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Alwin Peters * 1892

Klopstockplatz 9–11 (vormals Nr. 27) (Altona, Ottensen)

Verhaftet 1941
Flucht in den Tod
23.06.1941

Alwin Heinrich Otto Peters, born 12/13/1892 in Altona, suicide on 06/23/1941 in Hamburg

Klopstockplatz, between house numbers 9 and 11 (Klopstockplatz 27)

Officers of department 24 of the Hamburg criminal police established by the Nazi government with a staff of 25 to 30 people for the sole purpose of hunting homosexual men, on June 21st, 194 raided the public toilet at the Altonaer Fischmarkt, where they encountered 48-year-old Alwin Peters, who, according to a police report, "during the last months had visited the toilets almost daily to initiate homosexual intercourse.” Peters, a technician working for the civil air raid defense and aid service, was summoned for questioning to the squad offices at Stadthausbrücke 8 (the building also housed the Hamburg Gestapo headquarters) for 8 a.m. two days later. Before the beginning of the questioning in interrogation room 337, Peters is supposed to have used a pocket knife to inflict a deep injury on the side of his neck. He was taken to the Hafenkrankenhaus, where he died from the loss of blood from the slashed left side of his neck.

Alwin Peters was born 1892 in Altona-Ottensen at an apartment on the ground floor of Friedensallee 102, the son of the master mason Heinrich Wilhelm Rudolph Peters and his wife Elise Alwine Emma, née Spanhake. He had six brothers and two sisters. After graduating from elementary school in Altona, Alwin Peters he absolved an apprenticeship as a heating system technician. In 1915, he was drafted into the Imperial army and served in Russia in World War I, where he was taken prisoner. Having survived an attack of spotted fever, he returned to Germany in January, 1919, where the Weimar Republic had been proclaimed in the meantime. After a convalescence stay at an army hospital, he worked for the R. Noske Nachfolger company in Altona, makers of heating and ventilation systems, until 1924. In the following, he was unemployed for a while, suffering from a nervous disorder due to overwork. Later, he worked at his brother’s pastry shop, until it went bankrupt in 1930.

Intermittent periods of unemployment and odd jobs in the port followed. In 1932, he moved in with his brother Emil Peters; in 1935, his registered residence was with his mother in Holländische Reihe in Altona-Ottensen. On March 7th, 1935, Alwin Peters was standing in an alcove in front of the Altona Exhibition Hall, where the Nazis were holding a party meeting. Peters was supposed to have indecently touched Hans Brüning, a 17-year-old plumber’s apprentice from Altona-Stellingen, and enticed him to come along. Having been rejected, Peers walked away from the exhibition hall. The boy reported the incident to a police officer, and the two of them followed Alwin Peters on their bicycles. When they had caught up with him, the young lad posed as bait and displayed interest in Peters. After Peters had again called "come on!”, he was arrested and jailed pending trial. On May 17th, 1935, the Altona district penal court sentenced him to six weeks in jail for "physical insult.” At the trial, Peters had denied the offense he had previously admitted before the police, but the court did not believe him, since a similar previous complaint was on record with the police. Peters was released from jail on September 16th, 1935. His biographical traces from then on up to his next arrest on June 21st, 1941 and his death two days later are lost. The Stumbling Stone lying before his last freely chosen residence at Klopstockplatz 27, now somewhere between the current houses number 9 and 11, recalls his fate.


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

Stand: April 2018
© Bernhard Rosenkranz (†) / Ulf Bollmann

Quellen: LSH, Abt. 352.1 (Landgericht und Staatsanwaltschaft Altona), Nr. 6792, mit Dank an Dr. Stefan Micheler, der uns Einblick in seine Aufzeichnungen über die von 1933 bis 1937 in Altona geführten Verfahren nach § 175 gab, die im LSH verwahrt werden, Dr. Elke Imberger, LSH, für die Vorbereitung einer Vorort-Recherche; StaH, 242-1 II Gefängnisverwaltung II, Ablieferung 13; StaH 331-5 Polizeibehörde – Unnatürliche Sterbefälle, 1070/41; StaH 332-5 Standesämter, 1137 (Eintrag Nr. 388); Rosenkranz/Bollmann/Lorenz, Homosexuellen-Verfolgung, S. 243.