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Brautleute Martha und Karl Jonny Hagen am 22.5.1922
© Privat

Karl Jonny Hagen * 1902

Steintwiete Ecke Deichstraße vor LZB (früher Steintwiete 25) (Hamburg-Mitte, Hamburg-Altstadt)

HIER WOHNTE
KARL JONNY HAGEN
JG. 1902
IM WIDERSTAND / KPD
VERHAFTET 11.7.1935
ZUCHTHAUS BÖRGERMOOR
1938 ZUCHTHAUS RHEDE-BRUAL
1943 "STRAFBATAILLON 999"
SCHICKSAL UNBEKANNT

Karl Jonny Hagen, born 12 July 1902 in Altona, arrested 11 July 1935, drafted 3 Feb. 1943 into Parole Regiment 999, missing in Bosnia as of Nov. 1944

Steintwiete/Ecke Deichstraße (Steintwiete 25)

You gave me blossoms
You gave me peace of mind
You kind-heart’d woman
What made you ev’r so kind?
Those blood-red roses
Reveal your heart to me
That strokes me with caresses
Through bliss and agony

The man who wrote these lines for his wife at Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp in 1936 was Karl Jonny Hagen, and he was my grandfather.

My grandfather Karl Jonny Hagen was born on 12 July 1902, the eighth child of the vegetable seller Johann Hinrich Hagen and his wife Metta Hagen, née Dössel. They lived at Kleine Schmiedestraße 23a in Altona, Hamburg. After finishing school, he first worked as a street seller and sold vegetables and potatoes with his father from a mobile stall at the Fish Market and other outdoor markets in Hamburg. In 1926 he began an apprenticeship as a bricklayer and worked for the company Wartenberg.

On 27 May 1922 Karl Jonny Hagen married the office clerk Martha Emma Kallohn (born on 26 June 1905), the daughter of Paul Emil Kallohn and Rosa Kallohn, née Wolff. My grandmother was born at Siemensstraße 16 (now Planckstraße) in Altona, Hamburg. Her mother Rosa came from a Jewish family.

As a Jewish woman, she was forced to adopt the middle name "Sara”, which she had removed immediate after the end of World War II. Her husband, who was a "pure Aryan”, was constantly put under pressure to divorce his wife. As a Jew, that would have been the fastest way for my great-grandmother to have been deported to Theresienstadt. My grandmother Martha Hagen was living in Altona when she gave birth to her two daughters, Thea, born on 28 Oct. 1922, and Elfriede, born on 24 June 1929, my mother.

In 1922 Karl Jonny Hagen joined the aid organization Rote Hilfe which supported political prisoners from the communist workers’ movement and their families during the Weimar Republic. In 1924 he left the organization. In 1929 he joined the Communist Party of Germany and became a party functionary. In 1931, during a three-year period of being unemployed, Karl Jonny Hagen took on leadership of the local party group in Altona.

The 10 to 20 members alternated meeting at each other’s homes. After each meeting, the members left in pairs since the SA was patrolling the streets. Martha Hagen and the other wives kept a lookout.

At that time in 1934, Karl Jonny Hagen lived at Kleine Carlstraße 15 III (now Zeißtwiete) in Altona before he and his family moved to Steintwiete 25 I. That same year his parents moved to an apartment at Deichstraße 32 II where they lived until their death in 1950.

On the morning of 11 July 1935, Karl Jonny Hagen was arrested by Gestapo officials in his apartment at Steintwiete 25. Neighbors who lived above my family had gone to the Gestapo and told them about the regular meetings that were held in my family’s apartment. His two children, aged six and thirteen, were present at his arrest. During the arrest, their apartment was destroyed – beds were cut open, dishes pulled out of the cupboards, etc. His arrest gave his daughter Elfriede regular nightmares until her death. Karl Jonny Hagen was taken to Holstenglacis Prison while he was under investigation and was transferred to Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp until finally being moved to the Emsland concentration camps.

At Fuhlsbüttel he was subjected to severe maltreatment, including being kicked and beaten with a leather belt. Over the course of several weeks he lay day and night chained to the floor in metal cuffs. His relatives were required to pay 500 Reich Marks (RM) for his accommodation in remand prison. His wife Martha Hagen visited him there and brought him packages of food. Visits by family members were only allowed every three months for 10 minutes each time. An SS man sat between Karl Jonny Hagen and his wife. Since everything they did had to be kept secret, she had hollowed out a tomato in which she placed a rose to smuggle it into prison. It was in response to that rose that he wrote her the poem quoted above. His family made him a package every 10 days and sent it to him in prison. They also had to wash his laundry and return it to him. He never received the money his family placed in the package for him.

He was interrogated at the notorious "Stadthaus” located next to the Stadthaus Bridge.

