Under police control
Source: Landesarchiv NRW – Abteilung Rheinland – BR 2034 Nr.1787
State Criminal Police
Criminal Police Head Office
Cologne, November 7, 1941
Order for systematic police surveillance
Anna Sölzer, born on 13 February 1919 in Cologne,
Cologne District, without occupation (prostitute),
resident in Cologne, 18 Friesenwall,
nationality Reich German, religion (including previous) Protestant,
is to be considered asocial for failing to comply with the conditions imposed on her as a registered prostitute in accordance with the decree of 9 September 1939.
She will therefore be placed under systematic police surveillance on the basis of the decree of 14 December 1937 – Pol. S-Kr 3 no. 1682/37 – 2098 – issued by the Reich and Prussian Ministry of the Interior.
She is subject to the following bans (obligations):
- A ban on soliciting men for the purpose of fornication in a setting other than her apartment or the inns that have expressly been authorised and made known to her.
- A ban on spending night-time hours anywhere other than in the apartment registered with the police, unless she has police authorisation. Night-time hours are classed as 10 pm to 5 am in summer and 10 pm to 6 am in winter. The brothel apartment counts as her apartment. Permission for her to have a second apartment in addition to the brothel apartment is hereby withdrawn.
- A ban on associating in any way with persons who have been punished for or are suspected of pimping.
- The obligation to report any change of address or place of residence to the Criminal Police within 24 hours, in addition to the obligation to comply with the general police registration requirements.
- The obligation to comply promptly with instructions concerning medical check-ups.
- The obligation to maintain a supply of items designed to protect against sexually-transmitted diseases.
p.p. Sommer
Everything we know about Anna Sölzer is from a file kept on her by Cologne Criminal Police. All of the documents pictured here are from this file.
Anna Sölzer was arrested by the police on 7 November 1941 in a guesthouse where she received clients. The female residents of the buildings around the cathedral and Great Saint Martin Church in Cologne’s Old Town had to fear regular police raids. According to Detective Chief Sergeant Benecken, her arrest was due to her having been encountered in apartments where she was not registered. She was given a warning and subjected to stricter conditions. If she did not comply, she would be detained indefinitely.
Source: Landesarchiv NRW – Abteilung Rheinland – BR 2034 Nr.1787
Cologne, November 7, 1941.
During today’s inspection of the guesthouse at 21 Ursulastr., the prostitute Anna Sölzer, born on 13 February 1919 in Cologne, registered address with the police 18 Friesenwall in Cologne, was encountered at said guesthouse. S. was alone in the room but the entry in the register of guests indicated that she had been in the room with the man identified in the enclosed guest registration form. An inspection of the medical certificate from the Health Authority revealed that she should have reported to the health authority for a check-up on 6 November 1941.
In addition, it was established that since 3 November 1941 S. has been absent from the apartment at 18 Friesenwall that is registered with us here. By her own account she has been staying at the residence at 21 Kammachergasse since 6 November 1941, and in the days prior to that she allegedly stayed with her clients at residences which she is unable to describe further. There is every likelihood that S. has spent the night with clients in hotels or guest houses, in contravention of the written instructions that she received in January 1941.
Already in May this year S. was arrested for committing theft at the expense of a sexual partner and sentenced to 4 weeks in prison.
During today’s inspection S. was most unruly and it took considerable effort to get her to stand up and accompany the officers. It may be appropriate to take measures against S. on the basis of the decree of 9 September 1939.
Benecken, detective chief sergeant
Cologne, November 7, 1941.
17th Police Department
Original
To the 15th K. by the K.V.
Sölzer is referred to the authorities with the request to issue her with the instructions set out in the decree of 9 September 1939 under section II, points 1, 2, 4 and 6 to 8.
Feierabend
Source: Landesarchiv NRW – Abteilung Rheinland – BR 2034 Nr.1787
Seven months later, in July 1942, the police arrested Anna Sölzer again and put her in jail. After she had served a sentence for theft, on 27 July 1942 the Criminal Police ordered her to be taken into »preventive police custody«.
