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Selma Schümann (née Cohn) * 1876

Schlüterstraße 14 (Eimsbüttel, Rotherbaum)

HIER WOHNTE
SELMA SCHÜMANN
GEB. COHN
JG. 1876
GEDEMÜTIGT / ENTRECHTET
FLUCHT IN DEN TOD
17.7.1942

further stumbling stones in Schlüterstraße 14:
Helga Mathilde Fromm, Max Fromm, Hermann Josephy, Sophie Stern

Selma Schümann, née Cohn, born 9 May 1876 in Hamburg, committed suicide 17 July 1942 in Hamburg

Jungfernstieg 34
Schlüterstraße 14 (Hamburg-Eimsbüttel)

Selma Schümann was born in Hamburg on 9 May 1876 as Selma Cohn, daughter of Charlotte Cohn, née Brager, and the merchant Michael Cohn. Her parents probably converted to Christianity sometime before 1913.

As of yet, we do not know the circumstances of Selma Cohn’s childhood. In any event, she was baptized and on 24 May 1913 she married Wilhelm August Daniel Schümann, who was a restaurateur and owned the Austernkeller (Oyster Cellar) restaurant at Jungfernstieg. Schümann had learned how to handle oysters, caviar, other seafood and wine at Cölln on Brodschrangen and started his own thriving business in 1884, initially in the cellar of Streit’s Hotel.

At the time of their wedding, he was 57 and she was 37 years old. He had four children from a previous marriage. The couple did not have any children together.

In July 1913 they moved into an apartment at Schlüterstraße 1 and in 1918 to another at Schlüterstraße14. When Wilhelm August Daniel Schümann died in 1923, Selma, in accordance with his will, became the sole owner and managing director of Schümanns Austernkeller. A document from the later redress of wrongs proceedings addressed this issue of ownership: "The deceased husband bequeathed his business to his wife because she had always worked in the business, and the elderly Schümann was of the opinion that his sons could and should find their own means to earn a living.” Wilhelm August Daniel Schümann’s own children were to inherit his legacy after Selma’s death, however an addendum to his testament forbade his subsequent heirs any interference in the management of his business. That addendum also stipulated that Selma Schümann was also entitled to lease or sell the Austernkeller should it become necessary.

That may have already caused indignation in her stepson Friedrich Wilhelm Daniel Schümann at that time. He had been a member of the NSDAP since 1931 and fought his stepmother who was declared a "full Jew” as of 1935 pursuant to the "Reich Citizenship Law” and its 1st Ordinance. As a "full Jew”, she had no civil rights. He fought her through the courts, vehemently arguing with racial ideology, but he failed. In his correspondence on this subject, he always referred to her as "Sara” or "the Jew”.

One witness reported in July 1945, "Mrs. Schümann repeatedly expressed how severely she suffered from the effects of the domestic political situation. She was especially distressed by the incessant harassment and persecution from the son of her dead husband [...] [who] claimed the business [...] for himself. [...] In the end, Mrs. Schümann said that she [...] wanted to put her restaurant business up for sale through an agent, also because of her advanced age.”

In Nov. 1938 she sold her business. According to her secondary heirs (her stepchildren), high-ranking SS officials especially liked to frequent her establishment. They were not permitted to frequent a restaurant run by a Jew, but they wanted to continue to eat at the well-known establishment. That was why she was under so much pressure.

Schümanns Austernkeller was sold to Max Henneberg. The buyer fulfilled all the criteria set by the District Economic Advisory Office, according to which candidates were to be favored who would become independent businessmen for the first time through the "Aryanization”. He had no experience in the industry nor did he have his own capital. He paid the sale price with the business’ assets. He did, however, maintain good relationships with the Reich Governor and leading circles of the NSDAP, according to the heirs.

In months of negotiations, the parties initially agreed to a sale price of 60,000 Reich Marks (RM), but the contract was not signed until Nov., after the Kristallnacht pogrom. The flagrant brutality of that night along with the detainment of vast numbers of Hamburg’s Jews who were forced to promise to emigrate immediately contributed significantly to the drop in prices of Jewish businesses. Ultimately the price was reduced to 32,000 RM by the district economic advisor at the time Otte, who had to approve all sales. According to Otte’s own statements, no discussion about the sum of the sale price was permitted.

