Search for Names, Places and Biographies

Maximilian Weber * 1893

Arnoldstraße 13 (Altona, Ottensen)

HIER WOHNTE
MAXIMILIAN WEBER
JG. 1893
VERHAFTET 1937/41
KZ NEUENGAMME
ERTRUNKEN 3.5.1945
CAP ARCONA

Maximilian Weber, born on 5 July 1893 in Altlünen/Lünen, died probably on 3 May 1945 during the sinking of the "Cap Arcona”

Arnoldstrasse 13

Maximilian Weber, simply called Max by his family and friends, was born in 1893 as the sixth of eleven children of the production engineer by the same name and his wife Katharina, née Funk, in the Westphalian town of Altlünen, today Lünen in the Unna District. He was raised in the Catholic faith. Later the family lived in Berlin and in 1912, they moved into a three-bedroom apartment in Altona-Ottensen at Adlerstrasse 13 on the third floor, opposite the Holsatia-Werke, a wood-processing company. Of his three brothers, two worked as a mechanic and truck driver in Germany and one as a clergyman in the Netherlands. The sisters were all married and one brother died at an early age.

Max Weber already left the eight-grade elementary school (Volksschule) in 1907 after the second grade (i.e., [the second to last] grade 7 according to the reverse way of counting common at that time) and started a commercial apprenticeship, which he did not like though, quitting after slightly over a year. Until the beginning of his voluntary military service in Magdeburg in 1911, he took on casual work. From 1912 until 1913, he was trained at the local medical corps school. In the First World War, he was deployed as a medical NCO (Sanitäts-Unteroffizier), doing tours on the eastern and western fronts. He was awarded several decorations, including the Iron Cross Second Class and the "Honor Badge for Front-Line Veterans” ("Frontkämpferabzeichen”). After the war, he stayed in service with the military border protection units in the East of Germany. From 1920 until 1922, he was also a medical sergeant (Sanitätsfeldwebel) as a member of the right-wing nationalist Rossbach Free Corps.

As he indicated later, he had been having frequent homosexual experiences since that time. In 1922, he moved to his family in Altona-Ottensen, finding employment as a male nurse in the Harbor Hospital until 1930. This was also the year he was transferred to work at the "lunatic asylum,” since 1918 officially called Friedrichsberg State Hospital. This change of employment was possibly connected to his first identification by police as a homosexual in 1930, after he was suspected of having carried out indecent acts with "school boys.” At his workplace in Friedrichsberg, difficulties arose because taking care of people with mental disorders was not his thing and in addition, there were apparently conflicts because it was suggested to him that he become a member of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD). After the Hamburg District Court (Amtsgericht) had sentenced him to a fine of 150 RM (reichsmark) in 1935 for negligent aiding and abetting the escape of a prisoner detained in Friedrichsberg, he was transferred for disciplinary reasons to the Langenhorn State Hospital (Staatskrankenanstalt Langenhorn). From there he returned, via a stint of service on Oberaltenallee, relatively quickly to the Harbor Hospital, where he enjoyed working.

In the early 1930s, Max Weber was known in Ottensen as a man with homosexual leanings. Reportedly, even children aged 12 called out after him on the street and no one showed him any respect. Young men took advantage of this circumstance in financial terms, saying, among other things, "If I need money, I only have to turn to Max Weber.” In addition, he owned a sailboat in Övelgönne, which heightened his attractiveness among youths because they liked to have themselves invited to trips on the Elbe River. In Nov. 1936, his relaxed dealings with adolescents resulted in him being reported to Altona police by an 18-year-old apprentice who was organized in the Hitler Youth. He told the officers about an occurrence dating back about three years, when he had apparently refused sexual advances by Max Weber on a sailing cruise, and about suspicions and stories among his circle of acquaintances. In response, the police started extensive interrogations of youths residing in Ottensen, some of whom admitted sexual encounters with Max Weber in return for small sums of money, cigarettes, and food, though also reporting activities as male prostitutes and minor instances of blackmail. Unanimously, they testified that in case of negative reactions, Max Weber did not undertake any more advances and that he did not pressure the adolescents.

