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Hugo Eickhoff * 1906

Rathausmarkt 1 (links vor dem Rathaus) (Hamburg-Mitte, Hamburg-Altstadt)

HUGO EICKHOFF
MDHB 1931 – 1933 KPD
JG. 1906
VERHAFTET 1944
"AKTION GEWITTER"
SACHSENHAUSEN
SONDERBATAILLON
DIRLEWANGER
TOT 15.12.1944 RUMÄNIEN

further stumbling stones in Rathausmarkt 1 (links vor dem Rathaus):
Kurt Adams, Etkar Josef André, Bernhard Bästlein, Adolf Biedermann, Gustav Brandt, Valentin Ernst Burchard, Max Eichholz, Theodor Haubach, Wilhelm Heidsiek, Ernst Henning, Hermann Hoefer, Franz Jacob, Friedrich Lux, Fritz Simon Reich, August Schmidt, Otto Schumann, Theodor Skorzisko, Ernst Thälmann, Hans Westermann

Hugo Eickhoff MdHB

Hugo Eickhoff MdHB (Member of the Hamburg City Parliament)
Hugo Eickhoff was born on 26 Sept. 1906 in Wandsbek. He attended the eight-grade elementary school (Volksschule) there, then completing a three-and-a-half-year commercial apprenticeship. Afterward, he worked as a commercial clerk in Hamburg.

Initially, he began his political activities in the middle-class youth movement before getting in contact with the German Communist Party (KPD) via the "workers’ photography league” ("Arbeiter-Foto-Bund”) in 1927. In 1929, he became a member of the "Association of Proletarian Freethinkers” ("Verband Proletarischer Freidenker") and joined the German Young Communist League (Kommunistischer Jugendverband Deutschlands – KJVD). This is where his rise in the Hamburg KPD took shape. As early as 1930, he assumed the leadership of the party youth in Eimsbüttel, only to advance to become "youth organization leader” in the KPD’s North German costal ("Wasserkante”) district just one year later. In this function, he played a substantial role after the waves of arrests in Feb. and Mar. 1933 in reorganizing the illegal work of the KPD’s youth organization.

In 1931, Hugo Eickhoff was elected as one of 35 KPD deputies to the Hamburg City parliament. Already in Mar. 1932, he voted for the self-dissolution of the parliament, deliberately brought about by his parliamentary party as well, in order to clear the way for new elections at the height of the economic crisis. Whereas the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP) emerged from these elections as the strongest parliamentary party, the KPD on the other hand suffered substantial losses amounting to nearly 6 percent. Nevertheless, Hugo Eickhoff once again took a seat in the last Hamburg City Parliament elected in free elections.

In his parliamentary speeches, Eickhoff primarily addressed the desperate social situation of the working-class youth. In 1932, he repeatedly spoke out against efforts to introduce compulsory labor service for unemployed youths. In this context, he never tired of invoking the extra-parliamentary struggle against the existing political system. As a member of the extreme left in his parliamentary party, he left no doubt in his sometimes-heated speeches of his contempt for the parliamentary system.

Until early 1943, Eickhoff lived in Eimsbüttel. It is not clear whether he was already arrested at this time in connection with the wave of Gestapo arrests directed against the Communist resistance in Hamburg in late 1942 or only in the course of "Operation Thunderstorm” ("Aktion Gewitter”) [actual name: "Aktion Gitter,” i.e. "Operation Bars”] after the assassination attempt on Hitler on 20 July 1944. We do know for certain, however, that after his arrest he was taken to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where he was detached to the "Dirlewanger special battalion” ("Sonderbataillion Dirlewanger”) at the end of 1944. This special unit, comprised exclusively of concentration camp prisoners, was named after its commander, the SS-Oberführer (senior leader) Oskar Dirlewanger.

After a brief training phase, Hugo Eickhoff left the Sachsenhausen concentration camp for the eastern front. At the beginning of December, first military encounters with the Red Army took place in the northern Hungarian section of the front. Only a short time afterward, Hugo Eickhoff was killed in action as his unit made its way via Hatvan, Jaszbereny, and Poroslov to the Romanian town of Focsani. 15 Dec. 1944 is regarded as the official date of his death. It is unclear whether Eickhoff’s death was connected to the defection of several hundred prisoners to the Red Army on the night of 14 to 15 Dec. 1944.

© Text courtesy of the City Parliament of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (Ed.) from: Jörn Lindner/Frank Müller, Mitglieder der Bürgerschaft – Opfer totalitärer Verfolgung, 3rd revised and amended edition, Hamburg 2012.

Translator: Erwin Fink
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

© Text mit freundlicher Genehmigung der Bürgerschaft der Freien und Hansestadt Hamburg (Hrsg.) entnommen aus: Jörn Lindner/Frank Müller: "Mitglieder der Bürgerschaft – Opfer totalitärer Verfolgung", 3., überarbeitete und ergänzte Auflage, Hamburg 2012

SS-Oberführer Oskar Dirlewanger:
1923 Eintritt in die NSDAP, 1931 SA-Führer in Esslingen. 1934 zu einer mehrjährigen Zuchthausstrafe wegen Sittlichkeitsverbrechen verurteilt, jedoch mit Gelegenheit, sich in militärischer Verwendung zu rehabilitieren. 1937 "Legion Condor". 1940 Gründung des "Wilddiebkommando Oranienburg" im KZ Sachsenhausen, bestehend aus inhaftierten Wilddieben. Ab 1943 Aufnahme weiterer Häftlinge. Die Einheit kam ausschließlich an der Ostfront zum Einsatz. Dabei kam es 1942 zu einem Ermittlungsverfahren durch das "Hauptamt-SS" wegen extremer Grausamkeiten bei der Bekämpfung von "Partisanen". Einstellung des Verfahrens erst 1945 nach persönlicher Intervention Himmlers (Klee, Ernst: Das Personenlexikon zum "Dritten Reich", Frankfurt a.M. 2003,113).