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Otto Berger * 1920

Langenhorner Chaussee 623 (Hamburg-Nord, Langenhorn)

OTTO BERGER
JG. 1920
"FAHNENFLUCHT"
VERHAFTET SEPT. 1943
ZWANGSARBEIT KETTENWERK
GEFLÜCHTET / VERHAFTET
SONDERGERICHT BERLIN
HINGERICHTET 6.7.1944

further stumbling stones in Langenhorner Chaussee 623:
Karl-Heinz Barthel

Otto Berger, born on 1.10.1920 in Berlin-Charlottenburg, arrested several times, imprisoned and fled, sentenced by the Berlin Special Court (Sondergericht), executed on 6.7.1944 in Plötzensee

Langenhorner Chaussee 623

Otto Berger was born on October 1, 1920 in Berlin-Charlottenburg. He must have been a bright boy. Together with his former schoolmate Paul, the 17-year-old hijacked two cars in a row, which the owners had parked unlocked on the streets: The first time, they got into a DKW in Berlin-Dahlem and sped across Germany. When the tank was empty, they left the cars on the roadside, the DKW in Hanover, the second car in Hameln. Still minors, the two were brought before the Berlin-Charlottenburg district court in 1938 "for two counts of unlawful taking of another person's movable property and for driving a motor vehicle without a license”. They were acquitted by Judge Neumann, but not without conditions. He imposed "protective supervision”. The Charlottenburg Youth Welfare Office was now to supervise their return to the "national community”. So in the same year, Otto Berger began an agricultural apprenticeship at the "Kattendorfer Hof” farm in Kaltenkirchen, Schleswig-Holstein. The contact with agriculture and animal husbandry must have awakened a new thirst for action in him, as Otto Berger made "a brisk and hard-working impression” on his guardian as early as the beginning of 1939, so that the youth welfare office was soon relieved of further supervision.

In the spring of 1939, Berger began an internship in Mecklenburg - on a large agricultural estate in Roez, a village at river Müritz. However, the farmer Paul Burchard, a member of the NSDAP since May 1933, was not only a staunch National Socialist, but also a well-known abuser of people. Perhaps this was the reason why Otto Berger volunteered for military service after just one year (instead of the planned two) on May 1, 1940.

After training as an air force soldier at the naval air base near the Schlei, Otto Berger remained stationed at the Schleswig air bases. Three years passed before something must have happened during a vacation in Berlin, about which no further information is available. Under suspicion that he was involved in a murder case, he was arrested during his leave on September 16, 1943 and handed over to the Wehrmacht courts. Although there was soon no more talk of murder, the Flieger-Feldgericht in Hamburg (the same jury as for his fellow prisoner Karl-Heinz Barthel, see his biography www.stolpersteine-hamurg.de) sentenced him at the end of October 1943 "for favoritism and for offenses against the War Economy Ordinance and vacation addiction”.

Although there was soon no more talk of murder, the Flieger field court in Hamburg (it was the same jury as for his fellow prisoner Karl-Heinz Barthel, see his biography) sentenced him to five years in prison at the end of October 1943 "for favoritism and for violating the War Economy Ordinance and exceeding leave”. The accusation of having violated the War Economy Ordinance was usually a paraphrase for the not entirely legal trade in rationed goods such as tobacco, cigarettes, petrol and ration cards, in short another word for the black market business that flourished everywhere, but also for small-scale thievery and illegal slaughtering. Otto Berger was transferred from custody in Altona to the "Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel penitentiary and prison” on December 28, 1943, the same day as fellow prisoner and friend Karl-Heinz Barthel. Here Otto Berger became "Z prisoner 324/43”. The Z stood for "Zuchthaus”.
No photo of Otto Berger has survived.

The two airmen (the lowest rank in the Luftwaffe) Karl-Heinz Barthel and Otto Berger were ordered as prisoners of the Fuhlsbüttel penitentiary to an external detachment in the "Hanseatisches Kettenwerk” munitions factory in Langenhorn. Four thousand people worked here - ten hours a day on average - for an insane war. The two soldiers were assigned to work in "Beize 14”, a heavily secured section of the factory. All doors and gates were locked during working hours, the air was stuffy and unhealthy, and the workers were under constant surveillance. The chain factory was regarded as a model National Socialist model company (Musterbetrieb). Until the mid-1950s, the following was written in large letters on the front of Hall 24 of the Kettenwerke: "Be true - be clear - be German - Germany needs you, as you need Germany”. But not all employees thought this way.