On 16 Nov. 1936, when Max Weber was summoned to the 8th Office of the Criminal Investigation Department (8. Kriminalkommissariat) with the Altona police for the following day, he wrote a farewell letter to his mother in expectation of his impending arrest:
"My destiny is playing out. I walk on the path that fate has preordained for me. Do not shed any tears for me, I am so sorry that I could not do otherwise and please forgive me everything, every slight, etc. It was not up to me; nature was stronger than I and any law. Give my best to Kätchen, Hilde, and all others. I am forever your loyal son, Max.”

During the interrogation on 17 November, he openly admitted his homosexual disposition that had led him to frequent the Hamburg bars in question since 1922, such as the "Tuskulum, Drei Sterne, Marienburg, Moni, Sonne,” etc. He also described his particular liking of adolescents whom he met on the street or at fairgrounds, winning them over with small presents. As he had expected, he was arrested on the same day and detained in the Altona court prison. As an expert for the court, the Altona municipal physician Fritz Trendtel prepared a "Medical report on the question of castration,” which was written in stereotypical form, describing, among other things, the shape of Max Weber’s face as "somewhat feminine” as well as the overall psychological impression as that of a "soft, weak-willed person with strong sexual drives.” Summing up, after Max Weber had not consented to voluntary castration, he recommended to the court castration "in accordance with Sec. 42 k,” even though this section was not admissible at all in the case at hand concerning sexual acts with persons older than 14 years. Furthermore, Trendtel also wrote of "indecent acts with boys and girls,” even though the case to be assessed in this instance related to male adolescents only. The trial against Max Weber was held before the "Grand Criminal Chamber” (Grosse Strafkammer) of the Hamburg Regional Court (Landgericht) on 20 May 1937. Though Max Weber did not have a previous conviction until then, the sentence for the eight instances established, five of them in coincidence with seduction, was three years in prison.

Max Weber served his sentence in Fuhlsbüttel but in the last year of his prison term, he was transferred to Prison Camp I Börgermoor (Strafgefangenenlager I Börgermoor) near Papenburg on 24 Feb. 1939. He survived the harsher prison conditions of this Emsland camp, returning to his parents’ home after having served his complete prison term on 17 Nov. 1939. His father had passed away one year before at the age of 76.

Immediately after his last arrest in Nov. 1936, Max Weber had been dismissed from his job at the Harbor Hospital. After serving his sentence until Feb. 1940, he helped at a restaurant. Afterward, he found employment as a window cleaner for the master glazier Konrad Fey at Heidenkampsweg 50, who gave his employee a good reference even after his repeated pretrial detention starting 28 Nov. 1941: "Weber has done his duty here; I cannot say anything unfavorable about him. He was punctual and hard-working and through his work, he satisfied me and the clients.”

At the end of Oct. 1941, Max Weber had once again attracted the attention of investigators at the 24th Office of the Criminal Investigation Department (24. Kriminalkommissariat) due to extensive testimony by the male prostitute Ernst Dams (born in 1915; survivor of the Neuengamme concentration camp). Having known each other from the period before 1933, the two had met again by chance in 1940. Afterward, about ten sexual encounters took place. Moreover, in the course of intensive interrogations, Max Weber named seven additional persons, including two soldiers of the German Wehrmacht, with whom he had performed sexual acts. In his favor, the "Investigative Assistance for Criminal Justice” (Ermittlungshilfe für Strafrechtspflege) referred to the quoted testimonies of his last employer and of his mother, who said about her son: "Maximilian has a different disposition and he suffers very much because of it. He says, ‘People condemn me but I can’t help it after all.” The Investigative Assistance concluded its report as follows: "Personally, he does not give an unfavorable impression.” By contrast, the report by the forensic pathologist, Medical Officer (Medizinalrat) Rolf Schwarke paints the image of a homosexual controlled by his drives, who wished to dodge "voluntary castration” and therefore had an "extremely unfavorable prognosis” only to be countered with "security measures.” Thus, it is not surprising that on 16 Apr. 1942, during another trial before the Hamburg Regional Court (Landgericht), Regional Court Director (Landgerichtsdirektor) Karl Henningsen sentenced Max Weber as a "dangerous habitual offender” for "sexual offenses with men” in accordance with Secs. 175, 20 a and 74 of the Reich Criminal Code (Reichsstrafgesetzbuch – RStGB) to three years in prison and loss of his civil rights for five years with subsequent "preventive detention ("Sicherungsverwahrung”). Purely in terms of arithmetic, his prison term was to last until 23 Nov. 1944, and he began serving it from 8 May 1942 onward in the Bremen-Oslebshausen penitentiary.

