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Herbert Gustav Schmuck * 1911

Krausestraße 69 (Hamburg-Nord, Dulsberg)

HIER WOHNTE
HERBERT GUSTAV SCHMUCK
JG. 1911
VERHAFTET 14.1.1942
GEFÄNGNIS FUHLSBÜTTEL
DEPORTIERT 1942
GROSS-ROSEN
ERMORDET 20.9.1942

Herbert Gustav Karl Schmuck, born 5.1.1911 in Hamburg, perished on 20.9.1942 in the concentration camp Groß-Rosen (southwest of Breslau), today Poland

Krausestraße 69 (formerly Ahrensburgerstraße), Dulsberg

Herbert Gustav Karl Schmuck was the son of Gustav Carl Schmuck, born on December 10, 1882 in Wandsbek, and his wife Anna Dorothea, widowed Seitz, née Ahrens, born on August 16, 1879 in Hamburg. The parents had married on January 19, 1911, fourteen days after the birth of their son Herbert on January 5, 1911.

Herbert's mother died on December 1, 1914, not quite three years after his birth. His father gave "street cleaner" as his occupation when he married. Later, according to the Hamburg address book, he worked for many years as a streetcar conductor.

The boy attended elementary school until the second grade (at that time the first grade was the highest). Because his father had to work during the day, Herbert Schmuck, as he wrote in a curriculum vitae in 1938, was placed in the municipal orphanage in Averhoffstraße in the Uhlenhorst district from the age of 10 to 14.

At the age of fifteen, Herbert Schmuck received his first prison sentence, three days on probation for theft. The underlying offense has not been handed down. It is likely that he was in an institution prior to his sentence, since "Zögling" was listed as his "status or occupation" on his record card in the remand prison.

Following his prison sentence, he completed an apprenticeship as a hairdresser and then stayed for another year with his master in the small town of Bleckede on the Upper Elbe. At the age of eighteen, he returned to Hamburg, but did not work in his profession, instead living off odd jobs in the harbor and at markets.

On February 20, 1932, Herbert Schmuck married Adolphine Elisabeth Wally Kuhlmann, who was born in Hamburg on December 1, 1912. At the time of their marriage, they lived at Jenischstraße 64 in Klein-Flottbek/Nienstedten (now Osdorf). Their daughter Lieselotte Gertrude, born in Hanover on May 29, 1930, suffered from hemiplegia and microcephaly. When she was admitted to the Alsterdorfer Anstalten (now the Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf) in January 1932, she could not walk and had to be fed.

The marriage of Herbert and Adolphine Schmuck was divorced again in February 1933. Further information about Herbert Schmuck's divorced wife is not known to us.

Lieselotte Gertrude Schmuck died of bilateral pulmonary tuberculosis on June 30, 1943, in what was then the Alsterdorfer Anstalten.

By 1937, Herbert Schmuck had been sentenced five more times in Hamburg and one time in Lüneburg for repeated theft and embezzlement, serving up to nine months in prison, the last of which he had to serve in Fuhlsbüttel Prison.

After his release, he was placed as an agricultural worker with a farmer in Braak, east of Rahlstedt, in November 1937. On the occasion of a one-day vacation in early 1938, colleagues entrusted him with 20 RM for the purchase of work pants and ear protectors. Together with an acquaintance, however, he spent the money on food and drink. Herbert Schmuck spent the next few days at Mühlenstraße 46 in the Neustadt in the apartment of a new acquaintance whom he had become close to during his pub crawl. The latter was arrested by the police shortly afterwards for reasons unknown to us. Since the accommodation in Mühlenstraße was now no longer accessible, Herbert Schmuck had to spend the night in the police asylum, where he met the worker Willi Hohlfeld, a buddy from his time in the Young Men's Christian Association.

Herbert Schmuck and Willi Hohlfeld broke into the apartment at Mühlenstraße 46 twice, stole various items, including a gramophone, records, bed and table linen, which they pawned. They sold the pawn tickets for cash.

On February 12, 1938, Herbert Schmuck was arrested and shortly thereafter Willi Hohlfeld as well. In August 1938, Herbert Schmuck received a prison sentence of 3 years and 10 months for burglary and embezzlement.
Willi Hohlfeld received a prison sentence of four years and six months, which was to end on September 20, 1942. About his further fate we only know that he survived the Nazi period.

At the beginning of his imprisonment, Herbert Schmuck was sent to the Bremen-Oslebshausen penitentiary on August 13, 1938. From there he was sent to the Börgermoor/Ems camp on January 25, 1939. Along with the Neusustrum and Esterwegen camps, this camp was one of the early concentration camps in Emsland. Those imprisoned there from June 1933 were used for forced labor in moorland cultivation.

A request for clemency from Herbert Schmuck in October 1939 was unsuccessful, with reference to the size of his sentence. On January 5, 1941, he was transferred to the penitentiary in Bernau am Chiemsee. There, too, the prisoners had to perform forced labor in moor cultivation and peat cutting. From there, Herbert Schmuck was transferred to the penitentiary in Zweibrücken in today's Rhineland-Palatinate on November 1, 1941.

Herbert Schmuck's prison sentence ended on January 13, 1942. However, he was not released, but transferred to the "Hamburg police prison," as it was called in the prison records. On January 26, 1942, he was taken into "protective custody" in the Fuhlsbüttel police prison (known as "KoLa-Fu").

Under the euphemistic term "protective custody," opponents of the regime and other disfavored persons were imprisoned during the National Socialist era solely on the basis of a police order, without being subject to judicial review.

Herbert Schmucks was deported from "protective custody" to the Groß-Rosen concentration camp in Lower Silesia in present-day Poland, whether directly from Hamburg or in a roundabout way, we do not know. It can be assumed that he had to perform forced labor in one of the Groß-Rosen quarries. He died there on September 20, 1942, according to the death notice as a result of diarrhea and circulatory weakness.

In a 2003 notification of Herbert Gustav Schmuck's "death" from the special registry office in Bad Arolsen to the Hamburg State Archives, Ahrensburger Straße 69, now Krausestraße, was given as his residential address.

© Ingo Wille

Quellen: 1; StaH 213-11 Staatsanwaltschaft Landgericht – Strafsachen 57048, 332-5 Standesämter 1945 Nr. 3347/1879 Geburtsregistereintrag Anna Dorothea Ahrens, 3836 Nr. 604/1881 Geburtsregistereintrag Gustav Carl Schmuck, 6484 Nr. 21/1911 Heiratsregistereintrag Gustav Carl Schmuck/Anna Dorothea Seitz, 6929 Nr. 465/1914 Sterberegistereintrag Anna Dorothea Schmuck; 332-8 Meldewesen A 51/1 Kasten 2, Arolsen Archives, Sterberegistereintrag Herbert Gustav Karl Schmuck; 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung 5966 Gustav Karl Schmuck; 741-4 Fotoarchiv, A 201, A 261, div. Haftkarteikarten von Herbert Gustav Karl Schmuck; Archiv der Evangelischen Stiftung Alsterdorf, Erbgesundheitskarteikartei von Lieselotte Gertrude Schmuck.
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