Category: Tiegenhof (Free City of Danzig)

POST 78: MY FATHER’S FRIEND, KURT LAU, JAILED FOR “INSULTING THE NAZI GOVERNMENT”

Note: In this post, I discuss an article published in the Nazi Party’s newspaper in May 1935 describing a run-in my father’s friend from Tiegenhof, Kurt Lau, had with the Nazis that resulted in him being incarcerated for 30 days for “insulting the National Socialist government.”

 

Related Posts:

Post 8: Dr. Otto Bruck & Tiegenhof: National Socialist Parades

Post 71: A Day in The Life of My Father, Dr. Otto Bruck—22nd of August 1930

Post 76: My Father’s Friend, Dr. Franz Schimanski, President of Tiegenhof’s “Club Ruschau”

 

 

Figure 1. Kurt Lau, Managing Director of the “Tieghenhofer Oelmühle,” the rapeseed oil mill, in Tiegenhof in 1943

 

My father met Kurt Lau, the Managing Director of the “Tieghenhofer Oelmühle,” the rapeseed oil mill, in 1932 after he moved to Tiegenhof [today: Nowy Dwór Gdański, Poland] (Figure 1); unlike other people whom he befriended there they remained lifelong friends. (Figure 2) By the time my father left the area in 1937, Kurt and his wife Käthe were among the few people who still spoke to him, despite the pressure Germans were under to dissociate themselves from and isolate Jews. When I first started my forensic investigations into my family, reminded that Kurt and Käthe’s son and daughter-in-law are still alive, I reached out to Juergen “Peter” (b. 1923) and Hannelore “Lolo” Lau (b. 1925) (Figure 3) for help identifying some of the people in my father’s photos. They were helpful and gracious beyond all measure. Connecting with Kurt and Käthe’s descendants has allowed our families to continue a friendship that now spans four generations, really five, taking the youngest great-great-grandchildren into account.

 

Figure 2. Kurt and Käthe Lau on the far right in Deggendorf, Germany in June 1963, with, from left to right, my mother, Paulette Brook, Lolo Lau, Christian Lau, and Beatrice Lau
Figure 3. Kurt and Käthe Lau’s son and daughter-in-law, Peter and Lolo Lau, in Oberhausen, Germany in 2012

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Among the items Peter shared with me when we first connected in 2012 was a poor-quality xerox of a newspaper article he thought dated to 1935 or 1936 about his father running afoul of the National Socialist government (Figure 4); written in elaborate German Gothic font, the text was naturally indecipherable, but according to Peter the article describes judicial proceedings the Nazi authorities launched against his father for “defaming the government.” At the time, I was not so interested in the specifics of the case.

 

Figure 4. Article from the Nazi Party’s newspaper, “Der Danziger Vorposten” (The Outpost), from mid-to-late May 1935 describing legal encounter Kurt Lau had with the Nazi government

 

 

Fast forward. Readers will recall that Mr. Peter Hanke, affiliated with “forum.danzig.de,” recently found newspaper clippings in old Danzig [today: Gdansk, Poland] dailies of people I’ve lately written about. This includes my great-uncle Rudolf Löwenstein, subject of Post 71, and, Dr. Franz Schimanski, subject of Post 76. Thinking Peter Hanke might be interested and able to read the article Peter Lau had once given me, I sent it to him, asking if he could transcribe it. He not only did that, but he also translated it. The article gives a glimpse into the mindset of the Nazi overlords and describes Kurt Lau’s arrest and trial. Below is a transcription and translation of the article (a few words are illegible), followed by a discussion of the historical context of the events described.

 

TRANSCRIPTION: 

“Freistadtgebiet
Unerlaubte Kritik
Drei Monate Gefängnis wegen Beleidigung der Regierung


Der Direktor der Tiegenhöfer Ölmühle, Kaufmann Kurt L., hatte am Dienstag eine eilige Reise nach Danzig vor und wollte sich noch schnell rasieren lassen. Als er um 8 Uhr früh das Friseurgeschäft F. in Tiegenhof betrat, war nur der Lehrling da. Im angrenzenden Damensalon saß jedoch eine Kundin, Frau B. aus Tiegenhof, was jedoch Direktor L. nicht wusste. Als nach kurzer Zeit der Kaufmann Gustav Kr. den Herrenraum betrat, knüpfte er mit dem ihm bekannten Direktor L. ein Gespräch an, das fortgesetzt wurde, während der Gehilfe K. Direktor L. rasierte.

L. und Kr. kamen in ein Gespräch über die Guldenabwertung. Aus der Unterhaltung war zu entnehmen, dass L. wie Kr. durch den Guldensturz erhebliche Verluste beim Warenverkauf erlitten hatten, die durch den Zuschlag von 20 Prozent nach Ansicht der Geschäftsleute nicht ausgeglichen werden könnte. Hierauf wandte sich dei Unterhaltung zwei Strafprozessen gegen zwei Kaufleute in Tiegenhof und Neuteich zu. L. war der Meinung, dass der Jude ??? in Neuteich zu Unrecht verurteilt worden wäre und erging sich dabei in einer unpassenden Kritik über die Regierung. Er bemängelte zunächst, dass abgeblich keine Wirtschaftler gehört worden seien, es es könne auch mit Aufrufen allein nichts geschafft werden. Hierbei fielen von ihm die Worte ‘Das grenzt an Betrug.’! Als sich Direktor L. verabschiedete, machte er eine drastische Bemerkung, in der das bekannte Wort vom Grundeis vorkam.

Die Kundin im Damensalon war namentlich über die letzten Worte empört und erkundigte sich nach dem Namen des Sprechers; sie erstattete dann Strafanzeige gegen L. Dieser wurde noch am selben Tage in einem Danziger Café festgenommen und in Schutzhaft überführt. Er hatte sich am Mittwoch vor dem Tiegenhofer Amtsgericht wegen Verleumdung der Regierung zu verantworten. Insbesondere wurden ihm der Ausdruck “Das grenzt an Betrug!” und der letzte Satz seines Gesprächs zur Last gelegt.

Bei der Beweisaufnahme bestritt der Angeklagte, sich irgendwie schuldig gemacht zu haben. Er habe nicht das Gespräch angefangen, sondern der Kaufmann Kr. Ferner habe er es eilig gehabt und könne bei einer Rasur sich philosophische Reden gehalten haben.

Als Belastungszeugen waren Frau B., die Friseuse R. und der Gehilfe K. geladen worden. Ihre eidlichen Aussagen ergaben, dass die Unterhaltung in der eingangs beschriebenen Form statt gefunden haben musste und die inkriminierten Worte gefallen waren. Auch der Kaufmann Kr. musste die Möglichkeit der Ausdrücke zugeben.

Der Verteidiger, Rechtsanwalt M., glaubte zunächst an Hand von Presseberichten feststellen zu können, dass ‘überall geschimpft’ worden sei. Ferner war er der Ansicht, dass auch der Wert der Zeugenaussagen problematisch sei. Es könne in der heutigen Zeit von keinem Kaufmann Begeisterung über die schwierigen Wirtschaftslage verlangt werden.

Der Angeklagte habe ‘nicht die Absicht gehabt, zu provozieren,’ sondern sich nur im Rahmen der Allgemeinheit verhalten. Die Vorsätzlichkeit einer Beleidigung sei zu verneinen, der letzte Satz ist als zulässiger Herrenwitz zu werten.

Der Vertreter der Anklagebehörde sah dagegen einen Verstoß gegen die Strafparagraphen ??? und 105a als gegeben an. Eine Kritik über die Abwertung des Guldens dürfe nicht zur Beleidigung der Regierung ausarten. Der Beschuldigte als gebildeter Mensch und Parteigenosse hätte vielmehr die Pflicht gehabt, beruhigend zu wirken und als Wirtschaftler seine Bedenken an geeigneter Stelle vortragen können.

Desgleichen legte das Gericht dar, dass der Angeklagte als Wirtschaftsführer sich über die Folgen seiner Handlungen hätte bewusst sein müssen.

Die Provokation verlange schwere Sühne, strafmildernd sei nur, dass der Angeklagte sich bisher einwandfrei geführt hatte. Das Urteil lautete auf drei Monate Gefängnis.

Der Strafprozess,hatte in Tiegenhof verständlicherweise großes Aufsehen erregte, der überfüllte Zuhörerraum musste schon vor der Verhandlung ??????????”

 

TRANSLATION: 

“Free city area
Unauthorized criticism
Three months in prison for insulting the government

 

The director of the Tiegenhöfer Oelmühle, businessman Kurt L., was planning an urgent trip to Danzig on Tuesday and wanted to have a quick shave. When he entered the F. hairdresser’s shop in Tiegenhof at 8 a.m., only the apprentice was there. However, a customer, Mrs. B. from Tiegenhof, was sitting in the adjacent ladies’ salon, but Director L. did not know this. When the merchant Gustav Kr. entered the gentlemen’s room after a short time, he started a conversation with director L., whom he knew, which was continued while the assistant K. was shaving director L.

L. and Kr. got into a conversation about the devaluation of the Gulden. From the conversation, it could be gathered that L. and Kr. had suffered considerable losses in the sale of goods as a result of the fall of the Gulden, which in the opinion of the businessmen could not be compensated by the surcharge of 20 percent. The conversation then turned to two criminal proceedings against two merchants in Tiegenhof and Neuteich. L. believed the Jew ??? had been wrongly convicted in Neuteich, and in doing so he made an inappropriate criticism of the government. First, he criticized that no economists had been heard, and that nothing could be achieved even with appeals alone. Here he used the words ‘This borders on fraud!’ When director L. said goodbye, he made a drastic remark in which the well-known f***-word was mentioned.

The customer in the ladies’ salon was outraged by the last words and inquired about the name of the speaker; she then filed charges against L. He was arrested in a café in Danzig and transferred to protective custody the same day. On Wednesday he had to appear at the Tiegenhof District Court for defamation of the government. In particular, he was charged with the expression ‘That borders on fraud!’ and the last sentence of his conversation.

At the hearing of evidence, the accused denied having been guilty in any way. He had not started the conversation, but the businessman Kr. Furthermore, he had been in a hurry and couldn’t have made any philosophical speeches while being shaved.

Ms. B., the hairdresser R. and the assistant K. had been summoned as witnesses for the prosecution. Their sworn statements showed that the conversation must have taken place in the form described at the beginning and that the incriminating words had been spoken. The merchant Kr. also had to admit the possibility of the expressions.

The defense counsel, attorney M., initially believed that he could establish from press reports that ‘everyone bitches.’ Furthermore, he believed the value of the witness statements was also problematic. Nowadays, no businessman can be expected to be enthusiastic about the difficult economic situation.

The accused had ‘not intended to provoke’ but had only behaved in the context of the general public. The willfulness of an insult was to be denied, the last sentence was to be regarded as a permissible joke.

The representative of the prosecuting authority, however, considered it a violation of the penal clauses ??? and 105a as given. A criticism about the devaluation of the Gulden should not be allowed to degenerate into an insult to the government. The accused, as an educated person and party comrade, should rather have had the duty of have a calming effect and, as an economist, should have voiced his concerns in a suitable place.

Similarly, the court stated that as an economic leader, the accused should have been aware of the consequences of his actions.

The provocation demanded severe atonement, the only mitigating factor being that the defendant had previously conducted himself impeccably. The sentence was three months in prison.

The criminal trial understandably caused a great stir in Tiegenhof, and the crowded auditorium had to be ????? before the hearing.”

 

Peter Hanke thinks the article appeared in the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP or “Nazi Party”) newspaper, “Der Danziger Vorposten” (The Outpost), towards the middle to the end of May 1935. The Nazis had halted publication of the “Danziger Allgemeine Zeitung” in 1934 and placed a five-month ban on the “Danziger Volsstimme” on April 10th, three days after the Volkstag parliamentary election on the 7th of April 1935, making “Der Danziger Vorposten” the likely source of the article.

 

One thing to note about the original article is that only the forename and first one or two letters of the surname appear; there can be no doubt locals would have known who was being discussed, although it’s unclear to me why the need to partially mask identities. Even so, with access to Tiegenhof Address Books and a list of local businesses of the time, I have been able to identify some of the parties. The defendant is obviously “Kurt Lau.” “Gustav Kr.,” I was able to determine referred to the businessman Gustav Kretschmann, Manufaktur und Kurzwaren, manufacturing and haberdashery. (Figure 5) Similarly, the friseur, hairdresser, initial “F.” refers to Sally Folchert (Figure 6), and the defense attorney, initial “M.,” can only be the Rechtsanwalt und Notar, lawyer and notary, “Markfeldt,” as he’s the only lawyer in Tiegenhof at the time whose surname begins with an “M.” (Figure 5)

 

Figure 5. Listings from the 1942 “Amtliches Fernsprechbuch für den Bezirk der Reichspostdirektion” (Official telephone directory for the district of the Reichpostdirektion Danzig 1942) with the names of the businessman Gustav Kretchmann (= “Gustav Kr.”) and the lawyer Markfeldt (= “M.”) circled
Figure 6. The hairdresser “F.,” Sally Folchert, one of the hairdressers in business in Tiegenhof (Source: “Tiegenhof und der Kreis Großes Werder in Bildern” by Gunter Jeglin, 1985: p. 174)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Before describing the historical context leading to Kurt Lau’s legal troubles, let me say a few words about the Free City of Danzig, in German, Freie Stadt Danzig. It was a semi-autonomous city-state created according to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles following WWI, that existed between 1920 and 1939. It consisted of the Baltic seaport of Danzig along with nearly 200 towns in the surrounding area, including Tiegenhof where my father briefly had his dental practice; Tiegenhof was about 25 miles SE of Danzig. The Free City was not an independent state, but rather was under the protection of the League of Nations. The Free City’s population was 98% German, and by 1936 a majority of the Senate, the Free City’s governing body, was composed of Nazis who agitated for reunification with Germany.

