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Wilhelm Hagen * 1899

Luruper Hauptstraße 54 (Altona, Lurup)

HIER WOHNTE
WILHELM HAGEN
JG. 1899
VERHAFTET
KZ FUHLSBÜTTEL
ERMORDET 3.1.1936

Wilhelm (Willi) Hagen, born 11/3/1899, imprisoned at the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp from 2/21/1935, murdered there on 1/3/1936

Luruper Hauptstrasse 54

In October, 145, the Lurup resistance fighter Ernst Hadler described the circumstances of the death of Willi Hagen in a letter to the information center for compensation claims, enclosing a poem Willi Hagen had written in 1935 at the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp:

You, too have been at Kola Fu
Some in the daytime, Some at night
Were brutally beaten up
The Stapo brought us to the concentration camp
Keeps us locked in chains
Here it doesn’t matter if you’re young or old,
Here everyone gets brutally mistreated
Here violence and harassment rule, not reason.
Now they still can get away with it, now we still keep quiet at the KZ Fühlsbüttel
Our best comrades died for freedom, died for justice!
You killed them, and brashly lied they were shot when trying to escape.
Sleep in blessed peace, comrades, we will never forget you.
But the moment will come, the day will come when we take revenge,
When with iron power we will break our chains
Then woe betide you fascists, woe betide the gentry’s brood,
You flayers and hangmen!

Willi Hagen recited this and similar poems to his imprisoned comrades in their communal cell at the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp. Cellmate Tetje Lotz wrote in his biography: "Willi Hagen from Lurup, a very sensitive person, made wonderful silhouette cut-outs and also poems that he recited at small celebrations in the evenings. Some of his poems were about life at Ko-La-Fu.” This poem seems to sum up Will Hagen’s fate in a few verses. The poet himself was murdered "for freedom and justice”. Willi Hagen was probably beaten to death at the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp. "He hanged himself” was the official version of Willi’s death. How did things get to that point?

Wilhelm (Willi) Christian Hagen was born on November 3rd, 1899 in Altona. In 1917, he finished his apprenticeship as a blacksmith and worked as a horseshoer for a short time. Drafted into the army, he served as a simple infantryman from July, 1917 until June 6th, 1919. In 1928, he married Henny Timmermann from Dockenhuden; their first daughter Ursula was born the same year. Her father had worked as a blacksmith and metalworker from the end of his military service until 1928; after losing his job, he from 1929 to 1931 had to make his living as a streetcar conductor, After that, he was unemployed and only got a chance to work as a streetcar conductor as a standby on Sundays and holidays.

Like many unemployed workers from the city center, Altona and St. Pauli, Willi Hagen, his wife and daughter moved to Lurup. From 1931, they lived in a tenement at Luruper Hauptstrasse 47, in 1933, they moved to number 54, where Henny Hagen gave birth to their second daughter Annegret. Like many workers who had lost their jobs, Willi Hagen became politicized, joining a circle of politically interested workers. He mainly had contact with members of the communist party KPD and trade unionists such as Heinrich Jäger and Paul Fischer, with whom he already produced leaflets for the KPD in Lurup.

Willi and Henny Hagen and their daughters in a large classicistic apartment building at the beginning of the century. Most of the family’s friends and comrades lived in the numerous garden allotment and shanty settlements, the "Fischkistensiedlungen” in huts built from the wood of fish crates that had sprouted in the 1930s. Lurup at the time was held for a leftist suburb of Altona dominated by Social Democrats and Communists, jokingly called "little Moscow”. In the Reichstag elections of 1933, Lurup voted against the trend returned a majority for the left with 40.6 percent for the Social Democratic SPD and 17.2 percent for the KPD, with the Nazis getting 34.1 percent.

