Lindenhaus sanatorium and nursing home

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Lindenhaus around 1860:
women's shelter, director's house, men's house

The Lindenhaus in Brake , today Lemgo , was a healing and nursing home for the mentally ill founded in the 19th century . The insane asylum near Brake existed until 1951. The buildings that still exist today are used in different ways and are under monument protection.

history

prehistory

Pauline von Anhalt-Bernburg married Prince Leopold I. zur Lippe on January 2, 1796 . A mental illness had broken out in Leopold as early as 1790, from which he had only slowly recovered. The disease returned in March 1802 and he died on April 4, 1802. From then on, Pauline took over the affairs of government in representation of her six-year-old son Leopold II. She was an educated, well-traveled woman who showed a particular interest in social institutions. Last but not least, the clouded mental state of her husband will have contributed to the decision to set up a humanitarian institution for the “care of the insane”. In their day it was customary to lock up the insane like lawbreakers. In Detmold, the prison on Bruchberg was used for this. In 1803 she obtained an opinion from the medical and court advisor Johann Friedrich Christian Scherf for the establishment of an insane asylum. The vacant Horn Castle was planned as the location . However, it turned out to be unsuitable because of the necessary renovation work and the limited area around the castle.

In 1804, Charlotte Clementine zur Lippe, abbess of the women's monastery St. Marien zu Lemgo and resident of Brake Castle, died . The palace, including the garden, reverted to the Princely House. If Pauline wanted to accommodate the institution first in the walls of the castle, she was convinced by Scherf and based on her own studies that it would be better to accommodate the facility in the spacious garden. The orangery and the additional gardener's house were to serve as the first institution building.

As is so often the case in the small principality, questions of money slowed down plans. In 1805, the state parliament refused financial support, the aristocracy and cities refused to raise the consumption tax on wine and brandy. So Pauline herself set up a madhouse fund , into which donations and income from the domanial business and a tontine flowed.

To build the gardener's house, stones were taken from the west wing of the Braker Castle, which Chamber Councilor Gerke described as dilapidated and demolished.

Institutional years until 1933

Site plan of the castle and dairy, 1873
Site plan, around 1910

The institution was opened on September 23, 1811 with the admission of the first two patients, the farmer Heinrich Pauk from Asemissen and the farmer Sophie Müller from Berlebeck. The “Irren-Heil- und Pflegeanstalt zu Brake” was thus - 31 years before the opening of Illenau - probably the first facility of its kind in today's German area that did not serve to isolate the mentally ill from society, but actually provide them with therapeutic help let. Johann Ludolph Albert Focke from Lemgo was appointed prison doctor. By the end of the year, the number of patients had increased to eight. In the first few years they were housed in the gardener's house, separated for men and women. “Frenzied” patients came to one of eight isolation rooms in the former orangery. The number of prison inmates grew continuously, which is why the orangery was expanded from 1818 onwards, so that the healable (“mentally ill”) and the incurable (“insane”) could be separated.

A third building was built in 1828, it was primarily used for administration and also contained official apartments. It later became the director's residence. As Focke's successor, his grandson Eduard Meyer came to the Lindenhaus in 1844. He had previously gained experience in Illenau. Meyer was also director of the institution for the first time from 1846 and remained so until his death in 1884. During his tenure, extensive expansions of the institution's buildings took place. The sexes were structurally separated, the women's department was given its own building in the years 1852–54 (later referred to as Frauenhaus 1 ). The previous main building was only available for the men and was rebuilt in 1856-57. The wash house was built in 1867, the "madcap" came in extensions of the hospitals, so that the previous cells could be used for housekeeping. The nursery was given two greenhouses, and fruit and vegetables were grown in the gardens, which were enlarged by leases. Pig fattening, poultry breeding and dairy cattle moved into the barn, which was built between 1862 and 1864. All this served the self-sufficiency of the institution, the agricultural services were performed by the inmates. In 1875 the building ensemble was finally supplemented by a chapel.

Meyer was followed by Christian Roller as the director of the institution, son of the Illenau founder Christian Friedrich Wilhelm Roller . Roller continued the structural extensions of his predecessor, building pavilions, an autopsy house and a new stable. In addition, spas and outdoor reclining cures were introduced under his direction. The institution was also named Lindenhaus in 1890 . Due to illness, he had to resign in 1896. While one of his later successors, Wilhelm Alter, gave him a good report card, Kurt von Köppen, who was employed as a doctor under Roller for three months at the end of 1895, wrote a diatribe in which he did not criticize Roller or the institution as such saves.