 

Figure 7. Office building at Markstrasse 8 in Tiegenhof in 1934 where my father had his dental practice and living quarters, festooned with Nazi flags

 

 

In Post 8, I described Nazi parades my father documented that took place, respectively, in 1933, 1934 and 1935, along the street that fronted the building where he lived and had his dental practice. (Figure 7) On the 5th of April 1935, Hermann Göring (Figure 8), a German political and military leader as well as one of the most powerful figures in the Nazi Party, participated in that parade in support of the slate of Nazi candidates running for parliament in the Free City. Göring’s appearance would have occurred just before these elections on the 7th of April 1935, cited above. These were assuredly very scary times for my father.

 

Figure 8. On April 5, 1935, Field Marshall Hermann Göring parading through Tiegenhof in front of the building where my father lived and had his dental practice

 

 

Figure 9. Headline from New York Times article dated the 3rd of May 1935 announcing the devaluation of the Danzig Gulden

Returning now to Kurt Lau’s run-in with the law. Based on events reported in the New York Times on the 3rd of May 1935 (Figure 9), on May 2nd the Free City’s Senate devalued the Danzig Gulden by 42.37 percent. However, according to Peter Hanke, the Nazi government judiciously avoided use of the term “devaluation,” and instead referred to it euphemistically as a “revaluation.” The local populace did not react as the Nazis had expected and wanted. Most people immediately withdrew their savings and purchased any available goods before prices were increased. Less than a week after the devaluation of the Gulden, prices for almost all goods were increased. This is the context in which Kurt Lau and Gustav Kretschmann complained about the considerable losses they’d suffered and caused Kurt Lau to “insult the Nazi government.” Rich indeed. As to the victims of Nazi “insults,” they never received retributive justice.

POST 76: MY FATHER’S FRIEND, DR. FRANZ SCHIMANSKI, PRESIDENT OF TIEGENHOF’S “CLUB RUSCHAU”

Note: I continue my forensic investigations into people my father, Dr. Otto Bruck, knew during the five years he lived in Tiegenhof, in the Free State of Danzig. In this post, I discuss a man who befriended him named Dr. Franz Schimanski, a lawyer and notary by profession, and President of the Club Ruschau.  The fate of such people, though not family, has always intrigued me, and I’m continuously trying to locate some of their descendants.

Related Posts:

Post 6: Dr. Otto Bruck & Tiegenhof: 1932 Pocket Calendar

Post 7: Dr. Otto Bruck & Tiegenhof: The Club Ruschau

 

Figure 1. Dr. Franz Schimanski, President of the Club Ruschau, Spring of 1933

 

 

I return in this post and the ensuing one to Tiegenhof [today: Nowy Dwór Gdański, Poland], the town in the Free State of Danzig where my father briefly had his dental practice between April 1932 and April 1937. I’ll talk about two men who were, respectively, the President and Vice-President of the “Club Ruschau,” the local sports club my dad joined with whose members he regularly socialized. The President was Dr. Franz Schimanski (Figure 1), and his deputy was Dr. Herbert Holst, both of whom I discussed in Post 7. My father would no doubt once have characterized these people as good friends given the numerous pictures of them which survive among his photos.

Finding out what happened or may have happened to people from Tiegenhof and Danzig who were once within my father’s orbit of friends, acquaintances and professional colleagues has always piqued my interest. Because of the turbulence, movements and vast relocations in this part of Europe during WWII, and the eventual ouster of Germans from the area after the war, it is particularly challenging to track down what happened to some of the people my father knew. As regular readers know, I’ve already related the fates of some of them. I tell these stories dispassionately since I have no idea how my dad’s relationship with these people ended in the era of National Socialism. The only thing my father ever said about this is that by the time he left Tiegenhof in 1937, he no longer had any dental clients and knew few people who still acknowledged his existence. I can only imagine how heartrending and dangerous this must have been.

Thanks to the intervention of Mr. Peter Hanke, my acquaintance from “forum.danzig.de,” recently I’ve learned a little more about Dr. Schimanski. There are major gaps in my understanding of his life, and unlike other people my father knew from Tiegenhof, I’ve yet to track down any of his descendants. Let me briefly review what I know for sure, what I surmise, and what Peter has recently uncovered about Dr. Schimanski.

 

Figure 2. Page from the 1925 Address Book for “Kreis Großes Werder” identifying Dr. Franz Schimanski as a “Rechtsanwalt und Notar,” lawyer and notary
Figure 3. Page from the 1930 Address Book for “Kreis Großes Werder” identifying Dr. Franz Schimanski as a “Rechtsanwalt,” lawyer

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From Address Books for the District in which Dr. Franz Schimanski resided, Kreis Großes Werder im Freistaat Danzig, listings in 1925 (Figure 2) and 1930 (Figure 3) directories show him to have been a “Rechtsanwalt und Notar,” a lawyer and notary. Two newspaper articles Peter found in Die Presse. Ostmärkische Tageszeitung. Anzeiger für Stadt und Land. (The Press. Ostmärkische Daily Newspaper. Gazette for City and Country.) (Figure 4) from 1912 first announce Dr. Schimanski’s appointment as notary (Figure 5), then several days later provide background (Figure 6):

 

Figure 4. Cover page of the 18th of August 1912 “Die Presse. Ostmärkische Tageszeitung. Anzeiger für Stadt und Land. (The Press. Ostmärkische Daily Newspaper. Gazette for City and Country.),” mentioning Dr. Schimanski

 

Figure 5. Brief article from “Die Presse,” dated the 17th of August 1912, reporting on Dr. Schimanski’s appointment as Tiegenhof’s notary

 

Thorn [today: Torun, Poland], the 17th of August 1912, page 2:

Transcription:

“(Personalien bei der Justizt.) Der Rechtsanwalt Dr. Schimanski in Tiegenhof ist zum Notar dortselbst ernannt. . .”

Translation:

“(Personal details of the Judiciary.) The lawyer Dr. Schimanski in Tiegenhof is appointed the notary there. . .”

 

Figure 6. Article from “Die Presse,” dated the 20th of August 1912, providing the background that led to Dr. Schimanski’s appointment as Tiegenhof’s notary

 

Thorn [today: Torun, Poland], the 20th of August 1912, page 6:

Transcription:

“Tiegenhof, 20. August. (Drei Rechtsanwälte)
hat sich unser Städtchen in den letzten Wochen ge-
leistet. Die Überfüllung der Juristenlaufbahn be-
dingt, daß viele Assessoren nicht in den Staatsdienst
aufgenommen werden. Der Überschuß ist auf die
Rechtsanwaltschaft angewiesen. Wird nun in einem
Ort durch Fortzug oder Tod eine Anwaltsstelle frei,
so sind gleich viele Bewerber auf dem Posten. So
war es auch hier. Herr Justizrat Künstler siedelte
als lebenslänglicher Notar nach Berlin über.
Darauf ließen sich die Herren Gerichtsassessor Dr.
Schimanski aus Stuhm und Rechtsanwalt Selleneit
in die Liste der Rechtsanwälte beim hiesigen Gericht
eintragen. Beide konnten sich jedoch hier nicht be-
haupten, da hier noch ein dritter tätig ist. Es han-
delte sich also bei den beiden neuen Herren darum,
wer das Notariat bekommen würde, denn von den
Einnahmen eines Rechtsanwalts allein kann in
dem kleinen Bezirk der dritte Herr nicht bestehen,
und mehr als zwei Notarstellen sind hier nicht vor-
gesehen. Es schweben zwar schon lange Gerüchte
darüber, daß unser Amtsgerichtsbezirk durch den
rechts der Weichsel belegenen Teil des Kreises Dan-
ziger Niederung vergrößert werden soll, doch liegt
die Verwirklichung dieses Wunsches noch in weitem
Felde. Infolgedessen wird der nicht zum Notar er-
nannte Rechtsanwalt unsere Stadt wieder verlassen.”

Translation (using DeepL Translator):

“Tiegenhof, 20 August. Our town has afforded itself three lawyers in the last few weeks. The overcrowding of the legal career means that many assessors are not accepted into the civil service. The surplus is dependent on the legal profession. If a lawyer’s position becomes vacant in a town as a result of a move away or death, the same number of applicants are on the job. So it was also here. Mr. Justizrat Künstler moved to Berlin as a lifelong notary. Then the court assessor Dr. Schimanski from Stuhm and lawyer Selleneit joined the list of lawyers at the local court. Both could not assert themselves here, however, since here still a third one is active. So the two new gentlemen were concerned with who would receive the notary’s office, because the third gentleman cannot exist in the small district from the income of a lawyer alone, and more than two notary offices are not provided for here. Although there have been rumors for a long time that our court district is to be enlarged by the part of the district of Gdansk’s lowlands to the right of the Vistula, the realization of this wish is still a long way off. As a result, the lawyer, who was not appointed a notary, will leave our city again.”

 

Figure 7. Copy of an original document with Dr. Franz Schimanski’s seal and signature dated the 15th of July 1913 that Mr. Peter Hanke found for sale on eBay

 

One of the most remarkable things Peter found related to Dr. Schimanski, he located, of all places, on eBay! He discovered an original document with Dr. Schimanski’s signature and seal, dated the 15th of July 1913 (Figure 7), from shortly after he was appointed notary in Tiegenhof. From this document, we can determine that one of the earliest projects he worked on was a contract for construction of a narrow-gauge railroad.

 

Figure 8. Page from my father’s 1932 Pocket Calendar reporting on the exact date he arrived in Tiegenhof, the 9th of April 1932

 

Figure 9. My father’s membership papers to the “V.f.B., Tiegenhof, Baltischer Sportverband,” dated the 12th of November 1932

 

My father arrived in Tiegenhof according to his Pocket Calendar (see Post 6) precisely on the 9th of April 1932 (Figure 8), exactly one week before his 25th birthday. Throughout his life, my dad was an active sportsman, and he wasted no time applying for membership to the local sports club, the “V. f. B. Tiegenhof, Baltischer Sportverband (Baltic Sports Federation),” to which he was accepted on the 12th of November 1932. (Figure 9) While this was ostensibly a sports club (Figure 10), in order to be accepted by the businessmen and social elite, one clearly had to be a member of civic organizations in town, particularly if one expected to have a successful dental practice. Many of the club’s social events appear to have taken place at the Club Ruschau, located in Petershagen [today: Zelichowo, Poland], just outside Tiegenhof. Mr. Marek Opitz, the current director of the Zulawskie Museum in Nowy Dwór Gdański, was unaware of the club’s existence until I asked him about it and sent him photos. I discussed in Post 7 how Mr. Opitz was able to locate one of the Club’s surviving buildings, to which he took me and my wife on one of our visits to Nowy Dwór Gdański. (Figure 11)

 

Figure 10. My father recreating at the Club Ruschau
Figure 11. Me in 2012 at the entrance to the only surviving building of what was once the Club Ruschau with my hand on the original doorknob

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 12. The regular members of the Club Ruschau, including Dr. Franz Schimanski with his cane in hand, in June 1932, several months before my father’s formal admittance to the “V.f.B., Tiegenhof, Baltischer Sportverband”

 

 

Numerous of the photos of Dr. Schimanski and other members were taken at the Club Ruschau. (Figure 12) In multiple photos, he is shown holding a cane. I surmise Dr. Schimanski was a veteran of WWI and was wounded in theater. Ancestry.com has numerous WWI German Casualty Lists, identifying those killed and wounded in action.  I attach a single example with a “Franz Schimanski” listed; in this case, the number “15.6” (i.e., 15th of June) follows the name. (Figure 13) This may correspond to the month and day of birth, or, just as likely, to the day the person was killed or wounded. Regardless, I have no knowledge this Franz Schimanski was my father’s friend. I only know from other pictures in my father’s photo albums that Dr. Schimanski was born in June, year unspecified, based on a birthday party held in his honor that month in 1933. I’m not a very good judge of age, but I would gauge Dr. Schimanski was born around 1880, give or take a few years. If he went to war in 1914, he would have been around 34, seemingly old to be a foot soldier, although Peter Hanke found a secondary source which indicates about 30% of German soldiers were that age or older during WWI. To date, I’ve been unable to locate any primary birth, marriage or death records definitively related to Dr. Schimanski. This was a very common surname in Kreis Großes Werder, and in fact in the 1935 Danzig address book alone, there are 98 listings for Schimanski!

