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Hans Köpke * 1911

Nagelsweg 93 / Einmündung Amsinkstraße (Hamburg-Mitte, Hammerbrook)

HIER WOHNTE
HANS KÖPKE
JG. 1911
VERHAFTET
"VORBEREITUNG ZUM HOCHVERRAT"
ZUM TODE VERURTEILT
HINGERICHTET 26.6.1944
UG HAMBURG

Hans Ernst Köpke, born 30 Nov. 1911; executed at Hamburg’s remand prison 26 June 1944

Last residential address: Nagelsweg 93

Hans Köpke was a metal worker and mechanical engineer by trade and was employed in the works of the company Klöckner Aircraft Engine Makers in Hamburg; his political orientation was that of a social democrat. His resistance activity against the National Socialist Regime began in the mid 1930s when a loosely organized group of youth and young adults formed which included both members of the youth organization of the banned social-democratic and communist workers’ parties as well as non-politically organized opponents of the regime who belonged to sport clubs. They held clandestine meetings to discuss political questions. Back then, Hans Köpke was a member of the Workers’ Gymnastics and Athletic Club and also maintained contact with young people with communist leanings. Apparently they planned to establish an oppositional youth organization, comprised primarily of young people from the labor movement, which was to be called the "Revolutionary Young People’s Association". This never came to pass because leading members of the group were arrested in 1936. Hans Köpke was not among them.

Even after these arrests, the men and women with oppositional leanings who were enthusiastic about sports used the legal sport clubs, founded before 1933 by many members from the social-democratic and communist parties, as a refuge for discussions critical of the regime and to exchange information. Hans Köpke took part in these meetings. His athletic discipline was long-distance running. When the resistance group Bästlein-Jacob-Abshagen formed at the beginning of the 1940s, he joined it too and, with others, founded the illegal company cell at the Klöckner Works. The Gestapo crushed the resistance group in autumn 1942, arresting and charging Hans Köpke among others. Following detention at the Fuhlsbüttel Police Prison, he and other detainees from the group were moved to the remand prison at Holstenglacis on 24 Mar. 1943.

The remand prison sustained severe damage during heavy bombardments by Allied air forces in the summer of 1943. Faced with a chaotic situation, the Attorney General Dr. Drescher took a step unusual for the National Socialist regime: He granted 56 of the 61 detainees from the BJA group – among them Hans Köpke – leave from detention for two months, on condition that they report back to continue detention when the period was up. Many of those released decided to go underground. Hans Köpke even left Hamburg but was caught again by autumn 1943. Criminal proceedings were conducted against all members of the resistance group, nearly all of whom had been brought back into custody, for "preparations for high treason". Proceedings were brought before the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court and before the People’s Court, which convened in Berlin and Hamburg, for those the Gestapo regarded as the main organizers. The proceedings against Hans Köpke were held at the People’s Court in Hamburg: At the beginning of May 1944, he was sentenced to death, together with fourteen other defendants. Eleven resistance fighters were sentenced to prison terms, two women were acquitted. Roughly three weeks later, on 26 June, the savage judgment against him and nine other resistance fighters was enforced at the Holstenglacis Remand Prison.

Translator: Suzanne von Engelhardt

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: October 2016
© Benedikt Behrens

Quellen: StaH 331-1 II – Polizeibehörde II, Abl. 15 v. 18.9.1984, Band 3; StaH, 332-8, Meldewesen, Fotoarchiv 741-4, Meldekarten der zw. dem 1.8.1943 und 31.12.1945 Abgemeldeten und Verstorbenen; AB 1940–43; VAN (Hg.), Totenliste Hamburger Widerstandskämpfer und Verfolgter, Hamburg 1968; Buck, Hans-Robert, Der kommunistische Widerstand gegen den Nationalsozialismus in Hamburg 1933 bis 1945, Augsburg 1969, S. 166–76; Hochmuth, Ursel/G. Meyer (Hrsg.), Streiflichter aus dem Hamburger Widerstand, Frankfurt/Main, S. 40, 318, 351, 359, 371, 384; Hochmuth, Ursel, Niemand und nichts wird vergessen, Hamburg 2005, S. 208.