KURT HOLGER SCHMAHL * 1910
Isestraße 57 (Eimsbüttel, Harvestehude)
HIER WOHNTE
KURT HOLGER
SCHMAHL
JG. 1910
FLUCHT 1934 HOLLAND
INTERNIERT WESTERBORK
DEPORTIERT 1944
AUSCHWITZ
ERMORDET 8.4.1945
MAUTHAUSEN
further stumbling stones in Isestraße 57:
Paula Kaczar, Salomon Kaczar, Hertha Müller, Marianne Müller, Otto Müller, Sophie Müller, Wilhelm Müller
Kurt Holger Schmahl, born on 18 Jan. 1910 in Copenhagen, in 1934 flight to the Netherlands, in 1944 deported from the Westerbork transit camp to Auschwitz, murdered on 8 Apr. 1945 in the Mauthausen concentration camp/Austria
Isestrasse 57
In June 1933, Kurt Holger Schmahl, who had just turned 23, submitted a petition to the president of the Unterelbe State Tax and Revenue Office (Landesfinanzamt) asking for the release of 35,000 RM (reichsmark) from his assets. He intended to acquire a share in a textiles wholesale business in the Territory of the Saar Basin [then an area occupied by Britain and France under League of Nations protection], after he had lost his job as an employee of the Simon Hirschland banking house at the end of 1932, subsequently working in his stepfather’s exporting firm. The letter also stated, "Unfortunately, for quite some time the business [of my stepfather] has been stagnating to such an extent that I am not only compelled to earn my own living but also to support my parents. … Therefore, I kindly ask to approve my request, because after a prolonged search, I have finally found a basis for my livelihood enabling me to meet my obligations here.”
Like his father and his two grandfathers, Kurt Holger Schmahl was a merchant by occupation. After attending the Bertram School (Bertramschule), a private preschool for boys, considered an "intellectual forge of Hamburg elites,” he had been a student of the Heinrich-Hertz Realgymnasium [a high school focused on science, math, and modern languages]. We do not know where he completed his commercial training.
His assets, amounting to 40,410 RM at the time of the application mentioned, were left to him by his father. Alfred Schmahl, born on 8 July 1879 in Hamburg, lived in Copenhagen by 1899 at the latest. He was married to Clara Baer, a native of Strasbourg (born on 8 Aug. 1881). On 18 Jan. 1910, Kurt Holger was born in Copenhagen. In Dec. 1913, the family moved to Hamburg, where Alfred Schmahl Werkzeugmaschinen, a company producing machine tools, was listed in the Hamburg directory from 1915 onward.
Alfred Schmahl fought as a soldier in World War I and died in a French military hospital on 10 Dec. 1916 of injuries he had sustained in the Battle of the Somme. Posthumously, the German Emperor awarded him the "Royal Prussian Iron Cross Second Class,” and the Hanseatic City of Hamburg honored him with the Hanseatic Cross (Hanseatenkreuz). In the copy of the death certificate dated 4 Jan. 1917 one can read: "Alfred Schmahl, merchant, Klosterallee 13, son of the merchant Julius Schmahl, deceased in Copenhagen, and Selma, née Israel, residing in Copenhagen.”
After Kurt Holger had lost his father, apparently his mother continued to operate the business. At any rate, the Hamburg directory still listed her as the owner until 1919, before Simon Islar succeeded as the owner in 1924. Possibly, he was a friend of the family, for he acted as a witness to the marriage when Clara Schmahl married the merchant Iwan (called Hans) Hess on 15 Apr. 1922. Iwan Hess was the owner of the J. de Lemos & Hess foreign trade company, "in the past, one of the foremost importing and exporting houses in Hamburg.” He also had a son from his first marriage, Harald Heinrich Hess born in 1899. Iwan Hess had been married to Emma, née Nahm. We do not know whether the marriage was divorced or whether Emma Hess passed away.
