Diakoniestiftung Lazarus

The Lazarus Hospital is a hospital on Bernauer Strasse in Berlin , Mitte district . The Diakoniestiftung Lazarus Berlin contributed its facilities and services to the Hope Valley Foundation Lobetal. Lobetal is one of the four foundations of the Von Bodelschwingh Foundation Bethel , based in Bielefeld .

history

Lazarus Hospital main building

The founder of the Lazarus Foundation, Pastor Wilhelm Boegehold , took over the parish priesthood in the Elisabeth parish in the north of Berlin (Invalidenstrasse, today: Mitte district ), in one of the rapidly growing areas due to the influx of job seekers.

On June 16, 1865, the foundation stone was laid for a hospital ward with 15 beds and a chapel above (connected to a prayer room for Bible studies and work with children and young people). The chapel was inaugurated on November 29, 1865, and the hospital ward in June 1866. But with the exception of one seriously ill patient, the first sick people who were initially cared for here were not the poor Lazarus from the area, but wounded and sick soldiers from the war with Austria . It soon became clear that a larger hospital was needed. Between 1867 and 1870 an extension with 137 beds was built - albeit without sufficient funding. Boegehold was dependent on donations; he was also very much supported by the machine manufacturer Louis Schwartzkopff . Boegehold had turned to him, especially since numerous workers at Schwartzkopff's factory were his community members. From this a friendship and permanent commitment to Lazarus grew: after Boegehold's death, Schwartzkopff consolidated the Lazarus factory, founded the first board of trustees and was its chairman for years.

Boegehold was looking for deaconesses for nursing. Some sisters from the Diakonissenanstalt Kaiserswerth (near Düsseldorf ) were sent, but not enough and, above all, not permanently. For this reason, Boegehold very soon founded his own deaconess mother house. It began with the training of deaconesses who are also used to care for the elderly and the sick in community nursing in Berlin, Brandenburg and Silesia .

Sponsor

When Boegehold died in 1873, the Lazarus factory threatened to collapse economically. The mechanical engineering manufacturer Louis Schwartzkopff, a friend of Boegeholds and sponsor of Lazarus ( Schwartzkopffstrasse in Berlin-Mitte - and also a subway station - is named after him) founded the board of trustees and took over the chairmanship; he obtained the official approval of the statutes and the bestowal of corporate rights. Since 1874 the Lazarus Foundation has also formed its own parish. In 1882, Carl Langenbuch performed the first cholecystectomy in the hospital .

Heinrich Wolfgang Seidel

In 1907 a young theologian began his career by taking over the post of second pastor in Lazarus. It was Heinrich Wolfgang Seidel , then married to the writer Ina Seidel .

Design of the pen

Other important stations on the path of the Lazarus-Werk: The nursing school was opened in 1907, and a daycare center was founded in 1919. In the early 1920s, inflation almost brought economic ruin. A people's kitchen was set up and deaconesses were sent to hospitals and homes outside Berlin - u. a. to Bad Freienwalde , Eberswalde , Kyritz , Cottbus , Erkner , Potsdam , Rüdersdorf . In 1924, an old people's home - the Damenstift - was acquired in Bad Kösen .

Second World War

During the Second World War , the hospital suffered severe bomb damage in 1943, and parts of the hospital operations were relocated to Franzensbad . In June 1945, the reconstruction of the hospital began, the parts of the building that were still usable were overcrowded with patients.

Post-war period and construction of the wall

When Berlin was divided into sectors in 1946, Bernauer Strasse was on the border of the French sector . This made the connection to the mother house much more difficult for the 47 deaconesses working in the Soviet sector and in the Mark Brandenburg. Of course they could come to visit, but they were GDR citizens. This separation became completely difficult when the Wall was built on August 13, 1961. The deaconesses working in East Berlin and the GDR were cut off from the motherhouse. They had no health or pension insurance; Neither was necessary until August 13, because in an emergency you could go back to the parent company. In addition, from one day to the next, a significant number of employees from the eastern part of the country could no longer come to work: nurses, administrators, doctors. The sudden shortage of personnel presented those responsible with insoluble problems.

The Bernauer Strasse subway was closed when the Wall was built, and access to the Nordbahnhof S-Bahn station from the Bernauer entrance was no longer possible before. A bus line was later set up.

On August 22nd, the first Berlin Wall victim , Ida Siekmann , died after jumping from the third floor at Bernauer Strasse 48 on the way to the Lazarus Hospital.

The modern concept of the hospital

In the mid-1980s, the Berlin Senate approved funds for a hospital replacement building to a new building and conversion into a hospital . In 1987 the Lazarus Hospital thus became a hospital - a type of care facility that only exists in Berlin. The hospital has employed doctors and therapists.

In the 1990s, further areas of work were added at the Bernauer Strasse location: the geriatric care school was opened in 1992. In the same year the Diakoniestiftung Lazarus started to set up an outpatient hospice work. In 1999 an inpatient hospice was opened. In 2000 the training began in a vocational school for social affairs and from 2004 in a technical college for social affairs. The development continued with the opening of the Mauercafé (2011), a therapeutic residential group for young people (2016) and a daycare center (2016). Since 2017, the neighboring residence for people with disabilities " Schrippenkirche " and the inclusion hotel "Grenzfall" with guest house belong to the campus. All facilities are sponsored by the Hope Valley Foundation Lobetal.

In addition to these facilities, the Diakonissenhaus is located on the Lazarus Campus, which belongs to the Lazarus Diakonie Berlin Foundation.