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© StaHH
Wilhelm Prahl * 1904
Vereinsstraße 42 (Eimsbüttel, Eimsbüttel)
HIER WOHNTE
WILHELM PRAHL
JG. 1904
VERHAFTET 1939
KZ NEUENGAMME
ERMORDET
Wilhelm Prahl, b. 6.21.1904 in Hamburg, executed on 8.8.1944 in the Neuengamme concentration camp
Vereinsstraße 42
Wilhelm Prahl was born in Eimsbüttel in 1904, the illegitimate child of the worker Anna Prahl, who later married Kühn. When he was one year old, he was placed in the foster family of Heinrich Schmidt at Weidenallee 59, where he lived until 1929. After the end of his primary schooling at age 14, he learned the shipwright trade in the Hamburg shipyard from 1919 to 1923. Although he sympathized with the Social Democratic Party (SPD), he did not become a party member. In January 1929, he married Elsa Degeler (b. 1900), the daughter of an Altona cigar maker; she worked for many years in the Mohr Margarine Factory in Bahrenfeld, and after her marriage she contributed to the family’s maintenance by working in canneries and printing establishments. The marriage produced three children, a daughter and two sons, in 1929, 1930, and 1939. The family also lived at Grosse Bergstrasse 201 in Altona, as well as various addresses in Eimsbüttel, and finally Vereinstrasse 42 in Eimsbüttel. Prior to his final conviction in 1944, Wilhelm Prahl worked at the German Shipyard in Hamburg. Following the devastating air raids of July and August 1943, he went to work less and less often, or called in sick, because of, according to his own statement, "despondency.”
Between 1923 and 1936, Wilhelm Prahl was jailed several times on account of damage to property and defamation of officials, public music making, begging, and malicious utterances against the "Führer” and public ordinances. The last instance was on 3 April 1936, when he was classified by the Schleswig-Holstein Special Court in Altona as a violator of the "Sedition Act” (1934) and sentenced to five months in prison.
In August 1939, Wilhelm Prahl fell victim to a denunciation. In May 1938, he was seen to have performed same-sex acts with the shipbuilder helper August Möller in the presence of the latter’s wife, Mrs. Friedel Möller. While drunk, the three had had sex with one another, first with Friedel Möller, and afterwards the men with each other. Wilhelm Prahl was sentenced on 17 November 1939 by the Hamburg District Court, Criminal Court no. 3, to a year in jail for violation of §175. He served the sentence until 9 August 1940 in the Fuhlsbüttel prison, after which he was released to his home "by order of the Gestapo.” He could be thankful that his previous convictions up to this point hand not landed him in a concentration camp.
In June 1944, Wilhelm Prahl was once again denounced. What had happened? After the above-mention air raids of July and August 1943, he stole three cartons of silverware and dresses from the basement bomb shelter of an almost completely burned out warehouse at Maria-Louisen-Strasse 58 in Winterhude. On the next day, he stole many dresses and coats from a partially destroyed outbuilding of a dye works at Missnerstrasse 4 in Eimsbüttel.
On 22 June 1944, Wilhelm Prahl was found to be a "Public Menace, according to §1 of the National Public Menace Ordinance” and condemned to death and permanent loss of his civil rights by the Hanseatic Special Court. He had, by this deed, placed himself outside the "Community of the Race” [Volksgemeinschaft]. His wife Elsa, with another involved acquaintance, was found guilty of making use of the plundered goods and condemned to penal servitude of three years, as well as to the withdrawal of her civil rights for the duration of the sentence. The judgment against Wilhelm Prahl was carried out on 8 August 1944 in the Neuengamme concentration camp. He died from four shots through the chest.
Since Elsa Prahl was in the Lübeck-Lauerhof women’s prison for another year and a half, their three children were at first with her brother. He, however, wrote a letter to his sister complaining about the transformation of his life and the troubles he had with the children. He refused to take on guardianship for them.
From a 1982 letter to the State’s Attorney, composed by the youngest son of Wilhelm Prahl, it is learned that shortly after the incarceration of their parents, the children were torn from one another and distributed to various homes. The barely five-year old son was brought out of the Rothenburgsort Children’s Hospital by his older brother in 1945. In 1982, he also requested from the Hanseatic Special Court a copy of his father‘s death sentence, in order finally to get information concerning the circumstances of his death. By order of the then judicial officials, such a copy would be handed over only with the names of the responsible persons blacked out: Superior District Court Judge Günther Tiede as chief judge, State District Court Councilor Hermann Ebers and Court Assessor Dammann as presiding judges, State‘s Attorney Ernst Meyer-Margreth as official representative of the Office of the State’s Attorney and Justice Chief Secretary Mösch of the Business Office, as official in charge of documentation.
Translator: Richard Levy
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.
Stand: February 2018
© Bernhard Rosenkranz (†)/Ulf Bollmann
Quellen: StaH 213-11 Staatsanwaltschaft Landgericht – Strafsachen, 26/40 u. 4127/44; 242-1 II Gefängnisverwaltung II, Ablieferungen 4, Nr. 74 u. Nr. 84, 13 u. 16; 332-5 Standesämter, 13107 (Eintrag Nr. 4) u. 62106 (Eintrag Nr. 4); Rosenkranz/Bollmann/Lorenz, Homosexuellen-Verfolgung, S. 245–246.