Kurt Holger’s stepbrother, eleven years his senior and an authorized signatory by profession, married Helga Daniel, born in South Africa, in 1929. His father acted as the witness to the marriage. In Jan. 1934, Harald Hess lived in Berlin, though afterwards his traces disappear. Perhaps he managed to emigrate to a safe country of refuge.
Since the planned entry of Kurt Holger Schmahl into the textiles company in the Saar Territory did not come about and "any business activities in the Reich as a non-Aryan” were "not possible” for him, he emigrated to the Netherlands in Jan. 1934, after having overcome all bureaucratic hurdles. In Amsterdam, he founded a representation of the Armin Funk und Co Leuen-Öl-Gesellschaft, a business that refined and processed oils in Hamburg. He called his company Amoline Olie Maatschappij. In order to be able to take along the barrels and canisters, the lab equipment, as well as office furnishings, he spent a large part of his assets. He sold his Chrysler passenger car and purchased a smaller, more cost-saving automobile. One cannot gather from the existing documents whether he was economically successful in the Netherlands. A note dated Jan. 1936 indicated the Hamburger Mineralölwerke Albrecht & Co. no longer supplied the Amoline Company. A short time afterward, Kurt Holger Schmahl was not able to pay the premiums for his mother’s life insurance anymore, an obligation he had taken over from his stepfather in the summer of 1933 in order to relieve him financially. Despite his difficult situation, though, he continued sending money to his mother. There is documentation about regular gifts from Apr. 1936 until Sept. 1938.
In Apr. 1939, Iwan Hess’ enterprise was liquidated, and at the end of August, he and his wife departed to join their stepson and son in the Netherlands. However, their lives together in Amsterdam did not last for long. Clara Hess passed away on 27 Sept. 1942; her husband was interned in the Westerbork transit camp in 1943, deported to the Sobibor extermination camp on 27 Apr. 1943, and murdered.
Kurt Holger Schmahl ended up in police custody in Amsterdam in Jan. 1944. A few days later, he had to set out on the journey from Westerbork to Auschwitz. He is registered there from 16 Feb. until 8 Mar. 1944 in the Monowitz infirmary. One year later, on 24 Feb. 1945, he was entered in the list of "new admissions” ("Zugänge”) in the Austrian Mauthausen concentration camp. The occupation indicated for him is painter and glazier. Perhaps, he had been able to save himself with these skills in Auschwitz from immediate murder. Kurt Holger Schmahl perished one month before the liberation of the Mauthausen concentration camp, on 8 Apr. 1945, at the age of 35.
Translator: Erwin Fink
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.
Stand: April 2018
© Sabine Brunotte
Quellen: 1; 5; www.joodsmonument.nl, Zugriff 4.11.2014; StaH 314-15 OFP F 2183; StaH 332-5 8939; StaH 362-2/19 24 Bd.1; StaH 332-5 13088; StaH 332-5 8765; StaH 332-5 13040; schriftliche Auskunft Jüdisches Museum Kopenhagen, E-Mail vom 10.11.2014; schriftliche Auskunft USHMM, E-Mail vom 13.11.2014; schriftliche Auskunft Gedenkstätte Westerbork, E-Mail vom 17.11.2014; http://agora.sub.uni-hamburg.de Hamburger Adressbücher 1915 bis 1922, Zugriff 18.11.2014; schriftliche Auskunft Gedenkstätte Mauthausen, E-Mail vom 1.12.2014; Schriftliche Auskunft Service des Archives Strasbourg, E-Mail vom 3.12.2014; Maria Koser/Sabine Brunotte, Stolpersteine in Hamburg-Eppendorf und Hamburg-Hoheluft-Ost, Band 1 S. 196 ff., Beitrag Johannes Grossmann über Iwan gen. Hans Hess; Artikel des Hamburger Abendblatt vom 12.08.2003 über die Bertramschule online, Zugriff 29.12.2014.
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