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Lohseplatz:Former Hannoverscher Railway Station.
Location:
Directions: A memorial plaque erected on the side of the Central (Hauptbahnhof) Railway Station in the city at the junction of Steintorwall and Mönckebergstraße reads:
Vom nahen Hannoverischen Bahnhof
Nur weil sie J u d e n waren oder als
Trage auch D u S o r g e dafür
Deutsch-Jüdische Gesellschaft Hamburg
The Hannoverscher Railway Station was formerly situated south-west of the Hauptbahnhof (City Railway Station) on the Grasbrook island in the river Elbe in the port area. The original Paris and Venlo Station was built in 1872 as a passenger railway station for the Cologne-Minden Railway Company. The new bridges over the river Elbe connecting Hamburg with Harburg were completed in the same year. The architect was Hermann Lohse (1815-1893). Train services began on 1 December 1872. The station received its initial name because the line was planned to run from Hamburg via Venlo, in the Netherlands, to Paris. This project never came to fruition and in 1892 the station was renamed Hannoverscher Station as it connected Hamburg with Hannover, the Ruhr and Cuxhaven. After Hamburg Central Station was opened in 1906 the Hannoverscher station became a goods station. When, in 1913, passenger ships of the Hamburg America Line (HAPAG) shipping company's "Emperor" class vessels came into service the station served emigration trafic to Cuxhaven on the North Sea north-west of Hamburg. In 1914 the station transported day trippers to the Lüneburg Heath south-east of Hamburg. During the First World War troops and wounded were transported to and from here. In 1932 the cost of making necessary renovations was so high that delapidated parts were demolished. The roof was removed. This station was chosen as the Hamburg deportation station because it offered conditions favourable to this purpose. It lay in the immediate vicinity of the Speicherstadt, (Bonded Warehouse District), but outside the free port. Its major advantage was that it was an isolated goods station. The deportation procedures would not interfere with the station's daily business. The space required for the voluminous luggage was at hand. The switching and coupling of deportation carriages from other towns and cities, in the forming of collective transports, could be easily carried out there. Finally, the station's central but isolated location secured it from public view.
Today the station is almost forgotten whereas once it
was Hamburg's southern railway terminus. Before the central (city) railway station, with through
traffic, was built there were three separate, unconnected termini: the Berlin Station, the
Lübeck Station and the Hannoverscher Station (independent Altona had its own Altona Station
terminus). The Hannoverscher Station was built in the shape of a city gate and from 1872 on was
an important transit centre for Hamburg.
Those on the deportation lists received an "Evakuierungsbefehle" ("evacuation order"), i.e.
deportation order, with an enclosed form upon which to list all household goods. All property,
bank accounts, cash and valuables were seized. There were exact instructions regarding the taking
of luggage, provisions for the journey, and money. After departing their flat the door key was to
be deposited at the local police station. The flat was then sealed by the police. Later, the
Oberfinanzpräsident (head of the Hamburg Finance Department) seized the property in the name
of the Reich, in accordance with the seizure order. They were then to report to an assembly
building where they were processed by the Gestapo, slept overnight and were transported to the railway
station early the next morning.
  Pupils of the Winterhude Gesamtschule, No. 28 Meerweinstraße, 22303 Hamburg (U3, Saarlandstraße) have set up a memorial to the deported Jews of Hamburg, a typical goods-waggon of the Reich Railways that transported so many of the Hamburg Jews to ghettos, concentration camps and extermination camps in the East, where the vast majority were murdered. Unfortunately the waggon simply stands in front of the school without any explanation or information.
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