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Johann Wilhelm Jasper * 1898

Kaiser-Wilhelm-Straße 20 (Hamburg-Mitte, Neustadt)

HIER WOHNTE
JOHANN WILHELM
JASPER
JG. 1898
IM WIDERSTAND / KPD
VERHAFTET 28.2.1933
1933 UG HOLSTENGLACIS
TODESURTEIL 25.9.1934
HINGERICHTET 29.9.1934

Johann Wilhelm Jasper, born on 28.1.1898 in Meldorf, imprisoned several times, executed on 29.9.1934 in the remand prison Hamburg-Stadt, Holstenglacis 3

Kaiser-Wilhelm-Straße 20 (Neustädter Straße 87)


"Hamburg September 28, 1934
Farewell letter
My dear brother Emil and Grete and children. Got the joyful news today at 6 o'clock in the evening that I will be executed tomorrow morning at 6 o'clock. My dear brother, you must not be sad, because that is a person's fate. You must not think badly of me, I was a loyal soldier of the revolution, faithfully carried out the directives of my party and the Red Navy, I was Orgleiter of the Red Navy, I am sentenced to 40 years in prison and to death for 4 bombs and terrorist actions by the Special Court Hbg. in the name of the people. I am 20 months in prison, 10 months of it in the lunatic asylum. I have a martyrdom behind me, am mentally and physically broken and am glad that I have my peace. My dear Christel is with me through the night. She has faithfully stood by me. [...] In the hope that you will still live good years. Now you are greeted very much by your and your faithful brother Wilhelm. Organization leader of the Red Navy."

With these lines Wilhelm Jasper said goodbye the night before his execution. He was among the first political opponents of the Nazi regime against whom the death penalty was imposed in Hamburg after Adolf Hitler's appointment as Reich Chancellor (Altona was not yet part of Hamburg until 1937, there the special court sentenced the communists August Lütgens, Walter Möller, Bruno Tesch and Karl Wolff to death in connection with the "Altona Bloody Sunday" on June 2, 1932, see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de).

Wilhelm Jasper had been born in Meldorf in the district of Dithmarschen at Sandberg 22 (today Marschstraße 37) in humble circumstances. He is said to have been the eighth child of the married couple Christian Jasper and Carolina, née Gloy, three of his siblings died early. Wilhelm Jasper described himself as a "Holstein boy" and his great-grandfather as a freedom fighter. At the age of 18, Wilhelm Jasper had been drafted into the navy. After World War I, he went to sea as a sailor. He met his future wife Christina Maria Vaessen, divorced Persyn, in Meldorf. They were married in Hamburg on July 22, 1922.
Christina Vaessen was born on March 15, 1894 in Roermond in the Dutch province of Limburg, the daughter of "Kunstglaswerkmaker" Hubertus Johannes Vaessen (born Aug. 6, 1870) and Maria Petronella Hubertina, née Stroot (born 1871). She grew up with several siblings and left her home in 1917.

The childless couple lived at Neustädter Straße 87 in 1928. Wilhelm Jasper worked as a stevedore in the stevedoring company "Einheit", Vorsetzen 42, which dealt exclusively with the loading and unloading of Soviet ships. The company was closed in September 1933 at the instigation of the Gestapo. Wilhelm Jasper was a member of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and the Red Front Fighters' League (RFB), the paramilitary organization of the KPD, which was banned on May 3, 1929. An integral part of the RFB was the "Red Navy," which was divided into three sections. The "Red Navy," founded in 1925, consisted largely of sailors and former sailors, such as Wilhelm Jasper. It remained politically active even after it was banned during the Weimar Republic.

In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Wilhelm Jasper was arrested several times for "resisting and not obeying police orders." With supporters of the NSDAP, who tried to gain influence in the workers' residential quarters through propaganda marches, there were almost daily confrontations, armed assaults and street fights. There were deaths and injuries on both sides.

Wilhelm Jasper became the organizational leader of the 3rd section of the "Red Navy Neustadt". The former political leader Herbert Baumann wrote in his memoirs in 1981: "As org. leader of the section Willi Jasper was appointed at my request. Willi was the ideal candidate for this post, his only fault being his modesty, but that did not prevent him from being quite demanding and strict. He earned his exclusive authority as org. leader by not asking more of anyone than he was capable of accomplishing himself."