Figure 13. German WWI Casualty List dated the 17th of July 1918 with the name of a Franz Schimanski circled, not necessarily my father’s friend

 

Several pictures among my father’s collection show Dr. Schimanski with who I think is his wife and three adult daughters. (Figure 14) Unlike most of his other pictures, he doesn’t identify the ladies by name but merely refers to them as Lieblinge, “darlings.” My dad clearly had a sweet spot for Dr. Schimanski’s family. Regardless, his pictures give no further clues I can pursue to determine the fate of Dr. Schimanski’s family.

 

Figure 14. Dr. Franz Schimanski standing next to his wife and three seated daughters, bookended by Kastret Romanowski on the left, another friend, and my father on the right

 

 

Figure 15. The “Totenkarte,” death card, from the “Heimatortkartei Danzig-Westpreußen” for Dr. Schimanski, showing he died in 1940 and that the information was reported by the “Rechtsanwalt” Dr. Kurt Heidebrecht

 

Figure 16. Listing from the 1942 “Amtliches Fernsprechbuch für den Bezirk der Reichspostdirektion” for Dr. Kurt Heidebrecht, a presumed colleague of Dr. Schimanski who reported only that Franz died sometime in 1940

 

 

 

The Totenkarte, death card, from the Heimatortkartei Danzig-Westpreußen database for Dr. Schimanski (Figure 15) indicates only he died in 1940. The information was reported by a Dr. Kurt Heidebrecht, who is listed in the Amtliches Fernsprechbuch für den Bezirk der Reichspostdirektion Danzig 1942 (Official telephone directory for the district of the Reichspostdirektion Danzig 1942) as a Rechtsanwalt u. Notar, lawyer and notary (Figure 16), just as Dr. Schimanski was. I assume Drs. Heidebrecht and Schimanski were once colleagues. Peter Hanke was able to find a Heidebrecht living in Hamburg, Germany who may be a descendant of Kurt Heidebrecht. I’ve written a letter to this person hoping he is related and may be able to tell me what happened to Dr. Schimanski and his family. Watch this space for further developments.

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.

Related Posts:
Post 6: Dr. Otto Bruck & Tiegenhof: 1932 Pocket Calendar
Post 38: The Evidence of My Father’s Conversion To Christianity

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!

Figure 23. Gerhard & Ilse Hoppe on the beach in Zoppot, Germany [today: Sopot, Poland]
Figure 24. Gerhard & Ilse Hoppe

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

POST 57, POSTSCRIPT: DISAPPEARED WITHOUT A TRACE, MARIA POHLMANN NÉE PAULY—MYSTERY SOLVED!!

Note: In this post I describe how with the assistance of one of my Blog’s readers, I was able to determine when and where my first cousin twice-removed Maria Pohlmann née Pauly died. The place and time of her death was not as I imagined, and I offer a possible explanation as to how I miscalculated Maria’s fate.

Related Posts:
Post 56: Reflections of the Paterfamilias Dr. Josef Pauly
Post 57: Disappeared Without A Trace, Maria Pohlmann née Pauly

 

Figure 1. Maria Ulrike Pauly, born the 21st of July 1877 in Posen, Germany [today: Poznan, Poland], as a young lady

Regular readers know I’m a retired archaeologist. I’ve previously told followers the enormous pleasure I derive from doing forensic genealogy as it draws upon the same skills I learned and applied in doing field archaeology. In a sense, I’m now digging through archives, documents and on-line databases whereas before I was digging through layers of dirt. It’s humbling when my scientific approach to doing ancestral research fails to yield a satisfactory result. Thus, it was a welcome relief when a German reader of my Blog offered his assistance in helping me determine what fate may have befallen my first cousin twice-removed, Maria Pohlmann née Pauly. (Figure 1) I viewed this offer for help not as a failure on my part, but rather as an opportunity to have a fresh set of eyes re-examine the same evidence I’d looked at.

Figure 2. Closeup of Axel Pohlmann on his wedding day, the 1st of October 1901
Figure 3. Closeup of Maria Pohlmann née Pauly on her wedding day, the 1st of October 1901

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 4. Alexander “Axel” Pohlmann and Maria Pauly on their wedding day, the 1st of October 1901 in Posen, Germany, with their guests

 

Figure 5. My third cousin, Andi Pauly, Maria Pohlmann née Pauly’s grandnephew, in Munich, 2016

Let me briefly review what I discussed in Post 57. Maria Pauly (Figure 2), born on the 21st of July in 1877, and her husband Alexander “Axel” Pohlmann (Figure 3) got married in Posen, Germany [today: Poznan, Poland] on the 1st of October 1901. (Figure 4) Maria’s grandnephew and my third cousin, Andi Pauly (Figure 5), who was the source of her and Axel’s wedding picture and has been the source of most images I have of his Pauly ancestors, was unable to tell me what might have happened to her; she was one of only two of Josef and Rosalie Pauly’s nine children whose fate he did not know. Doing a little research on German Wikipedia, I discovered Maria’s husband had been a very prominent figure, having been the Oberbürgermeister, the Lord Mayor of Kattowitz, Prussia [today: Katowice, Poland] between 1903 and 1920. Following his tenure as Lord Mayor of Kattowitz, until his retirement in 1930, Pohlmann was the Regierungspräsident des Regierungsbezirks Magdeburg, the President of the Government of Magdeburg in the German state of Saxony. Pohlmann passed away in 1952 in Freiburg im Breisgau (German state of Baden-Württemberg).

Given Alexander Pohlmann’s public standing, I was surprised I could learn nothing of his wife’s fate. Aware that Maria was deemed Jewish in the eyes of the Nazis and knowing some of her siblings, their husbands, and their children had been murdered in the Holocaust, naturally, I checked the Yad Vashem Victim’s Database, to no avail to my relief. Following publication of Post 57, I continued my investigations hoping to learn more about Alexander and Maria Pohlmann.

I decided to write to places in Poland, formerly Prussia, and Germany with which Alexander Pohlmann had been associated. First, I contacted the Muzeum Historii Katowic (Museum of History of Katowice, Poland), and received a very gracious reply informing me they had no information on what might have happened to Maria Pohlmann. Next I contacted the Generalagentur für Genealogie (General Agency for Genealogy) in Magdeburg, Germany, and again was told they had no information on Maria. Finally, my Polish friend Paul Newerla, the Silesian historian, suggested I contact the Archiwum Państwowe w Katowicach (State Archives in Katowice, Poland); it took more than a month to hear back from them, but their reply was also in the negative.

Before I could contemplate my next step, Peter Hanke, a German gentleman affiliated with the “forum.danzig.de,” contacted me offering his assistance in helping me find out what might have happened to Maria Pohlmann after reading Post 57. This Forum is a discussion group I stumbled upon in the course of researching Tiegenhof, the town in the Free State of Danzig where my father was a dentist for five years between 1932 and 1937; as discussed in earlier Blog posts related to Tiegenhof, Peter has been inordinately helpful in helping me track down information related to some of my father’s friends and acquaintances from his halcyon days there, and directing me to various on-line databases with information on the town’s former residents.

Given my lack of success finding out about Maria, I was more than happy to accept Peter’s offer of help, knowing that while I might eventually get to the same place without his assistance, his involvement would speed up the process. And, speed it up, it most certainly did. Peter contacted me on the August 26th of this year, and by September 7th he’d received a packet of information from the Kulturamt Stadtarchiv (Cultural Office City Archive), to whom he’d written, in Freiburg im Breisgau, the town in Baden-Württemberg, Germany where Alexander Pohlmann died in 1952.

In the packet of documents, the City Archive included Alexander Pohlmann’s death certificate (Figure 6a-b), confirming he’d died on the 5th of October 1952, as German Wikipedia had indicated. But, of more immediate interest was the inclusion of Maria Pohmann’s death certificate (Figures 7a-b) indicating she too had died in Freiburg, on the 18th of July 1946, pre-deceasing her husband by more than six years; Maria died of diabetes and heart failure. According to the Freiburg City Archive, Alexander and Maria had lived in Freiburg since at least the 1st of October 1936, and they had no offspring. After having hit several dead ends looking for Maria Pohlmann, it was very satisfying to finally determine when and where she died, and particularly gratifying to have one reader of my Blog help me work this out.

Figure 6a. Alexander Pohlmann’s death certificate showing he died on the 5th of October 1952 in Freiburg im Breisgau (page 1)
Figure 6b. Alexander Pohlmann’s death certificate showing he died on the 5th of October 1952 in Freiburg im Breisgau (page 2)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 7a. Maria Pohlmann née Pauly’s death certificate showing she died on the 18th of July 1946 in Freiburg im Breisgau (page 1)
Figure 7b. Maria Pohlmann née Pauly’s death certificate showing she died on the 18th of July 1946 in Freiburg im Breisgau (page 2)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While I would eventually have written to Freiburg asking whether Maria Pohlmann had died there, to be honest, I’d convinced myself her anonymity was a function of dying young, like some of her older sisters had. In retrospect, the fact that she was Jewish may also have played a role in keeping a low profile, although we know from her father Josef Pauly’s memoirs, discussed in Post 56, that several of his daughters had to forego their personal ambitions for the sake of Josef’s only son. For this reason, it’s possible Maria sadly never had the opportunity to become more than a traditional housewife and was “unknown” outside her circle of family and friends.

The past few months have been extraordinarily productive ones in terms of either solving or beginning to unravel the fate of several of my distant relatives. Partially, this is attributable to my own dogged efforts but equally this is the result of contributions by what I’ve referred to as “my boots on the ground.” This may be analogous to good detective work which typically involves a team of people working together to solve knotty, intractable cases. In upcoming posts, I will detail some of these other successes.

POST 42: “DIE SCHLUMMERMUTTER’S” PARTING GIFT TO MY FATHER, A SIGNET RING

Note:  In this post, I tell readers a little more about a signet ring given to my father, Dr. Otto Bruck, by his landlady in 1937 upon his departure from Tiegenhof, where he had his dental practice in the Free State of Danzig. The post is based on information provided by one of the co-authors of a book on the history of Tiegenhof, Mr. Grzegorz Gola.

I apologize to readers at the very outset, as this Blog post is likely to be of interest to few of you and is more a reflection of my obsession with accuracy, recognizing I’m not an expert on many subjects I write about.  When people with expertise on the matters I discuss enhance my understanding of these topics, I’m delighted.

From Blog Post 3, regular readers may recall the extraordinary lengths to which I went to learn the identity of a woman my father only ever referred to when I was growing up as “Die Schlummermutter,” translated roughly as “landlady.”  With much letter-writing and the help of a gentleman from the Danzig Forum, I eventually learned Die Schlummermutter was named Frau Margaretha “Grete” Wilhelmine Gramatzki née Gleixner.  She was born in Tiegenhof on June 13, 1885 and died there on February 24, 1942. 

Figure 1. My father and “Die Schlummermutter” (Grete Gramatzki) in Tiegenhof in Spring 1933, with sisters Suse Epp (left) and Idschi Epp
Figure 2. Die Schlummermutter, or as she was locally known “dicke Grete” (fat Grete)
My father spoke of Grete Gramatzki with great affection, and the surviving pictures of the two of them together attest to this friendship. (Figure 1) She was an enormous woman, weighing more than 400 pounds, and someone I picture to be of outsize personality. (Figure 2)  Given the close bond between “dicke Grete” (“fat Grete”), as she was known to locals, and my father, it comes as no surprise that upon my father’s departure from Tiegenhof, some months after Grete’s birthday in June 1937 (Figure 3), she gave him a parting gift.  That souvenir was a signet ring (Figure 4) that had belonged to her husband, who I came to learn was Hans Erich Gramatzki.  He was born on August 10, 1879 and died at an unknown date.  My father arrived in Tiegenhof on April 9, 1932, and while multiple photos post-dating his arrival show Grete Gramatzki, none of her husband exist; I surmise he was no longer alive by the time my father moved to town.

 

Figure 3. Grete Gramatzki on what would have been her 52nd birthday on June 13, 1937, with an unknown friend on her left and my father’s then-girlfriend Erika on her right. My father left Tiegenhof shortly after this photo was taken
Figure 4. Signet ring given to my father by Grete Gramatzki, once belonging to her husband

“The main element of the coat of arms on the ring shows a sloped battle axe embedded in a shield on what was once a red background, today only very faintly visible.  The Gramatzki family is Polish aristocracy of the so-called Topór tribe or clan, once living around Preußisch Eylau [today: south of Kaliningrad, Russia].  And, in fact comparing the ring’s coat of arms to that of the Topór tribe shows them to be remarkably similar.”

