, date of death unknown

City District Harburg Altstadt, Großer Schipsee 34

Fritz Daltrop belonged to a family of the jewish faith which had moved to Hamburg in the first half of the 19th century. He was born in Harburg on 24 Febr. 1915 as the son of the married couple Theodor and Else Daltrop (née Baruch). His father, Theodor Daltrop, born 13 Febr. 1881 in Gütersloh was one of the seven children of the jewish couple Joseph (born 17 Mar. 1847) and Rosa Daltrop (née Galitzien, born 15 Nov. 1850). His father was from a family that operated a store for stationary and office supplies in the East Westphalian town of Gütersloh at Kirchstrasse 2 and enjoyed a high standing there. A street in the city is named after the family. Apart from Theodor, the married couple Rosa and Joseph Daltrop also had three other sons in Gütersloh: Max, born in 1876, Oskar, born in 1878, and Hermann, born in 1879. Oskar died already when he was eleven months old.

In June 1883, Rosa and Joseph Daltrop relocated to Harburg, where their youngest children Else (1886 – 1957), Henny (born on 3 Jan. 1889 – see entry on Henny Hansen) and Felix Daltrop (25 Mar. 1894 – 21 June 1915) were born.

That same year, Joseph Daltrop founded the "J. Daltrop, printing office, stationary, office supplies, typewriters company" ("J. Daltrop Buchdruckerei, Papierhandlung, Kontorbedarf, Schreibmaschinen”) on Großer Schipsee. Very quickly, the new citizen became a formative influence in the Harburg Synagogue community, for which he served as head of the Jewish religious community (Kultusvorsteher) for nearly 20 years, advocating with all his might the acculturation of his co-religionists to the non-jewish environment. He died on 20 Sept. 1934 and was buried on the Schwarzenberg in the Harburg Jewish Cemetery next to his wife Rosa who had passed away in 1931.

Before the First World War, his son Theodor had married Else Baruch, who was also from a jewish family. The couple lived at Großer Schipsee 34. Theodor Daltrop ran a store for leather goods and accessories at Lüneberger Strasse 29a. Like his father’s company, it was affected by the boycott on 1 Apr. 1933 called for by the Harburg City Council and the local branch of the Nazi Party.

More quickly than expected, like many other jewish businessmen also had to pay tribute to the increasing pressure of persecution and give up his leather goods store on Lüneberger Strasse. Afterwards, he moved to Schlüterstrasse 12 (Hamburg-Rotherbaum) with his family and later to Zesenstrasse 12 in Hamburg-Winterhude. On 29 Oct. 1935, he joined the Hamburg Jewish Community.

Fritz Daltrop, Theodor and Else Daltrop’s only child, grew up in Harburg. At the age of six, he attended elementary school and later the Stresemann-Realgymnasium on Alter Postweg in Heimfeld. Fritz Daltrop felt that his home life was a happy one. In a lengthy contemplation of his life written in the winter of 1932-3 when he was 17 years old, he wrote: "My parents gave me a lot. It was always the custom in our house to discuss all subjects together no matter whether it concerned political, religious, literary or social questions. As a I grew older, my participation in these conversations naturally increased. First of all in politics and then in literature and religion, I formed my own views and I can still remember with pride the moment when I ventured to give a lecture in rerum politicarum and firmly contradicted my father on the subject who was highly pleased by it. Politics was indeed a matter that I could claim to know from personal experience. Apart from the swearwords and rudeness which had to be replied to on a daily basis because of that either with your fists or not at all, there were always the opinions on Blood, Race, Customs and Religion which they had either picked up or had hammered into them which I had to listen to in the circle of my friends. Anybody who knows the vividness and effect of these arguments on an uncritical youth, knows how difficult it often is to find reasons against them at that moment. He also knows how important it is to answer immediately. For me, therefore, this resulted in the necessity of studying "Defence Material” and, armed with this to "make a speech”. The was "my” politics. First of all, an indignant and passionate defence; then the conclusion that Politics is an unbelievably down to earth matter concerned with securing advantages, where there are many aims but no ideals and the leaders are usually anything other than good people; finally, the conviction that Politics is and must be fundamentally a matter of economics.

