Carlshöfer Institutions

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Carlshöfer Anstalten, around 1914

The Carlshöfer Anstalten were a diaconal institution for the care of people with epilepsy , mental and psychological impairments as well as homeless people and alcoholics in the East Prussian Carlshof (Karolewo) near Rastenburg (Kętrzyn). They operated from 1882/83 to 1940. From 1941 to 1945 they served as a military hospital and barracks for guards from the nearby " Wolfsschanze ".

history

Diaconal institution

After the provincial poor and infirmary Tapiau ( Gwardeisk ) had to discharge 200 patients due to overcrowding in 1881 , the then superintendent of Rastenburg, Christian Klapp (1832–1905), acquired Gut Carlshof near Rastenburg to improve care for the disabled. On November 4, 1881, the East and West Prussian Provincial Synod decided on financial participation, but the Carlshöfer Anstalten remained privately organized. After extensive renovations commissioning as "Institute for epileptics" took place in October 1882 (according to other sources on October 23, 1883) with the inclusion of 36 patients, 30 of which originally came from East and West Prussia and from the From Bodelschwingh Foundation Bethel returned . Bethel and the principles of the Inner Mission served as the model for the institution. The founding director of the Carlshöfer Anstalten was Hermann Dembowski (1853–1913), the medical care was provided by Ludwig Winckel.

In 1884 an extension was made to accommodate 150 homeless people, and in 1890 a sanatorium was built. In 1898, the Carlshöfer Anstalten cared for 554 patients, in 1905 an educational institution for 80 welfare children was added, and a tuberculosis department was available to accommodate sick patients. A brother house was used to train young deacons for Inner Mission.

At the beginning of the First World War , 1,500 patients were cared for in the Carlshöfer establishments. The total area of ​​the institutions was 500 hectares, which were mainly used for agricultural purposes as part of occupational therapy and thus contributed significantly to Carlshof's economic independence. In August 1914, the site was partially damaged by fighting and was occupied by Russian troops until September 1914. Only a small number of the patients could be evacuated beforehand; a large part of the harvest was destroyed by fire. At this point in time, the founding director's brother Siegfried Dembowski was in charge of management. After the end of the war, Carlshof did not regain its previous size and importance; in 1928 there were still 799 patients living here with a total capacity of 850.

After the National Socialists came to power , until March 31, 1935, 53 forced sterilizations were carried out on 35 female and 18 male patients in the Carlsburg hospital in the Rastenburg hospital under the law for the prevention of genetically ill offspring . In 1934 the Vorwerk Wilhelmsdorf had to be forcibly sold. It was used to build the Rastenburg-Wilhelmsdorf airfield. The National Socialist People's Welfare (NSV) and the East Prussian provincial administration tried to expand their influence on the Carlshöfer establishments, in particular the East Prussian Gauleiter Erich Koch pursued a policy of "deconfessionalization". From 1937 onwards, on the instructions of Erich Koch, mentally ill patients were increasingly relocated to Carlshof, which until then had primarily cared for epileptics. In 1938, the Gestapo initiated an investigation into "anti-state behavior" against the institution's director Heinz Dembowski and other employees. On the occasion of a board meeting in March 1939, Dembowski was supposed to be replaced by a director close to the NSV, but this failed. By order of the Gestapo, Dembowski was finally deposed and the Carlshöfer Anstalten became the property of the Province of East Prussia. In the following period 900 patients were distributed to other clinics, 66 of them were deported to the Soldau concentration camp between May 21 and 31, 1940 as part of the " Aktion Lange " and murdered in a group of 1,558 inmates of East Prussian psychiatric hospitals. Nothing is known about the further fate of the patients transferred from the Carlshöfer Asylums, but between 1940 and 1942 a total of around 4,000 patients in East Prussian psychiatric institutions, 2/3 of the pre-war occupancy, were killed as part of Action T4 or by "wild euthanasia".

"Wolfsschanze" hospital

Hitler and Karl-Jesko von Puttkamer in the Karlshof reserve hospital
One of the x-rays of Hitler's skull taken in the Karlshof hospital

On February 11, 1941, the SS took over the facility in order to set up a military hospital and accommodations for the SS guards for the nearby Wolfsschanze headquarters . The Wilhelmsdorf airfield was used for flight operations at Wolfsschanze and was the site of Fritz Todt's crash on February 8, 1942. The victims of the crash were laid out in the former asylum chapel. Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg used Wilhelmsdorf in the failed assassination attempt on July 20, 1944 for the flight to and from Berlin. Those injured in the assassination were treated in the SS hospital; Rudolf Schmundt , Günther Korten and Heinz Brandt died here. In September and October 1944, a total of five x-rays of Adolf Hitler's skull were taken in the Karlshof reserve hospital .

After the Second World War and the expulsion of the local population , 92 members of the Carlshöfer Anstalten joined the Rummelsberger Diakonie . An agricultural school has existed on the Carlshöfer Anstalten site since 1947.

Personalities

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Hermann Pölking: East Prussia - Biography of a Province . Ed .: be.bra Verlag. 2012, ISBN 978-3-89809-108-4 ( google.de ).
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h Boris Böhm, Hagen Markwardt, Ulrich Rottleb: “Will be transferred to a state sanatorium in Saxony today”. The murder of East Prussian patients in the National Socialist killing center in Pirna-Sonnenstein in 1941 . Ed .: Leipziger Universitätsverlag. 2015, ISBN 978-3-86583-976-3 , pp. 41 ff .
  3. ^ A b c Sascha Topp, Petra Fuchs, Gerrit Hohendorf, Paul Richter, Maike Rotzoll: The Province of East Prussia and the National Socialist "euthanasia". SS- "Aktion Lange" and "Aktion T4" . In: Medizinhistorisches Journal 43 . 2008, pp. 20-55.
  4. ↑ Peter Hoffmann: On the assassination attempt in the Führer headquarters "Wolfsschanze" on July 20, 1944 . Ed .: Quarterly Issues for Contemporary History . 1964, p. 273 ( ifz-muenchen.de [PDF]).
  5. ↑ Uwe Neumärker: Wolfsschanze - Hitler's power center in World War II . 2012, ISBN 978-3-86153-433-4 , pp. 59, 93 ( google.de ).
  6. ^ Henrik Eberle, Matthias Uhl: Das Buch Hitler . 2005, ISBN 978-3-7325-1373-4 ( google.de ).
  7. ↑ Sven Felix Kellerhoff : Why did Hitler's teeth show a "bluish shimmer" Die Welt , May 23, 2018
  8. ↑ Christine Riedl-Valder: Monasteries in Bavaria Diakonenanstalt Rummelsberg (ev) , House of Bavarian History (PDF)
  9. ↑ 70-lecie ZSCKR w Karolewie (Polish)
  10. ↑ Hitler's assassination attempt: three photos cause a stir ; Neue Deister-Zeitung , February 20, 2009

Coordinates: 54 ° 4 ′ 26 ″  N , 21 ° 25 ′ 16 ″  E