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Adolf Fünfstück * 1883

Hein-Hoyer-Straße 66 (Hamburg-Mitte, St. Pauli)

KZ Neuengamme
ermordet 20.01.1942

Hermann Adolf Ephraim Fünfstück, born on 24 Sept. 1883, imprisoned in 1909, 1913, 1925, 1926, 1931, and 1941, died on 20 Jan. 1942 in the Neuengamme concentration camp

Hein-Hoyer-Straße 66 (Wilhelminenstraße 66)

Adolf Fünfstück was born in 1883 in Hamburg as the son of the coal dealer Hermann Fünfstück and his wife Elise (née Judt). He suffered from "feeblemindedness” ("Geistesschwäche”). After attending the eight-grade elementary school (Volksschule), he completed training as a painter from 1898 to 1900. Afterward, he worked as a journeyman and laborer and went on his travels. On the road, he sometimes tried to make ends meet by begging. For begging, due to a property offense, as well as for slander and causing a public nuisance, he had a criminal record.

In 1909, Adolf Fünfstück was on trial for the first time on charges of "unnatural sexual offenses” ("widernatürliche Unzucht”). The Hamburg District Court (Amtsgericht) found him guilty of having infringed on Sec. 175 of the Reich Criminal Code (Reichsstrafgesetzbuch – RStGB). In accordance with Sec. 51 RStGB, he was committed, due to "feeblemindedness and mental incapacity,” to the Friedrichsberg State Hospital (Staatskrankenanstalt Friedrichsberg) for about half a year and to the Langenhorn "lunatic asylum” ("Irrenanstalt”) for two months.

In 1913 followed another conviction pursuant to Sec. 175 RStGB – this time, Adolf Fünfstück was on trial as a defendant before the Berlin Regional Court (Landgericht), which punished him with three months in prison.
During the First World War, he worked as a painter at the Hamburg Blohm + Voss shipyard. In the years 1925, 1926, and 1931, convictions followed by the Hamburg District Court (Amtsgericht) for causing a public nuisance in accordance with Sec. 183 and for assault and battery in accordance with Sec. 185 RStGB. The sentences ranged between two, one, and, respectively, two months in prison. His penalty dating from 1931 was remitted in 1933. Until his last arrest in 1941, he worked at a gunpowder factory.

In 1941, Adolf Fünfstück was reported to police by a former sex partner. The two had met on the Fischmarkt (fish market) and got together several times. After his arrest, he was taken to the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp as a "protective custody prisoner” ("Schutzhäftling”) of police. The Second "Criminal Chamber” ("Strafkammer”) of the Hamburg Regional Court (Landgericht) sentenced him to one year in prison for offenses pursuant to Sec. 175 RStGB. An excerpt from the verdict: "Considering the fact that by his crimes the defendant did not cause any harm to the witness, who was already fully corrupted in terms of morality but that, on the other hand – even though with not very considerable penalties dating back nearly ten years – he has several previous convictions, and considering the lengthy period and wicked type of his indecent practices, a prison sentence of one year appeared to be adequate atonement.”

Adolf Fünfstück served the sentence in the Fuhlsbüttel men’s prison and in the Glasmoor penitentiary, from which he was released on 10 Oct. 1941 and handed over to the Hamburg Criminal Investigation Department. In Nov. 1941, he was registered as a new arrival with prisoner number 6,597 in the Neuengamme concentration camp, where he died on 20 Jan. 1942.

Translator: Erwin Fink

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

© Bernhard Rosenkranz(†)/Ulf Bollmann

Quellen: StaH 213-11 Staatsanwaltschaft Landgericht – Strafsachen, 2932/41; StaH 242-1 II Gefängnisverwaltung II, Abl. 13 und 16; StaH 331-1 II Polizeibehörde II, Abl. 15, Band 1.