A signet ring is described as “. . .having a flat bezel, usually wider than the rest of the hoop, which is decorated, normally in intaglio, so that it will leave a raised (relief) impression of the design when the ring is pressed onto soft sealing wax or similar material.”  Thus, in the case of the ring given by Die Schlummermutter to my father it is essentially the “signature” of the Gramatzki family and a mirror image of their family’s coat of arms, so I logically assumed.  However, Mr. Grzegorz Gola remarked the following:

“In my opinion, this is a variant of the ‘oksza’ coat of arms. (Figure 5)  It is very similar to the ‘topór’ coat of arms. (Figure 6)  ‘Oksza’ is a battle axe with a sharp tip, inaccurately, a halberd.  According to the rules of heraldry, ‘oksza’ is turned to the right [left, when looking at the impression that would be pressed onto soft sealing wax].  The Gramatzki family had a ‘topór’ coat of arms.  The Gramacki family had a ‘oksza’ coat of arms.  The name ‘Gramacki’ in Polish is pronounced almost identically to the German pronunciation of ‘Gramatzki.’”

Figure 5. The “Oksza” Polish Coat of Arms of the Gramacki family
Figure 6. The very similar “Topór” Polish Coat of Arms of the Gramatzki family

It’s not entirely clear what to make of this, that the ring given to my father, supposedly belonging to Grete Gramatzki’s husband, shows the Gramacki rather than the Gramatzki coat of arms.  Possibly, the Polish Gramacki’s originally hailed from Germany or Prussia, and the Gramacki’s and Gramatzki’s have common ancestors.

Figure 7. The signet ring’s heraldic border; neither the Oksza nor the Topór coat of arms bear such a border

Mr. Grzegorz Gola noted one other thing: 

“. . .it is interesting that the coat of arms has a heraldic border (a narrow strip on the edge of the coat of arms). (Figure 7)  This is very rare in Polish coat of arms.  Much more often, this occurs in Scottish, French or English coat of arms.  Formerly, in Poland, this meant it was the coat of arms of a younger, newer branch of the family.  (In England and France, the heraldic border meant the family of an illegitimate child.)”

Perhaps the first and second issues are interrelated, the slight variation in the shape of the battle axe and the presence of a heraldic border, indicating that Grete Gramatzki’s husband was from a younger branch of an older family or an offspring of an illegitimate son.

POST 38: THE EVIDENCE OF MY FATHER’S CONVERSION TO CHRISTIANITY

Note:  In this post, I discuss the evidence for my father’s, Dr. Otto Bruck, conversion to Christianity from Judaism, confirmation of which I recently came upon completely inadvertently.

Growing up, my father, Dr. Otto Bruck, never discussed being born into the Jewish religion.  If my memory is correct, I think I first learned about it when I was visiting my maternal grandmother in Nice, France as a child. At the time, we were walking through Vieux Nice, when she turned, pointed to a building, told me that’s where my father worked as a dentist after WWII, and mentioned he was Jewish; it would be many years before I understood the significance of all this.  Regular readers may recall I discussed my father’s time in Nice after the war in Post 26 and touched on the fact that he was not legally permitted to practice dentistry in France because he was “apatride,” stateless.  He was eventually caught and fled to America before he could be brought up on charges that were eventually dropped by the French authorities.

Figure 1. My Baptismal Certificate showing I was baptized on August 2, 1957, in Lyon, France

Because religion was not a part of my upbringing, I never gave much thought to it, although, ironically, I was eventually baptized as a Roman Catholic in Lyon, France on August 2, 1957, when I was six years old. (Figure 1)  Given the events my father had lived through, it made sense to him I should have a religion.  It’s always puzzled me, however, why my father thought that being baptized would afford me any protection if a future anti-Semitic political entity gained power and decided, as the Nazis had, that anyone with two Jewish grandparents is a Jew.  Puzzles without answers.

Given my father’s casual attitude about many things, including relatives and religion, it’s not surprising that much of what I’ve learned about such matters has involved a lot of effort.  Because my father considered himself German rather than Jewish, it would have made sense to me if he had converted to Christianity from Judaism.  But, as I just remarked, because of my father’s casual attitude, it would also not have surprised me if he’d never made the effort to formally convert.  Regardless, I’d never previously been able to find definitive proof either way.

The archives at the Centrum Judaicum Berlin include documentation that my father’s brother, Dr. Fedor Bruck, converted from Judaism at the Messiah Chapel in Berlin’s Prenzlauer Berg, Kastanienallee 22 on June 11, 1939, very late indeed.  Similarly, the Centrum Judaicum Berlin retains archival records for my Aunt Susanne’s husband, Dr. Franz Müller, who converted much earlier, on November 25, 1901, but still lost his teaching position at Humboldt University many years later, in 1933.

I’m unaware of any comprehensive database that includes the names and records of Jewish converts in Germany.  However, since conversion records survive at the Centrum Judaicum for both of my uncles, and since my father attended dental school in Berlin, I began the search for proof of my father’s own conversion here; they found nothing although it was suggested that knowing the specific church where he might have converted could prove useful.  Knowing my father had also apprenticed in Danzig [today: Gdansk, Poland] for a short period after graduating from dental school, I contacted the archives there, again to no avail.  The other place I reckoned where my father might have converted to Christianity was the town where he was a dentist between April 1932 and April 1937, Tiegenhof [today: Nowy Dwor Gdanski, Poland], although I had no idea at the time where to begin looking for such records.

I’ve learned, it was not uncommon beginning in the last half of the nineteenth century for German-Jews to convert to Christianity as a means of assimilating into German society.  A virulent wave of anti-Semitism that had emerged in Germany in the 1880s may have been another factor in the decision of some Jews to convert. 

Figure 2. Following a night of heavy drinking in which he totaled his Austin automobile, my father is standing by his 200cc Triumph motorcycle with a bandaged head, Tiegenhof 1934

I remember, as a child, my father talking about his time in Tiegenhof and how he drank heavily in those days.  Multiple pictures from my father’s days there exist showing him visibly inebriated. (Figure 2)  My father was by no means an alcoholic, and he justified his heavy drinking as “necessary to fit in.”  I’ve mentioned in earlier posts that my father was an active sportsman, particularly an excellent tennis player.  It’s highly likely there were barriers to becoming a member of the various sports and social organizations in Tiegenhof to which my father belonged, religion no doubt being one of them.  Thus, I have concluded that if my father did not convert to Christianity before he arrived in Tiegenhof, the provincial mores of this small town may have necessitated he do so here.  That said, until recently, I’d been unable to find any evidence my father ever converted.

Figure 3. Document found among my father’s papers initially thought to be dental invoice later determined to be receipt for payment in 1936 of Church Tax to “Evangelische Kirche” in Tiegenhof

Few of my father’s papers survive, but one document that has caught my attention only because it included the names of two members of the Joost family. (Figure 3)  Readers must understand that on account of all the Tiegenhof-related documents, books, and address directories I’ve perused over the years, many family surnames are now extremely familiar to me; such was the case with the surname “Joost.”  In reviewing this document, I was absolutely convinced it was a dental invoice because at the top of the paper it included my father’s name and identified him as a “zahnarzt,” a dentist.  Still, it seemed odd my father would have saved only one invoice among the many he’d no doubt written over the years as a dentist.

Figure 4. Baptism register for Alfred Albert Joost, born 4 June 1898, baptized 11 September 1898, whose name appears on the 1936 Church Tax receipt issued to my father

Figure 5. Card from the “Heimatortskartei” (File of Displaced Germans) for Albert Joost, showing his date of birth as 4 June 1898, and his religion as “Ev.” (=Evangelical)

Figure 6. Card from the “Heimatortskartei” (File of Displaced Germans) for Albert Joost’s wife, Käthe Großnick, showing her date of birth as 26 January 1902

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Setting aside this anomaly, I began to research in various databases the Joost names I found on the paper in question.  As readers can see, towards the bottom left side is written “Alb. Joost,” while on the bottom right side is written “f. Alb. Joost Kathe Joost.”  From ancestry.com, I discovered there lived a “Schneidermeister,” a tailor, in Tiegenhof, by the name of “Jacob Albert Joost,” born on July 27, 1865, who died on January 23, 1937.  The profession was passed on to his son, “Alfred Albert Joost,” born on June 4, 1898 (Figure 4-5), who died on February 18, 1975; he was married to Käthe Großnick. (Figure 6) The existence of the father and son tailors was confirmed by various Tiegenhof Address Books. (Figures 7-10)  Because both father and son had Albert in their name, I was uncertain whether the presumed dental work had been done on the father or son.

Figure 7. 1925 Tiegenhof (Kreis Großes Werder) Address Book listing Albert Joost’s residence as Vorhofstraße 44

Figure 8. 1927-28 Tiegenhof (Kreis Großes Werder) Address Book listing both father Alfred Joost and son Albert Joost residing at Vorhofstraße 44

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 9. 1930 Tiegenhof (Kreis Großes Werder) Address Book listing Albert Joost’s residence as Vorhofstraße 44

Figure 10. 1943 Tiegenhof (Kreis Großes Werder) Address Book listing Albert Joost’s residence as Adolf-Hitler Str. 44 in the Nazi Era

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To resolve this confusion, I asked one of my cousins to decipher the document.  I learned the document was a receipt not for dental work, as I’d thought, but for payment of a church tax.  Like in Germany and several other European countries, in the Free State of Danzig, where Tiegenhof was located, members of the Protestant or Catholic Churches were compelled to pay a church tax of 7.5% of their income.  In 1936, my father was obviously a member of the Evangelische Kirche in Tiegenhof (Figures 11-14), and his annual tax amounted to 90 Guilden 90 Pfenninge; he was permitted to pay his obligation in four installments.  The first payment of 22 Guilden 74 Pfenninge was made on October 6, 1936, and it was receipted by “Alb. Joost,” while the second and third installments were made on December 29, 1936.  Kaethe Joost was the authorized representative of Albert Joost, so the “f” in “f. Alb. Joost Kathe Joost” stands for “fuer,” “for” or “in place of,” indicating she signed the receipt in lieu of her husband.  The last installment would have been due on March 15, 1937, a payment my father is unlikely to have made because by then he would no doubt have been expelled from the Church for being of the “Jewish race.”  By mid-1937, my father had left Tiegenhof.

Figure 11. The former “Evangelische Kirche Mit Pfarrhaus” (Church and Rectory) in Tiegenhof

Figure 12. The former Evangelical Church in Tiegenhof torn down during Poland’s Communist Era

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 13. A schematic drawing and model of the former Evangelical Church in Tiegenhof

Figure 14. A plan of the town of Tiegenhof showing the locations of the Catholic and Evangelical Churches

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Having found the clear-cut proof that my father had converted to Christianity and knowing he’d been a member of Tiegenhof’s Evangelical Church, I contacted Mr. Peter Hanke from the Danzig Forum asking him whether conversion records for this church still exist.  He told me he’d never found such records, and that they’d likely not survived the turmoil of WWII.  This was disappointing but hardly unexpected.

Interestingly, Peter did find a brief reference to Albert Joost in Vol. 36 of the “Tiegenhofer Nachrichten,” the one-time annual journal for former German residents of Tiegenhof and their descendants.  In German it says: “Bei Joost war fruehmorgens um 4 Uhr Licht, um diese Zeit arbeitete er bereits in seiner Werkstatt; um 9 Uhr abends war immer noch das Petroleumlicht in der Werkstatt zu sehen. Der war einer von den Tiegenoertern, die ich nie in einem Gasthaus gesehen habe, aber jeden Sonntag im blauen Anzug in der Kirche.”  Translated: “Joost was already at work at 4 a.m. in the morning.  At 9 p.m. the kerosene lamp could still be seen in his workshop.  That man was one of the “Tiegenoerter,” never seen in a tavern but come Sunday always wore a blue suit to church.”  Possibly, Albert Joost was the “tithe collector” with his wife for Tiegenhof’s Evangelical Church.

Proof of my father’s conversion to Christianity came in a most roundabout way.  As mentioned, it’s highly unlikely his actual conversion document survived WWII, but the important thing is that my father’s attempt to assimilate into German society ended in failure and he was still forced to flee to save himself.

POST 4, POSTSCRIPT: OTTO BRUCK & TIEGENHOF: HANS “MOCHUM” WAGNER

Note:  This article provides a brief update to another Blog post of August 2017 about Hans “Mochum” Wagner, a once-close friend from my father’s years living in Tiegenhof.

Figure 1-Hans “Mochum” Wagner, left, my father’s one-time friend preparing to go motorcycle riding with my dad

Unlike “Die Schlummermutter,” “Grete Gramatzki,” towards whom my father had almost maternal feelings and spoke of fondly and often, my father never once mentioned Hans “Mochum” Wagner’s name when I was growing up.  As a matter of fact, nowhere in my father’s photo albums is his name even written.  This seemed odd given the many pictures there are of him.  Once again, it was my father’s 94-year-old friend, Peter Lau, who recognized Mochum Wagner (Figure 1) and told me what he could remember of him.  Given the National Socialist era through which my father lived, perhaps I should not be surprised that Mochum Wagner was a wraith.  Like many Germans at the time, Mochum likely calibrated that remaining friends with a Jew was not only impossible but dangerous.  I can hardly imagine the pain and disappointment my father felt at losing a close friend, probably one of many.  Still, perhaps this provided the necessary impetus for my dad to leave Tiegenhof while he still could and enabled him to survive WWII.

