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Otto Heitmann * 1908

Wexstraße 23 (Hamburg-Mitte, Neustadt)

HIER WOHNTE
OTTO HEITMANN
JG. 1908
VERHAFTET
KZ FUHLSBÜTTEL
ERMORDET 20.10.1933

Otto Christoph Heitmann, born on 6 Oct. 1908 in Altona, imprisoned in 1933, perished on 20 Oct. 1933 in the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp

Wexstrasse 23 (Wexstrasse 15)

In front of the house at Wexstrasse 23, a Stolperstein commemorates Otto Heitmann. There is little information about his life, however. At least trial records of the Hanseatic Special Court (Hanseatisches Sondergericht) dating from 1934 document, albeit one-sidedly, the events and background that led to his arrest and death in connection with the large-scale trial that became known as the "Red Marine [or Red Navy] Trial.” It pertained to street fighting between Communists and Nazis. The subject of the proceedings was the attack on the SA’s marine storm tavern (SA-Marine-Sturmlokal), the "Adler-Hotel,” in which Otto Heitmann was allegedly involved.

The Altona-born unmarried seaman Otto Heitmann belonged to the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and most probably also to the "Red Marine” founded in Hamburg in 1925. It consisted, as the name suggests, mostly of seamen and was a group within the Alliance of Red Front Fighters (Roter Frontkämpferbund – RFB), which was divided into eight units in the Hamburg area. The fifth unit within the RFB was the Red Marine. On the evening of 21 Feb. 1933, members of Section 3, the "Rote-Marine-Neustadt,” committed a raid on the "Adler-Hotel” located at Schanzenstrasse 2-4. The Gau leadership of the RFB was held responsible for planning the raid. Even after the ban decreed by the Reich government of the Weimar Republic in 1929, the Gau leadership had continued to work illegally to protect assemblies and facilities of the KPD and fought street battles with supporters of the Nazi party. Mutual attacks were the order of the day in 1932/1933, with both sides sustaining deaths and injuries.

In the opinion of the participants, the operation at the "Adler Hotel” also constituted a retaliatory measure. In East Prussia, party premises of the KPD had been demolished and it was thought that "in Hamburg, the answer had to be given by a similar operation.”

On 21 Feb. 1933 at 6.30 in the evening, members of the youth section of the "Rote-Marine-Neustadt” threw in the windows of the "Adler-Hotel.” Older armed members of the "Red Marine” awaited the SA members rushing out of the meeting place, who – contrary to expectations – fired shots out of the windows of the upper floors though. Two passers-by were killed and others injured during the following exchange of fire. The looting of two grocery stores in the adjacent street called Schulterblatt, which took place at the same time as the attack, was intended to distract intervening police forces from the actual raid. According to the indictment, Otto Heitmann’s involvement in the attack consisted of his function as a scout "determining how much resistance was to be expected.”

By the time the Hanseatic Special Court handed down its verdicts in the "Red Marine Trial” on 2 May 1934, when the matter of the "Adler-Hotel” came to trial as Criminal Case No. 4, Otto Heitmann was no longer alive. According to a police report, he was found dead in the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp at 7 a.m. on 20 Oct. 1933: "Suicide by hanging” was noted in the records.

Of the 47 co-defendants in the trial, which lasted almost four weeks, 33-year-old lighterman (Ewerführer) Jonny Dettmer, warehouse worker Hermann Fischer of the same age, 26-year-old cabinetmaker Arthur Schmidt (see corresponding entry), and 36-year-old stoker Alfred Wehrenberg were sentenced to death. They were executed on Pentecost Sunday, 19 May 1934, in the courtyard of the pretrial center by means of a hand ax. The other convicts were handed severe prison sentences. A total of 219 years in penitentiary and 15 years in prison were imposed.

Jonny Dettmer is commemorated by a Stolperstein at Auenstrasse 1 in Hamburg-Eilbek (see Stolpersteine in Hamburg-Eilbek).

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

Stand: May 2020
© Susanne Rosendahl

Quellen: Gedenkstätte Ernst Thälmann Hamburg-Eppendorf, Archiv, Abschrift des Hanseatisches Sondergericht 113/34, vom Mai 1934; StaH 113-2 AII 4b; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 9867 u 168/1933; StaH 213-11 Strafakten 08413/47 Band 2; Diercks: Gedenkbuch, S. 23; Hochmuth: Gestapo-Gefängnis, S. 65; Buck: Widerstand, S. 33; Valtin: Tagebuch, S. 472; Seeger/Treichel: Hinrichtungen.