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Heinrich Ilse * 1907

Isestraße 61 (Eimsbüttel, Harvestehude)

KZ Sachsenhausen
ermordet 24.01.1941

further stumbling stones in Isestraße 61:
Josepha Ambor, Else Baer, Hedi Baer, Ingrid Baer, Joseph Baer, Minna Benjamin, Rosalie Benjamin, Emma Dugowski, Henriette Dugowski, Hermann Dugowski, Ida Dugowski, Moritz Dugowski, Wanda Dugowski, Selly Gottlieb, Ella Meyer, Max Meyer, Otto Meyer, Gregor Niessengart, Sophie Philip, Michael Pielen, Gertrud Rosenbaum, Edmund Sonn

Heinrich Ilse, born on 23 Mar. 1907, imprisoned in 1936 and 1939, died on 24 Jan. 1941 in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp

Heinrich Ilse was among those homosexuals whose criminal justice records were destroyed even well into the 1990s. Only on a prisoner file card, a list calculating invoices for costs of police "protective custody” ("Schutzhaft”) and a "house registration” file card (Hausmeldekarteikarte) kept by the police authorities, some clues to his life have been preserved.

The plumber and mechanic Heinrich Ilse was born as the son of the blacksmith and carriage builder Heinrich and his wife Erna Ilse in Niendorf near Hamburg on 23 Mar. 1907. In 1914, the family moved into the attic apartment at Isestrasse 61 in Hamburg-Harvestehude. The father, Heinrich Ilse, had taken on the duty of the building’s caretaker. He continued to live with his wife in the same apartment until at least 1960. Older occupants can still remember him, though not his son’s fate.

In the same household lived a subtenant, the homosexual Michael Pielen. Whether the two maintained a friendly relationship with each other can no longer be reconstructed today.

The pretrial detention card file reveals that Heinrich Ilse was persecuted for the first time in 1936 on charges of homosexual acts according to Sec. 175 [of the Reich Criminal Code]. Starting on 5 Nov. 1936, he was detained as a police "protective custody prisoner” ("Schutzhäftling”) in the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp, before being transferred from there to the Hamburg-Stadt pretrial detention center on 14 Nov. 1936. He remained there until 3 Dec. of that year. Due to missing criminal justice records and additional prisoner documents, it is not known where he spent the ensuing period of imprisonment.

Heinrich Ilse was imprisoned again, from 27 June until 5 July 1939, in the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp and afterward in the Hamburg-Stadt pretrial detention center because of "unnatural sexual offenses” ("widernatürliche Unzucht”) in accordance with Sec. 175. On 26 Sept. 1940, he was transferred from there to the Hamburg Criminal Investigation Department, which had him committed to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, probably via the Hütten police prison. On 9 Nov. 1940, he was registered there under prisoner number 34,124 as "BV/175” [BV for "Berufsverbrecher,” i.e., "professional criminal”]. Heinrich Ilse survived in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp for only some two months, dying in the solitary confinement section on 24 Jan. 1941. The official death certificate attested that the 33-year-old man had suffered from acute cardiac insufficiency in combination with severe enteritis.

Translator: Erwin Fink

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: October 2016
© Bernhard Rosenkranz/Ulf Bollmann

Quellen: StaHH, 332-8 Meldewesen, A 50/1; 242-11II Gefängnisverwaltung II, Ablieferung 16; 213-8 Staatsanwaltschaft Oberlandesgericht – Verwaltung, Ablieferung 2, 451 a E 1, 1 a und 1 d. B. Rosenkranz/ U. Bollmann/G. Lorenz, Homosexuellen-Verfolgung in Hamburg 1919–1969, Verlag Lambda Edition, Ham­burg 2009, S. 219. Auskunft Frau Monika Liebscher vom 7.9.2009 vom Archiv der KZ-Gedenkstätte Sachsenhausen.