Among the things Peter Lau told me about Mochum Wagner was that his father was a “Schornsteinfegermeister,” a chimney sweep, and that Mochum was killed early during WWII.  I was able to confirm the former from Günter Jeglin’s book “TIEGENHOF und der Kreis Großes Werder in Bildern”; towards the back of this book there are listings of former businesses in Tiegenhof and their operators, and under the profession of “Schornsteinfegermeister,” appears the name “WAGNER, J.”  As to when or where, or even whether, Mochum Wagner had died, I had not previously been able to confirm this.

In the previous two posts, I’ve discussed the assistance that a member of “Forum.Danzig.de,” Peter Hanke, has graciously provided in resolving several troublesome issues related to former residents of Tiegenhof whom my father was acquainted with.  In Post 29, I mentioned that Peter directed me to a database on FamilySearch entitled “Heimatortskartei Danzig-Westpreußen, 1939-1963.”  This is a civil register of refugees from the former province of Danzig-Westpreußen, Germany, now Gdańsk and Bydgoszcz provinces in Poland.  Consisting of handwritten and typed index-sized cards, it was developed by the German Red Cross after WWII to help people find their families who’d been expelled from this region.  All the available cards have been photographed and uploaded to FamilySearch.

Figure 2a-“Heimatortskartei,” card for Hans “Mochum” Wagner’s father, Johannes Wagner (front)

 

Figure 2b-“Heimatortskartei,” card for Hans “Mochum” Wagner’s father, Johannes Wagner (back)

 

Peter sent me a download of a “Heimatortskartei,” for a JOHANNES WAGNER (Figures 2a & 2b), the father of Mochum Wagner.  Of the roughly 4,000 cards I’ve studied from this database, it is among the most informative.  It provides the names and dates of birth of Johannes Wagner’s seven children by his wife, HEDWIG née AUSTEN; it gives their dates of birth and the date Johannes’s wife died. 

Figure 3-Hans “Mochum” Wagner in 1938 as “sportlehrer,” or physical education teacher, with his elementary school class

According to the Heimatortskartei, Hans Wagner, my father’s one-time friend, was born on June 12, 1909 in Tiegenhof.   His profession was “Sportlehrer,” or physical education teacher. (Figure 3)  He died during WWII, as Peter Lau had asserted.  He was killed or went missing on February 11, 1942, in Volkhov, Russia [German: Wolchow], located 76 miles east of St. Petersberg, formerly Leningrad.  Mochum may have died during the Russian offensive launched in January of 1942 against the Germans around the Wolchow River.  Peter Hanke checked the German website, “Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e.V.,” with data on German war casualties, and confirmed birth and death information. (Figure 4)

Figure 4-Page from “Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e.V.,” with birth & death data on Hans “Mochum” Wagner, born Johannes Wagner

 

 

Figure 5-Page from 1927-28 Tiegenhof Address Book listing Hans “Mochum” Wagner’s father and three of his sisters

The Wagner family Heimatortskartei provided other information, including the names and birth dates of Mochum Wagner’s six siblings; three of these siblings are listed in the 1927-28 Tiegenhof Address Book. (Figure 5)  In Post 6, I discussed names found in my father’s 1932 Pocket Calendar.  Under December 5th, my father recorded “Truden,” one of his girlfriends (Figures 6 & 7); this is clearly Mochum Wagner’s sister, Gertrud “Truden” Wagner, whose date of birth was December 4, 1912 (the difference of one day is not considered significant since such information was sometimes approximated by family).

Figure 6-“Truden,” one of Hans “Mochum” Wagner’s sisters listed in my father’s 1932 Pocket Calendar under the date December 5th

Figure 7-My father with his girlfriend “Trudchen” Wagner in Steegen in the Summer of 1935

 

 

Figure 8-An indecipherable name in my father’s 1932 Pocket Calendar under the date June 12th, corresponding to Hans “Mochum” Wagner’s date of birth

In his 1932 Day Planner, my father also records an indecipherable name by the date June 12th, the day Mochum Wagner was born (Figure 8); this may be a notation of his former friend.

One Wagner whose identity cannot be confirmed from the Wagner family Heimatortskartei is that of “Hanni Wagner.”  In two photos taken in Steegen [today: Stegna, Poland] showing Mochum Wagner is his German Army Lieutenant’s uniform, she is alongside him. (Figures 9 & 10)  Since Mochum is not known to have been married, I’ve always assumed this was one of his sisters, although “Hanni” is not a typical diminutive for any of their names, so her identity remains in doubt.  Since Mochum Wagner, or “Johannes Wagner,” as he was officially named, died in February 1942, the two pictures with Hanni Wagner and Alfred Schlenger taken in 1942 were likely recorded only weeks before Mochum died.

Figure 9-Hans “Mochum” Wagner is his German Army uniform in Steegen in 1942, seated alongside Hanni Wagner & Alfred Schlenger (Photo courtesy of Beate Lohff née Schlenger)

 

Figure 10-Hans “Mochum” Wagner is his German Army uniform in Steegen in 1942, walking alongside Hanni Wagner & Alfred Schlenger (Photo courtesy of Beate Lohff née Schlenger)

 

POST 3, POSTSCRIPT: DR. OTTO BRUCK & TIEGENHOF: THE “SCHLUMMERMUTTER”

Note:  This article provides an update to my Blog post of August 2017 about “Die Schlummermutter,” the landlady and owner of the building on Markstraße 8 in Tiegenhof where my father had his dental practice and lived.

Figure 1-“Die Schlummermutter” with an unidentified child in Tiegenhof

Readers may recall the frustration I expressed in my original post about being unable to figure out who exactly the Schlummermutter was.  I explained the lengths to which I went to ascertain her identity, and how I eventually learned from three Tiegenhof “old-timers” that her married name had been Ms. Grete Gramatzki, and that she’d been referred to as “Dicke Grete” (“Fat Grete”), because of her size; no one, however, could tell me her maiden name. (Figure 1)

Figure 2-Signet ring with Gramatzki coat of arms given by “Die Schlummermutter” to my father that once belonged to her husband

Upon my father’s departure from Tiegenhof, roughly in mid-1937, Ms. Gramatzki gave my father a signet ring that had once belonged to her husband.  The main element of the coat of arms on the ring shows a sloped battle axe embedded in a shield on what was once a red background, today only very faintly visible. (Figure 2)  The Gramatzki family is Polish aristocracy of the so-called Topór tribe or clan, once living around Preußisch Eylau [today: south of Kaliningrad, Russia].  And, in fact comparing the ring’s coat of arms to that of the Topór tribe shows them to be remarkably similar. (Figure 3)  Thus, in searching for Ms. Gramatzki’s origins, I kept looking for a baronial connection which I was unable to find.  To remind readers what I wrote in my original post:

 

Figure 3-The Topór tribe or clan’s coat of arms, closely resembling that of the Gramatzki family

“I came across a gentleman, named ‘August Archibald von Gramatzki’ born in 1837 who died in May 1913 in Danzig, within the period I am seeking, who coincidentally was married to a ‘Margarethe Clara von Gramatzki, née Mönch’ born January 7, 1871, seemingly about the Schlummermutter’s age.  By all measures, this would have seemed a perfect fit, since this Archibald von Gramatzki was a Baron with long-standing connections to nearby-Danzig, first as the District Administrator (Landrat) for ‘Kreis Danzig-Land’ from 1867 to 1887, and, after it was subdivided, for ‘Kreis Danziger Niederung,’ from 1887-1895.  The only thing that belies this conclusion is that in 1937, the year my father left Tiegenhof for good, a birthday party was held in the Schlummermutter’s honor on the 13th of June.” 

This is where I left off in the original post. 

Figure 4-Grete Gramatzki surrounded by two friends on her birthday, June 13, 1937, in Tiegenhof

I’ve previously mentioned that periodically readers send me documents, photos and/or information related to my Blog posts.  Recently, one reader suggested I register for a German Forum, “Forum.Danzig.de,” discussed in Post 29, which devotes an entire section to Tiegenhof.  In my first post after registering I asked members for their help in learning more about “Die Schlummermutter.”  People were exceptionally helpful, and a few members uncovered a different “Margarete” married to yet another member of the Gramatzki family.  This lady also seemed a possible candidate, but, once again, her date of birth did not match that of Die Schlummermutter, June 13th.  Given my father’s penchant for exactitude, I never contemplated that because my father would soon be leaving Tiegenhof for good that he and Ms. Gramatzki’s friends would move her birthday celebration forward.  If my father wrote June 13th as Grete’s birthday, I knew this was her date of birth. (Figure 4)

Several days passed with no further developments.  Then, Mr. Peter Hanke, the Forum member discussed in Post 29 who has been of enormous help, sent me a very poor copy of a marriage record between a “HANS ERICH GRAMATZKI” and a “MARGARETHA WILHELMINE GLEIXNER” that took place on October 4, 1919; at the time of their marriage, Erich Gramatzki was 40, born around 1879, and Margaretha Gleixner was 34, born around 1885, thus, within the general time-frame I was searching.  Peter uncovered this marriage record in “archion.de,” a web portal of the German Protestant Lutheran Church, to which he’s subscribed.  Without Peter’s help, it’s unlikely I would have stumbled upon this record on my own. 

This Margaretha began to appear like a “viable” candidate.  And, this was confirmed the next day when Peter sent me additional documentation from the registry of baptisms from Tiegenhof’s Protestant Church for the year 1885.  Here, Peter found Margaretha Wilhelmine Gleixner listed, identifying her parents as GUSTAV THEODOR GLEIXNER and his wife AUGUSTA née KINDER, and, most importantly, giving her birthday as the 13th of June, just as my father had asserted; Margaretha was baptized on the 26th of July, with four godparents present, including an uncle named RICHARD GLEIXNER. (Figures 5a, 5b & 5c)

Figure 5a-Margaretha Wilhelmine Gleixner’s (“Die Schlummermutter”) baptism record dated the 26th July 1885 showing her birthday as June 13th

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 5b-Margaretha Wilhelmine Gleixner’s (“Die Schlummermutter”) baptism record dated the 26th July 1885 showing her date of birth as June 13th

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 5c-Margaretha Wilhelmine Gleixner’s (“Die Schlummermutter”) baptism record dated the 26th July 1885 showing her date of birth as June 13th

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 6-Marriage record between a “Hans Erich Gramatzki” and “Margaretha Wilhelmine Gleixner” dated October 4, 1919

Having finally discovered the Schlummermutter’s maiden name after years of searching was exhilarating.  Next, I turned to ancestry.com and found a surprising number of historic documents related to the Gramatzki and Gleixner families.  I found copies of both documents Peter had sent me, including a more legible copy of the marriage register. (Figure 6)  I learned Margaretha’s father-in-law, KARL ADOLF GRAMATZKI, had been a “kornmeister,” a grain operator dealing in cereals who also kept the books.  Margaretha’s father, Gustav Theodor Gleixner, had been a dye-house owner, and her husband, Hans Erich Gramatzki, a general practitioner.  I located Hans Erich Gramatzki’s birth certificate showing he was born on August 10, 1879. (Figure 7)  For the Gleixner family, I partially reconstructed five generations ranging from the late 18th century to the early 20th century, while for the Gramatzki family I found three generations of relatives.  This included the birth register for Richard Hermann Gleixner, Margaretha’s godfather and uncle, who I learned was born on July 14, 1861.

Figure 7-Hans Erich Gramatzki’s birth certificate showing he was born the 10th of August 1879

 

Figure 8-1910 Tiegenhof Address Book with Dr. Erich Gramatzki’s listing

After confirming the names of Margaretha’s father, uncle, and husband, I searched for them in the various Tiegenhof Address Books (i.e., 1910, 1911, 1925, 1927-28, 1930, and 1943).  An Erich Gramatzki is listed in the 1910 and 1911 directories (Figure 8), then again in the 1930 directory (Figure 9), in all instances identified as a “prakt. Arzt [= praktikumer Arzt],” or general practitioner.  In 1910 and 1911 he is living on Vorhofstraße, and in 1930 at Markstraße 8.  When I wrote the initial post, I was uncertain whether Erich Gramatzki was related to Grete Gramatzki, but he was clearly her future husband.  Finding him living at Markstraße 8 in 1930 confirms their relationship, and suggests he was still alive at the time.  By the time my father arrived in Tiegenhof in 1932, Erich may have been dead, but since there are no known Tiegenhof Address Books between 1930 and 1943, I can’t confirm this.

