Dr. Gerhard Hoppe Archives - bruckfamilyblog.com

POST 125: MY FATHER’S DENTAL APPRENTICESHIP IN FREIE STADT DANZIG (FREE CITY OF DANZIG)

Note: This post is the result of a recent contact with a Dr. Dominik Gross who is developing an encyclopedia of dentists, dental technicians, and oral surgeons who worked during the Nazi era as either perpetrators or enablers or victims of the regime’s policies. Evidence provided by Dr. Gross has allowed me to identify the Jewish dentist in Danzig [today: Gdansk, Poland] with whom my father apprenticed after obtaining his dental license from the University of Berlin in 1930.

Post 6: OTTO BRUCK & TIEGENHOF: 1932 POCKET CALENDAR

POST 31: WITNESS TO HISTORY, “PROOF” OF HITLER’S DEATH IN MY UNCLE FEDOR’S OWN WORDSPOST 31: WITNESS TO HISTORY, “PROOF” OF HITLER’S DEATH IN MY UNCLE FEDOR’S OWN WORDS

POST 67: THE SUSPICIOUSLY BRUTAL DEATHS OF MY FATHER’S PROTESTANT FRIENDS FROM DANZIG, GERHARD & ILSE HOPPE (PART I)

POST 67: THE SUSPICIOUSLY BRUTAL DEATHS OF MY FATHER’S PROTESTANT FRIENDS FROM DANZIG, GERHARD & ILSE HOPPE (PART II)

I was recently contacted by a Dr. Dominik Gross who is a German bioethicist and historian of medicine. (Figure 1) He is Professor and Director of the Institute of History, Theory and Ethics in Medicine at the RWTH (Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule) Aachen, the North Rhine-Westphalia Technical University of Aachen, Germany. His research focuses on medicine under National Socialism and the professionalization of the medical and dental profession. From 2017 to 2019 he headed the national project to review the role of dentists under National Socialism.

Figure 1. Dr. Dominik Gross in 2017 (source: Wikipedia)

Dr. Gross has been working on a “lexikon,” in essence an encyclopedia or dictionary, on dentists, dental technicians, and oral surgeons who worked or emerged during the time of the Third Reich as well as before 1933 or after 1945. It is titled “Lexicon of Dentists and Oral Surgeons in the ‘Third Reich’ and in Post-War Germany: Perpetrators, Followers, Members of the Opposition, Persecuted, Uninvolved Volume 1: University Teachers and Researchers.” As his publishing house describes the work it “. . . brings together ‘perpetrators, followers, members of the opposition, persecuted’ and politically ‘uninvolved,’ whereby the relationship of the individual to National Socialism is . . . a central part. Further focal points are the professional achievements as well as the personal network structures in which the individual specialist representatives were involved.”

As we speak, Dr. Gross is working on Volume 2 of his lexikon, specifically on biographies for dentists, dental technicians, and oral surgeons who had private practices or worked under the auspices of academically trained dentists.

It is worth pointing out a distinction in terminology that once existed in Germany with respect to dentists. Two German words, “zahnarzt” and “dentist” both translate into English as “dentist.” However, a German “dentist” was a job title for dentists without academic training that existed in Germany until 1952 alongside academically trained dentists. “Dentisten” (plural) were essentially dental technicians who, after successfully completing relevant training, were allowed to treat patients. In Germany, the term “dentist” is now used as a derogatory title.

As a related aside, I remarked the following in Post 31 about Hitler’s dentist, Dr. Hugo Blaschke: “Dr. Blaschke would today be called a ‘zahntechniker,’ a non-academically trained dental technician primarily responsible for producing bridges and dentures, or ‘zahnbehandler,’ dental practitioner. A ‘zahnarzt’ in today’s parlance is an academically trained dentist.” Hitler elevated Blaschkle to the status of a zahnarzt though he was not academically trained as one.

