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Karl Peters * 1919

Geibelstraße 61 (Hamburg-Nord, Winterhude)

HIER WOHNTE
KARL PETERS
JG. 1919
VERHAFTET 1939
STRAF- UND JUGENDGEFÄNGNIS
NEUMÜNSTER
FLUCHT IN DEN TOD
6.6.1940

Karl Peters, born 9/15/1919 in Hamburg, arrested 1939, suicide on 6/6/1940 at Neumünster prison

"... this morning, when cleaning the window, I recognized a partner down in the prison yard. If I remember correctly, I slept with him twice… I met him at the ‘Monte Carlo’ and took him along from Nordmann. After such a long time, I don’t recall if it was me who solicited him or if he was asking for shelter.” The testimony by which fellow inmate Alfred Zander denounced his former sex partner Karl Peters triggered a course of events from which the accused in the end saw no other way to escape than suicide.

Karl Peters was born as the son of the shoemaker of the same name and his wife Anni, née Keltig. His father died shortly after his birth. Because of an illness, he had to leave elementary school during the next to last grade. Initially, he found work as a fellow with his stepfather, later he eked out a living as a factory worker and messenger. From May 1936, the youth welfare agency admitted him as a child in care to the community home in Wulfsdorf near Ahrensburg. Subsequently, he went to sea as a cook’s mate on ships of the Hamburg Sloman Line. After stealing a bicycle when he was out of a job the court sentenced him to six months in jail; another eight months for pickpocketing followed. Then, at the remand jail, his fellow inmate Alfred Zander denounced him as a homosexual. Karl Peters during his questioning by the police on February 8th, 1939: "Once gone astray, I dropped deeper and deeper and finally landed as a rent boy. However, I wasn’t very active, only had 4 strangers as partners, from which I made about 20 to 25 RM.”

On September 26th, 1939, the Youth Protection Court of the Hamburg High Court sentenced Karl Peters to two years in jail on two counts of violation against art. 175 of the Reich Penal Code and a crime pursuant to art. 175 a, no. 4 Reich Penal Code ("commercial buggery”). From the verdict: "April to June 1939, the defendant acted as a professional rent boy. He committed the crimes to obtain food and shelter. In nearly all cases, he also received money and pieces of clothing, thus acting to make a source of income from his homosexual activities. Regarding the sentencing procedure, there could be no doubt that the defendant deserved a lengthy prison sentence …”

Immediately after the trail, Karl Peters was taken to the Neumünster prison to serve his sentence. On June 6th, 1940, he hanged himself in his cell. The Stumbling Stone commemorating his fate lies before his last residence at Geibelstrasse 61 in Winterhude.

Alfred Zander, who had denounced Karl Peters and testified against him, was detained at the Holstenglacis remand center for six months for a violation pursuant to Art. 175 and a crime pursuant to art. 175 a. During the Nazi era, he served an 18-month jail sentence and was intermittently imprisoned at the Emsland camp Papenburg. After the war, he was convicted twice for homosexual actions.

Translated by Peter Hubschmid
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: February 2018
© Bernhard Rosenkranz

Quellen: StaH, 213-11 Staatsanwaltschaft Landgericht – Strafakten, 10161/39; StaHH, 242-1II Gefängnisverwaltung, II Ablieferungen13, 16 und 1998/1.