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Jasper Holtmann * 1904

Suhrenkamp 98 (Hamburg-Nord, Ohlsdorf)

HIER WOHNTE
JASPER HOLTMANN
JG. 1904
VERHAFTET
KZ FUHLSBÜTTEL
FLUCHT IN DEN TOD
19.1.1939

further stumbling stones in Suhrenkamp 98:
Harald Kosmo, Teressa Scira, Hanka Scira

Jasper Peter Holtmann, born on 29.11.1904 on Helgoland, escape to his death on 19.1.1939 in Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp

Suhrenkamp 98, Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp and prisons memorial

The merchant Jasper Holtmann was born on November 29, 1904 on the island of Helgoland as the son of the lobster fisherman Erich Holtmann and Maria, née Haarkens. He had six siblings, only two of whom, his sister Alwine, born in 1907, and his brother Jonny, born in 1910, did not die in infancy.

We know nothing about Jasper Holtmann's childhood and youth. On August 7, 1929, he married Margarethe Harste in Altona-Ottensen and lived with her on Helgoland. The marriage produced a daughter born in 1930; a second daughter born in 1937 was not his biological daughter. The marriage is said to have ended in divorce before Jasper Holtmann's death.

Like most Helgolanders, Jasper Holtmann learned a nautical trade and became a helmsman, but by the mid-1930s he had already worked for several years as an agency representative for Norddeutscher Lloyd on Helgoland. In connection with this work, he frequently traveled to the mainland and to Altona. On one of these trips in the winter of 1933/34, he met a man in a public toilet in Altona and engaged in sexual acts with him. The man later blackmailed him. In order to meet the high demands for money, Holtmann embezzled funds from the bank he managed for Norddeutscher Lloyd and issued false receipts. In the meantime, he refunded the embezzled approx. 1000 RM.

On March 5, 1936, two trials therefore took place before the Altona court. In the first trial, Holtmann was sentenced to four months in prison and a fine of RM 100 for embezzlement with forgery of documents. The blackmail offense mitigated the sentence. However, Holtmann was sentenced to six months' imprisonment in a second trial for an offense against § 175. He was acquitted in the case of an acquaintance from 1933/34, but was punished for two other, more recent cases. The judgment states: "[...] around this time, mutual masturbation was not regarded as unnatural fornication within the meaning of Section 175 of the old version of the Criminal Code according to popular opinion and case law. Rather, a change in legal opinion did not occur until the summer of 1934 after the Röhm revolt”. The total sentence was one year in prison and a payment of 100 RM. The fine was later commuted to a ten-day prison sentence.

Due to an arrest in Pforzheim, Jasper Holtmann was only transferred from there to the Altona court prison on February 20, 1936 for the start of his trial; he officially began serving his sentence on April 15. On May 30, he was transferred to the Aschendorfermoor prison camp in Emsland, but was actually first sent to Börgermoor and then to Aschendorfermoor on January 19, 1937. He was also released from this camp on April 1, 1937.

On January 16, 1939, Holtmann once again came to the attention of the Nazi persecution apparatus because of his homosexuality. He was taken into "preventive custody” by the Hamburg Criminal Investigation Department K 24 (Department for Offenses in Connection with Homosexual Behavior) and transferred to the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp, which had been known as the "police prison” since 1935. Three days later, on January 19, 1939, Jasper Holtmann hanged himself in his cell with his body belt.

The forensic pathologist Dr. Hans Koopmann had Jasper Holtmann's body belt transferred to the Forensic Medical Institute "for teaching purposes” as an "instrument of crime”.

Jasper Holtmann's official last place of residence was still on Helgoland (Oberland, Neubaublock 2) despite his "destroyed existence” after the convictions. However, as he lived out his sexuality in Altona and Hamburg, where he was also arrested and imprisoned, his stumbling stone has been laid in front of today's memorial site as an example of the torments suffered by homosexual men in the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp. To date, nine men are known to have died by their own hand as victims of the persecution of homosexuals in the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp.

Translation: Beate Meyer
Stand: November 2024
© Ulf Bollmann

Quellen: StaH, 242-1 II Gefängnisverwaltung II, Ablieferung 13, jüngere Haftkartei Männer; StaH, 331-5 Polizeibehörde – Unnatürliche Sterbefälle, Nr. 278/ 1939; StaH, 332-5 Standesämter, 9907 Nr. 149; Landesarchiv Schleswig-Holstein, Abteilung 352 (Altona), Nr. 7259 und Nr. 7260 sowie Dank an Peter von Rönn für die Zurverfügungstellung seiner Recherchen aus 1997; Bernhard Rosenkranz/Ulf Bollmann/Gottfried Lorenz: Homosexuellen-Verfolgung in Hamburg 1919–1969, Hamburg 2009, S. 219; Eckhard Wallmann: Eine Kolonie wird deutsch: Helgoland zwischen den Weltkriegen, 2. Aufl., Bredstedt 2016. Dank an den Helgoland-Genealogen Erich-Nummel Krüss (1932–2018)!