The period of my political development was also the period of my development as a person and I have a lot to thank politics for. I attained self confidence, independence and self assurance as I had to assert myself alone against a superior force. Beyond that: A thick skin, a growing immunity to provocation and the feeling of "stuff you”. In short, I am grateful to politics.

You see: being a jew brings all kinds of things with it. The reader doesn’t come off badly and discovers: We are jews but do not live in the sense of the jewish rituals. I know the usages and customs since I had a good religious instruction but nothing drives me to live according to these customs”.

His father recounted: "Fritz was considered one of the best in school. He passed his Abitur in 1993 with the note of ‚good‘ and he also completed the two year management traineeship from May 1933 to February 1935 at the Import and Export Company Hugo Knobloch & Co in Hamburger Esplanade 6 to the great satisfaction of his Instructor”. His parents described him as obedient, easily guided, open, kind, helpful, talkative, diligent, methodical in his work and study, interested in many things, linguistically gifted and helpful. He is said to have been good company, in his free time he took part in a lot of sports and was a good tennis player, swimmer, hockey player and footballer.

Since the opportunities for Fritz Daltrop to study at university were limited in Germany, his parents made it possible for their highly gifted son to study in the USA in 1935. Fritz arrived into New York on the Passenger Ship "Washington” on 8 Mar. 1935. There, he very soon had a friend, Wm. Baruch who was probably from his mother’s side of the family. Fritz’s parents were hoping that their relatives in Amerika would benevolently guide and actively support him. However, the stay unfolded quite differently than expected. Fritz Daltrop worked for about two years in various positions: in an advertising agency, in between times as a factory worker, messenger boy, packer, office worker and storeman. According to a curriculum vitae composed later in the State Clinic Friedrichsberg, he also claimed to have been a student of the Teachers College of the Columbia University as well as other educational establishments particularly in the subject areas of Advertising, Sales and Economy.

The first signs of illness showed themselves in letters which Fritz Daltrop wrote to his parents from America in January 1936. In these, he speaks about his letters being read, his conversations listened in on, being spied upon. In March 1936, he wrote that he didn't like to go to the office or his sports club because people thought that he was a homosexual and stared at him everywhere as a result. In May 1936, he believed that he was being pursued by "K-Rays” and turned to the police for help. This was followed by fourteen days in hospital and a subsequent period of recuperation in Port Chester in New York state.

Soon Fritz Daltrop got into financial difficulties that he was unable to cope with himself despite his best intentions. Since apparently he had left his parents in the dark about his financial situation and it's consequences, Theodor and Else Daltrop were very dismayed to find out one day that their son had been picked up completely disoriented while begging on the street and to find themselves requested to collect him immediately.

Fritz Daltrop returned to Hamburg from the USA in October 1936 and worked for two weeks as a temporary at the company where he had done his training, Hugo Knobloch & Co. After this, he stayed inside at his parent's home in Schlüterstrasse 12, sat around, brooded to himself and only seldom went for a walk. He saw his former friends as "enemies” who wanted to harm him. Often he read books or newspapers without being able to remember any of the contents afterwards. He looked with mistrust at any food that was offered to him and was afraid that it had been poisoned.

With the agreement of his parents, the neurologist, Dr Walter Zendig from Eimsbüttel, Weidenstieg 7, finally admitted Fritz Daltrop to the Pyschiatric and Neurology Clinic of the Hansischen University in Friedrichsberg on the following reasons: "… needs to be admitted to the National Clinic Friedrichsberg on reasons of mental illness (Schizophrenia). Suffers from paranoia, rejects attempts to help (abweisendes Verhalten), will not accept that he is ill (mangelnde Krankheitseinsicht ) and is in need of protection. Is being sent in for Insulin Treatment”. The Sanitary team brought him in on 2 June 1937 (A Sanitary Team was a group of rescue workers organized on a volountary basis who could administer first aid treatment in peace and wartime). His mother accompanied Fritz. But he resisted. The Doctor who admitted him noted: "Patient says he is not ill, is not coming volountarily but has been brought here, admits to feeling persecuted but does not state who is persecuting him and why”.

