Josef Lainck

Josef Lainck (31 March 1907 – 3 January 1981) was a German emigrant whose life intersected with interwar migration, Canadian criminal justice, deportation policy, and Nazi persecution. Born in Ochtrup in the Prussian Province of Westphalia, he emigrated to Canada in 1927, where he was convicted after a series of burglaries and the shooting of an Edmonton police officer. After several years of imprisonment in Canada, he was deported to Nazi Germany in 1938. Upon his return, German authorities placed him in preventive custody (Schutzhaft) and sent him to Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where he remained—apart from a transfer to Neuengamme concentration camp—until the end of the Second World War.[1]

Early life and emigration

Lainck was born on 31 March 1907 in Ochtrup in the Prussian Province of Westphalia.[1]

In July 1927 he departed from Hamburg aboard the Empress of Scotland and arrived in Quebec City on 16 July before travelling to Alberta.[1] According to immigration records cited by historian Grant W. Grams, he was to work as a farm labourer near Strome, Alberta, for Herman Guhle, another recent German Catholic immigrant.[1]

His migration took place during a broader wave of German migration to Canada in the late 1920s, influenced by comparatively open Canadian immigration policies and the restrictions on German immigration to the United States created by the Immigration Act of 1924.[2]

Crimes and conviction in Canada

Much of Lainck’s first months in Canada remains unclear. By November 1927 he was living in Edmonton.[1] After reporting that his hotel room had been robbed, he came to the attention of local police.[1]

On 13 November 1927 Constable Thomas Adams surprised an intruder inside the Robinson Tailoring Company store on Jasper Avenue. During the confrontation Adams was shot twice.[1] Evidence found at the scene, including a hat and fountain pen, was linked to Lainck, and he was arrested shortly afterward.[1]

Contemporary reports and archival evidence connect him to several burglaries and the attempted murder of the officer.[1] Adams survived, although the injuries affected his health for the remainder of his life.[1]

Lainck was convicted in Canada and spent several years in prison. By the late 1930s Canadian authorities increasingly used deportation as a measure against foreign nationals convicted of serious crimes.[3]

Deportation to Nazi Germany

In 1938, after serving part of his sentence, Lainck was deported from Canada to Germany.[1]

His deportation occurred within the broader context of Canadian immigration policy toward criminal aliens and the Nazi regime’s interest in the return of ethnic Germans from overseas through the Heim ins Reich programme.[4]

Upon his arrival in Germany he was taken to Aachen, where the Gestapo placed him in preventive custody (Schutzhaft).[1] Nazi authorities described him as a dangerous habitual criminal (Schwerverbrecher).[1]

On 28 June 1938 he was transferred to Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Oranienburg.[1]

Imprisonment in Sachsenhausen and Neuengamme

Sachsenhausen concentration camp, established in 1936 north of Berlin, served as one of the central camps of the Nazi concentration camp system and functioned as an administrative and training centre for the SS camp network.[5]

At Sachsenhausen Lainck was classified as a "Berufsverbrecher" (habitual criminal) and marked with the camp system’s green triangle, which the Nazis used for prisoners categorized as criminals.[6]

On 12 December 1938 he was among a group of 100 prisoners transferred from Sachsenhausen to Neuengamme concentration camp, which at that time functioned as a subcamp of Sachsenhausen.[1]

Neuengamme later developed into an independent concentration camp complex near Hamburg that held more than 100,000 prisoners during the war.[7]

He was later returned to Sachsenhausen.[1]

Grams suggests that Lainck’s survival in the camp system may have been connected to his skills as a locksmith and his knowledge of English, which may have made him useful for certain forms of forced labour.[1]

He remained imprisoned until Soviet forces liberated Sachsenhausen on 27 April 1945.[8]

Post-war life

After liberation Lainck moved to Wuppertal in North Rhine-Westphalia.[1]

His family’s hotel in Ochtrup had been destroyed in an Allied bombing raid in February 1945, killing several relatives.[1]

From May 1945 to May 1948 he worked as an interpreter in the British occupation zone, where Allied authorities required translators.[1]

He married in 1948, worked as a labourer from 1950, and later became a businessman in Wuppertal.[1]

Lainck died there on 3 January 1981 at the age of 74.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Grams, Grant W. (2020). "The Story of Josef Lainck: From German Emigrant to Alien Convict and Deported Criminal to Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp Inmate". Border Crossing. 10 (2): 175–188.
  2. ^ Daniels, Roger (2004). Guarding the Golden Door: American Immigration Policy and Immigrants Since 1882. Hill and Wang. pp. 49–50.
  3. ^ Kelley, Ninette (2010). The Making of the Mosaic: A History of Canadian Immigration Policy. University of Toronto Press. pp. 166–170.
  4. ^ Grams, Grant W. (2025). "The Nazi Heim ins Reich Programme from Lands of Oversea Migration and German Deportees from Canada and the United States". Journal of International Migration and Integration. doi:10.1007/s12134-025-01245-1.
  5. ^ Orth, Karin (2004). Die Konzentrationslager-SS: Sozialstrukturelle Analysen und biographische Studien. Wallstein Verlag.
  6. ^ "Chart of Prisoner Markings". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
  7. ^ "Neuengamme Concentration Camp". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
  8. ^ "Sachsenhausen". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
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