On 5 May 1936 the judges Ewald, Dietrich, Hansen, Horstkotte and Prosiegel at the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court sentenced Karl Jonny Hagen to five years in prison for preparations for high treason. Sentenced alongside him were his friends and companions Hermann Jünemann (born on 5 Oct. 1902 in Bilshausen in Duderstadt District) to five years in prison (Börgermoor and Esterwegen, followed by Parole Regiment 999 and as a British prisoner of war, died on 14 May 1986 in Hamburg), Otto Schmahl (born on 17 June 1905 in Tarnowitz in Grevesmühlen District, four years of prison at Esterwegen, after serving his time he lived in Hamburg) and Josef Wieczorek (born on 1 Oct. 1894 in Kuznia, Poland, five and a half years in prison at Vechta, died on 4 Mar. 1977 in Hamburg).

They were found guilty of having helped "illegally” rebuild the United Association of the Construction Industry, crimes which included having held regular meetings, taken in membership dues, and disseminating the newspapers Der Bauprolet (The Construction Worker) and Der Klassengewerkschaftler (The Trade Unionist). The united association was similar in nature to a union.

The accused had to bear the cost of the court proceedings. They were stripped of their civil rights, as indicated by an "e” on their individual registration cards. Karl Jonny Hagen served his prison sentence at the Börgermoor and Brual-Rhede "convict camps” until 14 July 1940. He and Hermann Jünemann had to perform heavy labor in mires there. At night they slept on damp sacks of straw.

Börgermoor became well known through the Song of the Moor Soldiers. My grandfather enjoyed singing and sang a great deal. His file states that he had a nice voice. He liked to play the harmonium and harmonica.

On 14 July 1940 he returned to Hamburg. His wife Martha had divorced him in 1939. As a "half-breed Jew” and wife of a convicted political prisoner, she lived in constant fear of being deported by the National Socialists to a concentration camp. She was constantly being given notice on her apartments as soon as her landlord discovered she was of Jewish extraction. During the war she had to move an estimated 15 times. She started a relationship with Walter Sierau (born on 17 Sept. 1901) and was pregnant with his child, her third, Karl-Heinz (born on 25 Feb. 1939). The National Socialists rejected their marriage application so as not to endanger the "racial purity”. Walter Sierau was drafted into military service in 1943 and deployed to East Prussia (Königsberg) where he likely was taken into Russian captivity as a prisoner of war. It is not known where he lies buried. When the war was over, Martha had their marriage officially recognized.

My great-grandmother was regularly summoned to the "Stadthaus” located next to the Stadthaus Bridge. From 1943 onward she feared she would be deported to Theresienstadt. When her daughter Martha Hagen went to one of the summons in her place, Martha came back deeply traumatized. She must have experienced something terrible there, as her daughter later reported.

My great-grandmother’s name Rosa Kallohn was on the deportation list in 1945 for Theresienstadt concentration camp. My family hid during the final months of the war which was how they survived National Socialism.

I suspect that Karl Jonny Hagen again became active in the resistance following his release from the Emsland camps. However I am unable to prove it. His close friend Josef Wieczorek was arrested again on 2 Oct. 1941 and served another sentence at Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp.

On 23 Jan. 1943 Karl Jonny Hagen, previously considered unworthy of military service and therefore not called up to fight in the war, was drafted into "Parole Regiment 999”, like other political dissidents following the severe losses on the eastern front. They were declared to have a limited capacity to serve and were given a blue selective service certificate.

The trains were arranged at Heuberg military training area in the Swabian Mountains. He was deployed to Greece in the 3rd Division to fight partisans. In Greece and other countries where politically persecuted prisoners were deployed, some continued their work as resistance fighters in the Peloponnese in organizations such as the AKFD and Union of German Anti-Fascists. In Greece the resistance fighters contacted the ELAS (Greek communists) and notified the local population of planned attacks. That allowed them to prepare for the operations and evacuate the villages in time. The resistance fighters attempted to sabotage the war effort, by disabling ammunition for instance.

When such acts of sabotage came to the attention of the authorities, the resistance fighters were executed by the National Socialists, frequently by shooting.

Karl Jonny Hagen wrote his last letter to his children Thea and Elfriede on 3 Sept. 1944. His division was pulled out of Greece on 21 Sept. 1944 and sent to Bosnia to fight partisans. In Nov. 1944, Karl Jonny Hagen was wounded while retreating in Bosnia and taken to a field hospital. From that point on he is listed as missing. His mortal remains were never found. To this day my grandfather Karl Jonny Hagen does not have a grave.

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

Stand: April 2020
© Bärbel Klein

Quellen: Hagen R 3018 / 5521 und 3018 / 6820 Berlin, PST 3 / 30 Bl. 123 Berlin; StaH 351-11, 30319 und 49345 Hagen; StaH 241-1 Justiz 2911 Hamburg Hagen; Hagen Rep. 947 Lin I Nr. 439 Esterwegen; Notgemeinschaft der durch die Nürnberger Gesetze Betroffenen Nr. 5383; StaH 332-4-552; 424-111-5403 Sierau; StaH 351-11, 2337 Kallohn; StaH 351-11, 49346 und 45434 Dencker; StaH 351-11, 25698 Jünemann; StaH 351-11, 29832 Schmahl; StaH 351-11, 36968 und 351-11, 36185 Wieczorek; Deportationsliste F 18 – 110 / AG Hamburg IST Bad Arolsen.