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Willi Karl Tiedt * 1911

Weidenallee 61 (Eimsbüttel, Eimsbüttel)

HIER WOHNTE
WILLI KARL TIEDT
JG. 1911
WIDERSTAND / SPD
VERHAFTET MAI 1935
KZ FUHLSBÜTTEL
ENTLASSEN AUGUST 1936
’MILITÄRDIENST ZUR BEWÄHRUNG’
TOT 27.12.1941 RUSSLAND

further stumbling stones in Weidenallee 61:
Walter Tiedt

Willi Karl Tiedt, born on 1.3.1911 in Altona, arrested in 1935 for resistance (SPD), drafted into the Wehrmacht despite ineligibility for military service, died in Russia on 27.12.1941.

Walter Robert Tiedt, born on 3.12.1916 in Hamburg, on 23.11.1931 admitted to the former Alsterdorfer Anstalten (today: Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf), transferred to several other institutions, last on 22.10.1943 to the Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Meseritz-Obrawalde (today: Szpitaldla Nerwowo i Psychicznie Chorych w Międzyrzeczu-Obrzyce, Poland), died there on 17.11.1943.

Weidenalle 61 (Eimsbüttel)

The brothers Willi Karl and Walter Robert Tiedt both lost their lives as a result of the arbitrary measures of the National Socialist state: the older, Willi Karl, in 1941 during a military deployment in Russia, the younger, Walter Robert, in the "euthanasia" institution Meseritz-Obrawalde in the then province of Posen.

Willi Karl Tiedt was born in the then independent city of Altona on March 1, 1911, and his brother Walter Robert in Hamburg on December 3, 1916. They were the sons of the carpenter Wilhelm Heinrich August Tiedt, born on July 20, 1885 in Wesenberg (Mecklenburg-Strelitz, today: Mecklenburg-Vorpommern), and his wife Johanna Elisabeth Hermine, née Hormann, born on January 22, 1888 in Hamburg. The couple Tiedt had married on April 16, 1910 in Hamburg. The family had lived at Weidenallee 61 since 1912, first in house 4 and then in house 6, in district Eimsbüttel. Wilhelm Tiedt sen. died of pulmonary tuberculosis on August 27, 1922, at the age of only 37.

Willi Tiedt finished elementary school with the first grade (at that time the first grade was the highest) and learned the profession of typesetter. Until his arrest in 1935, he worked at the Oscar de Lemos letterpress company at Bartelsstraße 92 in what is now the Sternschanze district.

Willi Tiedt belonged to the Socialist Workers' Youth (SAJ) from 1926 to 1933, from 1931 as its chairman in Hamburg, and remained one of the leading SAJ functionaries even in illegality from 1933.

After the SAJ had voluntarily disbanded in anticipation of a ban, Willi Tiedt is said to have initially been politically inactive until, on the advice of Julius Willemsen, a former SAJ functionary indicted together with him, he made contact with Walter Schmedemann, the former member of the Hamburg City Parliament and a leading figure in the social democratic resistance in Hamburg. In the period from November 1933 to March 1934, he allegedly passed on to Julius Willemsen illegal writings such as the "Rote Blätter," the "Sozialistische Aktion," the "Neuer Vorwärts," as well as brochures with disguised titles such as "Die Kunst des Selbstrasierens" (Contents Prague Program of the Exiled SPD, SoPaDe), "Platos Gastmahl der Liebe" and "Das Geheimnis der Kosmetik. The writings were then distributed to other former SAJ and SPD members in the Eimsbüttel district, to Harburg and to Uetersen. Although Willi Tiedt, according to his statements, ended the courier service in the spring of 1934 and ensured that the publications reached Julius Willemsen directly, according to his testimony in the later preliminary investigation, he still found individual copies of an illegal newspaper in his mailbox even after that.

Willi Tiedt was arrested at the beginning of May 1935 and taken into "protective custody" in the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp from May 4 to November 1935. He then served time in the remand prison on Holstenglacis Street.

In the indictment of September 16, 1935, the Prosecutor General at the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court accused him and eleven other defendants (trial Hencke and Comrades O. Js. 267/35) of having been active in a group of former members of the dissolved SAJ and a group of former members of the SPD in the Eimsbüttel district in 1933, 1934 and 1935. The group's activities had been aimed at establishing or maintaining organizational cohesion and influencing the masses by producing and distributing writings.

On November 5, 1935, the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court sentenced Willi Tiedt to one year and three months in prison and to loss of eligibility for military service for "preparation for high treason." The other defendants received prison sentences of between one year, nine months in prison and five years in the penitentiary.

Taking the pre-trial detention into account, Willi Tiedt was released from prison on August 5, 1936. He was subsequently unemployed, with brief interruptions, until October 1937. The Gestapo advised Willi Tiedt to apply for reinstatement of his eligibility for military service. Although he refused, he was drafted into the regular Wehrmacht after the start of the war and, together with other politically persecuted persons, was assigned to particularly dangerous missions.