The records on Anna Sölzer make reference to her »unruly behaviour« and repeated failure to comply with the conditions imposed on her, despite being warned on several occasions. The police assumed that she would not change her ways. From the »questionnaire on heredity and life history« included in her file, it emerges that Anna Sölzer’s parents were deceased and that she had spent her childhood and youth in the Municipal Orphanage.
If someone was taken into preventive police custody, it meant they would be sent to a concentration camp. A month later Anna Sölzer was moved from Cologne prison to Ravensbrück concentration camp for women. The camp management registered her under the prisoner number 13830.
Source: Landesarchiv NRW – Abteilung Rheinland – BR 2034 Nr.1787
Reich Criminal Police Office
Log no. X 1446 A 2 b
Berlin, August 27, 1942
To the
State Criminal Police – Criminal Police (Head) Office
in Cologne
The order for Anna Sölzer,
born on 13 February 1919 in Cologne, to be taken into preventive police custody, is hereby approved.
The prisoner is to be transferred to Ravensbrück concentration camp on the next collective transport. The camp administration has been informed.
p.p.
signed Böhlhoff
The final document in the Criminal Police files records her death. It is the transcript of a radio message from Ravensbrück concentration camp. Anna Sölzer died shortly before her 26th birthday.
It is impossible to ascertain whether the date is accurate and whether the cause of death was indeed »pulmonary tuberculosis«. There is no way of reconstructing what Anna Sölzer experienced in the camp. What is known, however, is that in winter 1945/1945 the capacity of Ravensbrück concentration camp had been exceeded. Hunger and epidemics were rife and the hygiene conditions were catastrophic. During these months, survival was nothing short of a miracle. The mortality rate trebled. Between December 1944 and March 1945, more than 1,000 women perished monthly as a result of starvation, exhaustion, disease, violence and murder.
The SS had the corpses burnt in the camp crematorium. Their ashes and bone fragments were tipped into the nearby Schwedtsee lake.
Source: Landesarchiv NRW – Abteilung Rheinland – BR 2034 Nr.1787
Gestapo – Düsseldorf Gestapo Head Office
++ CAMP RAVENSZRUECK [sic!] NO. 27 3 JAN. 1945 2158 =1 )222 =
TO CRIM. POL. MAIN OFFICE COLOGNE.- –
URGENT, PRESENT IMMEDIATELY .- – –
RE: ANNA SOELZER, BORN 13.FEB. 1919
COLOGNE .- – –
FILE REF.: 15. K. V. H. ROEM. 2 NO 83. – – –
THE ABOVEMENTIONED PRISONER DIED ON 28 DEC. 1944
AT 16:00 IN THE SICK BAY HERE.-
CAUSE OF DEATH: PULMONARY TB 34(7)9‘3 .- –
WITH REFERENCE TO THE ORDER OF RF – S-
ROEM. 4 C 2 GEN NO. 40454 OF 21 MAY 1942
PLEASE INFORM RELATIVES OF THE PRISONER’S DEATH IMMEDIATELY, AND ALSO INSTRUCT THEM OF THE FOLLOWING:
AT PRESENT THE BODY CANNOT BE RELEASED
AND NO BURIAL CAN TAKE PLACE.1. 38,3 538),- .3
[ATTENDANCE] AT THE CREMATION IS NOT POSSIBLE. ON THE ORDER OF THE CAMP PHYSICIAN, FOR REASONS OF HYGIENE IT IS NOT POSSIBLE TO VIEW THE CORPSE: THE CORPSE WILL BE CREMATED IMMEDIATELY. NO DETAILS HERE ABOUT RELATIVES. PLEASE INFORM ME OF WHO IS TO INHERIT ESTATE.- –
CAMP COMMANDANT SIGNED: SUHREN – STURMBAHNNFÜHRER +