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Alfred Moser
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Alfred Moser * 1887

Novalisweg 1 (Hamburg-Nord, Winterhude)

HIER WOHNTE
ALFRED MOSER
JG. 1887
VERHAFTET
1943 KZ FUHLSBÜTTEL
DEPORTIERT 1943
AUSCHWITZ
ERMORDET 23.7.1943

Alfred Moser, born on 15 Apr. 1887 in Aachen, deported on 8 May 1943 to Auschwitz, murdered there on 23 July 1943

Alfred Moser was born in Aachen and learned the merchant’s trade after obtaining his high-school graduation diploma (Abitur). His parents were Isidor Moser and Agnes, née Steinfeld. The Moser family was of the Jewish faith but Alfred Moser described himself as non-religious.

He worked in Aachen as a general agent of the Heymann & Hoffmann cloth wholesale company. His Protestant wife Margarethe Juliane Sandhoff was born on 23 Mar. 1908 in Hamburg. She was a tailor by trade. Her parents Hedwig, née Grosanick, and Georg Sandhoff operated a coal dealership.

Alfred and Margarethe Moser met in 1928 and they were married on 7 Feb. 1929. Their families had reservations at first because of the big difference in age.

Son Klaus was born in Hamburg on 4 July 1929. After the Nazis assumed power, he was baptized a Protestant together with his father at the Hamburg Jerusalem Community.

In 1933, Alfred Moser worked for the Loeffler Company in Prague for a short time. Starting in 1934, he was impeded in practicing his occupation. For instance, the termination of his work as an agent in 1934 occurred for "racial” reasons. However, he was able to find a new, less well-remunerated employment at the Steinike & Weinlig jam producing plant in Harburg. This resulted in, among other things, the family having to give up the previous apartment on Heidberg. The family initially moved to Stammannstrasse and eventually, in 1935, to an even more affordable place at Novalisweg 1. From 1934 onward, they were already dependent on financial assistance from Margarethe Moser’s father.

Alfred Moser did not hold back with expressing criticism of the National Socialists in public. In 1934, he was arrested for the first time by the Gestapo. Further short-term arrests followed. His wife was able to take on part of her husband’s professional assignments and to take care of his customers. She also kept her husband’s summons to the Gestapo or arranged for them to be circumvented by providing medical certificates. In 1935, Alfred Moser was terminated by Steinike & Weinlig. He found a new job at "Otto H. Meyer, Kolonialwaren,” a food wholesale business.

In 1936, Alfred Moser was admitted to Barmbek Hospital suffering from a serious nervous breakdown. His wife took on his professional obligations for four months. Later, as problems were continuously mounting whenever Alfred Moser, being a "Jew,” had to call on clients, his wife was able to stand in for him. However, in 1938 this was no longer possible and the family had no income anymore. Consequently, Margarethe Moser worked as a tailor at home from 1938 until 1943 in order to feed the family.

Starting in 1938/39, Alfred Moser sought contact to the Jewish Community, going to the Community center on Hartungstrasse on a weekly basis. For him it became ever more important to receive information and to have frank conversations in the face of mounting marginalization. His wife did not accompany him because there were reservations due to their "privileged mixed marriage” ("privilegierte Mischehe”). However, he related every bit of news to her. His Jewish religious tax (Kultussteuer) card file contains a note indicating that Alfred Moser left the Jewish Community on 25 June 1940, the reason being, "Without any religious creed, Protestant wife and child.”

The relatives of Alfred Moser had soon emigrated, and Margarethe Moser’s father had become a Nazi. However, this did not deter his daughter from secretly hiding the luggage of Jewish emigrants in his apartment in circumvention of customs inspections. She received support in this from her sister. Her mother, Hedwig Sandhoff, passed away in 1936. During the time of the November Pogrom of 1938, the Moser family hid over night in their apartment a few Jews afraid of being arrested.

From Easter of 1940 onward, son Klaus attended the Johanneum high school.

The Moser family endured denunciations and harassment by several neighbors and the local group leader (Ortsgruppenleiter).

On 27 Feb. 1943, Alfred Moser, along with 16 other Jews, was put on a list of "persons refusing to work” ("Arbeitsverweigerer”) to be deported by the head of the "Jewish labor deployment” (jüdischer Arbeitseinsatz [=forced labor]), Willibald Schallert. The alleged offenses of the individual Jews denounced can no longer be reconstructed. However, the arrest measures overall were connected with the Berlin "factory operation” ("Fabrikaktion”), in the course of which Jewish forced laborers were to be arrested and deported, whereas those living in "privileged” mixed marriage, on the other hand, were to be registered and then released again. Outside of Berlin, the people in charge fabricated allegations against such Jews protected in principle, transporting them as "protective custody prisoners” ("Schutzhäftlinge”) to Auschwitz, as happened to Alfred Moser. For the time being, he remained in detention at the Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel Gestapo prison from 2 Mar. 1943 onward. During this time, his wife was able to visit him twice. In the course of one of these visits, Margarethe Moser learned that a fellow prisoner of her husband would undertake an attempt to escape and would potentially call on her. The man in question was Rudolf Hamburger, who had been arrested together with Alfred Moser and deployed in an external work detail. He did succeed in escaping but he was soon forced to realize that all of his relatives turned him away. A female acquaintance gave him civilian clothes, enabling him to seek out Margarethe Moser. She hid him for a week. Her son Klaus informed Rudolf Hamburger’s wife, who organized another hideout.

On 8 May 1943, Alfred Moser was deported to the Auschwitz extermination camp. In Dec. 1943, his wife received word that her husband had perished.

Their son Klaus had to leave secondary school for racial reasons in 1944/45, though he was able to return to the Johanneum after the end of the war, finishing school by obtaining his high school graduation diploma (Abitur) in 1950.

The apartment of the Moser family was bombed out in July 1943. Rudolf Hamburger, who had found refuge with the Mosers, managed in the chaos following the air raids to get forged papers, departing Hamburg and surviving the persecution.


Translator: Erwin Fink

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: October 2017
© Maike Bruchmann

Quellen: 1; 8; AfW 150487; Forschungsstelle für Zeitgeschichte, 35363, KL Fuhlsbüttel, Zu- und Abgangslisten; Beate Meyer, "Jüdische Mischlinge" Rassenpolitik und Verfolgungserfahrung 1933–1945, Hamburg 2000, S. 33–36, 50, 58, 62.
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