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Kurt Glassmann * 1900

Haynstraße 5 (Hamburg-Nord, Eppendorf)

HIER WOHNTE
KURT GLASSMANN
JG. 1900
EINGEWIESEN 1940
HEILANSTALT LANGENHORN
"VERLEGT" 23.9.1940
BRANDENBURG
ERMORDET 23.9.1940
"AKTION T4"

further stumbling stones in Haynstraße 5:
Liselotte Brinitzer, Fanny David, Arno Glassmann, Helene Herzberg, Eleonore Holz, Jacob Holz, Antonie Fanny Riess, Helma Wehl, Irma Zancker

Kurt Glassmann, born on 21 Nov. 1900 in Ahlbeck in the Ueckermünde Heath, murdered on 23 Sept. 1940 in the Brandenburg/Havel euthanasia killing center

Stolperstein in Hamburg-Eppendorf, at Haynstrasse 5

Kurt Glassmann was born on 21 Nov. 1900 in Ahlbeck. His father, Moses Hirsch Glassmann, called Max, came from a Jewish family in Ahlbeck in the Ueckermünde Heath (Ueckermünder Heide). Kurt’s mother Johanna Glassmann, née Manasse, was born in Dölitz/Pyritz administrative district in Pomerania (today Dolice in Poland). She was also of the Jewish faith. Moses Hirsch Glassmann and Johanna Manasse married in 1896 in Dölitz.

The Glassmann couple’s first child, Herbert, was born on 22 Oct. 1896. He was followed by Arno on 4 Feb. 1898. Erna, the third child, died only four weeks after her birth in July 1899. Kurt was born on 21 Nov. 1900 in Ahlbeck like his older siblings. The youngest child, Edith, was born on 14 Jan. 1904 in Arnswalde in the former Province of Pomerania (today Choszczno in the Polish West Pomeranian Voivodeship).

The Glassmann family lived in Arnswalde from 1903 to 1933. The district directory of this town shows that in 1925 "Max Glaßmann” was the owner of a yard goods and ready-to-wear clothing store at Steintorstrasse 8, which also offered dry goods, finery, and footwear. Max Glassmann gave up the business in 1930 when it was no longer profitable due to a sharp drop in sales. Edith Glassmann was also registered at Steintorstrasse 8 "without occupation.” We do not know whether the other three children, among them Kurt Glassmann, also lived in Arnswalde.

Due to "political factors,” as Johanna Glassmann’s welfare file notes, the Glassmann family settled in Hamburg at Grindelberg 33 on 20 Sept. 1933. According to Max Glassmann’s Jewish religious tax (Kultussteuer) file card, he joined the Jewish Community on 15 Nov. 1935. In the Hamburg directory, he was listed for the first time in 1935 as a retiree under the address of Grindelberg 33. The family lived on the savings built from the earlier business activity.

Little is known about Kurt Glassmann’s life story. Following a visit to the family in July 1935, a female welfare worker reported that Kurt had made a "pathetic impression” and that the family was destitute. They had used up her savings assets. Rent and electricity could no longer be paid. In order not to starve to death – according to the diabetic Johanna Glassmann – it was necessary "to rely on welfare assistance.”

Max Glassmann died completely impoverished on 22 Dec. 1935. Shortly afterward, Johanna Glassmann moved in with her daughter Edith in Leipzig. Edith was married there to the merchant Heinrich Seckel and had two children. Johanna Glassmann died on 30 Nov. 1937 in Leipzig at the age of 66. Max and Johanna Glassmann were buried side by side in the Jewish Cemetery on Ilandkoppel in Hamburg-Ohlsdorf.

Kurt Glassmann was admitted to Eppendorf General Hospital on 15 Jan. 1936 because of a mental illness. In the "independent medical examiner’s report” accompanying this referral, he is described extremely negatively: "Judging by the facial expression, a deceitful and insidious pat.[ient]. Who looks like he is about to lunge at the examining doctor at any moment.” Even at the time, this type of assessment probably did not meet medical standards, but rather expressed the physician’s antipathy. From Eppendorf, Kurt Glassmann was transferred to the Hamburg-Langenhorn State Hospital (Staatskrankenanstalt Hamburg-Langenhorn) on 23 Jan. 1936.

