Lecture
Potsdam 29. Jul. 2004
Volker van der
Locht
Victims of Sterilization
and Euthanasia
1. My person
I live in Essen in the Ruhr
area and also I have studied pedagogic there in the University. I have
two reasons, why I am busy with the history of disabled persons in the
Third Reich. First: 1984 celebrated the Franz-Sales-House its hundreds
anniversary. In this context was a story edited in different papers about
the history of this asylum during the National Socialism and some things
were described incomplete or wrong. Second: In the same time my Professor
had planned an exposition about the history of schools in Essen. In this
context I looked for material about special education and special schools
for disabled children and I have written something about the history of
Franz-Sales-House.
At the moment I cooperate with
a museum in Essen. It is planning to found a House of History with a permanent
exposition about Essen in the time of the Third Reich. In this context
I work on files of the Hereditary Health Court in Essen with files about
near 4000 persons. I would like to tell something about this research.
2. The Franz-Sales-House
First I will explain some dates
of Franz-Sales-House. It is a catholic asylum for mentally disabled boys
and girls. The name comes from Franz von Sales or French François
de Sales. He was born in 1567 and he died 1622. He was the bishop of Geneva
and he accommodated a disabled boy in his house. Later he was canonized.
The Franz-Sales-House was founded
in 1884 and it was the greatest institution for disabled children in Western
Germany until the end of World War II in 1945. In the year 1940, before
the beginning of deportation, 1,096 men, women and children lived there
in the house. The greatest group of children went to the special school
of the asylum and the grown up patients worked in different workshops
for men and women. Here you see some pictures of this house.
Since the starting medical
diagnoses were important for the social work and education in Franz-Sales-House.
A special form, created in 1884, was used to explore the social and health
situation of a child and his family. Questions about pregnancy, birth
and sicknesses in childhood were important to look for the cause of disability.
At first the physician of Franz-Sales-House asked for psychological disorders
in the family and he asked for social and sexual deviations. These questions
formed the base to look for hereditary or other diseases. I think, it
is important to see, that the eugenic discussion and practice began a
long time before National Socialism. Since the end of 19th century was
created a view of disability in Germany, in which physical and social
divergences were a problem of the individual, often it is in this view
a hereditary problem., so the medicine or welfare institutions had no
reason to help and support.
3. Welfare in Franz-Sales-House since 1933
The National socialists used
these structures to develop their own politics. The continuity of this
thinking appeared in the life of children in Franz-Sales-House, because
often they were born before 1914 and they were in different welfare institutions
during the republic of Weimar and the Third Reich. For example Katharina
or Catherine F.
Catherine was born in 1910
and she was the youngest of six children. At the age of six years she
went into the elementary school and later in the special school for learning
disabled pupils. In 1921 the youth court ordered welfare education because
Catherine had committed some little thefts. She was admitted to the welfare
home Föhren, near Coblenz. In this asylum she graduated from the
special school in 1925 and she then went to the catholic welfare home,
Saint Vincenz convent in Oberhausen in Ruhr area. Then she was released
to her parents, but only one year later Catherine was admitted to another
welfare home – the Saint Agnes convent in Bonn, the old capitol
of the Federal Republic of Germany. In December 1928 she changed to the
Franz-Sales-House in Essen.
The reason of this change to
Essen was, that Catherine refused to submit to the rules for residents
in the different institutions. The Saint Agnes Convent had written about
Cathrine:
“February 28: K.F. does nearly nothing in work against it she does
so much in obstruction the order, vulgar impertinences, naughtinesses,
that it exceeds extreme the tolerable measure. She eats mostly greedy
and she simulates illnesses, to lie in bed in the morning. May 28: K.F.
has developed more to the bad side, she beat a superior in her face during
a fit of rage. (…)”
Dr. Hegemann, the physician
in Franz-Sales House, had the opinion, that the resistance in form of
direct denial to work or indirect in form to be sick, aggression against
the personal was the result of the wrong education in the welfare homes.
He meant that Catherine had a hereditary feeblemindedness. His diagnosis,
“inborn imbecility and psychopathy”.
This diagnosis had bad consequences for Catherine. In November 1930 Catherine’s
father wrote a letter to the director of Franz-Sales-House. He asked for
Catherine’s release because the parents celebrated their 25th wedding
anniversary. Dr. Hegemann refused the release. After them the catholic
welfare workers proved Catherine’s family. In a report they wrote:
“The reputation of the parents is bad and the flat situation is
unfavourable. The 3 attic rooms are together kitchen, bedroom of the parents
and the two eldest daughters (16 and 18 years old) and living room, where
stay the family and also a son (father of 3 illegitimated children) sleep.”
