View of Tucherstrasse in the direction of Obstmarkt. The house with the number 14 is the second building on the left-hand side. Photo from around 1920.

(Nuremberg City Archives, A44/C No. 6148.11)

Tucherstrasse 14 is circled in red. A little to the south are Spitalplatz (today Hans-Sachs-Platz), the Heilig Geist Church (Church of the Holy Spirit) and the main synagogue. In the middle of the picture, the Pegnitz River flows round Large Schütt Island, with the Heilig-Geist-Spital (Hospital of the Holy Spirit) at the western end. Aerial photo 1927.

(Nuremberg City Archives, A 97 No. 296)

Georg Jean Mayer

(1902-1943)

Location of stone: Tucherstrasse 14 District: St. Sebald
Sponsor: Dieter Barth Laying of stone: 9 November 2018

Biography

On 9 November 2018, the 80th anniversary of the “Night of Broken Glass”, Gunter Demnig laid stumbling stones in Nuremberg for the Jewish and homosexual victims of National Socialism. Dieter Barth sponsored the laying of the stone for Georg Jean Mayer. Mayer was murdered in 1943 in Gusen concentration camp.

Georg Jean Mayer was born on 13 February 1902 in Nuremberg. Georg’s parents were Konrad and Gertraud Mayer (née Fersch). His father worked as a packer. After leaving school and completing his apprenticeship, Mayer worked for a number of companies as a machinist. Later, he earned his living working as a servant in various hotels. From 1930 onwards, he and his mother ran a flower shop in the centre of Nuremberg. He married Elsa Wittasek on 28 April 1934. Elsa came from Fürth and was born there on 12 May 1905. The couple divorced on 2 August 1935.

In the same year, the district court in Nuremberg sentenced Mayer to one year’s imprisonment for contravening Paragraph 175. In prison Mayer got to know a fellow inmate with whom he began a sexual relationship. They remained in contact after being released from prison. When Mayer visited his friend in March 1938 in Diepersdorf, Central Franconia, they came to the attention of the police following a denunciation. Mayer was arrested immediately afterwards in his flat and taken into custody.

Police officers now began to investigate Mayer’s activities, including his sexual partners (some of whom were minors) from previous months and years. This resulted in him brought to trial at the Nuremberg-Fürth regional court. In June 1938 the court sentenced him to three years in prison. In addition, the judges decided to hold him under preventive detention, as he was a “dangerous persistent offender”. This meant that he would not be released after serving his sentence. Mayer was incarcerated at Waldheim Prison in Saxony until June 1941.

The judges’ decision resulted in Mayer initially being sent from Waldheim to the prison in Straubing. However, in December 1942, the Reich Ministry of Justice instructed that he be taken to Mauthausen concentration camp. Here, where the SS principle “extermination through work” was practised, prisoners in the “preventive detention” category were frequently murdered within a very short period. This was Mayer’s fate, only days after his arrival: in the register of deaths at Gusen, a satellite camp of Mauthausen concentration camp, his death is recorded as occurring on 5 January 1943.

- Nuremberg City Archives, C 21/IX registration card.

- Nuremberg City Archives, public prosecutor’s office, Regional Court of Nuremberg-Fürth II, No. 980.

-Online-Book for the Dead (“Room of Names”) Mauthausen Concentration Camp Memorial, URL: https://raumdernamen.mauthausen-memorial.org/.

- Biographical compilation by Dr. Matthias Gemählich.

Stolpersteine in the vicinity