Figure 9-1930 Tiegenhof Address Book listing Dr. Erich Gramatzki and the “Firma Gramatzki u. Epp”

 

Figure 10-1925 Tiegenhof Address Book showing Margaretha’s father, Gustav Gleixner, living at Markstraße 8

The 1925 and 1930 address books show Margaretha’s father, Gustav Gleixner, living at Markstraße 8 (Figures 10 & 11); this is the building later owned by the Schlummermutter where my father lived and had his dental practice.  Two Richard Gleixners are also listed, one a bäckermeister, a baker, the other a rentier, an archaic German word for “a well-off person or pensioner,” both located at Bahnhofstraße 153.  Initially, I thought they were the same person because of the identical street address, but now think they are nephew and uncle.

 

Figure 11-1930 Tiegenhof Address Book listing various Gleixner family members

Curious as to whether the edifice where the bakery was located still exists, I asked Peter whether a contemporary street map of Tiegenhof with numbered buildings exists.  Peter made an interesting discovery while looking for such a map.  In Günter Jeglin’s book “TIEGENHOF und der Kreis Großes Werder in Bildern,” there is a picture whose caption in German reads as follow:

 “Vor dem Haus Schlenger stehend, ein Blick in die Bahnhofstraße.  Links: Haus Herm. Schulz, Otto Enders, Klizke-Bäcker Gleixner, wie seine Schwester, die Dicke Grete Gramatzki, ihn nannte.  Rechts: der um 1900 erbaute Machandel-Speicher, dahinter Haus Labowski, der hohe Giebel Welnitz/Gertler.”

Translated: “Looking down Bahnhofstraße from the front of the Schlenger house. To the left: House of Herm. Schulz, Otto Enders, Klizke-baker Gleixner, as his sister, fat Grete Gramatzki, referred to him. To the right: The Machandel store, built around 1900, the Labowski House, then the high gable, Welnitz/Gertner”

As explained to me, “klizke” or “klitzke” is a Low German expression for the nowadays better-known words “klitschig” or “klietschig,” meaning “doughy.”  This may imply the baker Gleixner was overweight like his sister, Dicke Grete Gramatzki. 

Figure 12-Richard Gleixner identified as a “Bäckermeister” (baker) and Ida Epp as a “Werderkaffeegeschäft” (coffee shop) in the 1943 Tiegenhof Address Book

Regardless, the caption provided the first revelation that Margaretha had a brother and that he was a baker.   Presumably, this was the Richard Gleixner listed as a “Bäckermeister” in the Tiegenhof address books for 1925, 1927-28, 1930 and 1943 (Figure 12), not to be confused with the uncle Richard Gleixner living at the same address who was by 1925 already a “rentier,” but formerly a baker too according to birth and/or death registers I found for three of his children.

 

 

Figure 13-Baptism register for Grete Gramatzki’s brother, Gustav Adolf Richard Gleixner, showing he was born on 20th June 1880

After learning of Margaretha’s brother, I found the registers for his baptism (Figure 13) and marriage (Figure 14), showing he was born as GUSTAV ADOLF RICHARD GLEIXNER on June 20, 1880, was baptized on August 1, 1880, was married to ELLA EMMA MARIE EICHNER in Berlin on April 5, 1905, and gave birth to URSULA CHARLOTTE GLEIXNER on September 14, 1919, with a different wife, WANDA GLEIXNER née FEDERAU.

 

Figure 14-Gustav Adolf Richard Gleixner & Ella Emma Marie Eichner’s marriage certificate showing they were wed on 5th of April 1905 in Berlin

Figure 15-1930 Tiegenhof Address Book showing that Margaretha Gramatzki owned a lingerie & handicraft business

In the 1930 Tiegenhof Address Book, I made another interesting discovery.  I found the following listing “GRAMATZKI und [=and] EPP, FIRMA MARGARETE.  SUSANNA, WÄSCHE UND HANDARBEITSGESCHÄFT [=Lingerie & handicraft business], MARKSTRAßE 8.” (Figures 9 & 15)  In Post 5, I assumed the two sisters, Idschi & Suse Epp, with whom my father had once been friends, had simply boarded in the same establishment as my dad.  Instead, it seems both had been business partners of the Schlummermutter; in the 1943 directory, only Ida Epp is listed at Adolf Hitler Straße 8, as Markstraße was known during the Nazi era (Figure 12), confirming that Grete Gramatzki was no longer alive (i.e., one informant told me she died in 1939 or 1940, although, to date, I’ve not located her death certificate).

Peter Hanke uncovered a fleeting reference on “Forum.Danzig” that even as a child Grete Gramatzki was overweight and already referred to as “die dicke Grete Gleixner,” the fat Grete Gleixner.

Readers are no doubt overwhelmed with the multitude of names that have been thrown at them.  Suffice it to say, that between the information collected and sent to me by Peter Hanke from “Forum.Danzig.de” and the various address books from Tiegenhof spanning from 1910 to 1943, I was incrementally able to ascertain the Schlummermutter’s maiden name and origin, as well as her family’s connection to Tiegenhof.  I remain optimistic that with more forensic investigation, I may ultimately be able to identify Grete Gramatzki’s family members in my father’s pictures.  This is a long-shot, but not impossible given where I started and what I’ve already learned.

 

POST 29: TIEGENHOF: UNRAVELLING THE “MYSTERY” OF HEINRICH “HEINZ” REGEHR

“The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.”—Oscar Wilde

Note:  This story has me going back to the town in the Free State of Danzig, Tiegenhof, where my father was a dentist between April 1932 and April 1937, to talk about a man whose destiny has remained opaque, a man named Heinrich “Heinz” Regehr.  Though I relate this tale in a linear fashion, the way I learned things did not follow a straight line.

Figure 1-Heinrich “Heinz” Regehr in Königsberg, East Prussia in April 1936, between Hans “Mochum” Wagner on the left and an unknown man on the right

For readers who have regularly followed my Blog, you may recall from Post 2 that my father’s now 94-year-old friend, Juergen “Peter” Lau, whom he first met in Tiegenhof as a young boy, recognized numerous people in my father’s photographs.  This story begins with one such identification, an individual named Heinrich “Heinz” Regehr.  The sole photograph of Heinz Regehr shows him walking across the street in the former East Prussian city of Königsberg (today: Kaliningrad, Russia) in April 1936, in the company of two other friends, one of whom is known to me, Hans “Mochum” Wagner discussed in Post 4. (Figure 1)  When Peter first identified Heinz Regehr, he told me his name, nothing more.

Figure 2-Page in my father’s 1932 Pocket Calendar with “Linchen Regehr’s” name by the date January 13th

In yet another post, Post 6, discussing the names in my father’s 1932 Pocket Calendar, under the date January 13th I mentioned finding a “Linchen Regehr,” who I would later learn was the wife of this Heinz Regehr. (Figure 2) Seemingly, the Regehrs, husband and wife, were friends or acquaintances of my father’s, so I became intrigued about what had happened to them.

Thus, upon my return to the United States in 2013, I turned to the membership index in the back of the “Tiegenhofer Nachrichten,” the now-defunct annual journal for former German residents of Tiegenhof and their descendants.  On multiple occasions over the years, the index of members has been immeasurably useful, in part because the maiden names of women are provided.  I used the index to identify all the people with the surname “Regehr,” and went on a letter-writing campaign in the hopes I could learn Heinz Regehr’s fate. 

One German lady to whom I wrote was a Ms. Anneliese Franzen née Regehr.  Some weeks passed, and eventually I was contacted on her behalf by her daughter living in Atlanta, Georgia, Ms. Meike Guenzerodt.  She explained to me that Heinz Regehr was her mother’s father, that’s to say, her grandfather, who had disappeared in fighting at the end of WWII and was presumed dead.

Ms. Guenzerodt provided a little history about the family’s escape from Tiegenhof towards the end of WWII.  Meike explained that Anneliese’s mother had been involuntarily institutionalized in a psychiatric facility outside Tiegenhof, and this delayed the family’s departure as the Russians were approaching.  Eventually, however, families of institutionalized patients were assured by German authorities their loved ones would be evacuated to Bremen, in the western part of Germany, before the Russians arrived.  With these assurances in hand, Anneliese’s grandfather took Anneliese and her two sisters and fled westward; at the time, Anneliese, the youngest, was six years old (born 1938); the middle sister, Evamarie, was 16 (born 1928); and the oldest, Lore, was 21 (born 1923).  Their father, Heinrich Regehr, was in the German Army at the time and they would eventually learn had gone missing in action in 1945 near Küstrin, 60 miles outside Berlin in the German state of Brandenburg, on the Oder River along the border with Poland.

The promised evacuations of the patients in the psychiatric facility never materialized, and the doctors and nurses decamped, leaving the inmates to fend for themselves.  With no staff to prevent them from wandering off, Anneliese’s mother made her way back to Tiegenhof.  There, a nurse found her wandering the streets and took her in, where she survived a mere three weeks before succumbing to disease in 1945.  After the war, the family was visited by this former nurse and learned of the mother’s fate.

Meike explained that because of the family’s hasty retreat from Tiegenhof, no family photos of Heinz Regehr had survived.  She asked whether I could send her a copy of my father’s picture of him for her mother, an entreaty I was most happy to oblige.

Believing I had resolved the question of Heinz Regehr’s fate, I set the issue aside.  In 2014, when I again visited Peter Lau in Germany, our conversation veered to Heinz, and I mentioned I’d learned he’d gone missing in action during the war and presumably died.  I can practically visualize Peter’s look of disbelief when I told him this.  He recounted that Heinz Regehr had in fact survived WWII, and eventually immigrated to Alberta, Canada.  He’d previously married Lina Regehr, following the death of her first husband, Franz Schlenger, a son of Otto Schlenger, owner of Tiegenhof’s Dampfmahlmuehle (steam-operated flour mill).  I would later learn from a descendant of Hedwig “Hedsch” Schlenger, to which Post 10 was devoted, that Lina and Heinz had had two boys, Henry Regehr, born in 1932, and Martin Regehr, born in 1940.

At this point, I started to wonder whether I’d uncovered the proverbial “skeleton in the family closet.”  I began to question if Heinz Regehr had not had two families, that’s to say, that he had somehow survived WWII.  With one wife, I knew he’d had three daughters born, respectively, in 1923, 1928 and 1938, and with Linchen Regehr, he’d apparently had two sons, born, respectively, in 1932 and 1940; the fact that he’d had his third daughter by his first wife between the time he had his two sons with his second wife troubled me greatly.  As implausible as this may seem, readers must remember that Anneliese had “affirmatively” identified her father, and Peter Lau had confirmed my father’s picture depicted Heinz Regehr.  Nonetheless, I never felt entirely comfortable with my conclusion, so I set the issue aside for future consideration as I continued researching other facets of my family’s history.

Figure 3-Heinrich & Lina Regehr’s older son, Henry Regehr, as a young boy in Tiegenhof in Hans “Mochum” Wagner’s class (Source: Günter Jeglin book “TIEGENHOF und der Kreis Großes Werder in Bildern”)

It wasn’t until I began writing stories for this Blog that I came back to the question of Heinz Regehr.  I turned to ancestry.com, and did a query on him, and, lo and behold, was directed to “Find-A-Grave,” which confirmed that Heinrich Regehr (1898-1965) and his wife, Lina Regehr (1901-1968), were buried in Mountain View Memorial Gardens in Alberta, Canada.  I also uncovered an obituary for the older of Heinrich and Lina Regehr’s sons, Henry Regehr (1932-2012). (Figure 3)  The obituary confirmed that Henry Regehr was born in Tiegenhof on June 11, 1932, and provided names of surviving family members, including a son named Robert Regehr.  Armed with this information, I turned to Alberta’s White Pages, and phoned several Regehrs who seemed promising.  A few days later, Henry’s son, Robert Regehr, returned my call and confirmed he was Heinrich Regehr’s grandson.  We exchanged information, he shared a little of his family’s story, and eventually he would confirm that my father’s picture was indeed his grandfather.  So, it now seemed I had the “proof” that Heinz had survived the war and immigrated to Canada, seemingly abandoning his first family.

Figure 4-Documentation from “Volksbund Deutsche” Kriegsgräberfürsorge e.V.” with information on Heinrich Regehr who went missing on March 1, 1945

Not wanting to leave any stone unturned, I tried to learn more about Anneliese Franzen’s father who’d gone missing in action during WWII, thinking there might be updated information or something to suggest it was a different Heinrich Regehr.  I discovered a German website (https://www.volksbund.de/en/volksbund.html) with data on German war casualties.  This organization describes itself as follows: “Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e.V. is a humanitarian organization charged by the government of the Federal Republic of Germany with recording, maintaining and caring for the graves of German war casualties abroad.”  This website included the name of the Heinrich Regehr I presumed was Anneliese’s father, so I requested a copy of the documentation.  What I received confirmed what Anneliese’s daughter had told me, namely, that her grandfather had gone missing on March 1, 1945. (Figure 4)  An additional piece of information that Volksbund Deutsche provided was the date of birth of Heinrich Regehr, specifically, March 27, 1897.  While not necessarily significant, it differed by a year from what I’d discovered on “Find-A-Grave” for the Heinrich Regehr in Alberta.  Hoping to resolve this discrepancy, I contacted Alberta’s Provincial Government trying to obtain his death certificate but was told, not unexpectedly, only family members could obtain this document.