I digress. Among the biographies that will be included in Dr. Gross’s Volume 2 lexikon are ones for my father, Dr. Otto Bruck (Figure 2), and my uncle, Dr. Fedor Bruck. (Figure 3) Since some of the information about both was drawn from posts on my family history blog, Dr. Gross asked me to review his drafts. While I anticipated learning new things about my uncle’s professional life since he never told me his life’s story, I had more modest expectations regarding my father’s dental career in Germany. Still, I learned that my father had apprenticed for a Dr. Paul Herzberg in Danzig [today: Gdansk, Poland] after taking his dental examination at the University of Berlin in May 1930 and being licensed as a zahnarzt. What I was most surprised to learn was that as part of being certified prior to 1935 as a Dr. med. dent., a Doctor of Dental Medicine, he wrote a dissertation; to date, Dr. Gross has not been able to track it down nor discover the subject of my father’s dissertation.

Figure 2. My father Dr. Otto Bruck in his dental uniform in Danzig in 1931

Figure 3. My uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck working on a dental patient in his practice in Liegnitz, Germany [today: Legnica, Poland]

Dr. Gross sent me a copy of the source of the information on my father’s apprenticeship to Dr. Herzberg, specifically, the “Deutsches Zahnärzte-Buch. 17. Ausgabe Des Adresskalendars der Zahnärzte Im Deutsches Reich Freistaat Danzig und Im Memelland 1932/33,” translated as “German dentist book. 17th edition of the address calendar of dentists in the German Reich Free State of Danzig and in Memelland 1932/33.” According to this address book, Dr. Herzberg’s office was located at Langer Markt 25 (Long Market 25) In Danzig, known today as Długi Targ. (Figure 4a-b)

Figure 4a. Cover of the “German dentist book. 17th edition of the address calendar of dentists in the German Reich Free State of Danzig and in Memelland 1932/33”

Figure 4b. Pages 438 and 439 of the German dentist book from 1932/33. Page 438 lists my father’s name showing he was an assistant to Dr. Paul Herzberg. On the opposing page 439 the name “Hoppe” appears under the town “Neuteich” who was my father’s good friend Gerhard Hoppe

My father’s photo albums include several taken in Danzig including one with his close friends Ilse and Gerhard Hoppe. (Figure 5) Regular readers will recall Posts 67, Parts I & II where I discussed the particularly brutal deaths of these companions. Like my father, Gerhard Hoppe was a dentist; he worked in the town south of Tiegenhof called Neuteich [today: Nowy Staw, Poland]. In the 1932/33 address book sent to me by Dr. Gross, readers will note the Hoppe surname under Neuteich. (see Figure 4b)

Figure 5. My father with Gerhard & Ilse Hoppe walking along Grosse Wollwebergasse [today: Tkacka] in Danzig during the Winter of 1931-1932

The only previous reference I had found that my father was a dentist in the Free City of Danzig was in a 1934 Danzig Address Book. Quoting what I wrote in Post 1: “Danzig Address Books can be accessed on-line at the following site: http://wiki-de.genealogy.net/Kategorie:Adressbuch_f%C3%BCr_Danzig. ‘Teil III’ (Part III) in the back of the directory is like our Yellow Pages, listing people by occupation. In the 1934 Danzig Address Book, there is a separate listing of dentists which includes Tiegenhof and the other towns in the Free City of Danzig. Tiegenhof [today: Nowy Dwor Gdanski, Poland] includes two listings, a woman by the name of Dr. Zeisemer, for which no address is provided, and a DR. HEINZ BRUCK, located at Markstrasse 8, the address corresponding exactly to my father’s dental office . . . Clearly, this is a reference to my father, although why his first name is incorrectly shown is unclear. (Figure 6) Unfortunately, no separate listing of dentists in the Danzig Address Books exists for before or after 1934 that specifically includes Tiegenhof and the towns surrounding Danzig, so it is not possible to further track my father.” Clearly, in writing the last line, I was obviously unaware of the address calendar of dentists from 1932/33 that Dr. Gross sent me.

Figure 6. Page from 1934 Danzig Address Book listing dentists including a Dr. Heinz Bruck at Markstrasse 8 in Tiegenhof, a clear but mistaken reference to my father, Dr. Otto Bruck

I suspect the reason no early 1930’s Danzig residence address books include my father’s name is because he was living with his aunt, Hedwig Löwenstein née Bruck, and two of her three children, Jeanne and Heinz Löwenstein, two of my father’s first cousins.

