Children's department

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The general term “children's department” was used in the Nazi state as a glossing over designation for special psychiatric facilities in hospitals as well as sanatoriums and nursing homes that served “ child euthanasia ”, i.e. the research on and killing of children and adolescents who were physically or were mentally disabled. The murders of the sick during the time of National Socialism , which actually were not euthanasia but mass murders , were judged and condemned as crimes against humanity from 1945 onwards .

history

Memorial plaque on the house at Eichborndamm 238, in Berlin-Wittenau

The first such facility existed from 1939 in the Görden State Institution in Brandenburg an der Havel .

The name of the measure, which was directed from Berlin and kept secret, was "Kinderaktion". The head office was in Department IIb of the so-called Fuhrer's office . The cases were pre-sorted there and about 20,000 remaining cases were assessed in an expert procedure by the “ Reich Committee ”. The reviewers were Professors Werner Catel and Hans Heinze and the pediatrician Ernst Wentzler . The “children's departments” were then informed which children were scheduled to be killed (“authorization to treat”) or initially for further observation.

There was no order or compulsion to carry out the killing, just as there was no euthanasia law; rather, euthanasia was formally prohibited in the German Reich. Examples such as the Freiburg pediatrician Carl Noeggerath proved that doctors could evade this and did not act in a state of emergency, as was often claimed after 1945 . Noeggerath was "summoned to the Fuehrer's office, and there it was suggested to me that I should set up the southwest German extermination center for incapable children in the Freiburg Children's Clinic." Noeggerath's refusal had no consequences for him.

The killing itself was carried out on one's own responsibility with an overdose of the drugs Luminal and chloral hydrate or through food withdrawal and the administration of morphine . After the Second World War , public prosecutor investigations were also carried out on institutional patients because of these Nazi crimes. Court rulings on this were published in the court rulings collection “ Justice and Nazi Crimes ”.

There were at least 30 such institutions in the German Reich. This also included institutions in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia established in 1938 and, after 1939, in occupied Poland .

It can be assumed that more than 5,000 mentally and physically disabled children were killed in them. A note on the files of the Hanover public prosecutor's office from October 1964 stated the number of suspected killings: “About 20,000 children were reported to the Reich Committee through the medical officers. Of these, about 75% were not assigned to the children's departments of the Reich Committee. The remaining 25%, however, had for the most part been "treated". From the end of the war thus the Reichsausschuss very nearly 5,000 dead children reported were about 10% died in a natural way, while the remaining children, thus about 4,500, euthanized were. "In addition, the even of another, undetectable death toll by so-called "wild euthanasia" (victims not reported back) to go out.

List of "children's departments"

