Neuer Faulenhoop 23

Neuer Faulenhoop 23 was the last home that Christian Friedrich Heinrich Maaß had lived in of his own free will.  He was born on 22 May 1897 in the Roennau district of Lübeck.  He was the son of the labourer Hans Christian Heinrich Maaß and his wife Elisabeth, née Froese.  Heinrich Maaß earned his living as a farm hand. There is no registration card on record for him at the Municipal Archive of Lübeck. In the address records of 1939 he is shown as a disabled ex-service man, possibly because of his injuries from World War One.   Private documents also state his disability was due to the war.

Heinrich Maaß married Martha Christine Henriette, née Bruhns. On 8 November 1924 Ruth Thea Elisabeth, their only daughter was born. In 1928 the Maaß family moved from Geibelplatz 14 to the house at Neuer Faulenhoop 23 in the Karlshof district of Lübeck.

Heinrich Maaß belonged to the Jehovah’s Witnesses. In December 1937 he was arrested. The public prosecutor’s office at the Kiel Sondergericht (a special court) stopped the preliminary proceedings against him in February 1938. However after his release from the remand prison the Gestapo took Heinrich Maaß into so-called ‚protective custody’.

Heinrich Maaß was transferred to Konzentrationslager (Concentration Camp) Sachsenhausen, north of Berlin. From there he was taken to Konzentrationslager Dachau on 29 August 1940, as prisoner No. 16352. Heinrich Maaß was murdered there on 10 April 1941. The death certificate, dated 16 April 1941 was sent to his wife from Dachau. In Lübeck his urn is on the “List of urns with the remains of concentration camp prisoners interred in local cemeteries” with the information "geb.unbek., gest. unbek. beigesetzt am 09. 09.1942 Grablage: Urne im Krematorium” meaning: date of birth and death unknown, urn interred at the crematory on 9 September 1942.

In October 1980 his widow Martha Maaß died. Their daughter Ruth died in 2008 at the age of 84 years.