Curious whether I might uncover any information about Dr. Paul Herzberg, I turned to ancestry.com. There, I unearthed Paul’s 1925 marriage certificate to a Mathilde Marie Fleischmann, married Heineck; clearly, Mathilde was divorced or widowed when she remarried. At the time they married they were living at Langer Markt 9/10, a stone’s throw from Dr. Herzberg’s office. (Figures 7a-d)

Figure 7a. Cover page of Dr. Paul Herzberg and Mathilde Marie Fleischmann, married Heineck’s 1925 marriage certificate

Figure 7b. Page 1 of Dr. Paul Herzberg and Mathilde Marie Fleischmann, married Heineck’s 1925 marriage certificate

Figure 7c. Page 2 of Dr. Paul Herzberg and Mathilde Marie Fleischmann, married Heineck’s 1925 marriage certificate

Figure 7d. Transcription and translation of Dr. Paul Herzberg and Mathilde Marie Fleischmann, married Heineck’s 1925 marriage certificate

The marriage certificate, as I suspected, established that both Paul and Mathilde were Jewish. Checking Yad Vashem, I can find neither of their names as Holocaust victims so there is a good possibility they emigrated to an unknown destination. Expectedly, Dr. Gross confirmed there is no record of Dr. Paul Herzberg in post-WWII German phone directories.

Among my father’s surviving papers are two letters of recommendation from dentists he briefly apprenticed with prior to training with Dr. Herzberg. From the 1^st to the 15^th of July 1930 my father worked under a Dr. Franz Schulte from Königsbrück in the German state of Saxony (Figures 8a-b), then from the 17^th of July until the 16^th of August he trained with a Dr. Heinrich Kruger from Allenstein, Germany [today: Olsztyn, Poland]. (Figures 9a-b) Neither of these dentists is included in Dr. Gross’s lexikon. Given the timing of the two brief stints my father served as a novitiate in 1930, and the opening of his own practice in Tiegenhof [today: Nowy Dwor Gdanski, Poland] in April 1932, I surmise that he worked as Dr. Herzberg’s assistant in the intervening period.

Figure 8a. Letter of recommendation from Dr. Franz Schulte of Königsbrück (Saxony) dated the 22nd of July 1930 after my father apprenticed with him from the 1st to the 15th of July

Figure 8b. Dr. Franz Schulte’s name listed as a dentist in Königsbrück (Freistaat Sachsen) in the 1929 Dental Address Book

Figure 9a. Letter of recommendation from Dr. Heinrich Kruger of Allenstein, Germany [today: Olsztyn, Poland] dated the 17th of August 1930 after my father apprenticed with him from the 17th of July to the 16th of August

Figure 9b. Dr. Heinrich Kruger’s name listed as a dentist in Allenstein in the 1929 Dental Address Book

In closing because I found a picture of a Dr. Fritz Bertram and other friends of my father sailing in the Bay of Danzig (Figure 10) and knew Fritz through Danzig address books to be a zahnarzt, in Post 6 I mistakenly concluded him to be the dentist with whom my father apprenticed; I now assume he was a professional colleague and friend. With new evidence to the contrary, it seems my father apprenticed rather with Dr. Paul Herzberg when living in Danzig.

Figure 10. Dr. Franz Betram and other friends of my father sailing in the Bay of Danzig in April 1931; I mistook Dr. Bertram as the dentist in Danzig with whom my father apprenticed

REFERENCE

Gross, Dominik. (2022) Lexikon der Zahnärzte & Kieferchirugen im “Dritten Reich” und im Nachkriegsdeutschland: Täter, Mitläufer, Oppositionelle, Verfolgte, Unbeteiligte Band 1: Hochschullehrer und Forscher. Berlin: Hentrich & Hentrich.

POST 67: THE SUSPICIOUSLY BRUTAL DEATHS OF MY FATHER’S PROTESTANT FRIENDS FROM DANZIG, GERHARD & ILSE HOPPE (PART II)

“War is the only game in which both sides lose.”—Walter Scott

“There’s no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war. Except its ending.”—Abraham Lincoln

Note: This post is Part II about my father’s married Protestant friends from Danzig whom he befriended in the early 1930’s, and further information I recently uncovered about them and the fates of their relatives.