The Insulin Shock Therapy was administered to Fritz Daltrop. This therapy (also known as Insulin Treatment) was used in psychiatry from the 1930's onwards to treat the symptoms of Illnesses such as psychosis, depression or drug addiction. Insulin Shock Therapy has disappeared from general psychiatric practice today. After there had been the impression for a short time that Fritz Daltrop was more open and relaxed, it turned out that the treatment had not been successful. Four months later, however, on 10th November 1937, the head of the Psychiatric and Neurology Clinic of the Hansischen University, Professor Hans Bürger-Prinz certified: "The treatment measures carried out have improved the state of his health so much that D. can be employed very usefully in garden and field work. For therapeutic reasons, it is urgently recommended to put D into a suitable work team which is oriented to this kind of work. In regards to his social and societal classification (gesellschaftliche Einordnung), D. creates no problems. He is completely well ordered and at the same time approachable and disciplined in his external manner”. It is not known which therapeutic measures led to the improvement diagnosed by Professor Bürger-Prinz.

Possibly Bürger-Prinz’s assessment led to Fritz Daltrop’s discharge from Friedrichsberg. Yet already on 01st March 1938, Fritz returned to Friedrichsberg volountarily and was transferred to the State Clinic Langenhorn on 10 May 1938.

In Spring / Summer 1940, the Euthanasia Central Office in Berlin Tiergartenstraße 4 planned a Special Operation against jews in public and private nursing and care clinics. They had all the jews who were living in the clinics registered and brought them together in state socalled Assembly Institutions. The Nursing and Care Clinic Hamburg-Langenhorn was nominated as the north German Assembly Insitution. All the Institutions in Hamburg, Schleswig Holstein and Mecklenburg were instructed to transfer all the jews living in their establishments to Langenhorn by 18 Sept. 1940. After all the jewish patients from the north German institutions had arrived, they were brought on 23 Sept. 1940, together with the jewish patients who had already been living in Langenhorn for longer, in a transport of totally 136 people to Brandenburg an der Havel. On the same day, they were killed with Carbon Monoxide in a part of the old prison which had been converted into a Gas Execution Chamber. Only one patient, Ilse Herta Zachmann, avoided this fate for the time being (see there).

On the birth registry entry for Fritz Daltrop it was noted that the Registry Office Chelm II had noted his death under the number 373/1941. In all documented communications, it was claimed that the person concerned had died in Chelm (polish) or Cholm (german). However, the people murdered in Brandenburg were never in Chelm/Cholm, a city to the east of Lublin. The Polish Clinic which had previously been there was no longer in existence after SS units had murdered almost all the patients on 12 Jan. 1940. In addition, there was no german Registry Office in Chelm. This invention and the use of dates of death later than the real ones served to cover up the murders and at the same time to demand payment of food costs for a correspondingly longer period of time.

In March 1941 – half a year after his son's death – Theodor Daltrop requested from the Hamburg Chief Finance Administrator approval to transfer the amount of RM 446 to the postal checking account (Postscheckkonto) Berlin no 17050 to defray the expenses amounting to RM 381 for the care of his son from 26 Sept. 1940 – 30 Jan. 1941 and RM 65 for his cremation. The Hamburg Chief Finance Administrator gave his approval on 3 Apr. 1941. This shows that Fritz Daltrop's date of death (as in all other known cases) was faked and extended far beyond the actual date of his expiry.

Already on 29 Dec. 1938 Theodor Daltrop had been forced to sell his property at Lüneberger Strasse 29a for less than its true value. He was not allowed to dispose freely of the proceeds. The sum had to be deposited on a blocked account which he could access only by permission of the Hamburg Chief Finance Administrator (Oberfinanzpräsident). In April 1939, his entire assets were put under "Security Order” (Sicherungsanordnung). Whereas the "Levy on Jewish Assets” ("Judenvermögensabgabe”) amounting to RM 4,650 was debited from his account without his authorization, he had to provide detailed reasons for the application seeking approval of his monthly living expenses. Initially, he was granted a sum of RM 800 which five months later, in September 1939, was cut by RM 250. The Food Costs which Theodor Daltrop had to pay for his son also fell into the category of Limited Access due to the Security Order. For this reason, he could only withdraw the necessary amounts each time by special application.

In October 1941, Theodor and Else Daltrop were compelled to fill out a detailed inventory of assets since by then they had received their "evacuation order” as the deportations and subsequent expropriations were euphemistically called. Two days after the final ban on jewish emigration, they boarded the train that transported them together with 1.032 other jewish residents of Hamburg from the Hannoversche Bahnhof in today's Hafen City quarter on 25 Oct. 1941. For them – as for the other 1.014 other Jewish women and men from Hamburg – the journey to "Litzmannstadt” (Lodz) as the city was called in the Nazi period, was a journey to death.

