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John Hausmann
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John Hausmann * 1884

Adolphsplatz 1 (Hamburg-Mitte, Hamburg-Altstadt)

JOHN HAUSMANN
JG. 1884
FLUCHT 1941 FRANKREICH
INTERNIERT DRANCY
DEPORTIERT 1942
AUSCHWITZ
ERMORDET 26.8.1942

further stumbling stones in Adolphsplatz 1:
Valentin Burchard, Leopold Cohn, Otto Friedeberg, Ludwig Moritz Mainz, Heinrich Mayer, Ivan Philip, Franz Max Rappolt, Paul Salomon, Max Stein, Dr. Heinrich Wohlwill, Cäsar Wolf, Leo Wolfsohn

John Hausmann, born on 22 Nov. 1884 in Hamburg, died on 26 or 28 Aug. 1942 in Auschwitz

Member of the Board of Directors of the Grain Exchange no later than 1928–1933

John Hausmann was born in Hamburg on 22 Nov. 1884, as the middle of three siblings in a Jewish family.

His father Louis Hausmann was born in Ratibor (today Raciborz in Poland) in the Prussian Province of Silesia on 15 Apr. 1835. In 1868, he had moved to Hamburg. At first, he was registered as a sales clerk, but already by 1872, he was registered with a bank and money exchange business at Ellernthorsbrücke 11. John Hausmann’s mother, Friederike, née Schönberg, was born on 15 Dec. 1834 in Stallupönen (today in Nesterov in Russia), then in East Prussia. Their first child, daughter Gertrud, was born in 1881 in the St. Pauli quarter at Karolinenstrasse 2. In 1884, the year John Hausmann was born, the family was already living in an apartment at Colonnaden 36. Brother Walther was born in 1887 but died at the age of 4. Between 1887 and 1890, the family moved to Harvestehude to reside in a ground-floor apartment at Hansastrasse 18.

Around the beginning of 1893, the Louis Hausmann banking and money exchange business filed for bankruptcy. Louis Hausmann, in the sources also referred to as fund trader or "banquier,” was reported missing on 13 Aug. 1893 and found dead in the Elbe River on 10 Nov. 1893. Friederike Hausmann, with the support of two officially appointed assistants, assumed guardianship of the two children John and Gertrud. As a widow, she moved with them to Rutschbahn 23. Three years later, on 17 Oct. 1896, she also passed away. Like their son Walther, Louis and Friederike Hausmann were buried in the Ohlsdorf Jewish Cemetery. It is not known where the underage children John and Gertrud grew up in the following years.

Gertrud Hausmann was deregistered from Hamburg’s register of residents for New York in 1907 after having traveled there once three years earlier. John Hausmann had meanwhile completed his training and worked for J. H. Friedländer & Co., which had its office in the immediate vicinity of city hall and the exchange at Schauenburgerstrasse 34. The company, which specialized in the export and import of grain, oilseeds, and spirit, had been in existence since 1881 at the latest, initially as a limited partnership, from 1892 as a sole proprietorship, and in 1906 as a general partnership with Max Friedländer and his son Jacob Oscar Friedländer as partners. In 1907, John Hausmann was granted joint power of attorney and in 1913 individual power of attorney.

Presumably around 1909, Hausmann, who at that time still lived in Eppendorf at Lehmweg 8, had married Hortense Weill (1880–1944), a Jewish woman born in 1880 in Ribeauville/Rappoltsweiler, Alsace. In Hamburg, they had their first son Georg (1910–1942) in 1910. The following year, his son Edgar Marcel followed, in 1914 Paul and finally in 1916, Alfred. During the First World War, John Hausmann fought at the front and he was awarded the Hamburg Hanseatic Cross and the Honor Cross for Front-Line Veterans. Little is known about the subsequent living conditions of the family until the 1930s. From 1910 to 1912, they lived in an apartment in Harvestehude, at Isestrasse 12, and from 1913 to 1922, on the ground floor at Abendrothsweg 34 in Eppendorf.