After the ban on the KPD on March 15th, 1933 and on the SPD in June of 1933, resistance groups formed in Lurup; Willi Hagen supported the KPD district Wasserekante, together with Frieda and Walter Reimann, Paul Moritz Fischer, Hans, Gertrud Knöpfel and others. Already before 1933, there had been Nazi raids on the settlers’ communities that had originated from the labor movement. The Hagen family lived near the "Lindenpark”, the pub of Johannes Rüpckes in Luruper Hauptstrasse frequented by Nazi rowdies. The Lurup Nazis who tried to gain control of "red Lurup” by force, but also by granting privileges for defectors and informers, gained knowledge of the resistance activities of the Lurup Communists, Social Democrats and trade unionists from neighbors and from police lieutenant Karl Lange. According to the annalists Ursel Hochmuth and Gertrud Meyer, may Lurup Communists were among the approx 8,500 KPD members imprisoned in Hamburg. Most of them were arrested between 1933 and 1933 and "rendered to the fascist judiciary for ‘preparation of high treason.’”

Willi Hagen was arrested on February 21st, 1935. In the indictment of the stevedore Johannes Heinrich Heldt, he was accused of high treason. According to the indictment, Willi Hagen ha officiated as the treasurer of the [illegal] KPD in Lurup. In the "Criminal Case against Heldt and Comrades”, about 570 men and women from Altona and Hamburg were accused of having continued the banned organization of the KPD, distributed flyers and other illegal printed matter, organized illegal meetings and formed resistance cells.

They were accused of "Creating and maintaining an organized structure for the preparation of high treason” and "attempting to influence the masses” by distributing leaflets. The court presented leaflets with the headline "Fascist Murderers and Incendiaries Set Fire to the Reichstag.”In the indictment, the prosecution described the conspirative meetings of the KPD officials in detail, knowledge that could only have been obtained from informers. In the summary of the indictment, the prosecution wrote: "The case against Heldt and others was successful in exposing an extensive newly formed organization of the illegal KPD. The procedure will be directed against approx. 570 persons involved in the reconstruction of the illegal KPD.” The accused were "partly involved in the reconstruction of the illegal KPD to an extraordinary degree.”

Numerous members of resistance cells in Lurup, Eidelstedt, Niendorf and Osdorf, among them Hans and Gertrud Knöpfel, Ferdinand Lorenz, Walter Reimann and Paul Moritz Fischer from Lurup. Willi Hagen is said to have distributed the illegal "Hamburger Volkszeitung” and collected and administrated the members’ dues for the party.

According to the indictment against Hans Knöpfel, Willi Hagen had also collected donations for the support of family members of prisoners, i.e. campaigned for the Rote Hilfe ("Red Aid” the Communist welfare organization). In the indictment against Willi Hagen that was only brought in after his death, on March 26th, 1936, it read: "Hagen had collected dues, paid dues himself and also received illegal newspapers from Nied in March of ’34 and again from September to December of ’34 from Jäger, and also resold some of the newspapers.”

The conditions of imprisonment at the KZ Fühlsbüttel were extremely gruesome, characterized by torture, often also by famine and the often sadistic despotism of the prison personnel. The testimony of Ernst Hadler from Lurup (who was also imprisoned at the KZ Fuhlsbüttel in the same case) at the hearing for Henny Hagen’s application for compensation gives an idea of the conditions at the KZ Fuhlsbüttel: "I knew Wilhelm Hagen well from his activity for the KPD before and after the Nazis’ rise to power. He was arrested by the Gestapo on February 21st, 1935 and taken to the KZ Fuhlsbüttel. I was arrested at my job on September 25th, 1935 and also taken to Fuhlsbüttel. After having spent a couple of weeks in solitary confinement and chains, I was transferred to communal imprisonment , to the second floor of building A, room 6, where I met Wilhelm Hagen again. In spite of the fact that he had already spent 8 months in prison, including some weeks in solitary and in chains, his spirit and his belief that we were to regain freedom was unbowed. Indeed, he suffered from severe asthma and often had breathing problems during the night, so that nay humane doctor would have had to declare him unfit for imprisonment. But Wilhelm Hagen was a class-conscious worker, and well known to his comrades from Lurup for his poetry and his small recitals, which he continued in protective custody. This activity must have been reported to the Gestapo and the KZ guards by an informer, so that he frequently had to suffer from the harassment of SS man on guard duty.

Two days before Christmas, Hagen once again was taken away for interrogation and returned in the evening severely mauled. As I had had evil premonitions, I had checked all his letters and writings during the day and destroyed everything that might have compromised him. Upon returning, he had to pack up while the SS man waited and was again put into solitary and in chains. Being chained day and night was a torment even for a healthy man; for Wilhelm Hagen who suffered from severe breathing problems it was an unbearable cruelty.