Also under Wilhelm Wagemann from Lengerich, the renovation and modernization measures were continued from 1896. The men's houses 2 to 4 and the women's houses 3 to 4 were built for 30 to 40 patients each. The buildings were equipped with central heating and electric light, and the entire institution was connected to the water supply. For the first time, the facility's capacity exceeded the needs of the state of Lippe. Like his predecessor, Wagemann fell ill before his plans were completed; he died in 1905.

Wilhelm Alter took over the management of the institution on April 1, 1906. Alter pushed the modernization work forward and had a water tower erected north of the machine house due to the unreliable water supply. In addition, all houses were connected to a telephone network and the sewer system. A sewage treatment plant was built in the western part. A major achievement of the age was the renting of a colony in the village of Entrup , to which the cattle breeding with the exception of the pig fattening was outsourced. During the First World War , the lands offered the possibility of occupational therapy; due to the agricultural yields, no patient in the Lindenhaus had to starve to death. During the war the institution had one of the lowest mortality rates among the German “insane asylums”.

Monument to Princess Pauline (1911)

In 1908, the sanatorium and nursing home was transferred from the previous form of foundation to the ownership of the State of Lippe and from then on was called the Fürstlich Lippische Heil- und Pflegeenstalt Lindenhaus . In 1911, for the 100th anniversary of the Lindenhaus, a monument in honor of Pauline was erected on the site. The princely couple from Lippe carried out the inauguration personally.

The Lindenhaus was threatened with liquidation in 1921. The sanatorium was operating in deficit and required government grants of between 1.5 and 2 million Reichsmarks in the 1921/22 financial year . A report was obtained from the Marburg psychiatrist Maximilian Jahrmärker . As a result, the institution remained in existence, but was supposed to accept more patients from regions outside Lippe and thus achieve a higher capacity utilization.

Wilhelm Alter moved to the Düsseldorf hospitals in 1922. Erich Friedlaender , who had been working as a doctor in the Lindenhaus since June 1914 , applied to succeed the vacant director's post. However, the position was not filled directly, instead the senior physician Georg Müller, who had been at the Lindenhaus since October 1908, was appointed as the director's representative. Friedlaender should support him, the director's allowance was divided in a ratio of 2: 1. After the budget situation improved, the Lippe government decided in 1926 to advertise the post of director again. Friedlaender and Müller applied. Based on an assessment by the Gütersloh doctor Hermann Simon , who regularly visited the Lindenhaus between 1922 and 1927, Friedlaender was appointed director on July 1, 1927. Under Friedlaender, the Lindenhaus had its maximum occupancy with 530 patients and 107 employees. As a result of the National Socialists' seizure of power , a campaign against Jewish citizens began in Lippe as well. His Jewish ancestry was Friedlaender's undoing. On March 27, 1933, he received the letter of discharge from service and civil service for racial and political reasons and later emigrated to Australia.

He was followed by the district doctor Wilhelm Theopold as acting head.

Nazi era

Wilhelm Theopold was Lemgoer Kreismedizinalrat and head of the internal department of the Lemgoer hospital Wolff'sche Stiftung. He had hardly any experience with the treatment of mentally ill people, and Georg Müller, who was once again ignored, regarded Theopold's appointment as a personal insult and devaluation of the director's activities. The reason for the appointment of Theopold was probably the assessment by the head of the welfare department, Oberregierungsrat Hermann Corvey. Theopold was not a member of the NSDAP, but behaved as expected of him: he reported mentally ill people on the basis of the law for the prevention of genetically ill offspring , applied for an operation permit for sterilization in the Lindenhaus, tried in 1934 for a "hereditary disease classification office for young people" and in 1936 together with medical officer Otto Augener to set up the "regional genetic center" in the Lindenhaus.

In 1936/37 the Reich Ministry of the Interior issued a decree that persons who were members of a Masonic lodge after January 20, 1933, should be excluded from the civil service career. An examination in June 1937 ended Theopold's career: he was temporarily a member of three lodges and had reached the highest rank in the lodge "Zur Rose am Teutoburger Wald". Instead of working as an assistant doctor from now on, he retired at the age of 57.