There he was visited every Sunday by Mrs. Poppenberg, his mother’s landlady and caretaker. She regularly brought him parcels, probably with food. As well, Arno Glassmann (see corresponding entry) visited his brother often in the institution. On 30 Mar. 1937, Kurt was transferred to Eppendorf Hospital and on 5 Apr. 1937 to Langenhorn. Kurt Glassmann might have been sterilized during this hospital stay.

In the spring/summer of 1940, the "euthanasia” headquarters in Berlin, located at Tiergartenstrasse 4, planned a special operation aimed against Jews in public and private sanatoriums and nursing homes. It had the Jewish persons living in the institutions registered and moved together in what were officially so-called collection institutions. The Hamburg-Langenhorn "sanatorium and nursing home” ("Heil- und Pflegeanstalt” Hamburg-Langenhorn) was designated the North German collection institution. All institutions in Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein, and Mecklenburg were ordered to move the Jews living in their facilities there by 18 Sept. 1940. After all Jewish patients from the North German institutions had arrived in Langenhorn, they were taken to Brandenburg/Havel on 23 Sept. 1940, together with the Jewish patients who had lived there for some time, on a transport comprised of 136 persons overall. On the same day, they were killed with carbon monoxide in the part of the former penitentiary converted into a gas-killing facility. Only one patient, Ilse Herta Zachmann, escaped this fate at first (see corresponding entry).

We do not know whether, and if so, when Kurt Glassmann’s relatives became aware of his death. In all documented death notices, it was claimed that the person concerned had died in Chelm (Polish) or Cholm (German, a town east of Lublin. Those murdered in Brandenburg, however, were never in Chelm/Cholm. The former Polish sanatorium there no longer existed after SS units had murdered almost all patients on 12 Jan. 1940. Also, there was no German records office in Chelm. Its fabrication and the use of postdated dates of death served to disguise the killing operation and at the same time enabled the authorities to claim higher care expenses for periods extended accordingly.

Kurt Glassmann’s brothers also died in the Holocaust. Arno Glassmann tried to secure his livelihood through itinerant retail trading. In 1935 and 1936, he performed "welfare work” ("Unterstützungsarbeit”) in Gross Borstel. In his application for welfare benefits dating from Apr. 1939, he described himself as a cook and domestic servant. For a while, he resided at Haynstrasse 5 in Hamburg-Eppendorf. On 8 Nov. 1941, he was deported to Minsk and probably perished there. Herbert Glassmann lived in Berlin-Wilmersdorf. He was deported from Berlin to Riga on 5 Sept. 1942 and perished there on 8 Sept. 1942. The fate of Edith Seckel, née Glassmann, and her family is unknown.

Kurt and Arno Glassmann are commemorated by Stolpersteine in front of the residential building at Haynstrasse 5, making it possible to commemorate the murdered members of the Glassmann family in one place.

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

© Ingo Wille

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; 9; AB; StaH 133-1 III Staatsarchiv III, 3171-2/4 U.A. 4, Liste psychisch kranker jüdischer Patientinnen und Patienten der psychiatrischen Anstalt Langenhorn, die aufgrund nationalsozialistischer "Euthanasie"-Maßnahmen ermordet wurden, zusammengestellt von Peter von Rönn, Hamburg (Projektgruppe zur Erforschung des Schicksals psychisch Kranker in Langenhorn); 332-5 Standesämter 8131 Sterberegister Nr. 576/1935 Moses Hirsch (Max) Glassmann; 351-14 Arbeits- und Sozialfürsorge – Sonderakten – 1190 Johanna Glassmann, 1191 Arno Glassmann, 1192 Kurt Glassmann; 352-8/7 Staatskrankenanstalt Langenhorn Abl. 1/1995 Aufnahme-/Abgangsbuch Langenhorn 26.8.1939 bis 27.1.1941; Stadtarchiv Leipzig, Standesamt Leipzig I, Sterberegister Nr. 5072/1937 Johanna Glassmann; Standesamt Eggesin, Nr. 82/1900 Geburtsregister Kurt Glassmann; http://www.genealogienetz.de/reg/BRG/neumark/Arnswalde/kaba_001.htm (Zugriff 18.4.2016).
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