In Part I of this Blog post, I somewhat unrealistically anticipated I would uncover much more information on precisely how my father’s Protestant friends from Danzig, Ilse and Gerhard Hoppe (Figure 1), met their gruesome ends there, respectively, in 1940 and 1941. This expectation was based on the fact I was able to locate their daughter Gisela Hoppe (as I will refer to her throughout this post), born in 1939, through a German government-connected friend. It turns out Gisela survived the war and is still alive and living in Wildeshausen, Germany, having recently turned 80. This friend gave me an address and Gisela’s married name, so I naively assumed getting in touch with her would be relatively straight-forward. This was not the case.

Let me give readers a little more background before relating what I was able to learn. Peter Hanke, the gentleman affiliated with “forum.danzig.de,” whom I’ve mentioned in recent posts, offered to write a letter on my behalf to Gisela. He volunteered to help because he’d earlier attempted to find out more about Gerhard and Ilse Hoppe from the Polish State Archives in Malbork, thinking perhaps they would have their death certificates. He learned such documents were destroyed by fire at the end of WWII by invading Russian troops, so the search became moot. I explained in Part I of this post I stumbled upon Gerhard and Ilse Hoppe’s death certificates independently in ancestry.com, as well as their 1932 marriage certificate showing they wed in the Marienkirche in Marienberg [today: Malbork, Poland]. (Figures 2a-b) Upon finding these documents, I sent them to Peter suspecting he’d be interested.

Figure 2a. Interior view of the Marienkirche in Marienberg (today: Malbork, Poland), where Gerhard and Ilse Hoppe got married on the 30th of July 1932

Figure 2b. Another interior view of the Marienkirche in Marienberg where Gerhard and Ilse married in 1932

Knowing Gisela’s married name and residence, I initially asked Peter if he could call her on my behalf; her phone number, so he was told, was unlisted, so he offered to write to her instead. I drafted a letter, which Peter translated and mailed in early November 2019. Both of us expected an almost instantaneous response given I’d included a few photos of Gisela’s parents from the early 1930’s and offered to share all 22 pictures from my father’s collection. I assumed this would be of great interest to Gisela since her parents had died when she was just a toddler and her memories of them would obviously be very vague or non-existent. Still, we heard nothing.

By around the middle of November, it became apparent we might not hear from Gisela at all. Regular readers know I’m persistent. I began to consider Gisela Hoppe no longer lives in Wildeshausen and tried to determine this by sending an email to the Stadt Wildeshausen, the City of Wildeshausen. Writing to City Hall is an approach I’ve successfully used in the past. Still, weeks went by without a response. Unwilling to admit defeat, I asked one of my German cousins whether she could call the Stadt Wildeshausen to check on my email; the City brusquely asked her to call back at another time. Instead, my cousin called Wildeshausen information, and was given the name and number of a person with Gisela’s married surname, whom she called. Likely, this was Gisela’s elderly husband who appeared to be somewhat confused by my cousin’s call. He led my cousin to believe Gisela had returned to Poland and gave my cousin the name and number of a Polish woman in Wildeshausen who might know her whereabouts; my cousin spoke with this lady, but she could add nothing.

In retrospect, I’ve concluded Gisela visited family in Poland and was gone from Wildeshausen for several weeks when I first wrote, because finally, on December 11, 2019, Peter Hanke received an email from her confirming the receipt of my letter. Both of us were elated to have finally established contact. She does indeed still live in Wildeshausen, and naturally my letter came as a big surprise. One of Gisela’s observations was how much the young picture of her father (Figure 3) reminded her of her brother, Rudi, who died young. My independent research has not uncovered traces of this brother. More on this below.

Figure 3. The earliest picture of my father’s former friend from Danzig, Dr. Gerhard Hoppe, which may have reminded Gisela Hoppe of her older brother Rudi

Having at last established contact with Gisela Hoppe and continuing to use Peter Hanke as an intermediary because of Gisela’s limited English, I emailed her all my father’s pictures of her parents. She was grateful to receive these as most family pictures of her parents were lost and left behind in the frantic escape from Danzig as the Russians were approaching.

I sense I’ve opened a portal into a very painful part of Gisela’s life she would prefer to forget. As sensitively as possible, let me explain what I’ve learned. In the waning days of the war, Ilse Hoppe’s sister, Gisela’s aunt Margot, with three children of her own, wanted to take Gisela and her brother Rudi with them as they escaped the approaching Russians. Anna Hoppe, their grandmother, who was their legal guardian with her husband Otto Hoppe after their parents’ deaths, refused to let them go. This brought Gisela and her brother a great deal of misery because the arriving Russians destroyed the supplies of insulin which quickly resulted in their grandmother’s painful death from diabetes. Their grandfather Otto found them but was already ill at the time, from an unspecified cause. For reasons that are unclear, he left them alone in Danzig, and ultimately, they were sent by the Poles to Berlin where they were adopted by various foster families. Eventually, they were reunited with family and raised by their grandmother’s niece who found them through the “German Red Cross Tracing Service.”

Gisela’s older brother, Rudolf Otto Richard Gerhard Hoppe, called “Rudi,” was born on the 2^nd of April 1938. He committed suicide on the 9^th of January 1965 in Göttingen, Germany where both he and Gisela were students, reasons unclear. Growing up, Gisela’s relatives told them about their parents. Ilse committed suicide apparently on account of postpartum depression, by cutting her wrists, though her death certificate notes she cut her carotid artery. Her father Gerhard accidentally died trying to adjust the blinds in their apartment without realizing the living room window was open causing him to fall to his death (Figure 4); this would account for the traumatic injuries noted on Gerhard’s death certificate. So, while the deaths of Gisela’s parents were macabre, it would seem no foul play was involved.

Figure 4. Dr. Gerhard Hoppe’s death notice published by the German Dental Association in Danzig on the 28th of July 1941

Translation of Dr. Gerhard Hoppe’s death notice published by the German Dental Association:

“On July 27, 1941, our professional comrade, the Dentist Gerhard Hoppe passed away suddenly. We lose in him an always helpful, good, and upright workmate, whose memory we will cherish.

Danzig, 28^th July 1941, German Dentists, Chamber of Dentists, Dr. Manteuffel”

Figure 5. Page from 1940-1941 Danzig Address Book showing Dr. Gerhard Hoppe’s dental office was located at “Theaterplace 30” while his apartment was at “Karrenwall 5”

As noted in Danzig telephone books of the time (Figure 5), Gisela and her family lived on the second floor at Karrenwall 5 (Figures 6a-b), above the police station on the ground floor. (Figure 7) Gisela’s grandmother Anna Hoppe would threaten to take she and her brother to the police if they slid down the wonderfully smooth railing in the apartment.

Figure 6a. The apartment building at Karrenwall 5/6 where Gerhard Hoppe resided and died and where Gisela lived as a young child

Figure 6b. Another view of the building at Karrenwall 5/6 where Gerhard Hoppe died

Figure 7. Floor plan of the ground level at Karrenwall 5/6 where the police station was located

Readers will understand my hesitancy in further exploring the war and post-war events in Gisela’s life given the tumult she’s experienced. Trite as this sounds, it’s fair to say war claims victims on all sides though one can hardly equate the tragic deaths of two non-combatant Protestant Germans to the Holocaust.

POST 67: THE SUSPICIOUSLY BRUTAL DEATHS OF MY FATHER’S PROTESTANT FRIENDS FROM DANZIG, GERHARD & ILSE HOPPE (PART I)

Note: This post is about two of my father’s former friends, non-Jews, from his time living in the Free State of Danzig in the 1930’s, and information I recently uncovered about their peculiar deaths.

Figure 1. My father, Dr. Otto Bruck, in Winter 1930-1931 in Danzig

Figure 2. My father, Dr. Otto Bruck, as a young dentist in Tiegenhof

My father, Dr, Otto Bruck, received his dental accreditation from the University of Berlin’s Zahnheilkunde Institut, Dentistry Institute, on the 31st of May 1930. This was followed by two brief dental apprenticeships, first in Königsbrück, in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, then in Allenstein, Germany [today: Olsztyn, Poland]. These lasted until about mid-August 1930 according to letters of recommendation written by the two respective dentists. My father did not open his own dental practice in Tiegenhof, Free State of Danzig [today: Nowy Dwór Gdański, Poland] until April 1932, so inasmuch as I can surmise from surviving letters and photos, my father spent the intervening period apprenticing in the Free City of Danzig. (Figures 1-2) He may have been mentored by a Dr. Fritz Bertram, a dentist whom he took pictures of (Figure 3) and who is identified by name in his surviving pocket calendar (Figure 4), the subject of Post 6.