Willi Karl Tiedt lost his life during a military mission on December 27, 1941 in Ryabinicka in Russia. In addition to the Stolperstein at Weidenallee 61, he is commemorated by a gravestone on the field of honor of the Geschwister Scholl Foundation for former resistance fighters at Ohlsdorf Cemetery (grave no. Bo 73 144).

Willi Karl Tiedt's brother Walter Robert was first admitted to the Alsterdorfer Anstalten (today: Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf) on November 16, 1922, at the age of six, and remained there until February 17, 1923.
From August 1, 1923 to July 15, 1928, Walter Tiedt was a patient in the Friedrichsberg State Hospital. The reasons for his placement in Alsterdorf and in Friedrichsberg are not known. We also do not know whether Walter Tiedt lived with his now widowed mother after his release from Friedrichsberg.

On November 23, 1931, Walter Tiedt - who was now almost fifteen years old - again became a patient at the Alsterdorf institutions. There, the staff characterized him as headstrong. He had shown little interest in his surroundings. He was able to give his name correctly, but not his age, and he was unable to name almost any of the simplest objects of daily life. In pictures, however, he recognized the fire department, a train, and children's lanterns. Walter Tiedt was also unable to write. The diagnosis was "idiocy" (an outdated term for a severe form of intelligence impairment).

On February 19, 1941, Walter Tiedt was transferred to the Hamburg-Langenhorn sanatorium and nursing home because, as it says in his patient file, "due to frequent states of agitation in which he is to be regarded as dangerous to the public, he is no longer tolerable for the Alsterdorf institutions, since suitable protective measures for such sick people are not available there."

A few weeks later, on March 27, 1941, he was transferred from Langenhorn to the Landes-Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Neustadt. There, too, he was allowed to stay only a few weeks. He returned to Langenhorn on May 3, 1941, and two days later, on May 5, 1941, to the Landes-Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Lüneburg. All that is known about his life there is that he was "greedy" for food and tried to attract attention by talking loudly.

Walter Tiedt returned to Langenhorn on September 9, 1943, and was transported from there on October 22, 1943, along with 49 other male patients, to the Meseritz-Obrawalde sanatorium and nursing home in what was then the province of Brandenburg.

The Meseritz-Obrawalde asylum was reorganized into an extermination facility starting in the fall of 1941, a few months after the official halt of the first phase of "euthanasia" ("Aktion-T4"). The information on the number of people murdered there differs depending on the source. For example, before a Russian military tribunal in April 1945, a head nurse gave the number of patients killed at Meseritz-Obrawalde as 18,000. Based on the registers found, a Russian army commission of inquiry cited 700 deaths for 1942, 2,260 deaths for 1943, and 3,814 deaths for 1944.

Of the 50 patients from Langenhorn, 43 had died by February 1945, and Walter Tiedt was killed there on November 17, 1943.

Translation by Beate Meyer
Stand: February 2022
© Ingo Wille

Quellen: Adressbuch Hamburg 1931; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 3147 Heiratsregister Nr. 287/1910 Wilhelm Heinrich August Tiedt/ Johanna Elisabeth Hermine Hormann, 8070 Sterberegister Nr. 330/1922 Wilhelm Heinrich August Tiedt, 8170 Sterberegister Nr. 250/1942 Willi Karl Tiedt; 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung 10804 Willi Tiedt; 352-8/7 Staatskrankenanstalt Langenhorn 28301 Walter Tiedt; Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf, Archiv Sonderakte V 276 Walter Tiedt; Gedenkbuch Euthanasie – Die Toten 1939-1945, Hamburg 2017, S. 55, 544; Michael Wunder, Die Transporte in die Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Meseritz-Obrawalde, in: Peter von Rönn u.a., Transport in den Tod – Hamburgs Anstalt Langenhorn und die Euthanasie in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus, Hamburg 1993, S. 377 ff.; Archiv Forschungsstelle für Zeitgeschichte, Sign. 833-8, SPD-1933-1945, Prozesse, Prozess Hencke und Genossen, 267/35 OJS; Christel Oldenburg u.a., Für Freiheit und Demokratie, Hamburger Sozialdemokratinnen und Sozialdemokraten in Verfolgung und Widerstand 1933-1945, Hamburg 2003; Ursel Hochmuth/Ursula Suhling, Ehrenfeld für Verfolgte der NS-Herrschaft, Hamburg 2012, S. 100; Arbeitsgemeinschaft ehemals verfolgter Sozialdemokraten Hamburg (AvS), "Dass die Frage der Wiedergutmachung ... zu einem öffentlichen Skandal geworden ist". Zur Tätigkeit der ehemals verfolgten Sozialdemokraten 1945-2005, Hamburg 2008; Harald Jenner, Die Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Mesetz-Obrawalde – Der unbekannte Tötungssort, in: "Euthanasieverbrechen"-Verbrechen im besetzten Europa, Hrsg. Osterloh, Schulte, Steinbacher, Göttingen 2022, S. 97 ff.