Even prior to the departure, the sister in law of Else and Theodor Daltrop, Thekla Daltrop, had put an end to her life. In memory of her, there is a stumbling stone at Großneumarkt 56 in Hamburg – Neustadt. Not even four weeks later, Theodor Daltrop's sister, Henny Hansen, was deported from Hamburg to Minsk on 18 Nov. 1941 at the age of 52. She, too, was a victim of the Holocaust. A stumbling stone has been laid for her at Lüneburger Straase 35 in Hamburg-Harburg.

Next to the stumbling stone for Fritz Daltrop, stumbling stones have also been laid at Hamburg-Harburg, Großer Schippsee 34 for his parents Else and Theodor Daltrop. For Theodor Daltrop, there is also an additional stumbling stone at Kirchstrasse 2 in Gütersloh.

Translator: Erwin Fink, updated Steve Robinson

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: November 2017
© Klaus Möller/Ingo Wille

Quellen: 1; 2; 4; 5; 8; 9; AB; StaH 133-1 III Staatsarchiv III, 3171-2/4 U.A. 4, Liste psychisch kranker jüdischer Patientinnen und Patienten der psychiatrischen Anstalt Langenhorn, die aufgrund nationalsozialistischer "Euthanasie"-Maßnahmen ermordet wurden, zusammengestellt von Peter von Rönn, Hamburg (Projektgruppe zur Erforschung des Schicksals psychisch Kranker in Langenhorn); 314-15 Oberfinanzpräsident R 3470/1938 Daltrop; 332-5 Standesämter 1139 Sterberegister Nr. 387/1941 Thekla Daltrop, 3533 Heiratsregister Nr. 719/1927 Hermann Daltrop/Thekla Fuchs, 9781 Sterberegister Nr. 931/1920 Max Daltrop, 11774 Sterberegister Nr. 1195/1915 Felix Daltrop, 11831 Sterberegister Nr. 692/1934 Joseph Daltrop, 12877 Geburtsregister Nr. 791/1886 Else Daltrop, 12883 Geburtsregister Nr. 11/1889 Henny Daltrop, 12898 Geburtsregister Nr. 449/1894 Felix Daltrop, 351-10 I Sozialbehörde I StW 30.11 Bd. 2; 352-8/7 Staatskrankenanstalt Langenhorn Abl. 1/1995 Aufnahme-/Abgangsbuch Langenhorn 26.8.1939 bis 27.1.1941; 430-5 Dienststelle Harburg, Ausschaltung jüdischer Geschäfte und Konsumvereine, 1810-08, Bl. 89ff.; UKE/IGEM, Patienten-Karteikarte Fritz Daltrop der Staatskrankenanstalt Friedrichsberg; UKE/IGEM, Patientenakte Fritz Daltrop der Staatskrankenanstalt Friedrichsberg; Stadtarchiv Volkmarsen, Geburtsregister Nr. 72/1887 Else Baruch; Stadtarchiv Gütersloh, Geburtsregister Nr. 15/1881 Theodor Daltrop, Geburtsregister Nr. 22/1879 Hermann Daltrop, Geburtsregister Nr. 93/1876 Max Daltrop, Sterberegister Nr. 9/1879 Oskar Daltrop. Freitag, Werner (Hrsg.), Geschichte der Stadt Gütersloh, Bieldefeld 2003, S. 285. Kändler, Eberhard/Hüttenmeister, Gil, Der jüdische Friedhof Harburg, Hamburg 2004. Kopitzsch, Franklin/Brietzke, Dirk, Hamburgische Biographie. Personenlexikon, Bd. 3, Göttingen 2006, S. 69–71. Villiez von, Anna, Mit aller Kraft verdrängt. Entrechtung und Verfolgung "nicht arischer" Ärzte in Hamburg 1933 bis 1945, Hamburg 2009, S. 426 (Walter Zendig); https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Insulinschocktherapie, Zugriff am 25.1.2016; https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanit%C3%A4tskolonne, Zugriff am 25.1.2016; https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_der_Stolpersteine_in_G%C3%BCtersloh, Zugriff am 25.1.2016.
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