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Hermann Hossfeld * 1905
Eddelbüttelstraße 7 (Harburg, Harburg)
HIER WOHNTE
HERMANN HOSSFELD
JG. 1905
IM WIDERSTAND
VERHAFTET 4.8.1933
GEFÄNGNIS HARBURG
1934 ZUCHTHAUS HAMELN
ENTLASSEN 4.5.1934
1943 "STRAFBATAILLON 999"
SCHICKSAL UNBEKANT
Hermann August Hossfeld, born on 26 June 1905 in Hohendorf, District of Preussisch-Holland (today Wysoka in Poland), "999th Division Probation Battalion” (Bewährungsbatallion Division 999),” missing
Harburg quarter, Eddelbüttelstrasse 7
Hermann Hossfeld was born on 26 June 1905 in Hohendorf, Preussisch-Holland administrative district (East Prussia, today Wysoka/Poland). He was a blacksmith by trade. It is not known when he arrived in Harburg; the first entry in the Harburg directory dates from 1935.
On 2 June 1934, he married Lina Ehrlich, who was a native of Harburg. His son Günter was born in 1938.
He was arrested on 4 Aug. 1933 on charges of "preparation to high treason” ("Vorbereitung zum Hochverrat”). In the indictment of the Stade public prosecutor’s office, he was accused of distributing "forbidden magazines” in July 1933. On 11 Aug. 1933, the Harburg-Wilhelmsburg court of lay assessors (Schöffengericht) sentenced him to nine months in prison. He served his sentence, which lasted until 4 May 1934, in Harburg and Hameln. This conviction made him "undeserving of military service.”
His political attitude made it difficult for him to find a job. For a long time, he worked "improperly” as a boiler smith, certainly also because he refused to join the German Labor Front (Deutsche Arbeitsfront). It was not until 3 May 1937 that he was hired permanently as an unskilled worker at Christiansen & Meyer in Harburg. It was put to him to apply for "worthiness for military service,” but he refused.
On 2 Feb. 1943, Hermann Hossfeld was drafted as "conditionally fit for military service” and sent on a collective transport to Heuberg (Württemberg) for training. He was assigned to the 11th Africa Riflemen’s Regiment 963. After training, the regiment was transferred to Greece.
In Jan. 1944, he was one more time in Hamburg, as he got leave from the front because of a death in the family. According to an order dated 4 June 1944, he was "re-assigned his definitive worthiness for military service.”
The field troops of the "999th Division Probation Battalion” were deployed to the Balkans until the end of the war. At the time of the capitulation (in the Balkans, on 10 May 1945), the surviving soldiers were in the Agram [Zagreb] area and were taken prisoner of war by Yugoslav troops.
The last letter Lina Hossfeld received from her husband was dated 14 Mar. 1945, after which he was considered missing and officially declared dead in 1953: "Date of death at the end of 1945.”
Many years later, the remains of Hermann Hossfeld were buried in the Zagreb-Mirogoi cemetery.
Translator: Erwin Fink
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.
Stand: June 2020
© Margrit und Helmut Rüth
Quellen: StaH 351-11_34211; Matthias Heyl und Margit Maronde-Heyl: Harburger Opfer des Nationalsozialismus; Adressbuch Harburg-Wilhelmsburg 1935–1942; Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge
