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© StaH
Paul Struck * 1872
Papenstraße 69 (Wandsbek, Eilbek)
1934 - 1938 mehrfach verhaftet
KZ Fuhlsbüttel
'Heilanstalt' Meseritz-Obrawalde
ermordet 09.05.1944
Robert Heinrich Paul Struck, b. 8.16.1872 in Hamburg, died in the Meseritz-Obrawalde State Mental Hospital on 5.9.1944
Papenstraße 69 (Papenstraße 87)
Paul Struck, born in Hamm in 1872, grew up as one of eleven children of the worker Georg Struck and Dorthea, née Kruse, in poor but orderly circumstances. After finishing elementary school, he learned the waiter’s trade and, until the outbreak of the First World War, worked in "first-class houses,” in, among other places, Paris, London, Rome, Christiania, Liège, and Antwerp. His testimonials were "uniformly favorable,” and, during this period, he learned to speak English well. In a criminal investigation of 1908, he admitted to a relationship with a woman in Belgium and to have sired an out-of-wedlock child. After serving in the war for the German Empire, he returned to Hamburg in 1919 and worked until 1925 at the Prediger Bakery, but in the following period he could only fill temporary positions as a waiter because he was suffering from "nervous exhaustion.”
Nevertheless, he worked in renowned places, such as the Hotel Atlantic and the Uhlenhorst Fährhaus. Until 1937, he lived in a two-room apartment in House no. 4 at Ritterstrasse 45; because of his diminished economic situation, he received support from the welfare office and from his brothers. According to his brothers, even as a schoolboy, he showed "an abnormal disposition,” since he played less with boys his own age, preferring "quite little children” and "dolls and sewing things.” As an adolescent he supposedly liked to "dress like a girl at masquerades.” His brothers reproached him on account of his later dealings with "men and young people,” which, according to them, was already noticeable in 1907.
In the Eilbek neighborhood, too, on account of his "conspicuous visits from young people between 20 and 25 years old” he was thought to be homosexually inclined and regarded as a "public menace.” Although, because of his linguistic abilities, he had been employed by the Association of Restaurant and Hotel Workers as a teacher of professional and language skills and never behaved inappropriately toward his pupils, his conduct in the neighborhood was suspicious. In connection with criminal investigations begun in the 1930s, he described himself at times as homosexual and at other times as bisexual.
In 1934, he stood for the first time before a court on account of his homosexual orientation and in April of the same year was condemned by the Hamburg District Court to two months in jail for the "violent abuse" of a young person according to §185 of the Reich Penal Code; he served his sentence in Fuhlsbüttel. In July 1936, the same court delivered another judgement according to §175 of the Reich Penal Code. This, after he took a runaway youth from Berlin into his home and engaged in consensual sexual relations with him. As a result, he received a punishment of three months and ten days in jail. In the early summer of 1937, after he exposed himself to a 15-year old apprentice, he was jailed from 23 June until 17 July 1937 in the Fuhlsbüttel police prison (formerly the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp), before being sentenced by the Hamburg District Court under §183 of the Reich Penal Code to six months. After his release, he lost his long-time apartment on Ritterstrasse and in February 1938 sublet a furnished room at Papenstrasse 87. A few days after moving in, his landlady had him arrested by the police on 28 February 1938 after he, two days previously, inappropriately touched another renter’s 11-year old boy, who had bought groceries for him. In the course of an investigation, he was imprisoned again in Fuhlsbüttel on 9 March 1938. The 65-year old Paul Struck was now showing clear signs of aging. A medical report certified him as of diminished soundness of mind, according to §51, section 2 of the Reich Penal Code. The judgment of the Hamburg District Court took this into consideration and, instead of sentencing him to a penitentiary, sentenced him to only a year in jail. However, an assistant in the criminal investigation recommended that Paul Struck, on the basis of the experiences of his life history, be rendered "harmless to the national community." The court therefore instituted a security measure according to §42k of the Reich Penal Code, the consequence of which was confinement in a mental hospital.
Paul Stuck first served his sentence in the Fuhlsbüttel penal institution and was then, on 3 February 1939, was sent to Langenhorn. According to a report by the section physician Friedrich Kerl from January 1942, the by now almost 70-year old man showed no "homosexual inclinations,” a fact that was attributed to the absence of minors. A lifting of the confinement was "emphatically” advised against, for he was still considered a "public menace.” This was particularly noted in his medical records by a Mrs. Erika Schultze, who with legal help made "quite insistent" efforts to prevent his release and finally saw to it that he was prohibited from having visitors and other contacts. Thus, in the end, it was not remarkable that Paul Struck was among the many patients who in April 1943, "on technical grounds," was on the collective transport from Langenhorn to the mental institution Meseritz-Obrawalde. On 9 May 1944, under unknown circumstances, Paul Struck died there. Death by lethal injection, which the historian Thomas Beddies attributed to the provincial medical councilor Theophil Mootz, cannot be excluded in Paul Struck’s case.
Translator: Richard Levy
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.
Stand: January 2019
© Bernhard Rosenkranz(†)/Ulf Bollmann
Quellen: StaH 213-11 Staatsanwaltschaft Landgericht – Strafsachen, 8373/38; StaH 352-8/7 Staatskrankenanstalt Langenhorn, Ablieferung 1995/1, 25763; 213-8 Staatsanwaltschaft Oberlandesgericht – Verwaltung, Abl. 2, 451 a E 1, 1 b; 242-1 II Gefängnisverwaltung II, Ablieferungen 13 u. 16; 332-3 Zivilstandsaufsicht, A 301 (Eintrag Nr. 224); Thomas Beddies 2006, in: http://www.deathcamps.org/eutha nasia/obrawalde_de.html (eingesehen am 16.1.2014); Thomas Beddies: Die Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Meseritz-Obrawalde im Dritten Reich. In: Kristina Hübener (Hg.): Brandenburgische Heil- und Pflegeanstalten in der NS-Zeit (Schriftenreihe zur Medizin-Geschichte des Landes Brandenburg 3), S. 231–258; Rosenkranz/Bollmann/Lorenz, Homosexuellen-Verfolgung, S. 257.