At the beginning of 1920, John Hausmann joined J. H. Friedländer & Co. as a partner. In 1922, he acquired the house at Scheffelstrasse 12 near the Alster in Winterhude, where his neighbors in the street were a professor, architect, pharmacist and factory owner, which underscored the upscale character of the residential area. In 1927, the family moved back to Harvestehude, to their newly acquired urban row villa at St. Benedictstrasse 15, where Edgar Eichholz of the Eichholz & Loeser Company, Michael Goldstein of H. A. Jonas Söhne & Co., and Paul Salomon also had their homes.

No information has been preserved about the childhood and youth of the oldest son Georg Hausmann. Edgar completed a commercial apprenticeship at the Johanneum high school after finishing the one-year graduating class ("Einjähriges”). Paul attended the Wichern secondary school in Hamburg until 1934. Alfred completed his schooling at the Johanneum in 1935 with his high school graduation (Abitur). It is not known how intensively the family practiced their Jewish religion. John Hausmann was a member of the Hamburg German-Israelitic Community from 1917 to 1941 listed as no. 4440, Edgar and Alfred from 1934 to 1939 listed as no. 19369 and no. 19593, respectively.

With John Hausmann being a respected businessman and co-partner of J. H. Friedländer & Co., the plenary assembly of the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce had appointed him a member of the board of directors of the Hamburg exchange, grain department (barley, corn, wheat, and rye) from 1928 to 1933, and from 1926 to 1933, he was a member of the Association of the "Honorable Merchant.” He was a member of the committee for the admission to official trading in 1931 and 1932. Moreover, he was a member of the Association of Agents for Grain, Flour, and Animal Feed of the Hamburg Exchange. In addition, he was also involved in charitable work: In 1926, he was registered with the foundation supervisory authority as one of the "administrators” of the Otto Friedeberg Foundation, which had been in existence since 1923 and supported needy members of the Association of Grain Merchants of the Hamburg Exchange (Verein der Getreidehändler der Hamburger Börse) and their relatives, irrespective of their denomination.

Soon after the Nazis’ "seizure of power,” concerns grew in the Association of Agents for Grain, Flour, and Animal Feed of the Hamburg Exchange that the new government would cease cooperation with organizations that included citizens of the Jewish faith among their members. There were more and more voices saying that unfortunately "non-Aryan” members would have to resign "in the interest of agriculture and trade for the foreseeable future.” Others vehemently advocated on behalf of Jewish members and emphasized that the board of directors was made up of exceptionally respectable merchants and that one should not be offended by religion. Member Toepfer explained: "Since Judaism is active in the international grain trade, one should not be afraid to elect an expert Jew, such as Mr. Hausmann, to the board of directors.” However, since many members were only striving for a purely "Aryan” board of directors, Hausmann, like Otto Friedeberg, Leopold Cohn, and Leopold Hiller, resigned from the Association of Agents for Grain, Flour, and Animal Feed of the Hamburg Exchange on 31 Mar. 1933.

As late as Jan. 1933, John Hausmann had been re-elected to the board of the grain exchange. However, on 12 May of that year, the Association of Grain Merchants no longer put him on its list of nominations to the Chamber of Commerce for the new board of directors. On 30 June 1933, it was reported to the Chamber of Commerce that all members of the Board of Directors of the Grain Exchange, including Hausmann, had resigned their seats. John Hausmann was no longer represented on the new board of directors after the "forcible coordination” (Gleichschaltung), nor were any other Jews.

