During the war, the police officer Hugo Mäker lived with his wife Martha in Berlin-Schöneberg. He was also the janitor for their building at Eisenacher Straße 40. He was a longstanding friend of Charlotte and Leopold Danziger, a Jewish couple who fled underground at the beginning of 1943. Hugo and Martha Mäker took them into their home for several short periods—mainly during the day—and provided them with food. At the Danzigers’ request, the police officer and his wife also sheltered the Jewish family Paul and Charlotte Heymann with their son Günter Adolf for some time.
Mäker worked at the Hohenstaufenstraße police precinct in Schöneberg. He used his position to fetch papers and valuables from the Danzigers’ sealed apartment and pass them on to them.
After the end of the war, Mäker was put into a British prison camp. Leopold Danziger appealed to the camp director on his behalf, praising his “antifascist standpoint” and thus achieving his early release.
Hugo Mäker was honored by the West Berlin senate as an Unsung Hero in 1962.