In the following days, I succeeded in speaking with Wilhelm Hagen through the door of his cell during corridor duty. He told me there had to be an informer or a traitor in our cell, because the Gestapo was informed about everything that went on there. I told him to keep his chin up and not to forget his wife and his children, who were very dear to him, because everything was transient, even life imprisonment.

Two days before his demise, I saw my comrade Hagen again and then again during corridor duty. The solitary prisoners were to be shaved and the cell doors were open, while the SS guard walked up and down the corridor. Hagen must have again been severely maltreated during his solitary confinement, because he appeared to be totally broken. On the morning of January 3rd, everybody on corridor duty was chased back into the cell by a number of SS. Sometime later, the trusty came to our cell door and whispered to us that our comrade Hagen had been found hanged in his cell.

Other prisoners from Lurup also supported this appraisal. Ferdinand Lorenz had been arrested together with Hagen: In the night of February 21st, I was arrested together with Wilhelm Hagen and others. We were taken t the Stadthaus and, in the evening, to Fuhlsbüttel, where we were isolated and put in chains. Wilhelm Hagen had to be taken to the hospital war after a few days because he suffered from Asthma. About six weeks later, we were again assigned to different communal cells. Shortly before Christmas, Wilhelm Hagen was again put in solitary and in chains. On January 3rd, around noon, I learned in my communal cell that Wilhelm Hagen was dead. According to the trusty, he had hanged himself in his cell. I was shocked and bewildered by this piece of news that Wilhelm Hagen, who had been imprisoned with me at KZ Fühlsbüttel for almost a whole year, was, according to the trusty, supposed to have hanged himself. My first thought then and now was that a man like Wilhelm Hagen would never have committed suicide.”

Walter Reimann, who had been imprisoned at KZ Fuhlsbüttel from 1935 to 1937, reported his encounter with Willi Hagen in the brochure "Aus der Geschichte Lurups während der Nazizeit:” ("From the History of Lurup During the Nazi Days”): "When I was admitted to KZ Fuhlsbüttel in September of 1935 following the big roundups in Hamburg, I met Willi Hagen, who had already been a political prisoner there for a year. Hagen told me that he had written an anti-Hitler poem and was to be questioned about this today. [About two weeks later the news spread like wildfire through the whole building that Willi Hagen had been murdered.” Almost all of Hagen’s cellmates who after 1945 testified at the hearing before the Compensation Office that they doubted the official version of Hagen’s death. During the initial investigations in the criminal case against "Heldt and others” the Communists Paul Bach, Georg Neth, Richard Rosin, Callsen and Podolsky were murdered at the Fuhlsbüttel KZ. The authorities also masked the murder of Richard Rosin as "suicide.”

Until 1940, the violations of human rights at the Fuhlsbüttel KZ were reported by Danish and Dutch Newspapers, e.g. "Dagbladet Politiken” and exile publications like the "Norddeutsche Tribüne”printed in Copenhagen. The Swiss "Basler Arbeiterzeitung” on February 19th, 1936, ran an article about the Gestapo murders in Hamburg titled "Die Hakenkreuzherrschaft" ("The Rule of the Swastika”) with a report about Willi Hagen: "The Hamburg Gestapo goes on murdering! […] The worker Hagen died at the Fuhlsbüttel KZ following incessant maltreatment.” International protests also reached diplomat in Hamburg. The Hamburg Gestapo received an excerpt from the Basel article with "the request for a detailed report on the facts and the cause of death” from the Political Police Commander Müller. In the Gestapo report, it said: "The metalworker Wilhelm Johann Christian Hagen, last address Lurup, Hauptstrasse 54, ground floor, who was found dead from suicide by hanging at the KZ Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel had been arrested for preparations of high treason on 2/21/35 in the criminal case against Heldt and others with approx. 580 further persons. He admitted having been the treasurer of the Lurup local chapter of the illegal party organization of the KPD from July/August up to and including 1935 and during this time collected dues of 80 Rpfg per month from 5 persons and also to have sold illegal literature from the KPD to these same 5 persons, collecting the due payment. On 12/19/35, the Geheime Staatspolizei learned that Hagen had continued his communist activities in the community at the KZ camp inasmuch as he and other prisoners continuously kept instructing the inmates in the communist doctrine and instructing prisoners in protective custody who were to be released that their last drop of blood still belonged to the communist party. Farewell parties were given where communist songs were softly sung and serious commitments made. On account of this, Hagen was again taken to the Stadthaus to be heard.”

