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Dr. Herbert Samson
© Privatbesitz

Dr. Herbert Siegfried Samson * 1898

Sierichstraße 102 (Hamburg-Nord, Winterhude)

1942 Bergen-Belsen /aus Niederlanden
ermordet am 5.1.1945 Bergen-Belsen

Dr. Herbert Siegfried Samson, born on 26 Mar. 1898 in Hamburg, deported on 1 Feb. 1944 to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, died there on 5 Jan. 1945

Herbert Siegfried Samson was born in Hamburg in 1898 as the son of the merchant Adolf Samson and his wife Johanna, née Bauer. From 1907 until 1916, he attended the Wilhelm-Gymnasium, a high school in Hamburg-Rotherbaum. Starting in the 1916 summer semester, he studied law at the University of Berlin. In Nov. 1916, he was drafted for military service, participating in the static warfare taking place in Lorraine in Mar. 1917. After the First World War, he continued his law studies at the universities of Göttingen, Heidelberg, and Hamburg. In Dec. 1922, he took the second state examination in law at the University of Hamburg. Prior to that, in Feb. 1921, he had already successfully completed his PhD. studies with a thesis on the topic of Der Kommissionsagent ("The commission agent”). In 1923, he was licensed as a lawyer at the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court (Hanseatisches Oberlandesgericht) as well as the Hamburg Regional Court (Landgericht) and District Court (Amtsgericht). From 1923 until 1924, he practiced at Rathausmarkt 5 with the lawyers Albert Wulff and Herbert Fischer. From 1925 until 1933, he operated a law firm together with Dr. Manfred Zadik (1887–1965) and Dr. Hans Levien (1900–1967) at Bergstrasse 16.

Until the beginning of 1926, Herbert Samson lived at Hochallee 25 (Harvestehude). In Apr. 1926, he married Ilse Hochfeld (born in 1907 in Hamburg), who prior to getting married lived at Brahmsallee 27 with her father, the merchant Gustav Hochfeld (the co-owner of Giulio Hochfeld, Import u. Export von Südfrüchten, a family company importing and exporting tropical fruit, founded in 1904 and located at Oberhafenstrasse 5). After the wedding, Herbert and Ilse Samson moved to the third floor of the five-storey building at Gryphiusstrasse 12 on the intersection to Dorotheenstrasse. In Sept. 1935, the family, numbering four by then (with Werner Edgar, born in 1928, and Eva Irene, born in 1935), moved into a seven-room ground-floor apartment in the house at Sierichstrasse 102. The spouses were both active in sports (e.g., the both owned bikes and tennis equipment) as well as interested in culture.

On 27 Apr. 1933, the authorities looked into revoking Herbert Samson’s license to practice law, for "racial” reasons. However, as a recognized frontline veteran of World War I, he was allowed to keep it for the time being. His law firm colleagues fared differently: Lawyer Dr. Levien was deprived of his license in Apr. 1933 (he emigrated to Palestine in 1935). The other partner, Manfred Zadik, continued to work as a lawyer until 1938, after which he was permitted to practice only as a "Jewish legal adviser” ("jüdischer Konsulent”) [ a newly introduced Nazi term for Jewish lawyers banned from full legal practice]. In the period from 1935 until 1938, Herbert Samson ran his own law firm at Grosse Theaterstrasse 34 (Hamburg-Neustadt). On 30 Nov. 1938, he was banned as a Jewish lawyer from practicing his profession; on 1 Dec. 1938, he was admitted only as a "Jewish legal adviser,” i.e., he was allowed to work for Jewish clients only. For granting this license, the Nazi state charged a "legal adviser levy” ("Konsulentenabgabe”) payable to the compensation fund (Ausgleichskasse) of the Reich Chamber of Lawyers (Reichsrechtsanwaltskammer). For three and a half months, this levy amounted to about 5,500 RM (reichsmark). In 1939, the office was taken over by Dr. Edgar Haas (1877–1946), who was one of three "Jewish legal advisers” authorized to work in Hamburg during the entire Nazi period. In his company stamp, he was forced to include "licensed to provide legal advice to and representation of Jews only” as an addition.

During the night of the November Pogrom of 9/10 Nov. 1938, well-to-do Jews in particular were interned in concentration camps, those from Hamburg being committed to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Herbert Samson was detained there as prisoner no. 8,548 in Block 20 from 9/10 Nov. until 22 Nov. 1938. Immediately after his release, he tried to get himself and his family to safety. In Dec. 1938, ten-year-old son Werner was sent to Great Britain on a children transport (Kindertransport). The rest of the family continued to hope for visas to the USA. A note indicating "March 1939 USA” was already entered in the Jewish religious tax (Kultussteuer) card file but the departure for the United States did not materialize. In Apr. 1939, Herbert Samson, along with his wife and four-year-old daughter as well as parts of the household effects, emigrated to the Netherlands, which did not require a visa. Since Feb. 1938, the Netherlands were already the residence of the father-in-law, Gustav Hochfeld (whose company, Giulio Hochfeld OHG [general partnership], had been taken over by Wilhelm Schlüter on 15 Feb. 1938). The furniture moving company Berthold Jacoby (owned by Paul Meier), by then "Aryanized,” was commissioned with packing the moving goods and transporting them to Rotterdam. Beforehand, officials from the customs investigation department had compared the transport lists with the items at the Samsons’ home. A number of silver objects had been listed, packed, and sealed by the Clasen jeweler’s shop (at Kleine Johannisstrasse 2) – the only way these items could be exported in exchange for payment of a levy. Jewelry and additional silver items had to be surrendered to a "public purchasing point” ("Öffentliche Ankaufsstelle”), the proceeds from which, amounting to 99 RM, were credited to Herbert Samson’s blocked account. For an oil painting, nine watercolors, and four etchings, the deputy head of the painters and graphic artists occupational group within the "Reich Chamber of Culture of Fine Arts” ("Reichskulturkammer der bildenden Künste”), Willy Habl, had obtained written confirmation that the pictures were to be classified "as not [being] high quality German cultural assets.” However, before that, Herbert Samson had to pay to the Nazi state the "levy on Jewish assets” ("Judenvermögensabgabe”) and the duty to the Gold Discount Bank ("Dego-Abgabe”) for taking his own property abroad. The Samson family’s actual haven for escape continued to be the USA, though. The father had the son come join them in the Netherlands by ship in 1939 – thus the family was reunited at this stage of exile.