A short time before, the value of the Austernkeller had been estimated at 150,000 RM. According to Schlage the executor of the will, its actual value was more than 200,000 RM. 15,000 RM of the sale price were a gesture "good will” for the business’ intangible assets – something actually prohibited for "Aryanizations” but permissible in this case, according to Frie, director of the Aryanization Department at the District Economic Advisory Office, if the sum and interest on that sum were paid as special assets into a frozen account for the subsequent "Aryan” heirs, and that account accrued interest.

In the end, 17,000 RM of the sale price went to Selma Schümann who was required to invest the money in an absolutely safe manner and was only allowed to claim the interest for herself. After the sale, she received a monthly sum of 350 RM from her husband’s estate through the executor. In the meantime, the Jewish Religious Association was forced to provide housing for more and more "full Jews” in "Jewish houses”. In 1942 it was Selma Schümann’s turn.

Schlage, executor of her husband’s will at the time, reported in this regard: "Mrs. Schümann was driven out of her apartment at Schlüterstraße 14 on 1 Apr. 1942 because Mr. Hilgenfeldt, her son-in-law, had had the housing office assign him her apartment.” The actions of her son-in-law only minimally accelerated the course of events but presumably increased Selma Schümann’s depression. Schlage added: "On that occasion, Mrs. Schümann had to attest that she had voluntarily given her unneeded possessions to the four children.” A letter to this effect from Selma Schümann to her stepdaughter is held in the archive: "The children will divide the items amongst themselves […] on 1 Apr. at 11:00 and see to their immediate removal since the apartment has to be cleared out.”

Only buildings owned by Jews were actually used as "Jewish houses”. It is not clear how the building at Steubenweg 36 came to be used for this purpose since it was purchased by the Hanseatic City of Hamburg through foreclosure in 1940.

As of Apr. 1942 Selma Schümann lived there along with 16 other people denounced as "Jews”. It was there in the latter part of July 1942 that she received her evacuation orders for the transport on 19 July to Theresienstadt.

The morning of 17 July, the administrator Siegfried Frank notified the police by phone that a woman had locked herself in at Steubenweg 36 and was apparently dead. After the police had broken open the door, they found Selma Schümann unconscious, on her nightstand a box of the morphine Pantopon, three vials of which she had injected. "Dr. Doose, who had been called by the administrator, ordered that she be sent to hospital.” Selma Schümann was taken to Israelite Hospital where she died at 2:00 p.m. A nurse who worked there later reported that "20 to 30 suicides always arrived at the same time” in connection with deportations: "We simply put them in beds and did not even try to revive them […] They didn’t want to go on living, and we thought that very sensible.” The Police Presidium informed the Gestapo, "The deceased was to have been evacuated.”

After years of legal disputes, the Hamburg District Court decided in 1950 that the Austernkeller was to be restituted to Friedrich Wilhelm Daniel Schümann, by then the sole subsequent heir. With regard to the moral problem of whether a former National Socialist and adversary of the testator was allowed to claim such restitution, the Hamburg District Court succinctly commented it was not evident "that it per se is in the spirit of the Restitution Law that such persons, who opposed Jews at the time of the seizure, are to be excluded from asserting the restitution of seized Jewish assets.”

In 1984 a volume was published entitled A Brief Chronicle on the 100th Anniversary of W. Schümann’s Austernkeller, which stated: "21 May 1923 – Death of the founder August Wilhelm Daniel Schümann; his son Friedrich Wilhelm Daniel Schümann takes over the now world-famous restaurant along the Binnenalster.
1 Apr. 1950 – Re-opening of the restaurant after 12 years of misappropriated ownership.”

That lie was perpetuated throughout all reporting on the Austernkeller after 1945. Occasionally a nameless female co-owner is mentioned. Not a single time was the name Selma Schümann to be found.

Translator: Suzanne von Engelhardt
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: June 2020
© Sabine Boehlich (†)

Quellen: StaH 391-11/9309; StaH Wilhelm Schümann 213-13 1517 Aussage Wilhelm Krefter, 31.7.1945; StaH Wilhelm Schümann 213-13 1517; StaH Wilhelm Schümann 213-13 1517; Bajohr: Arisierung, S. 184; StaH 351-11/ 9309; StaH 391-11/9310; StaH 351-11/9309; StaH 331-5, 3 Akte/1942 1159.