Nevertheless, initially the fate of the Hausmann family did not take a hopeless course even after 1933. Son Paul studied philology and law at the University of Lausanne/Switzerland in 1935 and at the University of Hamburg in 1935/36. Alfred began commercial training in 1936. Georg moved to Paris that year to work as a language teacher in his mother’s native country. And Edgar, who had gained his first professional experience after completing his commercial apprenticeship for a company in London and Paris, had joined his father’s business at the beginning of 1934 "with the prospect of becoming co-owner later on.” In 1937, J. H. Friedländer & Co. granted him joint power of attorney and one year later, individual power of attorney. The company, which enjoyed an excellent reputation, worked mainly in foreign business. In 1940, John Hausmann’s legal advisor pointed out, "Even in 1937 and 1938, at a time when the procurement of foreign currency for the purchase of raw materials was particularly urgent, J. H. Friedländer & Co. paid in dues from its valuable transit business the sum [from English pounds and Dutch guilders in the equivalent of] 435,000 gold marks in foreign currency to the Reichsbank.” In spring 1938, the general partnership was dissolved and John Hausmann became the sole owner.

Regardless of their economic performance, however, J. H. Friedländer & Co. – like all businesses run by Jews – had become the focus of mounting "Aryanization efforts” by state authorities since 1936/37 at the latest. Moreover, in 1938, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry had also listed the company in its "Compilation of ‘so-called’ non-Aryan companies by branch of business,” even though it kept that file "for internal use only.”

The first of the Hausmann family to make the decision to leave Germany was son Paul, by then a qualified gymnastics teacher and beautician. In order to obtain a visa for his destination country of Uruguay and to support himself there until he found employment, John Hausmann gave him a substantial sum of money. On 30 Apr. 1938, Paul Hausmann traveled by ship to Montevideo. From there he continued his journey to Argentina in early Feb. 1941. On 31 May 1938, his brother Alfred had to interrupt his apprenticeship at the drug wholesale company Landauer & Co. at Grimm 22 and lost his job, as this business was "Aryanized.” The foreign currency office of the Chief Finance Administrator (Oberfinanzpräsident), which also suspected that John Hausmann intended to emigrate and feared "capital flight,” issued a "security order” ("Sicherungsanordnung”) against him on 9 June 1938. From that date onward, he was allowed to dispose of his assets only with the consent of the foreign currency office. In Dec. 1938, he was at least granted permission to transfer a larger sum of money as a gift to his son, living in Paris and considered a non-resident, to a blocked account with the M. M. Warburg KG Company.

Son Edgar experienced the first massive consequences of the Nazi anti-Jewish policies. In the course of the "November operation” in reaction to the November Pogrom across the Reich, he was arrested on 10 Nov. 1938 and transferred to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. When released from there on 20 Dec. 1938, he decided to emigrate to France as soon as possible. His mother then traveled to Paris to enlist the help of her relatives. Born in France, she had already regained French citizenship as early as 1920. As a foreign national, she succeeded in transferring part of her personal assets to France by relocating her residence toward a permanent stay there. However, her accounts held with M. M. Warburg KG were converted by the bank into an emigrant’s blocked account at the beginning of Jan. 1939, her securities account with Warburg into an emigrant’s securities account. The same was done with the account of Georg Hausmann, who lived in Paris.

By this time, John Hausmann was already planning to follow his wife to France. First, however, he wanted to settle his financial circumstances in Hamburg. It was close to his heart to "put” his company, which employed predominantly "Aryan personnel,” "into the right hands.” With a contract dated 31 Jan. 1939, J. H. Friedländer & Co. was "Aryanized” by means of the transfer of ownership to Getreide- und Futtermittel-Gesellschaft A. Lüthke & Co., a grain and animal feed company located at Jungfernstieg 30. The contract was approved on 29 Mar. 1939 by the then Reich Governor (Reichsstatthalter) in Hamburg. The compensation fees for the stocks as well as furnishings and fittings were paid into Hausmann’s blocked account held by Bankhaus M. M. Warburg. By contract, John had undertaken to instruct the new owners on the business operations. On 29 Dec. 1939, the company register recorded the enterprise as having ceased to exist.

The activity of son Edgar in his father’s company had ended on 31 Dec. 1938. His father bid him farewell on 8 Feb. 1939, when Edgar embarked for emigration to Bangkok in what was then Siam. At the end of the previous year, he had sent to him and Alfred substantial sums of money – as he had previously done in the case of their brothers.