Also important was the opinion
of welfare workers about the political position of the parents. In another
report they wrote; the family was dangerous communists and they stirred
up Catherine, that she made difficulties in education, if she came back
into the convent.
This report was written in December 1933. Some days later the “law
for the prevention of Hereditary Diseases of 14 July 1933 came into force.
Now Dr. Hegemann’s diagnosis “inborn imbecility” was
one of the sterilization indications. But in the first years Catherine
was spared because she wasn’t allowed to visit her family. In this
case, a special rule of the law said, that the sterilization wasn’t
necessary if the patient was in a clinic or asylum with separation of
men and women. Although the Franz-Sales-House guaranteed these rules,
Dr. Hegemann sent an expert opinion to the Health administration in Essen.
And although Catherine never left welfare homes, she was operated on in
March 1937.
4. Victims of Euthanasia
If you see the deportation
list, you see two big transports in 1941 into the two public psychiatric
clinics Bedburg-Hau and Johannistal-Süchteln (today Süchteln
is a part of Viersen in Rhineland) in September 1941. These transports
were connected with the T4-Program. The main part of patients in Bedburg-Hau
and Johannistal had been deported until the Euthanasia-Stop in August
1941 and many clinic buildings were empty. The Health administration of
Rhineland ordered the private hospitals or asylums like the Franz-Sales-House
to send their patients to these empty public clinics. One woman, who was
deported in favour of the Franz-Sales-House children was Mathilde B.
I have found the name of Mathilde
B. in a list of an Essener cemetery. There are graves of 119 victims of
concentration camps and psychiatric gas chambers. Mathilde was born 1916
during the World War I. In the first years she had fallen ill with rickets.
The sickness has the consequence of weak bones and that a person learns
to walk later. Also Mathilde learned to walk at the age of three years.
In age of six years she went into the elementary school and later in the
elementary school for learning disabled children. After the school she
worked on a farm and since 1935 in a catholic children home in Essen.
The director wrote about Mathilde: “Mathilde B. appeared here intellectual
and physical inferior. Retarded, but not real imbecile. She showed in
her way often clever, crafty, especially if it was valid to satisfy her
great instincts especially in respect of her sexuality. At the same time
she was lazy in the work and in contact with others often impudent and
vulgar. For these reasons she was a danger for our other protégés.”
In October 1936 the chief of
the local health administration Dr. Fleischer (in English, ‘butcher’)
applied for sterilization. In a formula to prove her intelligence she
was asked to answer questions like: the capitol of Germany or France,
who was Martin Luther, the date of Christmas and others. Some questions
in mathematics she couldn’t answer – for example 81 divide
3. The hereditary health court judged hereditary imbecility. At 26th February
1937 Mathilde was sterilized.
But this was not the end of
Mathilde’s story. Since March 1938 Mathilde was accommodated in
different psychiatric clinics – first in Düsseldorf-Grafenberg
then in Bedburg-Hau, where she was until March 1940. Then she was deported
to the psychiatric clinic Brandenburg-Görden. The background of this
transport was that the German Marine furnished a military hospital in
Bedburg-Hau to nurse injured German soldiers. More then 1700 psychiatric
patients and disabled persons, men and women, went to different psychiatric
gas chambers like Grafeneck or Brandenburg, the first euthanasia clinics
in Germany. The transport with Mathilde to Brandenburg-Görden comprised
70 men and 212 women. Görden was also a transit clinic for the gas
chamber, Brandenburg. Most patients of this transport were killed there.
But Mathilde survived Görden. One year later she came to the gas
chamber Bernburg. The date of 7th March 1941 is the day of her arrival
in Bernburg. It is also the day of her death.
5. Children Euthanasia: Wilhelm L.
If you see the dates in the
deportation list of Franz-Sales-House you see that the main transports
were in 1943. The background here was a change in the strategy of the
British and American army. During spring and summer 1943 the “battle
of Ruhr” began with intensive bomb attacks of the British and US
Air Force. The plan was to destroy whole towns like Essen or Duisburg
to demoralize the German population. In summary between March and July
1943 the British and American Air Force flew 21 attacks against different
towns in Ruhr area. In this time 14.000 houses was destroyed and 6.000
people died.
Another reason for the British
government to attack Essen was that this town was an important industrial
center, with the Friedrich Krupp factory one of the greatest steel enterprises
in Europe in this time. In the public opinion it also called the “arms
manufacturer of the Reich” . The “battle of Ruhr began in
Essen at 5th March 1943. 18.30 p.m. 442 bombers started in England. At
21.45 p.m. the attack ended. In this time fell down 863 high explosive
bombs and 140.000 fire bombs. More then 3000 buildings were destroyed
and 2000 other houses was damaged. 50,000 people were homeless. 20,000
others were forced to leave their flats and apartments, because many bombs,
which didn’t explode, lay in the earth. 1600 people was injured,
spilled or missed, 479 people was dead. At 12th March followed another
attack with great destructions.