Figure 3. Zahnarzt (dentist) Dr. Fritz Bertram sailing in the Bay of Danzig with friends on the 18th of April 1931; Dr. Bertram may have mentored my father

Figure 4. Page from my father’s 1932 Pocket Calendar listing a few names and phone numbers of business associates, notably, Dr. Fritz Bertram and Dr. Gerhard Hoppe

As a brief aside, my father’s decision to relocate to Danzig from Berlin may have been prompted by the fact he had an aunt and uncle who lived there, and that he was close to at least two of their three children (Figures 5-6), who interestingly I met when I was a young boy.

Figure 5. One of my father’s first cousins, Jeanne “Hansi” Goff née Loewenstein (1902-1986), on the 8th of March 1929 in Danzig, a cousin he may temporarily have stayed with while he was apprenticing there

Figure 6. Another of my father’s first cousins from Danzig, Heinz Loewenstein (1905-1979), brother of Hansi Goff

In any case, a gentleman whom my father befriended in Danzig was named Gerhard Hoppe. (Figure 7) As I discussed in Post 6, I learned from a 1934 Danzig Address Book that, like my father, he too was a dentist, in the adjacent town of Neuteich, Free State of Danzig [today: Nowy Staw, Poland] (Figure 8), 8.8 miles southwest of Tiegenhof. Possibly, Gerhard, who appears from pictures to have been about the same age as my father, may also have been a dental apprentice when he and my father became friends. (Figure 9)

Figure 7. The earliest of my father’s pictures of his former friend from Danzig, Dr. Gerhard Hoppe, with whom he may have apprenticed

Figure 8. Page from the 1934 Danzig Address Book listing dentists in the Free State of Danzig with both my father and Dr. Gerhard Hoppe from Neuteich listed; my father’s first name is erroneously listed as “Heinz” when his actual first name was “Otto” although the address of his dental practice, Markstrasse 8, is correct

Figure 9. Dr. Gerhard Hoppe as a young man

Figure 10. My father with Gerhard & Ilse Hoppe walking along Wollwebergasse in Danzig during the Winter of 1931-1932

Gerhard and his girlfriend Ilse (Figure 10) are among a group of my father’s former friends whose fates I’ve so far been unable to determine; pictures exist of all of them in my father’s surviving photo albums. These friends were non-Jewish, and I refer to them as “former” friends since during the Nazi era they would have been under enormous pressure to disassociate themselves from any Jews and any businesses they might have run. So, in the case of my father, I know that while he still had a few non-Jewish friends who whom he socialized, he no longer had any dental clients by the time he shuttered his practice and left Tiegenhof for good in 1937. The relationship he had with these erstwhile friends may have been more nuanced, but I don’t know this for a fact. Judging from the dates on my father’s pictures, after mid-1936, his circle of friends had narrowed considerably.

I’ve told readers that I periodically recheck these one-time friends’ names in ancestry.com and other ancestral databases. I recently did this again with Gerhard and Ilse, and, astoundingly, uncovered historic documents related to both. I tell myself I should perhaps be less surprised I discover new documents, and more bewildered I did not find them during earlier searches. Regardless, my recent finds have allowed me to sadly put to rest the fate of Gerhard and Ilse Hoppe. But, like most of the mysteries I seemingly resolve, they are like the mythological hydra, lop off one head and two grow in its place.