Next, John Hausmann sold the three properties he owned: With the contract dated 9 Feb. 1939, the property at Eichenstrasse 52 to Kurt Andreas Ernst Becher for a purchase price of 82,500 RM (reichsmark); with the contract dated 23 Mar. 1939, the property at St. Benedictstrasse 15 to Sophie Ellerbrock for a purchase price of 34,000 RM; and with the contract dated 2 May 1939, the property at Isestrasse 69 to Ernst von Spreckelsen for a purchase price of 99,000 RM. The significantly lower net proceeds were credited to John Hausmann’s blocked account.

Starting in spring 1939 at the latest, John Hausmann also prepared for emigration. His assets, which had still been indicated by M. M. Warburg KG as amounting to 800,000 RM for the year 1938, melted away through the payment of compulsory levies: For himself and his wife, he paid 113,565 RM in Reich flight tax (Reichsfluchtsteuer) and 243,406 RM in the levy on Jewish assets (Judenvermögensabgabe) by surrendering securities. He paid 146,000 RM in cash to the German Gold Discount Bank (Deutsche Golddiskontbank) and 25,739 RM in emigration tax to the Jewish Religious Organization (Jüdischer Religionsverband). In mid-May 1939, the foreign currency office of the Chief Finance Administrator estimated the remaining assets at only 261,257 RM.

After his house at St. Benedictstrasse 15 had been cleared, John Hausmann moved to temporary quarters in Streit’s Hotel at Jungfernstieg 38. Works of art, gold and silver objects, electrical appliances, and stamps were appraised and they had to be sold. The moving goods to be taken along were packed and delivered to the central customs office. On 19 June 1939, Hausmann received the "tax clearance certificate” ("Unbedenklichkeitsbescheinigung”) for his passport. In order to cover his living expenses and to settle individual claims, he was permitted to withdraw small amounts of money from his emigrant’s blocked account with M. M. Warburg KG.

On 8 July 1939, his son Alfred Hausmann left Germany for Britain, where he waited for the opportunity to travel on to the USA. In July/Aug. 1939, John himself succeeded in two installments to transfer abroad the major part of his remaining domestic assets – totaling 232,565 RM – held in bank deposits and securities by means of so-called "Turkish transfers” ("Türkentransfer”). This was a "compensation transaction organized by Warburg & Co. together with the Hamburg Warburg Bank,” which from the middle of 1939 onward enabled German Jews to bring larger assets to safety abroad, despite the transfer ban imposed after the beginning of the war. In September, the foreign currency office revoked the "security order” for John Hausmann. And at the end of December, the Hamburg-Altstadt tax office, too, issued its "tax clearance certificate” for John’s intended emigration.

However, the outbreak of the Second World War delayed his departure further and further. Initially, he had intended to move to France to join his wife, but by the end of the year, he had set his sights on the USA and in May 1940 on Uruguay, the country where his son Paul was residing. Finally, in the spring of 1941, the Berlin central pass office of the Army High Command granted him permission to enter occupied Paris and live there with his wife Hortense. In Jan. 1941, the household effects that had been stored in the meantime were finally shipped to France and on 12 June 1941, John Hausmann was registered as emigrated with the Hamburg residents’ registration office. In the following year, his assets remaining in Germany were declared confiscated by the state police.

Alfred, being a citizen of the enemy nation, was interned by the British government in July 1940 as an "enemy alien” and was only released in Nov. 1940 with a visa for the USA. However, since he was unable to cross the border, this visa expired and he continued to stay in London. John Hausmann’s oldest son Georg had also been interned in France when the war began. In 1941, he was still in a concentration camp there and hoped to emigrate overseas.