After Herbert Samson’s emigration, Edgar Haas took care of, among other things, payments from his blocked account balance to the family members remaining in Germany (to Hermann Epstein, the father-in-law of the uncle Bernhard Samson; to Siegfried Hochfeld, the Munich uncle of his wife; and to Elsa Hochfeld, the Munich aunt of his wife).

In Dec. 1939, the family lived in The Hague at Zijdelaan 25. Their financial situation worsened noticeably. Thus, lawyer Haas wrote to the relevant German authorities on 19 Apr. 1940, "Mr. Samson writes to me that circumstances in the Netherlands have become even more difficult due to the outbreak of war. He does not have too many funds himself; because of poor business, his father-in-law is strained to such an extent already that he cannot make advance payments anymore.” On 1 Apr. 1940, just before the German occupation of the Netherlands in May 1940, the wife and daughter of Herbert Samson received in Rotterdam an "immigration visa” to the USA. They traveled to Britain, leaving Liverpool for New York on the steamer Britannic in May 1940. From there, they went on to Seattle by train. In The Hague, Herbert Samson and his son continued to wait for a US visa, in vain. In 1940, they had to leave The Hague on the orders of the German [occupational] authorities and move to Nunspeet in the eastern part of the Netherlands.

Via his lawyer Mr. Haas, Herbert Samson negotiated in Sept. 1940 about travel expense payments from his funds remaining in Germany: "As the representative of Dr. Samson, I beg to inform you that he is still in the Netherlands with his small son. He intends to travel via Russia onward to the USA, with the visa to be issued in the near future. He would like to pay the sums payable in reichsmark, i.e., for the stage from the Dutch border to Japan, from his blocked account.” This application was turned down. In Apr. 1941, lawyer Haas succeeded in having school reports and university diplomas from the personnel file with the Hamburg justice department sent to the Netherlands.

In Dec. 1942 or in fall of 1943 – the sources differ in this respect – Herbert Samson and his son were arrested and interned in the Dutch Westerbork transit camp near the German border, controlled by the SS since July 1942. In Jan. 1944, the deportation from the occupied Netherlands back to the German Reich followed, more specifically, to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, to which the Jewish prisoners were committed on 1 Feb. 1944. Herbert Samson received prisoner number 2,656, his son Werner number 2,664 of the "star camp” ("Sternlager”). Its inmates had to wear the "Jews’ star” on their civilian clothes and were forced to perform energy-sapping labor duties while getting poor nutrition. Herbert Samson died there of hunger and debilitation on 5 Jan. 1945; officially, "cardiac insufficiency” was indicated as the cause of death. His son was "evacuated” from the advancing British troops on a train transport leaving the camp on 10 Apr. 1945. The camp was liberated on 15 Apr. 1945. On 23 Apr. 1945, Red Army units liberated Werner Samson, in a very poor state of health, from the transport train at Tröbitz near Frankfurt/Oder. In Nov. 1946, he departed for the USA.


Translator: Erwin Fink
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: January 2019
© Björn Eggert

Quellen: 1; 2; 4; 8; StaHH 241-2, Justizverwaltung Personalakten, A 1820; StaHH 741-4, Alte Einwohnermeldekartei; AfW 260398; AB 1898, 1926, 1932, 1936; Handelskammer Hamburg, Firmenarchiv HR A 4962, 1925–1967; Amtliche Fernsprechbücher Hamburg 1924–1926, 1928, 1935, 1937; Hamburger Börsenfirmen, 34. Auflage, Hamburg Februar 1933, S. 381; www.joodsmonument.nl (eingesehen am 8.2.2007); Gedenkstätte KZ Bergen-Belsen, E-Mail vom 13.3.2007; BallinStadt, www.ancestry.de Passagierliste der "S. S. M. V. Britannic", (eingesehen am 22.9.2007); Heiko Morisse, Jüdische Rechtsanwälte in Hamburg. Ausgrenzung und Verfolgung im NS-Staat, Hamburg 2003, S. 132, 141, 155, 168; Ulrike Puvogel, Martin Stankowski, Gedenkstätten für die Opfer des Nationalsozialismus, Band I, Bonn 1995, S. 383.
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