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Franz Martin Sussmann, 1923
© Universitätsarchiv München

Franz Martin Sussmann * 1904

Lenhartzstraße 10 (Hamburg-Nord, Eppendorf)

HIER WOHNTE
FRANZ MARTIN SUSSMANN
JG. 1904
DEPORTIERT 1941
ERMORDET IN
MINSK

further stumbling stones in Lenhartzstraße 10:
Anna Eva Sussmann

Franz Martin Sussmann, born 2 Jan. 1904 in Hamburg, deported 8 Nov. 1941 to Minsk

Lenhartzstraße 10

Like Anna Sussmann, Franz Sussmann also lived at Lenhartzstraße 10. Although they shared the same name, they were not related.

Franz Sussmann’s paternal ancestors came from Brody. Today the city is part of Ukraine, but at the time of the Habsburg Monarchy between 1772 and 1918 it was an Austrian city located along the border with Russia. Its residents were roughly 70 percent Jewish. Originally a focal point of Jewish orthodoxy, Brody became a center for Jewish enlightenment at the start of the 19th century, taking the path of German acculturation.

Franz Sussmann’s great-grandfather Jonas Sussmann was a teacher in Brody. He married Braindl Reissmann and the couple had a son Moses Sussmann (1834 Brody–1905 Hamburg) who wed Breine Reissmann (1837 Brody–1927 Hamburg), presumably a cousin. The couple had seven children, some of whom were born in Brody and the others in Hamburg after the family moved there in 1867. Alfred, their fifth child, born in Hamburg in 1873, ran a successful rice brokerage business at Mönckebergstraße 15/19 where his two younger brothers Alexander (1876–1926) and Siegfried (1878–1921) also worked. In 1901 he obtained Hamburg citizenship and married Rachel Shelly Kramrisch from Vienna who was his same age. She gave birth to Franz Sussmann and his younger sister Erna Helene (born on 6 Dec. 1907).

Around Easter of 1922, Franz Sussmann graduated from the Heinrich Hertz High School. Afterwards he studied law at the universities in Heidelberg, Munich and Hamburg, and he passed the first law exam at the latter on 5 Dec. 1925. A few days later he was appointed a trainee lawyer. His preparations for a career in law suffered several setbacks. First he had to have an operation on his foot due to a disorder. His mother died in Apr. 1928. He was not admitted to the second law exam until Feb. 1932, but then he was forced to back out due to another illness which turned out to be protracted. Two months later his father died. When Franz Sussmann once again applied to take the second law exam, it was already too late: The State Justice Administration informed him that he was being discharged from civil service due to his Jewish heritage, which also put an end to his application for admission to the second law exam.

Like his sister, Franz Sussmann had inherited a substantial securities portfolio from his father. Added to this were the proceeds from the sale of their parents’ house at Nonnenstieg 3, where he had lived until autumn 1932. He furnished a four-room apartment at Lenhartzstraße 10 where he took in his unmarried aunt Mina Sussmann (born in 1869). She transferred all of her assets to him, and in return he paid her a monthly pension. His assets and his obligations to his aunt will have been the reasons why he did not intend to emigrate, as he explained to the chief finance president in 1939. On 27 June 1941, Franz and Mina Sussmann had to leave the apartment at Lenhartzstraße 10. They were assigned to two rooms in the building at Lenhartzstraße 3 which at the time was used like a "Jewish house" (see the article "The ‘Jewish house’ Lenhartzstraße 3").

Franz Sussmann was deported to Minsk on 8 Nov. 1941. His aunt Mina Sussmann, who probably was meant to be deported to the old-age ghetto of Theresienstadt, died on 25 Feb. 1942 at the Jewish Hospital at Johnsallee 54. Franz Sussmann kept a safe deposit box at Deutsche Bank, and it was later found to hold, in addition to admission receipts from Hamburg libraries from 1940, a large number of handwritten notes and designs "apparently for chemical experiments”. Perhaps they were his written works to which he had dedicated himself after his sister immigrated to England in the mid 1930s.


Translator: Suzanne von Engelhardt
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: January 2019
© Heiko Morisse

Quellen: 1, 4, 5; StaH 241-2 Justizverwaltung-Personalakten, A 1251; StaH, 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung, Abl. 2008/1, 061207, Samson, Helen; StaH, 314-15 Oberfinanzpräsident-Devisen- und Vermögensverwertungsstelle, R 1939/2571, R 1939/2611 und R 1939/3092; StaH, 213-13 Land­gericht-Wiedergutmachungsamt, Z 3562 und Z 24052; StaH, 332-8 Meldewesen, A 30; StaH, 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinden, 390 und 391.
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