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; "Porträt Hans Kirsten, 18.2.1936")
© StaH
Hans Kirsten * 1868
Hasselbrookstraße 23 (Wandsbek, Eilbek)
Verhaftet 1935 und 1939
KZ Fuhlsbüttel
'Heilanstalt' Langenhorn
ermordet 24.02.1943
further stumbling stones in Hasselbrookstraße 23:
Max Jacob
Hans Ferdinand Kirsten, born 20 Dec. 1868. Died 24 Feb. 1943 at the Langenhorn Psychiatric Hospital
Hasselbrookstrasse 23
Hans Kirsten, born December 20th, 1868, was the second of five children of the wealthy Hamburg shipowner and shipping agent Adolph Kirsten and his wife Pauline, née Burmester. After graduating from high school, he absolved a commercial apprenticeship with stages in France and North America. He loved to travel, so that he later, working for the family company, spent a lot of time in Central and South America – in 1895, he had started working in his father’s company "A. Kirsten” in Hamburg as shipowner and shipping agent. From 18909 to 1924, he was also a partner in the company. Like his father, he also worked for the company "H. J. Perlbach & Co. Nachfolger”, of which he also held shares from 1915 to 1924. As a successor to his uncle, he became Patron of the "Wetken’sche Schule.” In 1926, he left the companies in the aftermath of costly speculative deals, from then on living from his substantial personal fortune. Besides his villa in Fontenay near the Alster Lake, he owned a property in Poppenbüttel. In 1897, he had married Margaretha Moller, who gave birth to six daughters from 1898 to 1910. She died in 1933. During his marriage, Hans Kirsten had a sexual relationship to his housekeeper, in addition to many extramarital affairs, mostly with women, but also with men. The people of Poppenbüttel called him a "sexual roughneck.” This is probably the reason his marriage had been considered as shattered for many years; in 1935, all contacts with his daughters had ended.
In 1927, he is supposed to have been caught at homosexual activities at a public toilet at Berliner Tor and blackmailed for the first time. In 1930, the Altona Public Prosecutor started an investigation against Kirsten on account of a homosexual relationship, which was, however, soon abandoned.
On November 25th, 1935, Hans Kirsten was denounced by his neighbor Carl Weiffert. Weiffert’s daughter had that a young man had come to visit Hans Kirsten, who then lived in his villa at Fontenay 1c. Kirsten was arrested and jailed at the Holsten Glacis remand center. On February 7th, 1936, he was for the first time taken to the psychiatric hospital in Langenhorn for observation on account of a suspected psychic disorder. The consultant, Wigand Quickert, diagnosed no psychic illness; he did, however, extensively examine Kirsten’s overreaching sexual drive and his "perverted sexual inclination” that had allegedly become evident during the examination. On April 28th, Hans Kirsten was returned to the remand center. Because his male sexual partner could not be identified, there was no indication of a seduction the partner’s age remained unclear – the neighbor had estimated 14 to 16 years, Hans Kirsten spoke of 17 to 25 years, the Hamburg High Court merely sentenced him to one year in jail on account of an offense according to Art. 175 of the Reich Penal Code, the judge explaining Kirsten’s homosexual actions by a supposed "sexual satiety.”
On April 30th, 1937, Hans Kirsten had served his sentence in a jail in Bergedorf April 1937. Until 1938, he lived on his large property in Poppenbüttel. After this home had been forcibly sold, he moved to an apartment in Hasselbrookstrasse 23 with his housekeeper and companion Gretchen Möller, née Hellfritz. This was to be his last voluntarily chosen residence, so that a stumbling stone was laid in front of this house in Eilbek.
On April 14th, 1939 Hans Kirsten again fell into the clutches of the Nazi regime; several occurrences of the years 1935 to 1938 were investigated. He was accused of having performed sexual actions with two 18-year-olds on his property in Poppenbüttel; and he had allegedly touched a 17-year-old’s pants in the genital area. After a search if his home, he was taken to Gestapo headquarters at the Stadthaus for interrogation. On April 15th, he was transferred to police custody and subsequently jailed at the Fuhlsbüttel Police Jail from April 17th to 25th, 1939, then moved to the remand center at Holstenglacis. In the course of his interrogations, he admitted having twice performed homosexual actions with elderly strangers in public toilets at Moorweidenstrasse and Bornplatz. At the trial, a relative stated that the family had already considered to have Hans Kirsten put under tutelage on account of his moral conduct. Kirsten therefore could not count on support from his family. His housekeeper and companion gave the police extensive accounts of their sexual life and also voiced her suspicion of his homosexual activities. The assistant investigators of criminal justice considered Hans Kirsten a "serious danger”; their opinion culminated in the demand that he be "rendered harmless.” On July 19th, 1939, public health officer Kurt Frommer examined him, attesting his diminished responsibility on account of a "senile arterio-sclerotic disorder”, demanding his committ6ment to a psychiatric institution.
It was, therefore, not surprising that the 5th Court of the Hamburg High Court, acting as a youth protection court, on January 11th, 1940, sentenced Hans Kirsten, aged 71, to two years and six months in jail on account of an offense according to Art. 175 of the Penal Code and an attempted offense according to Art. 175a of the penal code and, according to Art. 42b and 51 indent II of the Penal Code to commitment to a psychiatric hospital. On account of his strong sexual drive and his bisexual conduct he was described as a "sexually completely depraved personality and vilified as "a sexually totally degenerated person.” From January 20th, 1940, he served his sentence in Fuhlsbüttel. At the end of May, 1940, Hans Kirsten was taken to the central military hospital to submit to a "voluntary” castration. He remained at the remand center until his discharge on January 12th, 1942 and was then transferred to the Langenhorn psychiatric hospital. According to a memo of the Assistant Medical Director to the Attorney General of November 24th, 1942, there were no medical objections to his discharge; however, he was to remain at Langenhorn for a few more weeks on account of a light stroke and a fracture of his femoral. On January 28th, 1943, Langenhorn reported that Kirsten could not be discharged on account of an attack of pneumonia. On March 2nd, 1943, the Attorney General was informed that Hans Kirsten had died at Langenhorn of February 24th, 1943. He was buried in the Kirsten family plot at the Ohlsdorf Cemetery, site: T21 (32-81).
Translated by Peter Hubschmid
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.
Stand: October 2016
© Bernhard Rosenkranz(†)/Ulf Bollmann
Quellen: StaH 213-11 Staatsanwaltschaft Landgericht – Strafsachen, 8035/36 und 451/40; StaH 352-8/7 Staatskrankenanstalt Langenhorn, Ablieferung 1995/2, 22831; StaH 213-8 Staatsanwaltschaft Oberlandesgericht – Verwaltung, Abl. 2, 451 a E 1, 1 d; StaH; 242-1 II Gefängnisverwaltung II, Ablieferungen 13 u. 16; Deutsches Geschlechterbuch Bd. 216, 17. Hamburger Band, S. 217ff.; Rosenkranz/Bollmann/Lorenz, Homosexuellen-Verfolgung, S. 224–225.
