Farewell letter from Friedrich Zänkert to his brother, 1 April 1941 (excerpt)

NLA Wolfenbüttel Department

Friedrich Hermann Zänkert was born on 7 July 1905 in Aken on the Elbe. He grew up in impoverished circumstances in a large family with nine siblings. His parents, Hermann and Luise Zänkert (née Sebastian), both worked in factories to support the family. Friedrich left elementary school in the fifth grade and became a labourer. He had a close bond with his seriously ill mother; her early death threw the 15-year-old off course. He was repeatedly caught committing petty thefts until, in February 1921, a court ordered his placement in a reformatory in Mittweida, Saxony. At least five times he attempted to escape from the institution or from the workplaces assigned to him. In 1924, he returned to Aken, later moving to nearby Zerbst. There he initially found employment at the Mitteldeutsches Maiswerk. On 11 June 1927, he married Martha Eisel, and shortly thereafter their daughter Anneliese was born.

Friedrich Zänkert continued to commit minor offenses such as poaching and fraud, serving short prison sentences. In January 1936, he was convicted of aggravated theft and sentenced to two years and three months’ imprisonment, which he served in Coswig PenitentiaryThe sentence of penal servitude was imposed as a prison sentence for criminal offences along with the loss of civil rights. The milder prison sentence was imprisonment. Under the Nazi regime, the punitive measures imposed in penal servitude, particularly forced labour and deprivation, were significantly intensified. and Penal Camp VII Esterwegen. In June 1938, he returned to Zerbst; by then his wife Martha was already suffering from cancer.

On the night of 10 November 1940, Friedrich Zänkert broke into the pantry of a house in Zerbst and was apprehended by the residents. While attempting to flee, he injured one of them with a garden knife. The following day he was arrested and, on 14 November, transferred to pre-trial detention in Dessau. On 28 January 1941, the Special CourtEstablished in each higher regional court district from 21 March 1933, the special courts served to quickly punish regime-critical behaviour. In so-called summary proceedings, several thousand people of different backgrounds were sentenced to death. Magdeburg sentenced him to death as a “violent criminal” and “anti-social parasite.” In passing sentence, the court emphasized his “personality and the entire previous life of the accused.”

The day after sentencing, Friedrich Zänkert was transferred to Wolfenbüttel Prison. His wife submitted a petition for clemency, which was rejected. On the evening before his execution, when informed of the impending sentence, he declared that he had not committed the act out of mischief but out of necessity, since he had a sick wife at home.

The execution took place on 4 April 1941 at 6:01 a.m. His body was not released for burial by the family but was handed over to the Anatomical Institute of the University of Göttingen for research purposes.

Martha Zänkert succumbed to cancer on 8 March 1945. Thus, daughter Anneliese lost both parents before her eighteenth birthday. She remained in Zerbst and gave birth to her son Hilmar there in 1949. Mother and son lived alone and had little contact with other relatives. Anneliese told her son that his grandfather had been executed by the National Socialists for theft. She herself remembered her father fondly but spoke little about him.

Later, Hilmar Zänkert sought to learn more about his grandfather. However, inquiries to authorities or institutions in the Federal Republic, where Wolfenbüttel was located, might, he recalled, have led to difficulties. The family did not pursue compensation. Since Friedrich Zänkert had been convicted as a “violent criminal,” recognition as a victim of fascism in the GDR was excluded.

After his retirement, Hilmar Zänkert finally contacted the Wolfenbüttel Memorial in 2016 and, in the course of research, discovered further penal and court records concerning his grandfather. In June 2019 the responsible public prosecutor’s office certified the annulment of the death sentence.

Since his grandfather had never been given a grave, Hilmar Zänkert also contacted the University of Göttingen. He learned that no records remained there regarding the fate of the body. He then worked successfully with the memorial to ensure that a marker of remembrance would be created for those victims of Nazi justice whose bodies had been transferred to the Anatomical Institute without consent.