The reunion of her parents in Paris did not last for long. John Hausmann, who had to wear the "star of David” in occupied France, was arrested by German troops on 16 July 1942 and taken to the Drancy transit camp. From there he was deported on July 29 on Transport 12, Train 901-7, to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, where he arrived together with another 999 people on 31 July 1942. Two years later, on 28 July 1944, Hortense Hausmann was arrested and taken to Drancy. On 31 July, she was deported on Transport 77, which reached Auschwitz on 3 Aug. 1944, together with 1,300 other persons. In July 1942, son Georg(es) was also arrested and interned in Drancy. He was one of 1,000 people deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau on 9 September on Transport 30, arriving there on 11 Sept. 1942. John Hausmann died in Aug. 1942 in the concentration camp, his son Georg probably in September of that year, and Hortense Hausmann in July/Aug. 1944.

Son Paul had moved from Uruguay to Argentina on 6 Feb. 1941. Without having completed his training, he managed to get by as a private teacher there for many years. An eye disease that existed before he emigrated worsened due to inadequate nutrition and problematic lighting conditions, so that he was only 50 percent fit for work and lived on the poverty line. His last home address was in Buenos Aires in 1966.

Son Alfred had worked in London in a leather goods factory. In June 1941, he married Gertrud Levin in the British capital and with her, he had a daughter named Miriam in 1944. In 1947, the family moved on to the USA. Initially they lived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In 1952, they moved to San Francisco, California, where a second daughter, Ruth, was born in 1953. Alfred worked there at least until 1965 as an employee in a wholesale business for pharmacies and drugstores.

After emigrating, Edgar Hausmann had worked in Bangkok for a rice wholesale company. Due to the Japanese occupation, it had been closed in Dec. 1941, which meant that he had to live temporarily on casual work and his savings until the company hired him back. In 1948, he moved to Italy, where he was treated for laryngeal tuberculosis, which had probably developed in a concentration camp. Edgar was the only surviving child of John and Hortense Hausmann to return to Germany. In the summer of 1950, he moved to Hamburg with his wife Nedda, née Abramovitusch (1920–1998), and was registered again soon after at St. Benedictstrasse 15. In 1952, their son Philipp was born. In 1957, Edgar was granted a 60 percent reduction in earning capacity due to pulmonary tuberculosis, based on Nazi persecution.

In 1949, while still in Italy, Edgar Hausmann, through a Hamburg lawyer, had filed claims for restitution in his and his brothers Paul and Alfred’s name for J. H. Friedländer & Co., of which their father John had been the last sole owner. On 16 Sept. 1949, the business was re-registered in the company register under its old name and Edgar Hausmann as the owner based on Law No. 59 of the British Military Government. Edgar also took a descendant of the former purchasing company Lüthke into the general partnership as a co-partner. Since 1958, Edgar managed J. H. Friedländer & Co. – until 1967 still based at Jungfernstieg 30 – alternately as sole owner, as a limited partnership and again, serving as sole owner until it was registered as having ceased to operate in 1985.

For the damages to freedom, property, occupational repression and for the special dues paid which the parents John and Hortense Hausmann had suffered as a result of Nazi persecution, the sons were awarded compensation in 1956, 1960, and 1962 based on their applications for restitution submitted in 1953/54. The three properties sold by John Hausmann under pressure in 1939 were restituted to his surviving sons after restitution proceedings before the Hamburg Regional Court (Landgericht) in 1950. The mutual claims between the community of heirs and the purchasers at the time were thereby balanced. From then on, Edgar Hausmann lived again in the former house of his parents at St. Benedictstrasse 15.

Commemorative plaques for John and Hortense Hausmann and their son Georg are located at the Ohlsdorf Jewish Cemetery on Ilandkoppel.