In his interrogation, Hagen had not only admitted everything, but also expressed "suicidal intentions” because he had felt himself betrayed by his comrades. "On 1/3/1936 the commander of the KZ camp reported by telephone that Hagen at 6:00 a.m. had been found hanged in his cell by the guard on duty. […] The autopsy performed at the Hafenkrankenhaus on 1/6/1936 by the State Health Agency and the experts, the Physicians Dr. Staelin and Dr. Koopmann […] resulted in the finding that death had occurred by hanging.

In her application for a widow’s pension in September of 1945, Willi Hagen’s wife Henny described the events of January 3rd, 1936: "Around 10:00 a.m., Constable Lange of the Lurup Police Precinct called on me to tell me that my husband had died today at the KZ and I was summoned to the Gestapo for the same day. The Gestapo informed me that my husband had hanged himself and that I could have the urn with the ashes of my husband collected for burial from the Gestapo by an undertaker of my choice in a few days. According to the law, the body could not be released for an inhumation. The burial of the urn was subsequently effected at the Central Cemetery in Altona on January 12th. In my opinion, the preceding account ascertains that my husband died of violence, as he had no reason to depart from his life. I have two children and, on account of a heart ailment, am unable to practice my profession.”

The Association of the Persecuted of the Nazi Regime (VVN) was able to give Henny Hagen a certified death certificate of 1936 stating that her husband "in Hamburg, Suhrenkamp 98 on the third of January 1936 at 6 a.m. was found dead in his cell.” On account of these documents, the surviving dependents of Willi Hagen in 1959, fourteen years after submitting their application, received 1,500 DM in compensation for his imprisonment. At the initiative of a Lurup citizens’ action committee, the Altona Culture Authority erected a memorial stone for Willi Hagen. The stone at Luruper Hauptstrasse 51, near a playground at the pedestrian passage to Kempelbarg is directly opposite Will Hagen’s last residence at Luruper Hauptstrasse 54 and is protected as a historic monument.


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

Stand: April 2018
© Anke Schulz

Quellen: StaH 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung, 21992 (Hagen, Henny) und 15640 (Görtz, Rosa); StaH 241-1 I Justizverwaltung I, 2911 (Abrechnungslisten über Schutzhaftkosten des KZ Fuhlsbüttel); Bundesarchiv Berlin R 3018 Nationalsozialistische Justiz/12152 Strafsache Heldt und Andere; Bundesarchiv Berlin, R 58 Reichssicherungshauptamt 3157, Bl. 62–63; Bundesarchiv Berlin, Stiftung Archiv der Parteien und Massenorganisationen der DDR im Bundesarchiv (SAPMO) BY5/V 279/1 Vereinigung der Verfolgten des Naziregimes, Sekretariat der britischen Besatzungszone; VVN-BdA Hamburg, Archiv, Todesurkunde Willi Hagen; Dokumente des Widerstandes, eine Artikelserie aus der Hamburger Volkszeitung Juli bis Oktober 1947; Drobisch/ Wieland, Das System der NS-Konzentrationslager, S. 232; Emmaus Kirchengemeinde Hamburg Lurup (Hrsg.), Aus der Geschichte Lurups; Fachbereich visuelle Kommunikation der Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg, Zur Geschichte des Antifaschistischen Widerstandes; Hochmuth, Meyer, Streiflichter, S. 157 und 167; Lotz, Mit Willi Rumstich, S. 35; Lotz, Einschnitte, S. 95 f.; Omland, Auf Deine Stimme kommt es an; Schulz, Fischkistendorf Lurup; Hochmuth (Hrsg.), Gestapo-Gefängnis Fuhlsbüttel, S. 64.