The search parameters I entered in ancestry.com were simply Gerhard’s first and last name, a place he might have lived, Danzig in this case, and the year I estimated he was born, so 1907, the same year my father was born. I immediately discovered his marriage certificate (Figures 11a-c), and the marriage register with he and his wife’s names, and their respective parents’ names. (Figure 12a-b)

Figure 11a. Ancestry.com cover page of Gerhard Hoppe & Ilse Hoppe née Grabowsky’s marriage certificate showing they were married on the 30th of July 1932 in Marienburg

Figure 11b. Page 1 of Gerhard Hoppe & Ilse Hoppe née Grabowsky’s marriage certificate

Figure 11c. Page 2 of Gerhard Hoppe & Ilse Hoppe née Grabowsky’s marriage certificate with the names of witnesses

Figure 12a. Ancestry.com cover page of marriage register listing for Gerhard Hoppe & Ilse Hoppe née Grabowsky

Figure 12b. Marriage register listing for Gerhard Hoppe & Ilse Hoppe née Grabowsky

The two-page marriage certificate, among other things, provides Gerhard’s complete name: “Gerhard Ludwig Rudolf Otto Hoppe”; his date of birth: 18th of February 1908; the date and place he was married: 30th of July 1932, Marienburg [today: Malbork, Poland] (Figure 13); his wife’s complete birth name: “Frida Charlotte Ilse Grabowsky” (also ending in “i” in some documents); his wife’s date of birth: 3rd of August 1907; and Gerhard’s profession: “Zahnarzt,” dentist. Three things instantly confirmed I had found the “right” Gerhard Hoppe: his date of birth off by one day from the date listed in my father’s pocket calendar (Figure 14), his wife’s name, Ilse, and his profession, dentist. Very likely, my father would have attended Gerhard and Ilse’s 1932 wedding. The second page of German marriage certificates typically list witnesses, but unfortunately my father’s name is not among them.

Figure 13. Photo taken by my father of the Castle of the Teutonic Order in Marienburg, today Malbork, the town where Gerhard & Ilse Hoppe were married in 1932

Figure 14. Page from my father’s 1932 Pocket Calendar showing Gerhard’s Hoppe birthday was on the 17th of February when in fact it was on the 18th of February

I would eventually locate documents for three generations of Gerhard and Ilse’s ancestors.

Now, here’s where things began to seriously stray from my preconceived notion of Gerhard and Ilse’s fates. With Ilse’s maiden name in hand, “Grabowsky,” I was now able to search entries for her. The first document I found for her was her death certificate showing she’d died on the 15th of April 1940 in the Langfuhr borough of Danzig (Figures 15a-b), known today as Gdansk-Wrzeszcz, the most upscale of Danzig’s boroughs, then and now. This document shows she died at less than 33 years of age, somewhat surprising but perhaps not so unusual given wartime realities. Shortly after discovering Ilse’s death certificate, I found Gerhard’s death record, showing he’d died on the 27th of July 1941 (Figures 16a-b), a little more than a year after his wife, also in Danzig-Langfuhr; at the time of his death he was 33, only slightly older than his wife had been. To say I was stupefied learning Ilse and Gerhard Hoppe had died so young, so soon after one another, and outside the theater of war would be an understatement.

Figure 15a. Ancestry.com cover page of Ilse Hoppe née Grabowsky’s death certificate identifying her parents, whom she pre-deceased, as Richard Grabowky(i) & Else Grabowsky(i) née Ehmer

Figure 15b. Ilse Hoppe née Grabowsky’s death certificate showing she supposedly committed suicide on the 15th of April 1940 in Danzig (her cause of death is circled)

Figure 16a. Ancestry.com cover page of Gerhard Hoppe’s death certificate, listing his parents, whom he pre-deceased, as Otto Hoppe & Anna Hoppe née Birkholz

Figure 16b. Gerhard Hoppe’s death certificate showing he died on the 27th of July 1941 in Danzig (his cause of death is circled)

Immediately curious as to whether the death certificates listed their causes of death, I turned to Mr. Peter Hanke. He is a German gentleman from “forum.danzig.de” with whom I’m in touch and who’d recently offered to ask the Polish archive in Malbork, Poland for death certificates for some of my father’s former friends, including Gerhard and Ilse Hoppe. I wanted to let him know I’d found their death certificates and ask if the records stated how they died. The answer left both of us horrified and saddened.

