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Hermann Weinberg * 1888

Markusstraße (Durchgang zur Neanderstraße, vor Sportplatz; früher Peterstraße 15) (Hamburg-Mitte, Neustadt)

HIER WOHNTE
HERMANN WEINBERG
JG. 1888
VERHAFTET 1942
KZ FUHLSBÜTTEL
GEFÄNGNIS GLASMOOR
DEPORTIERT 1942
AUSCHWITZ
ERMORDET 23.1.1943

Hermann Weinberg, b. 1.30.1888 in Herzebrock, detained 1942, deported on 12.12.1942 to Auschwitz, murdered there on 1.23.1943

Markusstraße/Ecke Peterstraße 15 (Peterstraße 15)

Hermann Weinberg was the son born to Max Weinberg and Emilie, née Heinemann, in Herzebrock in the County of Wiedenbrück, Westphalia. He attended secondary school there and worked at first in his parents‘ grocery store. Because of a serious hearing impairment, he could not continue in this work and began a locksmith apprenticeship. When he left home is not certain. Initially, he was registered in the St. Pauli quarter of Hamburg at Kleinen Freiheit 63; in 1928, he was at Peterstrasse 15, House 7.

On 26 June 1929, he married Emilie Grotz, who had been born into a non-Jewish family at Vietach/Deggendorf (Bavaria) on 20 March 1906. Their daughter Ruth was born out of wedlock on 25 May 1929. The couple lived at Marcusstrasse 11 (today, Markusstrasse), at Valentinskamp 60, and as sub-lessees at Neustädterstrasse 16. Then they moved again, back to Peterstrasse 15.

Emilie Weinberg reported later that her husband was unable to find work as a locksmith because of his Jewish origins; therefore, he took jobs as a messenger. In 1938, they received welfare assistance, and Hermann Weinberg had to do "public relief work” at a very low wage. The couple did not belong to any Jewish congregation, and their only child Ruth was not brought up Jewish.

Such marriages were designated by the Nazis as "privileged mixed marriages.” For this reason, Hermann Weinberg was freed from the wearing of the "Jewish star” and, initially, protected from deportation. In September 1941, Hermann Weinberg was again doing messenger work; he was employed by the Karl Schneemilch firm at Krayenkamp 16-17. On behalf of this firm, he signed receipts for deliveries and pickups of goods, until he was sent to another firm by the "Employment Office” (probably by the leader of the Office’s Special Department for the "assignment” of Jews living in mixed marriages, Willibald Schallert).

Hermann Weinberg fell into the machinery of National Socialist justice, when he agreed to receive, for his former boss, Karl Schneemilch (b. 3.10.1890), herbal seasonings (for example, liquids for seasoning soups) of objectionable quality and to deliver them to a wholesale grocer; as it later turned out, the seasonings were illegally obtained by a certain "Foreman Gerd” of the Möller manufacturing company. Since the Schneemilch firm dealt solely in chemical products, such as special floor care goods, but not in food products, Hermann Weinberg supposedly signed the receipts for the seasonings with his name, which he then gave to Schneemilch. When the poor quality of the seasonings came to the notice of a customer, the source was revealed. Karl Schneemilch then talked Hermann Weinberg into taking responsibility for the illegal sale.

On 6 August 1942, Hermann Weinberg gave the following protocol during a police interrogation: "I am a full Jew. My wife is Aryan. I have a daughter with her. For these reasons, I am not obliged to wear the Jewish star. In 1941, I was employed as a messenger by the Aryan firm Karl Schneemilch, at Kayenkamp 16. I earned a gross pay of RM 45 - take-home of an approximate RM 38-39. Authorized by my firm, I had frequently fetched floor wax from the Möller factory. In this way, I got to know the foreman with the first name ‘Gerd.’ One day in the autumn of 1941, the foreman asked me if I could sell some seasonings. I asked for samples, which I then received. My employer, the Schneemilch firm, was not informed about this. I went to the Meyn grocery store where I shop and showed him the samples. I then received a small order. On this basis I delivered an approximately 25 liter demijohn to Meyn which Foreman Gerd had given me and which I immediately gave to Meyn. I then received RM 2.20 per liter from Meyn and then paid RM 2 per liter to the foreman of the Möller factory. I did not receive an invoice from the Möller factory. When the foreman delivered the goods to me, I asked him for an invoice, which I would present to my buyer. The invoice would supposedly show the price was reckoned at RM 2.20. The foreman denied my request with the excuse that his hands were too dirty. A short time later, namely in January 1942, I made another delivery to Meyn of 125 liters….In good faith, I thought the product had been legally received by the Möller factory. I had no knowledge that the foreman had given me the product unlawfully - he had created it on the side. When charged with presenting the grocery store a receipt bearing the name of the Möller factory, I hereby declare that Foreman Gerd empowered me to do that.”