Figure 5-Page from 1927-28 Tiegenhof Address Book for the “Kreis Großes Werder,” including two listings for Heinrich Regehr

Within the past month, I again queried “Heinrich Regehr” on ancestry.com.  Because “Regehr” is a common Mennonite name, often tens of thousands or even millions of “hits” will appear.  Perhaps, because I’d never previously scrolled through enough of the names, on this particular occasion I was directed to an 1927-28 Address Book for the “Kreis Großes Werder,” the “kreis” or “state” (i.e, the equivalent of a county) in which Tiegenhof was located; I’d never previously come across this directory for Tiegenhof, a comprehensive one 23 pages long.  What I discovered gave me further pause.  It included two listings for Heinrich Regehr, one on Lindenstraße, the second on Schloßgrund. (Figure 5) However, knowing that Heinrich had been a “Bankbeamter,” or “bank official,” at the “Kreissparkaße,” or district savings bank, and knowing this bank had been located on “Schloßgrund,” I considered that the second listing might be his private residence.  By itself, this was still not enough to conclude there were two Heinrich Regehrs. 

A brief digression is necessary.  Occasionally readers will send me photographs or documents related to my Blog posts or provide other useful information.  One such reader recently suggested I register for a forum, entitled “Forum.Danzig.de,” which devotes an entire section to Tiegenhof.  Because this forum is in German and requires painstaking use of Google Translate, which in the case of German yields completely tortured transliterations, it took me time to sign up.  With an English-speaking member’s assistance, I eventually negotiated the process, and uploaded my first question.  While this forum has turned into an absolute boon, results of which will be presented in upcoming posts, in this post I want to focus on Heinrich Regehr.

The gentleman from “Forum. Danzig.de” who assisted me, Mr. Peter Hanke, has been gracious and helpful beyond measure.  In the span of less than two weeks, Peter has helped me solve no fewer than three thorny issues that have confounded me for several years, including the question of Heinrich Regehr.  Uncertain whether the Danzig Forum knew of the 1927-28 Address Book for the Kreis Großes Werder I’d discovered on ancestry.com, I offered to make the Tiegenhof portion of it available to members.  Peter confirmed the Forum’s awareness of this directory, then gave me a link to additional directories for Tiegenhof, which he offered to send.  After looking through the list, I asked him for two address books for landowners in Kreis Großes Werder, one for 1925, the other for 1930.

Figure 6-Page from 1925 Tiegenhof Address Book listing Heinrich Regehr on Lindenstraße

After receiving these address books, I searched for Heinrich Regehr, hoping, once and for all to resolve the question of whether I was dealing with one person or two.  Unlike the 1927-28 address book, the 1925 address book included only the one Heinrich Regehr listed at Lindenstraße, seemingly related to a Hermann Regehr, a “hofbesitzer,” or farm owner, and “getreidehandlung,” someone involved in crop treatment. (Figure 6)  The 1930 address book again included this Hermann Regehr, but also “Lina Regehr” at Vorhofstraße. (Figure 7) While unlikely, I briefly considered Heinrich had first been a farmer, then later gone into banking.  While I had no definitive answer, because Lina Regehr’s address was different, I became more certain there were two different Heinrichs.

Figure 7-Page from 1930 Tiegenhof Address Book listing Heinrich Regehr on Lindenstraße & Lina Regehr on Vorhofstraße

I mentioned in passing my quandary to Peter Hanke, and, unexpectedly, within a day he confirmed two Heinrich Regehrs had lived in Tiegenhof and provided the following information on each:

Heinrich REGEHR I (Figures 8a & 8b)

Business: Merchant

Rank: Unteroffizier (non-commissioned officer)

Date of birth: May 27, 1897

Place of birth: Neukirch [today: Nowa Cerkiew, Poland]

Address in Tiegenhof: Marienburgerstr. 14

Home State: Kreis Großes Werder

During WWII: Ground personnel in Elbing [today: Elbląg, Poland]

Missing in action since May 1, 1945 (somewhere near Küstrin/Reppen/West-Sternberg/Zorndorf)

Relatives: Father Hermann Regehr, born January 29, 1867

Figure 8a-“Heimatortskartei” for Heinrich Regehr I (front)

Figure 8b-“Heimatortskartei” for Heinrich Regehr I (back), listing Anneliese Franzen’s name

 

 

Heinrich REGEHR II (Figures 9a & 9b)

Date of birth: December 18, 1898

Place of birth: Rückenau [today: Rychnowo Żuławskie, Poland]

Address in Tiegenhof: Neue-Reihe 1-3

Business: Director of the Kreissparkaße

Immigrated to Canada after WWII: Calgary, Alberta

Wife: Lina, née ZULAUF widowed SCHLENGER

Children: Heini (Heinrich) (born June 11, 1932); Martin (born June 5, 1940)

Lina’s children by her first marriage: Brigitte SCHLENGER (born August 25, 1922 in Danzig-Langfuhr); Rudolf SCHLENGER (born October 11, 1923 in Neuteich)

Figure 9a-“Heimatortskartei” for Heinrich Regehr II (front)

Figure 9b-“Heimatortskartei” for Heinrich Regehr II (back) with Lina Regehr’s name and date of birth, along with those of her children by her two marriages

 

 

Surprised as to the speed with which Peter had confirmed the existence of two Heinrich Regehrs, born in consecutive years, living in Tiegenhof at the same time, I naturally asked where the data came from.  It was clear it didn’t originate from any Address Books.  Peter gave me a link to a free online catalog on FamilySearch entitled “Heimatortskartei Danzig-Westpreußen, 1939-1963,” a database whose existence was previously unknown to me.  This is a civil register of refugees from the former province of Danzig-Westpreußen, Germany, now Gdańsk and Bydgoszcz provinces in Poland.  Consisting of handwritten and typed index-sized cards, it was developed by the German Red Cross after WWII to help people find their families who’d been expelled from this region.  All the available cards have been photographed and uploaded to FamilySearch.

Figure 10a-“Heimatortskartei” for Hermann Regehr, Anneliese Franzen’s grandfather (front)

Figure 10b-“Heimatortskartei” for Hermann Regehr, Anneliese Franzen’s grandfather, listing the names & dates of birth of Anneliese and her siblings (back)

 

Figure 11-Obituary for Lore Schoel née Regehr, Anneliese Regehr’s oldest sister

I reviewed the index cards on roughly 4,000 former residents of Tiegenhof.  Not only did I relocate the Heimatortskartei for Heinrich Regehr I and II, but I also found a card for a Hermann Regehr (Figures 10 a & 10b); the names and dates of birth of Anneliese and her two siblings are included on the flip side of the card confirming this was the grandfather who fled Tiegenhof with his three grand-daughters. (Figure 11) This Hermann Regehr is found in the 1925, 1927-28 and 1930 Tiegenhof Address Books.  In ancestry.com, I was also able to locate his birth register. (Figure 12)  Additionally, Peter Hanke accessed the Church books of the Mennonites, a paid service, and discovered the family overview for Hermann Regehr’s father, Johann Regehr. (Figure 13)  While not detailed here, the Mennonite books also contain information on Johann Regehr’s parents going back yet another generation

Figure 12-Birth register listing for Hermann Regehr, Heinrich Regehr I’s grandfather, born January 29, 1867

Figure 13-Page from the Church book of the Mennonites for Johann Regehr, Heinrich Regehr I’s grandfather

 

Figure 14-Page from the Church book of the Mennonites for Heinrich Regehr, Heinrich Regehr II’s grandfather

Similarly, for the family of the Heinrich Regehr II who wound up in Alberta, Canada, Peter accessed the Mennonite Church books for his father and grandfather, both also named Heinrich Regehr. (Figure 14)

The Heimatortskartei catalog often provides invaluable clues as to family connections, spouses, vital events, and more.  Beyond the Regehrs, in at least three other instances, I connected names and/or dates on the cards to the corresponding information in my father’s 1932 Pocket Calendar or to pictures in my father’s collection.  These will be the subject of future Blog posts.

I can hear readers saying, “It’s obvious there were two different Heinrich Regehrs!”  And, while I would be inclined to agree, I try to avoid making facts fit a false narrative.  The “fact” is that both Anneliese Franzen and Peter Lau recognized the same Heinrich Regehr.  What I initially failed to consider is that because her father disappeared from her life when she was very young, no older than six years old, Anneliese may have had only vague recollections of what her father looked like and may have jumped to the conclusion, based on the name I provided, that the picture I sent was of her father.  Regardless, taking the time to patiently research Heinrich Regehr has led to a finding that supports what Anneliese and her family have always known and dispels any notion their father “abandoned” them.

 

REFERENCE

Jeglin, Günter

1985  TIEGENHOF und der Kreis Großes Werder in Bildern.

 

 

 

 

POST 10: TIEGENHOF & THE DIARY OF HEDWIG “HEDSCH” SCHLENGER

Figure 1. Hedwig & Alfred Schlenger on the steps of the Dampfmahlmuhle in Tiegenhof

 

Among the people my father, Dr. Otto Bruck, was acquainted with in Tiegenhof, and may even once have considered good friends, were the owners of Tiegenhof’s Dampfmahlmuehle (steam-operated flour mill), Hedwig “Hedsch” Schlenger, nee Fenger (b. June 13, 1899, Tiegenhof, Free State of Danzig-d. June 3, 1982, Hannover, Germany) and her husband, Alfred “Dicken” Schlenger (Figure 1).  Using the membership list in the Tiegenhofer Nachrichten, the annual periodical for former German residents of Tiegenhof and their descendants, I had the good fortune to locate Hedsch Schlenger’s grand-daughter, a delightful lady by the name of Beate Lohff, nee Schlenger (Figure 2), living in Meppen, Germany.  Readers will recall from an earlier post that my father had recorded Hedsch Schlenger’s name by June 13th in his 1932 Pocket Calendar, a date Beate would later confirm was when her grandmother was born in 1899 in Tiegenhof.

Figure 2. Beate Lohff b. Schlenger, grand-daughter of Hedsch Schlenger, in 2013

 

Not only was I fortunate enough to locate Hedsch Schlenger’s grand-daughter, but I also had the indisputable “luck” to learn that Beate had inherited some of her grand-parent’s personal papers and surviving pictures, which Beate graciously shared with me.  The pictures, some of which have been discussed and shown in previous posts, included people whom my father had once known, including two personal friends, Kurt Lau and Hans “Mochum” Wagner.  Perhaps even more valuable was a 12-page diary Hedsch Schlenger had written covering the period from roughly September 1944 through August 1947 that I had translated into English; readers will correctly surmise this overlaps with the period when the Russians overran Tiegenhof and East and West Prussia and worked their way westwards towards the heart of Nazi Germany as the German war-machine collapsed.  Hedsch Schlenger’s diary provides a fascinating, albeit limited, look at this period.  The initial entry is dated June 1, 1945, with subsequent entries dated, respectively, June 24, 1945; July 22, 1945; August 29, 1945; May 1947 and August 1947.  According to Beate Lohff (personal communication), a portion of Hedsch Schlenger’s diary has been lost and was likely destroyed.

In this Blog post, I have extracted several sections of Hedsch Schlenger’s diary to highlight contemporary personal and historic events; provided brief commentary on the events or people discussed; depicted some of the individuals mentioned; and, finally, illustrated, using a few of my father’s pictures, the areas through which Hedsch and her entourage likely passed.  Since most of the people mentioned will be of scant interest to the reader, I will focus primarily on the broader contemporary historical events that Hedsch Schlenger touches on that readers may find more entertaining.  The complete translated diary can be found under Historic Documents for anyone interested in reading it, although readers should be prepared to go through it with an Atlas in hand.

Hedsch Schlenger’s initial diary entry dated “Schwerin, June 1, 1945”:  “By September 1944, we had survived 5 years of war.  My husband [Alfred] passed away in August [1944] after being severely ill for 8 weeks; my 19-year-old son Eberhard was an aircraftsman in Breslau (today: Wroclaw, Poland) and only my second 13-year-old son Juergen was with me in Tiegenhof, where I lived with my mother-in-law in the mill and where my husband used to work as a mill merchant.”

Commentary:  I was able to locate the 1944 Death Certificate for Alfred Schlenger, Hedsch Schlenger’s husband, in the database discussed in previous posts: Östliche preußische Provinzen, Polen, Personenstandsregister 1874-1945 (Eastern Prussian Provinces, Germany [Poland], Selected Civil Vitals, 1874-1945).  Alfred’s Death Certificate is one of the few records in this database which is typewritten.

Throughout her diary, Hedsch Schlenger refers to her mother-in-law as “Omama,” although her given name was “Martha Schlenger, nee Ruhnau.”  More will be said about her fate later.

