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Oskar Müller * 1895

Oelkersallee 65 (Altona, Altona-Nord)

HIER WOHNTE
OSKAR MÜLLER
JG. 1895
GEDEMÜTIGT / ENTRECHTET
FLUCHT IN DEN TOD
29.11.1937

Paul Adolf Oscar Müller, born 11/13/1895 in Hamburg, suicide on 11/29/1937 in Hamburg

Oelkersallee 65 (formerly Oelkersallee 91)

Oscar Müller was born in Hamburg in 1895 as the son of a laborer with the same name and his wife Emmi, née Grandke. His father came from Neustadt in the Brandenburg county of Oberbarnim, his mother was a native of Hamburg. The couple also had four daughters, born between 1892 and 1901. In 1896, the family moved from Hamburg to Altona (then a city of its own in Prussia), the address was Beim Grünen Jäger 24, where his father ran a shop for photographic prints and enlargements. In 1915, Oscar Müller was drafted into the army and served until the end of the war in 1918. In 1919, he worked as a farm hand in the area of Wesselburen in Dithmarschen, north of Hamburg, for not quite half a year.

Later, he lived at various addresses in Hamburg and Altona, at times with his parents. In 1934, he moved to Oelkersallee, first to no. 89, then to a basement dwelling in no. 91. No further details of Oscar Müller’s are known, with the exception of his tragic demise: on Saturday, November 27th, 1937, the Hamburg criminal investigation department "overhauled”, i.e. raided and searched his apartment, because he "for some time had been suspected of practicing perverted buggery with men.” Oscar Müller was not at home, but Martin Endler, a 21-year-old carpenter, was found sleeping in Müller’s bed and taken into custody, suspected of prostitution. The interrogations revealed that Oscar Müller had probably fallen into the hands of a thief, blackmailer and prostitute called "Paul”, allegedly from Switzerland, whom he had met at the "Monte Carlo” bar in the Reeperbahn, a popular hangout of homosexual men. "Paul” peddled pieces of clothing he had stolen from Oscar Müller and in doing so made the acquaintance of 21-year-old Willy Hanssen, who had posed as a "police agent” to Oscar Müller at the Monte Carlo.

Together with Martin Endler and 22-year-old Ernst, called "Herbert” Fügenschuh, a milker, Hanssen had contrived an especially insidious plan to blackmail Oscar Müller. Posing as policemen, the trio presented a fake arrest warrant. Carrying two or three guns among them, they threatened him with one of the weapons. Oscar Müller seems to have been convinced he was confronted by real detectives, and hoped to escape arrest by paying a bribe. Unable to pay the whole amount they demanded, he gave them what he could and asked them to pick up the difference a week later. Because two of the blackmailers had no place to sleep, they told Müller they had to continuously observe his home, and stayed. When Müller went to work the next morning, they took to his bed, where the real police found them sleeping and arrested them shortly after. Oscar Müller thereafter was also arrested and taken to the Gestapo headquarters at the Stadthaus. During interrogation, he told how he was being blackmailed by the bogus policemen. According to the Gestapo records, Oscar Müller was found dead in his detention cell at the Stadthaus at 1:30 p.m. on November 29th, 1937. Hans Koopmann, the forensic doctor who had conducted the autopsy of Müller’s body at the Hafenkrankenhaus entered "Suicide by hanging” in the death slip he issued.


Translated by Peter Hubschmid
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: April 2018
© Bernhard Rosenkranz (†) / Ulf Bollmann

Quellen: AB Altona 1928; StaH, 213-11 Staatsanwaltschaft Landgericht – Strafsachen, 1657/38 und 6099/40; StaH 332-5 Standesämter, 2376 (Eintrag Nr. 3873) und 1069 (Eintrag Nr. 369); StaH 332-8 Meldewesen, A 34/1 (= 741-4 Fotoarchiv, K 4507); StaH 352-5 Gesundheitsbehörde – Todesbescheinigungen, C II 1937 Standesamt 2 Nr. 369; Rosenkranz/Bollmann/Lorenz: Homosexuellen-Verfolgung, S. 238.