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Heinrich Meier * 1891

Reeseberg 19 (Harburg, Wilstorf)

HIER WOHNTE
HEINRICH MEIER
JG. 1891
VERHAFTET 27.9.1943
"RUNDFUNKVERBRECHEN"
ZUCHTHAUS HAMELN 1944
BEFREIT
TOT AN DEN HAFTFOLGEN

Heinrich Meier, born on 12 Dec. 1891 in Harburg, sentenced on 17 Dec. 1943 to 18 months in prison for violation of the Broadcasting Act, released on 10 Apr. 1945 from Hameln prison, died on 5 Nov. 1946 due to the consequences of imprisonment

Wilstorf quarter, Reeseberg 19

Heinrich Meier was the son of the worker Heinrich August Georg Meier and his wife Marie Dorothee Luise Meier, née Hillebrecht. He attended the local eight-grade elementary school (Volksschule). After that, he earned his living mostly as a factory worker and sometimes also in construction. He experienced the last two years of the First World War as a soldier.

In 1926, he married the housemaid Emma Holst (born on 28 Jan. 1903), the daughter of a weigher. The marriage remained childless. In 1928, Heinrich Meier opened a small grocery store on Elisenstrasse (today Barerstrasse), and a short time later, he bought an apartment building on Lindenstrasse (today Julius-Ludowieg-Strasse).

In 1936, he had to sell the grocery store again in view of increasing losses. After being temporarily unemployed, he found a new job at the Wölck butter store.

In the summer of 1943, two Harburg women reported him as a listener to "enemy radio station” and consequently, he was arrested on 27 September. His radio was confiscated during the subsequent house search. Emma Meier was also temporarily arrested after first denying her involvement during a subsequent police interrogation and then admitting her involvement.

The "Ordinance on Extraordinary Broadcasting Measures” ("Verordnung über ausserordentliche Rundfunkmassnahmen”) dated 1 Sept. 1939 made the dissemination of news from non-German broadcasting stations a punishable offense. The listening ban was made public through press releases and announcements in movie theaters. Newspapers reported deterrent sentences. In mid–1941, block leaders (Blockwarte) were ordered to visit all the apartments and to attach a card to the radios containing the following warning. "Listening to foreign stations is a crime against the national security of our people. It will be punished with severe prison sentences on the orders of the Führer. Remember that.”

The Gestapo was once again able to rely on the active assistance of overzealous German national comrades (Volksgenossen) – as in this case – in the persecution of persons who violated this ordinance. The two informers were women who lived with their families in the same house and were at odds with their landlord Heinrich Meier. In the course of its investigations, the Gestapo determined that the arrested persons allegedly had no friends in the neighborhood either. The leader of the Nazi party (NSDAP) local group, Schwarzenberg, pulled Heinrich and Emma Meier to pieces: "We have already had a lot of work with this man in the local group because of his completely dismissive behavior toward the party and the national community. Meier is a man who is entirely opposed to us from all perspectives. His behavior toward collectors and political leaders is quite dismal. His wife and he are thoroughly notorious in the immediate and greater vicinity of their home for their attitude to the Party and the national community.”

On 16 Oct. 1943, Heinrich Meier was transferred from the Harburg police prison to the Holstenglacis pretrial detention center in Hamburg, where he remained until the trial before the Hanseatic special court (Hanseatisches Sondergericht) on 17 Dec. 1943. On that day, he was sentenced to 18 months in a penitentiary for listening to enemy radio stations and for anti-state political views, taking into account his three-month police and pretrial detention. The judges considered the deed particularly undignified in the grounds for the judgment, because it was apt to "destroying the resistance of the German people.”

On 23 Dec. 1943, Heinrich Meier was first transferred to the Fuhlsbüttel police prison and from there to the Hameln/Weser penitentiary on 11 Jan. 1944. The former prison had been converted into a penitentiary in 1935. The first prisoners had been Communists and Social Democrats; after 1939, "sex offenders” ("Sittlichkeitsverbrecher”), "offenders against German honor,” "offenders against the war economy,” and deserters were added. In the fall of 1944, the situation deteriorated dramatically as more and more prisoners were transferred to Hameln from penitentiaries near the front. In Mar. 1945, the penitentiary was completely overcrowded with 1,350 inmates.

On 10 Apr. 1945, American troops liberated the prisoners of the Hameln penitentiary. Heinrich Meier returned to Harburg four and a half weeks later, seriously ill. He did not recover from the physical and psychological harm caused by his imprisonment. One medical treatment followed another. However, there was no improvement, no matter how hard the doctors tried. Even an extended in-patient treatment at St. Georg General Hospital did not change his state of health.

Heinrich Meier died on 5 Nov. 1946 of cardiac insufficiency, which the attending physician attributed causally to his "concentration camp detention” full of suffering.

Translator: Erwin Fink
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: June 2020
© Klaus Möller

Quellen: Komitee ehemaliger politischer Gefangener, Akte: Heinrich Meier; StaH 351-11_27854; die anderen. Widerstand und Verfolgung in Harburg und Wilhelmsburg, VVN-BdA Harburg (Hrsg.) 6. Auflage, Harburg 2005; Harburger Opfer des Nationalsozialismus, Bezirksamt Harburg (Hrsg.), Hamburg-Harburg 2003; `Von Gewohnheitsverbrechern, Volksschädlingen und Asozialen …´ Hamburger Justizurteile im Nationalsozialismus, Justizbehörde Hamburg (Hrsg.), Hamburg 1995; Meldungen aus dem Reich, Heinz Boberach (Hrsg.), Herrsching 1984; AB Harburg-Wilhelmsburg und Landkreis 1938; http://www.gelderblom-hameln.de, eingesehen am 9.4.2018; http://de.wikipedia.org./wiki/Verordnung_über_außerordentliche_Rundfunkmaßnahmen, eingesehen am 9.4.2018.