Hedsch Schlenger’s diary entry:  “The Russians advanced further and further into East and West Prussia and on January 23, 1945, the first tanks appeared in Elbing [today: Elblag, Poland], 20km (ca. 13 miles east-southeast) away from Tiegenhof.  At 8 in the evening we received the first order to evacuate. . . At 11 p.m. it was all cancelled as the danger should have been over, but at 5 in the morning the situation became very serious. . . It was the 24th, my husband’s birthday, when we left the beautiful mill site at 8:30 in the morning.”

On the road, we were soon driving in convoy and moved forward very slowly because of the ice.  We drank hot coffee for the first time at 3 p.m. in Steegen [today: Stegna, Poland] (15km), and all the vehicles gathered at 7 p.m. . .in Nickelswalde [today: Mikoszewo, Poland] (25km).  Our Wanderer (car) soon crossed the river on the ferry. . .”

Commentary:  Steegen was a beach community north of Tiegenhof where my father often recreated (Figures 3 & 4).  Nickelswalde was the major ferry-crossing point across the Weichsel River [today: Vistula], a ferry my father often took on his way to Danzig (Figure 5 & 6).

Figure 3. My father at the beach in Steegen in June 1932

Figure 4. The beach at Stegna, Poland, formerly Steegen, as it appears today

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 5. My father aboard the ferry “Schoenberg,” crossing the Weichsel (Vistula), likely the same ferry Hedsch Schlenger and her entourage used to escape

Figure 6. Current Vistula River barge crossing at Mikoszewo, Poland, formerly Nickelswalde

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hedsch Schlenger’s diary entry:  “In Danzig, I met Ruth van Bergen. . .thanks to her, I went once more to Tiegenhof by car.  Our house was completely occupied by soldiers and plundered. . .The mill was in use, which means new flour and whole grain were produced by means of an electric motor. . . Ruth van Bergen and I spent the night in [Tiegenhof] and one could hear shooting from the front-line, which was 8km away.  The next day we drove back through Burnwalde [on the Weichsel], where another pig was slaughtered and packed for us to take.  The ferry from Rothebude took 10 hours because the roads were full of convoys all the way to Danzig.”

I made it once more to Tiegenhof with Erna Baumfolk. . .That night we stayed with the Regehrs (uncle). . .In the afternoon, we drove back with the Wehrmacht.  I had a feeling then that I will never see my home again.  The cemetery was the only place that remained untouched.  I will never forget that peaceful image amidst the war.  Will I ever see my husband’s grave again?”

Commentary:  The above describe Hedsch Schlenger’s last two visits to Tiegenhof from Danzig.  Following the war, the Communist Government in Poland not only expelled most remaining Germans but also made a concerted effort to remove traces of German occupation, a pattern we see repeated in other cities and towns across the country.  Consequently, while many German-era buildings still stand today in Nowy Dwor Gdanski, the cemetery where Alfred Schlenger and other Germans were once buried in Tiegenhof no longer exists.

Figure 7. The Grand Hotel in Zoppot as it looked in August 1931

 

Hedsch Schlenger’s diary entry:  “The situation in Danzig became increasingly dangerous.  The Russians reached Graudenz [today: Grudziądz, Poland], Schneidemühl [today: Piła, Poland] and were close to Dirschau [today: Tczew, Poland] and were close to Stettin [today: Szczecin, Poland].  If we stood a chance to go west by train we had to leave Zoppot [today: Sopot, Poland] (Figure 7) again.  Many of our friends had left by ship but it was very difficult to get tickets; train tickets were hard to get.  Philipsen, my brother-in-law, left on the “Gustloff” as boatman.  The ship was torpedoed at the beginning of February near Leba [today: Łeba, Poland].  Most likely he died in the attack.  My sister [Lisbeth] often went to Gotenhafen/Gdingen [today: Gydnia, Poland] to get some news but always in vain.

All of a sudden, Doempke, my brother-in-law, managed to get me 3 places on a hospital train, and on February 24th, my mother, Jürgen and I set out from Neufahrwasser [today: Nowy Port, Poland] towards an uncertain destination.  There were 15 wounded in the carriage who arrived by boat from Königsberg [today: Kaliningrad, Russia] and were loaded onto the train. . .It was very cold in the compartment and it took us 3 days to get to Stettin [today: Szczecin, Poland] through Pomerania.

 On the 27th we arrived in Bad Kleinen in Mecklenburg, where we got off the train.  Then we travelled through Schwerin, Ludwigslust, Wittenberge and Neustadt (Dosse) to Rathenow. . . [roughly 45 miles northwest of Berlin]”

Commentary:  Here Hedsch Schlenger identifies some places the Russians captured as they were closing in on Pomerania and West Prussia, and touches on one of the lesser known disasters of World War II, specifically, the torpedoing of the former cruise ship known as the Wilhelm Gustloff. 

Figure 8. Map of Free State of Danzig

 

Figure 9. Northern portion of Free State of Danzig with places mentioned by Hedsch Schlenger circled

 

Hedsch Schlenger’s contemporary account details how the Russians were advancing into West Prussia and Pomerania from the South and East.  Other informant accounts I’ve collected suggest the Russians were even backtracking East to capture pockets of German resistance they may have bypassed on their way West.  Some readers may recall from my earlier Blog post dealing with “Idschi and Suse [Epp]” that their brother, Gerhard Epp, did not evacuate from near Stutthof until May 6, 1945, indicating this area east of Danzig was likely one of the last captured by the Russians.  On Figures 8, 9 & 10, I have circled some of the places that Hedsch Schlenger mentions in her narrative as she travels from Danzig to the German State of Mecklenburg.

 

Figure 10. Map showing relationship of Danzig to Pommern (Pomerania) and German State of Mecklenburg

 

 

Elsewhere in her diary, Hedsch Schlenger identifies her sister by name, “Lisbeth,” without providing her married name.  In the section quoted above, Lisbeth’s husband is merely identified as “Philipsen.”  It was initially unclear to me whether this was her husband’s prename or surname.   However, I was eventually able to locate a birth record from the Evangelical Church in Tiegenhof for a “Otto Wilhelm Max Philipsen,” a child that Lisbeth, nee Fenger, had with her husband which confirmed that “Philipsen” was Lisbeth’s married name and that she was married to Otto Philipsen.  I even found Lisbeth Philipsen’s name and address in Bremen on a page in Alfred Schlenger’s Address Book, given to me by Alfred’s grand-daughter (Figure 11).

Figure 11. Page from Alfred Schlenger’s Address Book with the names of his brother, Kurt Schlenger, and his sister-in-law, Lisbeth Philipsen, listed

 

The “Philipsen” mentioned in Hedsch Schlenger’s diary is this Otto Philipsen who died when the Wilhelm Gustloff was sunk in the Baltic Sea by Soviet Navy submarines.  An American scholar by the name of Cathryn J. Prince, has written a riveting account of this little-known disaster in a 2013 book entitled “Death in the Baltic: The World War II Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff.”  As the Russians were advancing from the East, Berlin made plans to evacuate upwards of 10,000 German women, children, and the elderly from West and East Prussia aboard a former cruise ship, the Wilhelm Gustloff.  Sailing from Gotenhafen/Gdingen [today: Gydnia, Poland] through the icy waters of the Baltic Sea on January 30, 1945, the ship was soon found and sunk by Russian subs.  An estimated 9,400 people lost their lives, six times the number lost on the Titanic!!

Hedsch Schlenger’s diary entries:  “On April 12th, the Americans were already marching into Stendal [roughly 100 miles northwest of Berlin].  On this occasion, I wanted to leave Rathenow again for I did not wish to fall into the hands of the Russians.  I did not flee from the East for that. . .

In the meantime, the Russians were getting closer and closer to Berlin, the Allied forces kept advancing from the West, and the Russians began new attacks even close to Stettin.  They were now near Mecklenburg, and on May 1st, they were now no more than 20km away from Krakow am See [located in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany, and the place where Hedsch, her mother and her son had temporarily taken refuge with friends as she was writing her account].

My mother. . .still wanted to stay there [Krakow am See].  However, in the morning one of the soldiers advised us to get on the truck going in the direction of Schwerin and make our way to Lübeck.  By 9 we had packed everything and set out again to flee from the Russians, who were supposed to reach Krakow by 12.  They were constantly on our heels during our journey.  The streets were lined with tanks again, between them were soldiers, wounded and prisoners—a bleak string of hardened people, who had lost their homes and their country.

 And suddenly the war ended. . .

June 24th: We are still in Schwerin, although every minute there is a rumor that the Russians will occupy this part of Mecklenburg as well.  Many people from Danzig walk around with Danziger coat-of-arms on their clothes, and the rumors are circulating that a Free City shall be established again.  But they lack any foundation.

July 22, 1945:  Since [June] 19th we’ve been in Rostock.  The Russians replaced the English in Schwerin. . .”

Commentary:  In the closing weeks of fighting in Europe, the Allied powers had actually pushed beyond the previously agreed occupation zone boundaries determined at the 1945 Yalta Conference by the “Big Three” (Russia, America, and Britain) on how to split up Germany following WWII.  In the case of the Americans, they had sometimes pushed by as much as 200 miles beyond the agreed boundaries.  So, after about two months of holding certain areas meant to be in the Soviet zone, which was clearly the case with Schwerin, the Allied powers withdrew during July 1945, which corresponds with Hedsch Schlenger’s account.

Clearly, there was an unrealistic expectation among some former residents of Danzig that a Free City would once again be established there, a situation that obviously never came to pass.

Hedsch Schlenger’s diary entry:  August 29, 1945:  “We are still in Rostock.  The refugees from the East keep coming still.  Amongst them was also the Schritt family from Zoppot [today: Sopot, Poland], who knew for sure that Omama [Hedsch Schlenger’s mother-in-law, Martha Schlenger] had died there. . Allegedly the Doempkes tried to take their own lives. . .

 . . .Many have taken their own lives, like my mother-in-law in Zoppot, who [died and]. . .is buried in the garden at Heidebergstraße.  The Doempkes. . .also took poison. . . “

Figure 12. Hedsch Schlenger’s mother-in-law, Martha Schlenger, nee Ruhnau (“Omama”), on July 17, 1934 in Wolitta (Kaliningrad, Russia) (photo courtesy of Dr. Heinrich Schlenger, Kiel, Germany)

 

Commentary:  Here, Hedsch Schlenger learns that her mother-in-law, Martha Schlenger, nee Ruhnau  (“Omama”) (Figure 12), died in Zoppot as did the Doempkes, her brother-and-sister-in-law. 

Many Germans who decided to stay in West Prussia as the Russians were approaching in the closing days of WWII were either killed or eventually took their own lives; those that survived were later expelled or naturalized as Polish citizens.  In the case of women who stayed, they were the repeated victim of rape by Russian soldiers.  My father’s friend from Tiegenhof, Peter Lau, to whom an earlier post was devoted, told me that his aunt decided to stay in Danzig to protect her property only to eventually arrive in West Germany months later a shattered woman on account of her brutal treatment at the hands of Russian soldiers.  Peter also recounted that German women took refuge in what was once Tiegenhof’s Käsefabrik (cheese factory), and what is today the Muzeum Zulawskie, as the Russians were approaching; after the town was captured, these women were systematically removed from the factory and repeatedly raped.

Hedsch Schlenger’s diary entry:  August 29, 1945:  “Recently I met a Mr. Kurt Schlenger who is a distant relative of ours.  He lives here in Rostock; he’s married and is a distinguished violinist. They live in Massmannstraße 10, have an 18-year-old daughter who wants to become an artist. I even met a sister of this Mr. Schlenger, a widow named Mrs. Seidel, who lives in Tremsenweg 4. They are very nice people, but completely different to us. They are dark, small and not as handsome as our Schlengers.”

Figure 13. Dr. Kurt Schlenger, ca. 1935 (photo courtesy of Dr. Heinrich Schlenger, Kiel, Germany)

 

Commentary:  This entry took some time to unravel.  Hedsch’s husband Alfred had a brother by the same name, Dr. Kurt Schlenger, who coincidentally was also a musician (Figure 13).  Readers may recall from an earlier post that this Dr. Kurt Schlenger, born on April 20, 1909, was mentioned in my father’s 1932 Pocket Calendar.  I spent a considerable amount of time searching for a Kurt Schlenger from Rostock, Germany on ancestry.com who could be the “distant relative” to whom Hedsch was referring.  Eventually, I found one Kurt Schlenger in Rostock, Germany, born on June 11, 1893, who is likely the relative in question; his marriage certificate shows he was born in Preußisch Holland (Prussian Holland) [today: Pasłęk, Poland], 46km or less than 30 miles from Tiegenhof.

From German refugees continuing to arrive from the East, Hedsch Schlenger was either able to re-encounter people she knew from West Prussia and Tiegenhof, including people my father also knew, or learn about people who’d decided to stay behind.  The fate of those who stayed behind, however, is often unclear.