Raimund Wolfert
Ein "maßlos judenfreundlicher junger Däne".
Allan Hagedorff und sein Einsatz für Verfolgte des Naziregimes
A "grossly jew-friendly Dane" – Allan Hagedorff and his commitment to the persecuted of the Nazi regime
English abstract
Raimund Wolfert’s article is a portrait of the Danish bookseller and restaurant owner Allan Hagedorff (1916–2007) who lived in Germany between 1937 and 1955. At first he worked in Dresden, then in Leipzig and lastly in West Berlin. Hagedorff and his German friend and partner Fritz Hartmann (1909–1977) were never persecuted by the Nazis though especially Allan Hagedorff led a dangerous life – both as a homosexual and as an illegal, active "helper of Jews" up to 1945. During World War II Hagedorff not only supported several inhabitants of the so-called "Jew houses" in Leipzig, he also sent more than 100 parcels of food and clothes to Jewish inmates in Theresienstadt and other German concentration camps. He had to use fake return addresses because in Nazi Germany Jewish inmates were only allowed to receive mail from other Jews. At least two homosexual men were among the recipients of his parcels. Nevertheless, it seems that Hagedorff’s motivation for his social work was not primarily to help homosexual internees. In his memoirs he described himself as no "Florence Nightingale", but as his "mother’s son" who had grown up with her sense of social justice. Though he later denied being a part of an "underground network", several homosexual men in Nazi Germany were involved in his relief actions.