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August Postler * 1907

Karl-Wolff-Straße 3 (Altona, Altona-Altstadt)

HIER WOHNTE
AUGUST POSTLER
JG. 1907
VERHAFTET
KZ FUHLSBÜTTEL
ERMORDET
14.3.1934

August Postler, b. 1.7. 1907 in Hamburg, d. 3.14.1934 in Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp (Kola-Fu)

Stresowstraße 62 (Stresowstraße 98)

On 12 April 1900, the Catholic butcher, August Postler, b. 26 August 1865 in Königswalde, Neuroda District, married the "occupationless" Protestant, Minna Brodthagen, b. 3 November 1874 in Hamburg. They lived at Niedernstrasse 48 in the Hamburg Old City and moved to Stresowstrasse 98, where August Postler ran a butcher shop.

The marriage of August and Minna Postler produced four children, of which only August, born in Hamburg on 7 January 1907, is known to us, both as a soccer player and a resistance fighter. His political orientation was formed in the parental household. August Postler, jr. finished primary school and became an electrician. In the 1920s, he played soccer for the amateur "Sport Club Lorbeer 06” of Rothenburgsort (Hamburg), where he became an outstanding right winger. This club belonged to the "Workers’ Gymnastics and Sport Association" (ATSV), combining leftwing politics and sports, while the "German Football League” (DFB) constituted the umbrella organization for bourgeois soccer clubs. Occasionally, August Postler took on the duties of club secretary. The ATSV published its own sporting newspapers, among others the "Free Sports Weekly.” Both associations instituted their own national championships. In 1929 and 1931, SC Lorbeer, with August Postler as its right winger, Alwin Springer its center half, and Erwin Seeler its center forward, won the German championship of the ATSV. Erwin Seeler later shifted to the bourgeois "Victoria” Club. When, after World War II, his son Uwe also became a gifted player, only the DFB remained. The ATSV, along with the political parties that created it, had been shattered during the Third Reich.

August Postler, with other members of the SC Lorbeer 06, joined the communist "Red Sport" movement. At the beginning of 1932, an SC Lorbeer 06 team, including these communist players, engaged, without the permission of the league committee, in a match against a team of "Red Sportsmen” from Bergedorf. August Postler and fourteen other "Red Sportsmen” were expelled from the club. They founded the "Free Sport Club (FSV) of Rothensburgsort 1932” and played their games on the same field as SC Lorbeer. During the summer of 1932, August Postler and a team selected from "Red Sport” league members played for several months in the USSR, against various Soviet teams. For a short time, "Wasserkante Red Sport” continued to exist illegally. Enlightenment concerning National Socialism, for which original materials were created, took precedence over sports. August Postler was decisively involved in the production of the "Red North Post.” In June 1933, he was arrested, and in the Special Court, on 3 October, he was sentenced by the Hamburg State’s Attorney to a year and three months in jail, on account of "offenses against the orders of the Reich President, treason against the German people, and treasonous activities around 28 February 1933” [the Reichstag fire]. With consideration of pre-trial detention, the sentence was calculated to run until 20 September 1934, whereby the subsequent transfer to the State Police was already scheduled. August Postler was delivered on 4 October 1933 to the Fuhlsbüttel police prison. On 8 December 1933, he was taken to the infirmary at Holstenglacis 3 (where the remand prison was also located). The circumstances which led to his death there on 14 March 1934 have not been clarified.

His death was reported to the registry office by the "assistant caregiver” Wendelinus Schmidt. His comrades related that August Postler refused food and starved himself to death. His corpse was cremated and the urn was buried in the Ohlsdorfer cemetery.

A commemorative stone for August Postler was mistakenly placed at Karl-Wolff-Strasse 3, formerly Virchowstrasse 98, in Altona.

Translator: Richard Levy
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: February 2018
© Heinrich Nahr

Quellen: VAN-Totenliste von 1968; Kola-Fu-Gedenkbuch; StaH 242-1 II Abl. 13 (ältere Gefangenenkartei Männer), 332-5 Standesämter, 2937+219/1900, 1023+93/1934; Lorbeer-Blatt, März 2006; Hochmuth, Ursel/Meyer, Gertrud: Streiflichter; Nahr, Verschwiegene Stars.