After the attack on the 5th March it began the preparation of deportation
out of the Franz-Sales-House. During a conference of the regional health
administration it was decide two deportations into the psychiatric hospital
Altscherbitz in Saxony-Anhalt. The free buildings of the asylum were needed
to nurse injured people because the bomb attacks had damaged many hospitals.
This facts were written in a letter of the Central clearing office (Zentralverrechnungsstelle)
a department of the Euthanasia office in Berlin. In another letter from
Herbert Linden of the health department in Ministry of interior it was
mentioned that 16 children of Franz-Sales-House in Altscherbitz died.
It means that they were murdered.
Because of the permanent air attacks during the summer, the health administration
of Essen needed more buildings to nurse injured persons. It meant the
best medical care and welfare for the Arian German population, and on
the other side, euthanasia for the so called inferior persons like in
Franz-Sales-House. They was deported to different euthanasia-clinics Uchtspringe,
Stadtroda, Tiegenhof and Ückermünde in East of Germany. But
it is not true, that all deported persons were killed. One of the main
reasons to survive was the fitness to work for men and women or the educability
for children. It will be clear by the brother and sister Margarete and
Wilhelm L. Margarete, born in December 1927, and Wilhelm, born in July
1930, came from an extremely poor family. In Margarete’s history
was written that her mother had born three illegitimated children before
her marriage and later she had two other children with her husband. This
information came from the judgement of a youth court, which had taken
the custody of her three illegitimated children. In this judgement was
written:
“The domestic conditions of the family W. are conceivable the worst.
The mother has devoted to an immoral mode of life before her marriage.
It comes from two children in the marriage a third to be expected. The
mother doesn’t understand in any way how to run a tidy regular household.
The beds are always uncovered, covered with rags and are thick with dirt.
The crockery remains unwashed and will make use of it unwashed again.
The conditions will be worst because of the existence of the little children,
because they relieve themselves in the room.”
On account of the indescribable
conditions, the administration applied for the upbringing in an institution
for Wilhelm, Mararete and their elder brother Albert. Albert was send
into a welfare institution near by Coblence. Wilhelm and Margarete were
admitted to Franz-äSales-House in Essen during the year 1936. At
this time Wilhelm was six and Margarete was nine years old.
In the same year Dr. Fleischer,
the chief of health administration in Essen, applied for the sterilisation
of the mother for the hereditary health court of Essen. In the judgement
it was written that she couldn’t calculate simple sums like three
multiplicative with four. Specifically the court mentioned the hereditary
load in the family. Two years later the sterilisation of Albert, the elder
brother of Wilhelm and Margarete, followed. The hereditary court Coblence
refered explicitly to the “considerable family load” in the
explanation of Alberts judgement.
Wilhelm and Margarete weren’t
sterilized, because many judges and physicians of the hereditary health
courts must go to the “Reichswehr”, the German army, with
beginning of second world war 1939. Because the personnel were absent,
that the NS-state couldn’t realize the practice of sterilization
like in time before the war. Not before the year 1943 at 15th April –
it was the time of the bomb attacks about Essen – the brother and
sister was deported into the public clinic Uchtspringe in Saxonia-Anhalt.
The diagnosis of both children in their files said imbecility and spastic
paralysis right side. “Imbecility any causes” was one criterion
of registration in the form 1 of the Euthanasia office in Berlin during
the T4-Program. But Margarete survived the deportation – she was
discharge from Uchtspringe at 21st June 1945 and she came back to the
Franz-Sales-House in Essen – whereas Wilhelm’s death was registered
at the date of 28th April 1944.
You can find a clue for Wilhelm’s
killing in Uchtspringe in the description of his family in his personal
form from Franz-Sales-House. It says: “The father of the child was
said to be a gipsy, (…) He is punished repeated because of sex crime
and also he is sterilized. The mother looks like a gipsy, has 3 illegitimate
children, 2 are mentally deficient.”
Although the clue about the
bad domestic conditions and the untidy household of her mother wasn’t
absent in Margerete’s file, there existed one difference, that she
had a chance to survive – the clue about the descent of gipsy. Already
during the realization of T4-Program the officials in the euthanasia-office
registered the German or another nationality of patients in the form 1
of the Euthanasia office. In the opinion of the authors of this form mean
nationality, on account of the patients had Arian or foreign blood. In
NS-slang people with foreign blood were Jews, Jews half-castes, Blacks,
Blacks half castes, Gipsies and Gipsies half castes.