On February 26, 1933, after an armed raid by the "Red Navy" on an NSDAP traffic pub on Brodschrangen, in which an intervening police officer and two uninvolved passers-by were injured, Wilhelm Jasper also suffered a gunshot wound. He was interrogated by the police on the same day in the harbor hospital and two days later transferred to the Hamburg-Stadt remand prison on Holstenglacis, where he spent the first two months in a military hospital. During the interrogations, Wilhelm Jasper was severely maltreated by the "Kommando zur besonderen Verwendung" (K.z.b.V.), under the command of Ernst Simon, chief of the Hamburg Ordnungspolizei.

He suffered injuries to his head and his teeth were knocked out. Due to the psychological and physical violence, Wilhelm Jasper lost the ability to speak and could only communicate with his environment in writing.

On November 24, 1933, Wilhelm Jasper was transferred to the Sanatorium and Nursing Home Langenhorn for observation. During these ten months, he was also severely mistreated there by two nurses, Dorsch and Kellermann. Wilhelm Jasper later informed his wife of their reasons in writing on a note: "I was supposed to speak, but I couldn't after all." On September 25, 1934, the Hanseatic Special Court sentenced him to death in the trial of "Hesse and Others" and "von Bargen and Others" for "attempted murder, serious breach of the peace and explosives crime." Christina Jasper was allowed to see her husband one last time the night before his execution.

"The last hours with you were the most beautiful of my life," he wrote in a farewell letter. Believing he would find his final resting place in the Ohlsdorf cemetery, he asked her not to forget the grave of Jonny Dettmer (born 11.9.1901, executed 19.5.1934) either, "he was my best friend in life."

To spend the last hours with the prison chaplain, Wilhelm Jasper refused: "Honored pastor, I am a dissident and communist and do not need their care [...] I find the night and my way as a communist alone."

On September 29, 1934, at 6 o'clock in the morning, Wilhelm Jasper was executed with a hand axe in the courtyard of the Hamburg-Stadt remand prison by executioner Carl Gröpler (born 1868, died 1946 in the Halle prison). His body was handed over to the anatomical institute of the University of Hamburg.

After her husband's arrest, Christina Jasper had been dismissed from the civil service, where she had been employed as a cleaning woman. She now had to perform compulsory work in various hospitals and was under the supervision of the Gestapo, which suggested that she return to her home country. In order not to be deported ("I felt that I would never have come abroad, since I knew too much and could harm the Nazis"), Christina entered into a third marriage in early 1940.

Christina Wassermann died in Hamburg in 1952.

The Stolperstein for Wilhelm Jasper was laid in Kaiser-Wilhelm-Straße 20 in front of a post-war building. The old residential buildings on Neustädter Straße, which used to run from Kaiser- Wilhelm-Straße to Fuhlentwiete, no longer exist today.

Another stumbling stone commemorates Wilhelm Jasper in his birthplace Meldorf at Marschstraße 37 and his friend Jonny Dettmer at Eilbecktal 2 (see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de).

Translation Beate Meyer

Stand: February 2023
© Susanne Rosendahl

Quellen: StaH 351-11 AfW 15927 (Wassermann, Christina); StaH 332-5 Standesämter 3429 u 620/1922; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 1023 u 308/1934; StaH 213-8 Staatsanwaltschaft Oberlandesgericht Verwaltung Abl. 1, 157; StaH 213-11 Staatsanwaltschaft Landgerichte A16895/31; StaH 241-1 I Justizverwaltung 2546; Bericht von Herbert Baumann, Rostock 1981 zur Verfügung gestellt von der Gedenkstätte Ernst Thälmann Hamburg-Eppendorf, Archiv; https://www.wiewaswie.nl/personen-zoeken/zoeken/ document/a2apersonid/172339913/srcid/21073712/oid/36 (Zugriff 6.10.2016); http://www.pondes.nl/ detail/i_d_ENG.php?inum=830907651 (Zugriff 6.10.2016); Diercks: Dokumentation, S. 24; Seeger/Treichel: Hinrichtungen, S. 34–35; http://roterhusar.org/rwca/projektmeldorf/jasper.html (Zugriff 6.10.2016).
Der Abschiedsbrief sowie die Zitate im Text wurden wegen der besseren Lesbarkeit nach der heutigen Rechtschreibung korrigiert.