Institution Establishment today place ladder Head of the children's department Remarks
Sanatorium and nursing home Ansbach District Hospital Ansbach Ansbach Hubert Schuch Irene Asam-Bruckmüller
Municipal mental hospital for children and adolescents Wiesengrund A history laboratory is now being built at Eichborndamm 238. Berlin-Wittenau Ernst stapler Gertrud Reuter , Ernst Hefter Among other things, human experiments with tuberculosis have been handed down.
State institute Görden Asklepios Specialist Hospital Brandenburg Brandenburg-Görden Hans Heinze Ernst Illing , Friederike Pusch
North Hospital Specjalistyczny Zespół Psychiatrycznej Opieki Zdrowotnej we Wrocławiu Wroclaw Heinrich Tewes Heinz W. Neumann
State Institute for the Mentally Ill Konradstein Szpital dla Nerwowo i Psychicznie Chorych w Starogardzie Gdańskim Starogard Gdański Waldemar Siemens Hans Arnold Schmidt It is controversial whether the National Socialists set up a children's department here.
Aplerbeck sanatorium and nursing home LWL Clinic Dortmund Dortmund-Aplerbeck Fritz Wernicke Theodor Niebel
Eglfing-Haar sanatorium and nursing home Isar-Amper-Klinikum München-Ost Munich Hermann Pfannmüller Gustav Eidam
State sanatorium and nursing home Eichberg Vitos Rheingau Eichberg Friedrich Mennecke Walter Schmidt
Sanatorium and nursing home Am Feldhof LKH Graz II location south Graz Oskar Begusch , Ernst Sorger , see Rudolf Lonauer
State institute Großschweidnitz Saxon Hospital Großschweidnitz Großschweidnitz Alfred Schulz Arthur noon
Langenhorn sanatorium and nursing home Asklepios Klinik Nord, Ochsenzoll location Hamburg-Langenhorn Friedrich Knigge
Rothenburgsort Children's Hospital Institute for Hygiene and Environment Hamburg-Rothenburgsort Wilhelm Bayer Wilhelm Bayer
Kalmenhof educational institution Kalmenhof Idstein Ernst Müller Mathilde Weber , Hermann Wesse
Heil- and nursing home Kaufbeuren-Irsee District Hospital Kaufbeuren Kaufbeuren Valentin Faltlhauser TB trials on children
University Children's Hospital Leipzig Old children's hospital of the University of Leipzig Leipzig Werner Catel Hans Christoph Hempel , Ernst Klemm , Hans-Joachim Hartenstein
Sanatorium dozen most recently Park Hospital Leipzig-Dosen, now vacant Leipzig Hermann Paul Nitsche , Emil Eichler , Johannes Gottschick Arthur noon
Sanatorium and nursing home praise Hotel Zamek Lubliniec Praise , Upper Silesia Ernst Buchalik Ernst Buchalik , Elisabeth Hecker
Sanatorium and nursing home in Lüneburg Psychiatric Clinic Lüneburg Luneburg Max Bräuner Willi Baumert
Sanatorium Obrawalde Hospital, memorial, cemetery still running today. Meseritz Walter Grabowski Hilde Wernicke
St. Johannis pen Westphalian Clinic Marsberg Niedermarsberg Theodor Steinmeyer Werner Sengenhoff
Sachsenberg State Hospital Carl Friedrich Flemming Clinic Schwerin Johannes Fischer Alfred Leu
Sanatorium and nursing home Schleswig-Hesterberg Helios Klinikum - child and adolescent psychiatry and psychotherapy Schleswig-Hesterberg Alfred Hartwig Erna Pauselius until January 1942
State sanatorium and nursing home Schleswig-Stadtfeld Helios Clinic Schleswig Schleswig-Stadtfeld Carl Grabow Erna Pauselius , Johannes Krey , Hans Burckhardt from February 1942
State Hospital Stadtroda (from 1943 State Hospital Stadtroda) Asklepios Fachklinikum Stadtroda Stadtroda , Thuringia Gerhard Kloos Margarete Hielscher
Municipal children's home Stuttgart Facility no longer exists; today the seat of the Künstlerbund Stuttgart. Administrative documents in the Stuttgart city archive. Stuttgart Karl Lempp Magdalene Schütte
Gauheilanstalt Tiegenhof SP ZOZ Wojewódzki Szpital dla Nerwowo i Psychicznie Chorych "Dziekanka" Tiegenhof ( Dziekanka near Gniezno ) Victor Ratka Walter Kipper
Uchtspringe State Hospital Uchtspringe Specialist Hospital Uchtspringe Ernst Beese Gerhard Wenzel , Hermann Wesse , Hildegard Wesse
Sanatorium and nursing home Ueckermünde AMEOS Clinic Ueckermünde Ueckermünde Hans-Dietrich Hilweg Hans-Dietrich Hilweg
Sanatorium and nursing home Süchteln-Johannistal - Waldniel department Various subsequent uses, most recently Kent School, now empty. Schwalmtal Georg Renno , Hermann Wesse Branch of the sanatorium and nursing home in Süchteln-Johannistal
Municipal child welfare institution Am Spiegelgrund Otto Wagner Hospital Vienna Erwin Jekelius , Ernst Illing Heinrich Gross The institution was affiliated with the Am Steinhof sanatorium and nursing home in Vienna.
Gau sanatorium and nursing home Wiesengrund Medical institution Dobřany Dobřany , Sudetengau Karl Hever
Sanatorium and nursing home Wiesloch Psychiatric Center North Baden Wiesloch Wilhelm Möckel Arthur Schreck

The list contains the facilities that are occupied or considered secured. In addition, there are institutions that have not yet been clarified or only planned KFA. The responsibility of individual doctors is partly disputed, whereby individual leaders were not involved in the destruction.