On 29 August 1942, the Hamburg District Court, in an express proceeding, condemned Herman Weinberg to ten months in jail for two instances of receiving stolen goods, falsifying documents for gain, and not bearing the first name of "Israel.” Because, on the typed receipts from the manufacturer of the seasonings which he delivered, he signed himself "Hermann Weinberg,” without the compulsory name of "Israel,” the opinion of the court stated: "Because his wife is Aryan and a daughter issued from the marriage, he does not have to wear the Jewish star. This privilege he has exploited in order to mask his Jewish racial identity. He has already been penalized in the year 1941 for not carrying an identity card and for not employing the compulsory name of Israel.”

"Foreman Gerd” was sentenced for theft; how severe his penalty was is not apparent from the documents. Karl Schneemilch, too, was arrested. Four days after his arrest, on 23 August 1942, at the Remand Center, he was found in his cell hung from the window.

Hermann Weinberg had to begin serving his sentence on 19 September 1942. On 30 September, he was taken to the Glasmoor Prison near Glashütte in the County of Segeberg (Schleswig-Holstein). In November, he filed an application for the resumption of his proceedings; he described in a four-page justification to the state’s attorney a quite different set of facts. He had taken responsibility for the illegal trade in the seasonings because he felt he owed it to his former boss, who had seen this as threatening to the existence of his firm; he begged [Weinberg] to get him out of "the matter.”

"During my time there, Karl Schneemilch was an extremely kind chief to me; he twice helped me with money to get out of a bind. Therefore, I felt obligated to do him a favor, never having thought of criminal proceedings….He claimed he would pay for everything, compensate me and, in case of eventual punishment, support my family. I finally gave him my word….No one was thinking of a 10-month sentence.”

The resumption of proceedings was denied. Hermann Weinberg was transferred back to the Hamburg Fuhlsbüttel police prison on 18 November 1942. On 10 December 1942, in the course of deportations of Jewish convicts, he was sent to Auschwitz. There he received prisoner number 82489. According to the registry of the "Prisoner Infirmary Building,” Hermann Weinberg arrived in Block 28 because of "general weakness,” and a day later he was transferred to Block 20. He supposedly died there on 23 January 1943.

After the imprisonment of her husband, Emilie Weinberg fell into even greater financial distress. Moreover, she was bombed out of her Peterstrasse apartment and fled to Bavaria. She died in Hamburg on 17 November 1977.

On the former piece of land where her Peterstrasse 15 house stood, there is today a fenced-in sports field; next to it there is a playground of a daycare center. After the war, the land was not a residential building site.

Translator: Richard Levy
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: June 2020
© Susanne Rosendahl

Quellen: 4; 9; StaH: 213-11 Staatsanwaltschaft Landgericht-Strafsachen 5467/43; StaH: 242-1II Gefängnisverwaltung Abl. 13, jüngere Gefangenenkartei Männer; StaH: 351-11 AfW 31128 (Weinberg, Emilie); 332-5 Standesämter 1152 u 437/1942; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 13202 u 389/1929; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 2216 u 800/1890; StaH 331-5 Polizeibehörde – Unnatürliche Sterbefälle 3 Akte 1258/1942; StaH- 242-1 II Gefängnisverwaltung Abl. 12, 561 (Schneemilch, Karl); Meyer: Verfolgung, S. 79–87.
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