© Text courtesy of the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce (eds.) taken from: "Against Forgetting. Victims of totalitarian persecution from the honorary and full-time office of the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce” (Gegen das Vergessen. Opfer totalitärer Verfolgung aus dem Ehren- und Hauptamt der Handelskammer Hamburg). Hamburg 2019

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

Stand: July 2020
© Dr. Karin Gröwer

Quellen: 1; 2; 5; 8; HK-Archiv 100.B.1.21 (Verzeichnis der jüdischen Betriebe nach Geschäftszweigen, 1938); HK-Archiv 53.D.10.2 (Ernennung der Mitglieder des Vorstandes der Getreidebörse (Gerste, Mais, Weizen und Roggen) in den Jahren 1928, 1929, 1930, 1931, 1932, 1933, 1934); HK-Archiv 53.D.2.2.9 (Ernennung der Mitglieder der Allgemeinen Abteilung des Börsenvorstandes (Börsenkommission) 1926–1934); HK-Archiv Firmenaktenarchiv (Handelsregisterauszüge: Friedländer Handelsregister A 4359); HK-Archiv I.6.G.3.6.14 (Geschäftsverteilung der Handelskammer für 1932, 1933 und die einstweilige Geschäftsverteilung vom Juni 33 nach der Gleichschaltung); SHWA V8/17 (Verein der Vermittler für Getreide, Mehl und Futtermittel der Hamburger Börse E. V. zu Hamburg 1933, Vorstand Sitzungsprotokolle); StAHH 231-3_A 12 Band 24 (Firmenregister 28788); StAHH 231-3_A 13 Band 9 (Gesellschaftsregister I 24280); StAHH 231-7_A 1 Band 16 (Handelsregister A 4359); StAHH 232-2_E II 9808 (Nachlasssachen Louis Hausmann); StAHH 314-15_F 911 (Oberfinanzpräsident, Alfred Hausmann); StAHH 314-15_F 912 (Oberfinanzpräsident, Edgar Hausmann); StAHH 314-15_F 913 (Oberfinanzpräsident, Georg Hausmann); StAHH 314-15_F 914 (Oberfinanzpräsident, Hortense Hausmann); StAHH 314-15_F 915 (Oberfinanzpräsident, John Israel Hausmann); StAHH 314-15_F 916 (Oberfinanzpräsident, Paul Hausmann); StAHH 332-5_2003 (Standesamt Hamburg 02, Geburtsregister 1881 Nr. 2181); StAHH 332-5_2084 (Standesamt Hamburg 02, Geburtsregister 1884 Nr. 5496); StAHH 332-5_7865 (Standesamt Hamburg 03, Sterberegister 1892 Nr. 1878); StAHH 332-5_9029 (Standesamt Hamburg 03, Geburtsregister 1887 Nr. 5713); StAHH 332-8_Film 6216 (Melderegister); StAHH 351-11_39984 (Amt für Wiedergutmachung, Wiedergutmachungsakte – Renten – Paul Hausmann); StAHH 351-11_7448 (Amt für Wiedergutmachung, Alfred Hausmann); StAHH 351-11_7715 (Amt für Wiedergutmachung, Edgar Hausmann); StAHH 351-11_7716 (Amt für Wiedergutmachung, Paul Hausmann); StAHH 351-8_B 735 (Aufsicht über Stiftungen, Otto Friedeberg-Stiftung (1923–1976)); StAHH 373-7 I, VIII A 1 Band 158 (Hamburger Passagierlisten, Mikrofilmnummer K_1785); StAHH 373-7 I, VIII A 1 Band 195 (Hamburger Passagierlisten, Mikrofilmnummer K_1802); Bajohr, Frank: "Arisierung" in Hamburg. Die Verdrängung der jüdischen Unternehmer 1933–1945, Hamburg 1997, S. 173ff; Hamburger Adressbuch; Hauser, Dorothea: Zwischen Gehen und Bleiben. Das Sekretariat Warburg und sein Netzwerk des Vertrauens 1938–1941, in: Heim, Susanne/Meyer, Beate/Nicosia, Francis R. (Hrsg.): "Wer bleibt, opfert seine Jahre, vielleicht sein Leben". Deutsche Juden 1938–1941, Göttingen 2010, S. 115–133, S. 124ff; Liste von Deportierten aus Frankreich. Le Mémorial de la déportation des juifs de France, Beate et Serge Klarsfeld, Paris 1978; Offizielles Hamburger Börsen-Adressbuch.
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