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Carl Nickels * 1885

(Hamburg-Nord, Fuhlsbüttel)

Verhaftet 1940
KZ Fuhlsbüttel
ermordet 07.01.1941

further stumbling stones in Flughafen Terminal 2 Abflug:
Dr. Kurt Adams

Carl Nickels, born on 14.9.1885 in Kiel, arrested on 3.1.1941, died on 4.1.1941 in the concentration camp Fuhlsbüttel

Hamburg Airport - Terminal 2 Departure (formerly Lilienthalstraße 20)

Carl Nickels was married to Berta Nickels and had two children. The family lived in Hamburg, street Lilienthalblock 4, not far from Fuhlsbüttel Airport. A precalculator by profession, Nickels worked as head of the calculation office of the company C.H.F. Müller AG (Röntgen-Müller) in Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel until 1941. An avowed anti-fascist and trade unionist, he was close to the Social Democrats, but there is no evidence of his membership in the SPD. Nickels was found hanged in his cell in the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp on January 4, 1941.

What had happened? In the Christmas week of 1940, Nickels visited Morr's Inn in Röntgenstraße, Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel, with colleague Arthur Helms. There the two met the head of the purchasing department of C.H.F. Müller AG, Otto Apel. The group discussed politics; Nickels is reported to have said, "Once the war is over, the officers won't just have their epaulets torn off like last time, but something else will happen." Under pressure from another colleague, Ernst Garn, master glassblower at C.H.F. Müller, Otto Apel reported Nickels' remarks to the Gestapo.

The denunciation led to Nickel's arrest by the Gestapo on January 3, 1941, during working hours, at about 10 o'clock in the morning. According to the officers who arrested him, Nickels was then interrogated from 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. and then taken to the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp. There he is said to have been found hanged in his cell an hour later.

Even after the end of the Second World War, the judicial authorities informed Berta Nickel's widow that she was not entitled to financial support because her husband had not fallen victim to the Gestapo but had chosen suicide. However, there are massive doubts about this version. Nickels' widow and his colleague Wilhelm Heinssen were allowed to see the body on the day of the funeral in the Hafenkrankenhaus (harbor hospital). On the basis of large bloodstains in the dead man's hair, they determined that Nickels had apparently suffered severe head injuries. Injury marks on the neck of the corpse were hidden by the collar of a paper shirt.

Translation Beate Meyer

Stand: March 2023
© Kurt Stukenberg, Recherchen: Margot Löhr

Quellen: StaH, 332-5 Standesämter, Heiratsregister, 13629 u. 376 / 1931; StaH, 332-5 Standesämter, Sterberegister, 9925 u. 25/1941 Carl Nickels, 10258 u. 759/1972 Bertha Nickels, 332-5, 7482 u. 882/1973 Ewald Nickels; StaH, 351-11 Wiedergutmachungsamt, 7311 Bertha Wilhelmine Nickels; StaH, 741-4 Fotoarchiv, K 2506 L Hausmeldekartei Lilienthalplatz 4; Auskünfte Bernd Reher aus dem Einwohnermelderegister Ahrensburg am 28.4.2010; Auskunft aus dem Geburtsregister Carl Nickels, Stadtarchiv Kiel am 23.2.2009.