The working days at Kettenwerk were long and exhausting. Karl-Heinz Barthel and Otto Berger soon agreed: they had to escape this ten-hour front and the strict regulations for prisoners. They informed a fellow prisoner, 20-year-old Ernst Gravenhorst, an electrical engineer by trade who had been sentenced to three years in prison "for desertion”, of their plans. Born in Hamburg in 1923, Gravenhorst had become an infantryman when he was called up in October 1941. Since May 1943 - according to the files - he had belonged to the Grenadier Replacement Battalion (motorized) 90 in Hamburg, where some incident (of which we have no knowledge) had earned him a prison sentence.

Barthel, Berger and Gravenhorst planned to use one of the cold, dark January evenings for their escape. At 6:30 pm on January 4, 1944, the opportunity was favorable; only one person, the "command leader” Kopp, was in charge of 100 workers in three large factory halls. Under cover of the infernal factory noise, the three young men used chisels to break through the temporary partition wall to an external toilet facility, escaped into the yard area and climbed over the outer fence of the company premises. But Ernst Gravenhorst had lost sight of his two comrades as they hurried through the darkness. While they escaped into the winter night, he was apprehended by the factory guards.

Barthel and Berger, on the other hand, walked to Eppendorf and got dressed at a friend's house in Erikastraße. They traveled - separately, as a precaution - to their hometown of Berlin on the night trains, which had few controls. They only met up again in Berlin ten days later, as agreed. In order to survive, they now committed several store and garage burglaries and car thefts - also with the help of Berger's 17-year-old girlfriend Carola Wahrholz - spent the night in a burnt-out air-raid shelter and finally rented a room. Here they pretended to be a lieutenant and a first lieutenant, wrapping their shaven heads in bandages and declaring that they were "war-damaged” and about to be discharged from compulsory military service. When they drove through Berlin-Charlottenburg again in a stolen car (a Volkswohlfahrt vehicle) on February 10, 1944, they were stopped by the criminal investigation department - and arrested. Barthels was remanded in custody in the Berlin-Tegel prison, Berger in the "cell prison” in Berlin-Lehrterstraße. Public prosecutor Grassow brought charges on March 29, 1944. "As pests of the people and dangerous criminals”, the accused had taken advantage of the frequent bomb alarms to commit burglaries and thefts. He requested the most severe punishment available for the confessed perpetrators for their "particularly serious crimes against the people”.

Sometime between April and June 1944 - the exact dates are not known - the main trial took place in Berlin-Moabit. The special court at the Berlin district court sentenced Otto Berger and Karl-Heinz Barthel to death. They were executed in Plötzensee on July 6, 1944. Both at the same hour. Karl-Heinz Barthel was 21 years old, Otto Berger 23.


Fellow prisoner Ernst Gravenhorst, who had been caught during the escape from the chain factory, was transferred to one of the Emsland camps (prison camp VII, Esterwegen) in February 1944. In July 1944, he was recruited for the "Probationary Force 500” (Bewährungsbataillon) and was deployed on the Eastern Front from April 1943. In 1948, he returned from captivity as a prisoner of war in Tallinn to Hamburg, where he made a living as a commercial clerk.

The fate of Otto Berger's girlfriend Carola Wahrholz is not known.

The Stolpersteine were laid in May 2019 at the place from where Karl-Heinz Barthel and Otto Berger managed to escape from the chain factory. They commemorate the fact that prisoners from the "Glasmoor penal and youth prison” and the Fuhlsbüttel prison were also deployed in war production at the Kettenwerk from November 1942.

Translation: Beate Meyer
Stand: November 2024
© René Senenko

Quellen: BArch, Standort Eichborndamm Berlin (ehem. Deutsche Dienststelle/WASt), Sign. B 563/61025, S. 299 (Gravenhorst); Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand, Berlin, Akte Anklage des Generalstaatsanwalts Grassow beim Landgericht [Berlin] als Leiter der Anklagebehörde bei dem Sondergericht [Berlin] vom 29.3.1944 gegen den Landwirt Otto Werner Berger; Landesarchiv Berlin, Sign. A Rep. 341-02 Nr. 13910, A Rep. 342 Nr. 6166 und Film-Sign. A Rep. 358-02 Nr. 2909; Suchdienst Arolsen ITS Digital Archive, Arolsen Archives, Sign. 1.1.34.1/3734222, 1.1.34.1/3752912 und 1.1.34.1/3734869f (Strafgefangenenlager VII, Esterwegen); Karl Heinrich Biehl: "Hak" Hanseatisches Kettenwerk 1935–1945, Norderstedt 2003, S. 98, 133.