Now there was another chance for Georg Müller to take up the position of director. Müller had been a member of the NSDAP since May 1933 and added a recommendation from Gauamtsleiter Walter Steinecke to his application, in which he complained about the preference of the "Juden Friedlaender" and the "accommodation" of Theopold . In fact, he received his appointment in December 1938. Müller supported the National Socialists' policy of sterilization. He also worked as an expert on genetic health issues, but occasionally spoke out against sterilization.

In contrast to many of his colleagues, Georg Müller refused to fill out the relevant registration forms after the start of Action T4 , the systematic killing of people with mental and physical disabilities. He opposed the pressure of the government with his conscience, his Christian faith and the Hippocratic oath . On August 21, 1941, he was temporarily forced into retirement. However, since no other doctors were available to replace him, he stayed in the Lindenhaus and was even put back into service at the end of 1942. He ran the institution until April 1, 1946. Although Müller had to justify himself to the review committee after the war and give statements about his employees, he was not convicted.

According to current knowledge, there were no planned killings in the Lindenanstalt during the National Socialist era. The death rate was high, however, and tuberculosis and dysentery were recorded as the most common causes of death, as a result of hunger and poor hygienic conditions. In addition, numerous patients from the Eben-Ezer Foundation were admitted to the institution who were already ill and overwhelmed the staff.

In 1940 there was also a transfer of mentally ill Jewish patients from northern Germany and Westphalia to the Wunstorf sanatorium . These patients were deported to the Brandenburg killing center on September 27, 1940 , and murdered there. Stumbling blocks in front of the building of the former orangery are reminiscent of the fate of the six Lindenhaus occupants :

  • Gustav Grundmann (1891–1940)

  • Hermann Heinemann (1876–1940)

  • Ilse Herz (1895–1940)

  • Max Friedmann (1912-1940)

  • Otto Plaut (1890–1940)

  • Selma Kugelmann (1875-1940)

post war period

The last head of the Lindenhaus was Gerhard Bornebusch. From 1939 to 1945 he worked in the Schwerin-Sachsenberg Mental Hospital and from 1941 stood out as an opponent of euthanasia. He and his family fled to Detmold in May 1945, took up a job in the Lindenhaus as an unencumbered person and became its director in 1946. In this position he was given the task of dissolving the institution in 1951. The patients were transferred to Gütersloh , Marsberg and Ilten .

The closure took place for economic reasons. The building fabric had been neglected for decades and continued operation would have required extensive renovation and conversion work. The buildings were then used as a land registry office, forestry office and old people's home.

The importance of the institution disappeared from the public consciousness. It was not until 1997 that the building historian Rolf Harmening drew attention to the Lindenhaus in a lecture on the subject of "From the Count's Pleasure Garden to the 'Tollhaus' - The Lindenhaus through the course of history - Against the oblivion of a large institution". On the basis of his monument preservation report, he was finally included in the Lemgo monument list on October 19, 1998.

Medical director

  • 1811–1844 Johann Ludolph Albert Focke
  • 1844-1884 Eduard Meyer
  • 1884–1896 Christian Roller
  • 1896–1905 Wilhelm Wagemann
  • 1906–1922 Wilhelm Alter
  • 1927–1933 Erich Friedlaender
  • 1933–1937 Wilhelm Theopold
  • 1938–1946 Georg Julius Müller
  • 1946–1951 Gerhard Bornebusch

Today's property inventory

address Construction year original use Todays use image
At the Lindenhaus 1 1934 chapel chapel Lemgo-Brake - 2014-09-10 - Lindenhaus Chapel (05) .jpg
At the Lindenhaus 6 1892 Men's house I (country house) private / residential building
Am Lindenhaus 7 1902-1905 Women's Refuge IV private / residential building
Am Lindenhaus 9 1902-1905 Women's Refuge III private / residential building
At the Lindenhaus 10 1898-1900 Men's house III private / residential building
Am Lindenhaus 12 1898-1900 Men's House IV private / residential building
Am Lindenhaus 13 1889 Women's shelter II, connecting hall private / residential building
At the Lindenhaus 14 1899 Men's House II inab of the bfw Lemgo-Brake - 2014-09-27 - Am Lindenhaus 14 (1) .jpg
Am Lindenhaus 20 1864 (barn), 1892 (men's house V) Barn, men's house V day care center Lemgo-Brake - 2014-09-27 - Am Lindenhaus 20 (5) .jpg
Am Lindenhaus 21 1854 Women's Refuge I Municipal data center Minden-Ravensberg / Lippe Lemgo-Brake - 2014-09-27 - Am Lindenhaus 21 (10) .jpg
Am Lindenhaus 22 1702 (orangery) / 1818 (addition), 1875 (chapel) Cooking kitchen (orangery), chapel Institute for Competence Promotion of the OWL University Lemgo-Brake - 2014-09-27 - Am Lindenhaus 22 (3) .jpg