literature

  • Carolin George: Keeping memories alive, research on euthanasia victims from the Lüneburg child psychiatry. In: Evangelical newspaper. January 25, 2015, p. 9. ( landeskirche-hannovers.de )
  • Raimond Reiter: How many children were victims of Nazi psychiatry in World War II? In: Social Psychiatric Information. No. 3/2001. 31st year Wiesbaden 2001, pp. 18-23.
  • Jan Nedoschill: Child euthanasia under National Socialism: The children's department in Ansbach in Middle Franconia. In: Zs. Practice of Child Psychology and Child Psychiatry. 50, 2001, pp. 192-210.
  • dsb .: Biological child and adolescent psychiatry in twilight 1939-45: The children's departments in Ansbach in Middle Franconia and Görden in Brandenburg . Speech at the 26th Congress of the German Society for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy Jena, 5. – 8. April 2000.
  • “I only did everything out of absolute pity.” The “children's department” at the Kaufbeuren-Irsee sanatorium . Child “euthanasia”, human experiments, neuropathological research. In: Monthly for Pediatrics. 152, 2004, pp. 1004-1010.
  • Andreas Kinast: “The child cannot be trained.” Euthanasia in the Waldniel children's department 1941–1943. (= Rhine Province . 18). SH-Verlag, Cologne 2010, ISBN 978-3-89498-259-1 .
  • Thomas Beddies (Ed.) On behalf of the German Society for Child and Adolescent Medicine e. V. (DGKJ): In memory of the children. The pediatricians and the crimes against children during the Nazi era. Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-00-036957-5 .
  • Udo Benzenhöfer: “Child Euthanasia” in the Third Reich: The “Kind Knauer” case . In: Deutsches Ärzteblatt 95. Issue 19/1998: 1187.
  • Enno Schwanke, The State Sanatorium and Nursing Home Tiegenhof. The National Socialist euthanasia in Poland during the Second World War, Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 2015, in: Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas / jgo.e-reviews, JGO 64 (2016), 4, pp. 659–660.
  • Udo Benzenhöfer, Nazi “Child Euthanasia”: “Without any moral scruples”, in: Dtsch Arztebl 2000; 97 (42): A-2766 / B-2352 / C-2089 (pdf version)
  • Holm Krumpolt: "The effects of the National Socialist psychiatry policy on the Saxon state hospital Grossschweidnitz in the period 1939-45." Med. Diss. Lpz 1995