Wilhelm was a member of one
of these “foreign blood” groups corresponding to the entry
in his personal form of Franz-Sales-House. The background of this entry
was that Walther Hecker, the chief of the youth welfare education administration
of Rhineland, published a decree about foreign youths – special
gipsy youths – in public and private clinics and asylums in Rhineland.
Because of this decree of 16th January 1943 Dr. Müller, the chief
physician in Franz-Sales-House in this time, make up a list of fourteen
girls and boys. Wilhelm was described as a gipsy half caste in this list.
That’s why the registration before the realisation of the different
euthanasia programs seemed very likely that Wilhelm was killed because
of racist motives. This thesis is also supported because the children
euthanasia was expanded about Jew- and Gipsy-children after the stop of
T4-Program in August 1941.
The function of the clinic
Uchtspringe during the realisation of euthanasia is another reason that
Wilhelm and other children in this hospital were killed. In the time between
July and August 1940 Uchtspringe was a transit hospital for the gas chamber
Brandenburg/Havel and afterwards until July 1941 it had the same function
for the gas chamber Bernburg in Saxony-Anhalt. In this time 1787 people
were deported and killed in these two extermination hospitals. After the
stop of T4 Program, Uchtspringe was supplied with medications to kill
patients. At last in Uchtspringe was created a children’s division
(Kinderfachabteilung), a special part of selected hospitals to kill children
in the program of children euthanasia. The setting up of this children’s
division is the most important reason that Wilhelm was killed in the context
of children euthanasia.
6. Result
I want to show with these examples:
behind the abstract numbers of deported persons hide itself concrete fates
of life. They also show that the NS-State mainly pursued unpleasant segments
of the population. A disability was only one criterion of selection, if
the disability led to lacking or missing fitness in the opinion of the
Regime. In addition, political views or the affiliation to a supposed
foreign race had a great importance. General social categories were important:
poverty, many and illegitimated children, frequent change of sex partners
contradicted the official view of normal family and frequent it led to
extermination.
Deportations of Franz-Sales-House during the World War II
Date of Patients Destination
clinic
Deport. all male female
5. 6.1940 28 28 - Alexianer-Asylum Moenchengladbach
13.11.1940 20 20 - Provincial Sanitarium Johannistal-Suechteln
12. 2.1941 5 4 1 Provincial Sanitarium Duesseldorf-Grafenberg
26. 9.1941 100 40 60 Provincial Sanitarium Johannistal-Suechteln
26. 9.1941 100 100 - Provincial Sanitarium Bedburg-Hau
8. 3.1942 12 12 - Provincial Sanitarium St. Josef home Waldniel
15. 3.1943 50 50 - District Sanitarium Altscherbitz/ Saxonia-Anhalt
19. 3.1943 50 10 40 District Sanitarium Altscherbitz/ Saxonia-Anhalt
15. 4.1943 30 17 13 State Sanitarium Uchtspringe/Altmark
10. 5.1943 50 50 - Provincial Sanitarium Bedburg-Hau
10. 5.1943 50 - 50 Heart-Jesus-House Kühr-Niederfell/Mosel
11. 5.1943 50 - 50 Heart-Jesus-House Kühr-Niederfell/Mosel
11. 5.1943 100 100 - Provincial Sanitarium Bedburg-Hau
11. 5.1943 30 23 7 District Sanitarium Leipzig-Doesen
29. 7.1943 60 60 - District Sanitarium Tiegenhof Gnesen / Warthedistrict
20. 8.1943 65 60 5 State Sanitarium Uchtspringe/Altmark
31. 8.1943 15 15 - District Sanitarium Stadtroda/Thüringen
31. 8.1943 17 17 - Sanitarium Ückermünde/Pommern
sum 832 606 226
Reference
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List of abbreviations
AdLVR Archiv des Landschaftsverbands Rheinland (Archive of District of
Rhineland)
Anm. Anmerkung (remark)
Arch.Nr. Archiv Nummer (Archive Number)
Bd. Band (Volume)
Best. Bestand (holdings)
EG Erbgesundheitsgericht Hereditary Health Court
HA-FSH Historisches Archiv Franz-Sales-Haus (Historic Archive of Franz-Sales-House)
H.B.Nr. Hauptbuchnummer (Main registration number)
Hrsg. Herausgeber (Editor)
NWHStAD Nordrhein-Westfälisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Düsseldorf
(North-Rhine/Westphalian Main State Archive of Duesseldorf)
Pat. Akte Patientenakte (patient file)
Reg. Regierung (government)
RGBl. Tl. 1 Reichsgesetzblatt Teil 1 (Law gazette of Reich Part I)
StA Stadtarchiv (Communal Archive)
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