See also

literature

  • Eduard Meyer: Director's report on the administration of the insane remedial and nursing facility in Brake, from the opening in 1811 to the end of 1868 . 1869 ( digitized version of the Lippische Landesbibliothek).
  • Wilhelm Alter: Princely Lippe sanatorium and nursing home Lindenhaus near Lemgo . In: German sanatoriums and nursing homes for the mentally ill in words and pictures . Carl Marhold, Halle / Saale 1910 ( digitized from the University of Hamburg).
  • Festive writing to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Fürstlich Lippische Heil- und Pflegehaus Lindenhaus 1811 - 1911 . Lemgo 1911 ( digitized version of the Lippe State Library).
  • Jutta M. Bott: "That's where we come from, that's where we participated ..." Realities of life and death in the Lippische Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Lindenhaus during the time of National Socialism (=  Lippische Studien . Volume 16 ). Institute for Lippe Regional Studies, Lemgo 2001, ISBN 3-9807758-9-5 .
  • Wolfgang Bender: "... but the institution will have no less place": Princess Pauline and the establishment of the "insane asylum" in Brake . In: Frauenzimmer, Regentin, Reformerin. Princess Pauline zur Lippe 1802–1820 (=  special publications of the Natural Science and Historical Association for the Land of Lippe ). tape 69 . NHV Lippe, Detmold 2002, ISBN 3-924481-12-1 , p. 102-111 ( online ).
  • Wolfgang Bender: Rescued from oblivion - the patient files of the Lindenhaus sanatorium . In: Rosenland. Journal of Lippe History . September 2011 ( rosenland-lippe.de [PDF]).

Web links

Commons : Lindenhaus (Brake)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bender (2002), p. 103
  2. ↑ Bender (2002), p. 104
  3. ↑ Bender (2002), p. 105
  4. ↑ Bender (2002), pp. 106-108
  5. ^ Heinz Sauer: Castle and Castle Brake. 1000 years of building history (=  Lippe studies . Volume 17 ). Institute for Lippe Regional Studies, Lemgo 2002, ISBN 3-936225-07-9 , p. 404 .
  6. ↑ Bender (2002), p. 108
  7. ↑ Bender (2002), p. 109
  8. ↑ Festschrift, pp. 7–8
  9. ↑ a b Festschrift, p. 9
  10. ^ Kurt von Köppen: Three months in the madhouse "Lindenhaus" in the Principality of Lippe-Detmold under the directorate Roller . Hanover 1896 ( digitized version of the Lippe State Library).
  11. ↑ Festschrift, pp. 9-10
  12. ↑ Bender (2011), p. 53
  13. ↑ Bender (2002), p. 111
  14. ↑ Bott, p. 61
  15. ↑ Bott, p. 130
  16. ↑ Bott, p. 131
  17. ^ A b Hermann Hentschel: The madhouse at Brake. Lindenhaus sanatorium and nursing home . In: Lippischer Heimatbund, Landesverband Lippe (Hrsg.): Heimatland Lippe . September 2011, p. 256-258 .
  18. ↑ Bott, p. 137
  19. ↑ Bott, p. 78
  20. ↑ Bott, p. 159
  21. ↑ Bott, pp. 162-163
  22. ↑ Bott, pp. 161-162
  23. ↑ Bott, pp. 164-165
  24. ↑ Bott, pp. 166-169
  25. ↑ Bott, p. 455
  26. ↑ Bott, pp. 453-455
  27. ^ Claus-Gerhard Bornebusch, Claus-Dieter Bornebusch: The oldest “insane asylum” in Germany. A report about the last years of the Lindenhaus . In: Lippischer Heimatbund, Landesverband Lippe (Hrsg.): Heimatland Lippe . September 2013, p. 216-217 .
  28. ↑ a b Bott, p. 32
  29. ↑ Congregation Letter Church Community Brake No. 241. (PDF; 5.7 MB) Retrieved on July 29, 2016 .

Coordinates: 52 ° 1 '23.7 "  N , 8 ° 55' 0.3"  E