On the "orders of the Reich Minister of Justice,” the serving of the sentence was interrupted on 16 Dec. 1942 and Weber was released to the "police.” This date is identical with the committal, documented in the files, by the criminal investigation department to the main camp of the Neuengamme concentration camp, where he received prisoner number 12,914 in the prisoner category "SV HOMO.” [SV=Sicherungsverwahrung, i.e., preventive detention) On 15 and 24 May 1943, his name appears in the preserved laboratory examination booklets of the local hospital ward. A fellow sufferer, who was also detained in the concentration camp and who visited Weber’s mother shortly after the war, reported that her son had "come to Lübeck or Lüneburg on a transport of sick concentration camp prisoners. However, probably none of the people on this transport were alive anymore.”

Whether Max Weber was indeed among the 2,000 sick prisoners that came on 8 Apr. 1945 in a documented transport to Sandbostel near Bremervörde, which was not located toward the direction of Lüneburg; or whether he was sent on a transport of another set of 2,000 sick prisoners to subcamps of the Neuengamme concentration camp in Hannover or Salzgitter on 28 Mar. 1945; or whether in fact – as engraved on the Stolperstein – he was transported along with 9,000 prisoners to Lübeck and thus probably on one of the ships bombed on 3 May 1945, the "Cap Arcona” or "Thielbek,” will probably elude clarification forever. Since the mother did not receive any sign of life from her son (she passed away in Elmshorn at the age of 78 in 1947), one must assume that he perished.

On 26 Jan. 1946, the Hamburg Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office got rid of this case, not closed in the legal sense, by remitting the remaining sentence and the "preventive detention” for Max Weber, who was "probably no longer alive” "by means of a pardon.” As a matter of fact, had he survived, the outstanding sentence and the preventive detention would have been enforced – as happened in cases of surviving homosexual victims of concentration camps – even beyond the newly forming borders to the Soviet occupation zone.


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

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

Quellen: StaH, 213-11 Staatsanwaltschaft Landgericht – Strafsachen, 4644/36, 10960/39 und 3321/42; StaH 242-1 II Gefängnisverwaltung II, Ablieferungen 13 und 1998/1; StaH 332-8 Meldewesen, A 49 Band 1 (= 741-4 Fotoarchiv, K 4954 ), A 50 Band 1 (= 741-4 Fotoarchiv, K 5089) und A 51/1 (= 741-4 Fotoarchiv K 2382); Mit Dank an das Standesamt der Stadt Selm über eine Auskunft zum jedoch fehlenden Randvermerk bei seiner Geburtseintragung im Standesamt Bork, jetzt Selm Nr. 102/1893 vom 9.5.2007 und an die KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme, Alyn Beßmann, für eine Auskunft vom 1.10.2014 mit Hinweisen auf zwei Eintragungen im Laboruntersuchungsbuch II des Krankenreviers, lab 00410299 und lab 00410733, sowie auf eine Hollerith-Vorkarteikarte des SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungs-Hauptamtes Amtsgruppe D. Konzentrationslager vom Sommer bis Herbst 1944, Bundesarchiv Berlin NS 3/1577, file 056224; Rosenkranz/Bollmann/Lorenz, Homosexuellen-Verfolgung, S. 264–265.