Stumbling Stones in Chemnitz
Herbert Kaulfuß
Herbert Kaulfuß
Born: 04.06.1912
Died: January 1934
Sponsor: VVN-BdA Chemnitz
Installation location:
Yorckstraße 70Stumbling stone laying on:
5 December 2019
Life path
Herbert Walter Paul Kaulfuß was born on 4 June 1912 as the son of a stonemason in Chemnitz. He had a younger brother who died in Chemnitz in September 2002. The family initially lived on the Sonnenberg. At the end of the 1920s, they moved into a flat in the house at Yorkstraße 70, which was owned by the Steinsetz- und Tiefbau-Genossenschaft eGmbH. After the death of her father (1931), Welda Kaulfuß, the widow, continued to live with her sons in the apartment block in Gablenz.
Herbert Kaulfuß learnt the trade of a bricklayer. He supported the aims of the Socialist Labour Youth (SAJ) early on. Kaulfuß also belonged to the workers' sports club, section 6, in Gablenz. The young Social Democrat earned lasting merit through the construction of the Keilberghütte on the northern slope of the Keilberges, two kilometres from Oberwiesenthal, of which he was a financial backer. The Keilberghütte was built in 1932/33 by young people from Gablenz who were enthusiastic about politics and sport. In 1935, 15 of the builders were arrested and 13 of them were sentenced to several years in prison by the Dresden Higher Regional Court in 1936. The young people were spied on and persecuted by the National Socialists and some were taken into "protective custody" as early as 1933, including Herbert Kaulfuß. According to the court file, the Keilberghütte was described as a dangerous base for social democratic emigrants, as the historian Dietmar Wendler found out.
There is evidence that it was a meeting point for couriers from the banned labour parties and trade unionists until 1935. Herbert Kaulfuß had already decided to flee Germany at the end of 1933. Together with his carpenter friend Kurt Groß, he was able to board the passenger ship "Monte Sarmiento" in Hamburg on 22 December 1933. The two young men from Chemnitz hoped for a life of freedom in South America. However, Herbert Kaulfuß did not reach his destination. During the crossing, he drowned off the coast of Brazil.
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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