Stumbling Stones in Chemnitz
Adolf Wilhelmi
Adolf Wilhelmi
Born: 15.04.1874
Died: 26.08.1942
Sponsorship: Alliance 90 / The Greens, Chemnitz district association
Installation location:
Augustusburger Straße 121Stumbling stone laying on:
6 May 2021
Life path
For the National Socialists, homosexuals were "pests of the people". The number of homosexual concentration camp prisoners was around 10,000 and their death rate is estimated at 50 to 60 per cent. This makes them one of the non-racially persecuted prisoner groups with the highest mortality rate in the concentration camps. Adolf Wilhelmi, who lived in Chemnitz from 1902, was one of these victims.
Bochum-based psychotherapist Jürgen Wenke has researched the life and persecution of the former Reich railway engineer. He has written the following excerpts and investigated the reasons why Adolf Wilhelmi had to die in the Dachau concentration camp: "Adolf Ludwig Heinrich Hugo Wilhelmi was born on 15 April 1874 in Freiburg im Breisgau (Baden). His mother was Anna Wilhelmi, née Clorer. At the time of his son's birth, his father Adolf Wilhelmi was a sub-lieutenant; at the time of his own death in 1902, he was described as a retired mayor.
On 5 June 1906, Louisa Isabella Theresa Brückmann - called Luise - and Adolf Wilhelmi married in Darmstadt, as Luise lived there at the time. However, the marriage of Adolf and Luise Wilhelmi was divorced by the Chemnitz District Court on 11 April 1922. Adolf Wilhelmi was 48 years old at the time of the divorce. The marriage was childless."
Wilhelmi's persecution began even before the National Socialists came to power in 1933: "He was first sentenced to a fine of 50 Reichsmarks by the Chemnitz district court in December 1932 for homosexual contact. In July 1937, Adolf Wilhelmi was again sentenced to nine months' imprisonment for homosexual contact by the Chemnitz district court in accordance with the more stringent version of §175a introduced by the National Socialists. He had to serve this sentence in prisons in Bautzen and Plauen.
In April 1940, he was sentenced to two years in prison by the Chemnitz district court for "fornication with men" and sent to prisons in Zwickau and Siegburg. After Adolf Wilhelmi had served the full sentence, he was not released but transferred to Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar in May 1942. In July of the same year, he was transferred to Dachau concentration camp near Munich, where he was murdered on 26 August 1942. His alleged cause of death was heart and circulatory failure."
Jürgen Wenke began researching and investigating the life of a homosexual lawyer from Bochum in 2006 and has subsequently researched other fates. He is thus supporting the nationwide initiative "Totgeschlagen - Totgeschwiegen" (Beaten to death - kept silent), which commemorates the homosexual victims of National Socialism.
The 17-page report on Adolf Wilhelmi can also be found at www.stolpersteine-homosexuelle.de under the heading "We remember": www.stolpersteine-homosexuelle.de/adolf-wilhelmi.
Stumbling Stones in Chemnitz
It is a project against forgetting: stumbling stones have been laid in Chemnitz every year since 2007.
Embedded in the pavement, the memorial stones commemorate the tragic fates of fellow citizens who were persecuted, deported, murdered or driven to their deaths during the National Socialist regime.
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