Ilse Hoppe’s cause of death was listed as:

“Todesursache: Durchschneiden der Halsschlagader (Selbstmord)” (Figure 15b)

Cause of death: cutting through the carotid artery (suicide)

And, Gerhard Hoppe’s death was caused by:

“Todesursache: Schädelbruch und komplizierter Oberschenkelbruch links- und rechtsseitig” (Figure 16b)

Cause of death: skull fracture and complicated thigh fracture on the left and right sides

Gerhard and Ilse Hoppe’s deaths leave us with more questions than answers given their extreme violence; they seem more like murders than suicides or health-related deaths.

According to Peter Hanke, an implausible but not impossible explanation as to the cause of Gerhard’s death may relate to the location of his apartment. I mentioned above that a 1934 Danzig Address Book indicates Gerhard was a dentist in Neuteich, Free State of Danzig, although by 1940-1941, a Danzig Address Book shows he’d relocated to Danzig proper and lived at Karrenwall 5 (Figure 17); he is not listed in the 1939 Address Book (Figure 18), suggesting he moved to Danzig in 1940 before Ilse’s death (i.e., Ilse commits suicide in Danzig, not Neuteich). Old German Address Books list people alphabetically as well as by street address and occupation, and, interestingly, in 1940-1941, Karrenwall 5 shows that not only did Gerhard Hoppe reside there but so too did numerous bureaus of the Nazi Party, the NSDAP (Figure 19), a trend that continues into 1942. (Figure 20) Could it be that the Nazi Party wanted Gerhard’s apartment, and was not squeamish about asserting its interests? We may never know. Unfortunately, contemporary Danzig newspapers have not yet been digitized, although by 1941 the news outlets were most assuredly controlled by the Nazis and are not likely to provide an accurate portrayal of what might have happened to Gerhard.

Figure 17. Page from 1940-1941 Danzig Address Book showing Dr. Gerhard Hoppe’s dental office was located at “Theaterplace 30” while his apartment was at “Karrenwall 5”

Figure 18. Page from 1939 Danzig Address Book listing tenants at Karrenwall 5 that year

Figure 19. Page from 1940-1941 Danzig Address Book listing tenants at Karrenwall 5 that year, including Dr. Gerhard Hoppe and various bureaus of the Nazi Party, the NSDAP

Figure 20. Page from 1942 Danzig Address Book, the year following Dr. Gerhard Hoppe’s death, showing Karrenwall 5 still housed various bureaus of the Nazi Party, the NSDAP

There exists a database of displaced Germans refugees from the former province of Danzig-Westpreußen, Germany, now Gdańsk and Bydgoszcz provinces in Poland, referred to as “Heimatortskartei, (HOK)” that include images of a civil register (handwritten and printed works); more than 20 million persons are included in these card files arranged by the town of origin. I discussed this database in Post 38. Peter Hanke checked the name “Hoppe” for Danzig, and, incredibly found HOK cards for Gerhard and Ilse’s daughter, Gisela Hoppe, born on the 24th of November 1939 in Danzig (Figure 21), and for Gerhard Hoppe’s parents, Otto Hoppe and Anna Hoppe née Birkholz (Figures 22a-b), who raised Gisela after her parents’ deaths. The timing of Ilse Hoppe’s supposed suicide less than a year after her daughter’s birth makes the cause of her death even more suspicious.

Figure 21. “Heimatortskartei, (HOK)” (File of Displaced Germans) card for Gerhard & Ilse Hoppe’s daughter, Gisela Hoppe, born on the 24th of November 1939, showing that in 1958 she lived in Bad Harzburg, Germany

Figure 22a. Front side of “Heimatortskartei, (HOK)” (File of Displaced Germans) card for Gerhard’s father, Otto Hoppe, showing his granddaughter Gisela Hoppe’s address in 1958

Figure 22b. Back side of “Heimatortskartei, (HOK)” (File of Displaced Germans) card for Otto Hoppe listing his wife, Anna Hoppe née Birkholz, and granddaughter, Gisela Hoppe

Gisela is shown living in Bad Harzburg, Germany in May 1958. As I prepare to publish this post, just this morning I learned that Gisela, who is about to turn 80 years of age towards the end of November, is still alive. As we speak, I’m trying to establish contact with her and share the multiple images I have of her parents. (Figures 23-24) Watch this space for Part II of the story!