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Dietrich Johannes von der Reith * 1900
Rehmstraße 16 (Hamburg-Nord, Winterhude)
HIER WOHNTE
DIEDRICH JOHANNES
VON DER REITH
JG. 1900
VERHAFTET 1933
KZ FUHLSBÜTTEL
GEHENKT 12.12.1933
UG HAMBURG
further stumbling stones in Rehmstraße 16:
Erwin Christen
Diedrich Johannes von der Reith, born on 7 Dec. 1900 in Altona, died on 12 Dec. 1933 (suicide in the Hamburg pretrial detention center)
Diedrich von der Reith was a sailor and cousin of Willy von der Reith, a KPD (German Communist Party) member of the Hamburg City Parliament. He belonged to the KPD and the International of Seamen and Harbor Workers (Internationale der Seeleute und Hafenarbeiter – ISH). Since Dec. 1929, he was married to Emma Wilhelmine, née Christen. Apparently, he emigrated to the Soviet Union in the early 1930s, being recognized there as a political emigrant on 14 Apr. 1931. It is not known why and when he returned. On 30 Sept. 1933, Diedrich von der Reith was taken into "protective custody” ("Schutzhaft”) in Hamburg, as a hostage for his fled cousin, as was indicated. (The cousin was initially active in work for the illegal KPD [German Communist Party] in Lübeck, subsequently fighting in the Spanish Civil War.) On 9 Oct. 1933, Diedrich von der Reith was transferred to the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp and seriously mistreated there. Because of the interrogations in the Gestapo headquarters at Stadthausbrücke, he was put in the pretrial detention facility on Holstenglacis. Upon learning that he was to be sent back to the concentration camp, he committed suicide by hanging himself. In light of the signs of mistreatment on his body, the institutional physician refused to issue the death certificate, according to the historian Herbert Diercks.
Translator: Erwin Fink
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.
Stand: October 2018
© Ulrike Sparr
Quellen: AB 1932 (Bd.1); Herbert Diercks, Gedenkbuch "Kola-Fu", Hamburg 1987, S. 35; ders., Das Konzentrationslager Fuhlsbüttel im Jahre 1933 (Magisterarbeit), Hamburg 1992; Gestapogefängnis Fuhlsbüttel, 3. Aufl. Hamburg 1997, S. 24, 30, 67; Ursel Hochmuth/Gertrud Meyer, Streiflichter aus dem Hamburger Widerstand 1933–1945 Frankfurt, 1980, S. 83, 162, 194; Gertrud Meyer, Nacht über Hamburg. Berichte und Dokumente 1933–1945 Frankfurt, 1971, S. 25; Personenstandsbuch Standesamt Hamburg-Eimsbüttel; Totenliste Hamburger Widerstandskämpfer und Verfolgter 1933–1945, Hamburg 1968; http://www.nkwd-und-gestapo.de/liste-deutsch-russis.html (Einsicht 24.7.2014).
