Memorial plaque at the former administrative building of the Hamburg Jewish community

In 1916, the German-Israelite Community of Hamburg purchased the residential building at Rothenbaumchaussee 38 and turned it into an administrative centre. The Gestapo seized the building during the November pogrom of 1938 and sealed it up. In the following year, the building legally became the property of the Gestapo. In 1941, after renovations to repair the damage done during the pogrom, the Gestapo’s Jewish Affairs Department (Judenreferat) moved into the building from its previous offices at the Gestapo headquarters in the Stadthaus. The head of the Jewish Affairs Department, Claus Göttsche, occupied the former office of the Jewish community leader.

The Jewish Affairs Department was the main authority in charge of the repression and persecution of Hamburg’s Jewish population by the police. From October 1941, the department organized the deportation of Hamburg’s Jews to ghettos and extermination camps.

After the large-scale deportations in the summer of 1943 were completed, the Jewish Affairs Department lost its importance and the Gestapo’s Foreign Nationals Department (Ausländerreferat) moved into the building instead. This department was responsible for monitoring and persecuting the thousands of forced labourers in the Hamburg metropolitan area.

On 18 September 1945, the new Jewish Community of Hamburg was founded in the building at Rothenbaumchaussee 38. The building was used as a Jewish community centre until 1960 and has been rented out ever since.