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Otto Hacker * 1895

Schwenckestraße 5 (Eimsbüttel, Eimsbüttel)

HIER WOHNTE
OTTO HACKER
JG. 1895
VERHAFTET 1941/42
KZ FUHLSBÜTTEL
NEUENGAMME
TOT 3.5.1945
CAP ARCONA

Otto Karl Johannes Wilhelm Hacker, born 23 June 1895 in Malchin, presumed dead 3 May 1945 with the sinking of the Cap Arcona

Schwenckestraße 5

On 16 June 1941, Marie Danker, Otto Hacker’s landlady, spied through his keyhole and saw him having sex with a 16- to 18-year-old man. She reported him the next day. Thus began the disastrous course of events that led to the death of the bisexual father of four from Mecklenburg.

Otto Hacker was born in 1895 in Malchin, the only son of the butcher Otto Hacker and his wife Maria, née Witt. He apprenticed in his father’s shop from 1910 to 1913, then worked there as a journeyman and earned his master craftsman title. He was enlisted to fight in the First World War in the fall of 1915, and was released from service after he was wounded on the front in 1918. He received a wounded veteran’s pension.

He married Margarethe (Mary) Stülpnagel in 1924. They had four children between 1925 and 1936. In 1927 he took over his father’s business in Malchin, which he shut down in 1936, allegedly as a protest against the slaughter quotas set by the authorities, and because it was not making a big enough profit to support his family. Afterwards he worked for the army supply depot near Güstrow, where he earned a better income.

Otto Hacker had been found guilty of "homosexual activity” in 1928 and fined 1,000 Reichsmarks. A charge of "attempted homosexual activity” in 1938 led to a sentence of one year in prison. It is possible that his prison sentence was the true reason for closing his shop in Malchin, since he later said that after his release from prison, he wanted to work as a butcher in Waren/Müritz since his reputation was ruined in his hometown. After his release in October 1939, he was conscripted to work as a butcher in Lübeck, and then assigned to Hamburg as a telephone operator.

The criminal investigation that was started with his landlady’s denunciation led to his immediate arrest. During the time he was being questioned he was sent for a week to the Fuhlsbüttel Concentration Camp (25 to 30 June 1941) as a scare tactic. He admitted his bisexuality to the police, but denied having had sexual contact to men. Because the police officer in charge of his case, Voigt, considered his "entire behavior” to be "explicitly of the homosexual type,” he was subjected to repeated interrogations and confronted with the testimonies of his landlady, neighbors, and work colleagues. These testimonies claimed that he had sought sexual contact to male co-workers and occasional guests in a bar called "Mügge,” and in the apartment building on Sartoriusstraße, where he was considered a "Mitschnacker” (a north German slang word for a man who tries to tempt children with sweets or toys in order to sexually abuse them) and "gay.” The investigation also uncovered a consensual sexual relationship with the 14-year-old son of his former landlady. Otto Hacker thought that the boy was considerably older, and the boy testified to having found the contact "pleasurable.”

Despite the good character witnesses from Malchin presented by his defense attorney, and despite the fact that his wife had accepted his orientation and that they had a stable marriage, the investigating officers submitted their "unfavorable” impression to the court, because he had allegedly shown "very unmanly behavior” during his questioning. The testimony of the court-appointed physician, Dr. Hans Koopmann, was even more damning. He vilified Otto Hacker as a "spineless, weak-willed, fractious bisexual psychopath” and gave him an "absolutely unfavorable criminal-biological prognosis.” The trial before the Hamburg Regional Court, at which the prosecution was represented by States’ Attorney Nicolaus Siemssen and Adolph Gernet, was buttressed with such "expert testimonies,” and it led to the expected verdict of guilty on charges of homosexual activities, and Hacker’s classification as a dangerous habitual felon. He was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison with subsequent protective custody.

Hacker’s sentence began on 23 February 1942, and he was to be released in February 1944. In December 1942, he was transferred to the Neuengamme Concentration Camp "on orders of the Reich Minister of Justice.” He sent his last letter to his wife from there, in October 1944. After that there are no more traces of him. It is not unlikely that he was among the thousands who died on 3 May 1945 when the Cap Arcona sank, after the camp was evacuated. A search for him was conducted in 1946, but nothing was found.

Translator: Amy Lee

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: October 2016
© Ulf Bollmann

Quellen: StaH 331-1 II Polizeibehörde II, Ablieferung 15 Band 1; 242-1 II Gefängnisverwaltung II, Ablieferung 1998/1; 213-11 Staatsanwaltschaft Landgericht – Strafsachen, 1659/42.