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Lutz Kaelber: Görden (State Institution Görden near Brandenburg). In: Special Children's Wards: Sites of Nazi “Children's 'Euthanasia'” Crimes and Their Commemoration in Europe. April 11, 2015, accessed on January 27, 2019 (English, it is not clear whether the children's department was set up here in 1939 or 1940).
  2. ↑ Udo Benzenhöfer gave an overview of child euthanasia in the Ärzteblatt in 2000
  3. ↑ Head of Department IIb from 1937 was Hans Hefelmann , a graduate farmer who had been a member of the NSDAP since 1931.
  4. ↑ Oliver Lehmann, Traudl Schmidt: In the Fangs of Dr. Large. The abused life of Friedrich Zawrel . Czernin Verlag, Vienna 2001, ISBN 3-7076-0115-3 , p. 45-46 .
  5. ^ Eduard Seidler: Jewish paediatricians 1933–1945: disenfranchised / fled / murdered . extended new edition. Karger Medical and Scientific Publishers, Freiburg im Breisgau 2007, ISBN 978-3-8055-8284-1 , p. 58 ( Google preview ).
  6. ↑ trend.infopartisan.net
  7. ^ Sascha Topp: The "Reich Committee for the Scientific Registration of Hereditary and Constitutional Severe Sufferings". On the organization of the murder of underage sick people under National Socialism 1939–1945 . In: Thomas Beddies, Kristina Hübener (Hrsg.): Children in the Nazi psychiatry. Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-937233-14-8 , p. 34 f.
  8. ↑ Gedenken-ns-psychiatrie.de (PDF)
  9. ↑ luene-info.de
  10. ^ A b c d Henry Friedlander: The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution. University of North Carolina Press, Nov. 9, 2000.
  11. ^ Claudia Keller: Nazi crimes in Reinickendorfer children's clinic. The exploration of cruelty. In: Tagesspiegel . June 3, 2013, accessed January 27, 2019 .
  12. ↑ berlin.de
  13. ↑ Claudia Peter: Commemoration: In memory of the children. Pediatrics and National Socialism. (No longer available online.) Website of the Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, November 4, 2013, archived from the original on August 9, 2017 ; accessed on January 27, 2019 .
  14. ^ Hospital North, Einbaumstrasse 25, Breslau, according to Breslaus Einbaumstrasse 25, website of Tenhumberg Reinhard
  15. ↑ formerly mad hospital loud
  16. ^ Lutz Kaelber: Breslau [Wrocław] (North Hospital, Institute for Practical Psychiatry and Psychiatric Hereditary Research Breslau). In: Special Children's Wards: Sites of Nazi "Children's 'Euthanasia'" Crimes and Their Commemoration in Europe. March 5, 2015, accessed January 27, 2019 .
  17. ↑ Historia Szpitala ( Memento from April 21, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  18. ^ Lower Silesian Center for Mental Health sp. Oo in Wrocław ( Memento from December 26, 2017 in the Internet Archive )
  19. ^ Friedrich Leidinger: The fate of Polish psychiatry under German occupation in World War II. In: Psychiat Prax 2014; 41 (S 01): pp. 69-75, doi: 10.1055 / s-0034-1370066
  20. ↑ Lutz Kaelber: Konradstein [Kocborowo] (sanatorium and nursing home for the mentally ill). In: Special Children's Wards: Sites of Nazi "Children's 'Euthanasia'" Crimes and Their Commemoration in Europe. September 13, 2015, accessed January 27, 2019 .
  21. ↑ Szpital dla Nerwowo i Psychicznie Chorych im. Stanisława Kryzana
  22. ↑ Udo Benzenhöfer: Nazi “Child Euthanasia”: “Without any moral scruples”. In: Deutsches Ärzteblatt . 2000, accessed on January 27, 2019 (Dt Ärztebl 2000; 97: A 2766–2772 [Issue 42]).
  23. ^ Ernst Klee : Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 671.
  24. ↑ Starvation: Eglfing-Haar. Foundation Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe , accessed on January 27, 2019 .
  25. ^ Lutz Kaelber: State sanatorium and nursing home Grossschweidnitz. In: Special Children's Wards: Sites of Nazi "Children's 'Euthanasia'" Crimes and Their Commemoration in Europe. March 13, 2015, accessed January 27, 2019 .
  26. ↑ Saxon Hospital Großschweidnitz / History
  27. ↑ Put to sleep . In: Der Spiegel . No. 34 , 1960, pp. 31-33 ( online ).
  28. ^ What doctors in the Third Reich did in the Kaufbeuren sanatorium. In: all-in.de. February 8, 2012, accessed June 24, 2020 .
  29. ^ Lutz Kaelber: Loben [Lubliniec] (sanatorium and nursing home praise). In: Special Children's Wards: Sites of Nazi "Children's 'Euthanasia'" Crimes and Their Commemoration in Europe. July 14, 2014, accessed January 27, 2019 .
  30. ^ A tragedy: the hospital in Meseritz-Obrawalde and memory. 2014
  31. ^ Lutz Kaelber: Sachsenberg (sanctuary and nursing home Sachsenberg). In: Special Children's Wards: Sites of Nazi "Children's 'Euthanasia'" Crimes and Their Commemoration in Europe. February 21, 2015, accessed January 27, 2019 .
  32. ^ Susanna Misgajski: History of child and adolescent psychiatry in Schleswig until 1945. In: Der Hesterberg. 125 years of child and adolescent psychiatry and curative education in Schleswig. Publications of the Schleswig-Holstein State Archives, Volume 56, Schleswig 1997, pp. 7–56.
  33. ^ Lutz Kaelber: Schleswig-Hesterberg (state, sanatorium and nursing home Schleswig-Hesterberg; since January 1934 state reception and education center). In: Special Children's Wards: Sites of Nazi "Children's 'Euthanasia'" Crimes and Their Commemoration in Europe. February 14, 2015, accessed January 27, 2019 .
  34. ↑ SP ZOZ Wojewódzki Szpital dla Nerwowo i Psychicznie chorych "Dziekanka"
  35. ^ Ernst Klee: The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 310.
  36. ↑ Lutz Kaelber: Ueckermünde ( State Hospital Ueckermünde). In: Special Children's Wards: Sites of Nazi "Children's 'Euthanasia'" Crimes and Their Commemoration in Europe. February 14, 2015, accessed January 27, 2019 .
  37. ^ History of Waldniel-Hostert. ( Memento of the original from March 29, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.waldniel-hostert.de
  38. ^ Working group "The Wiesloch Sanatorium in the Nazi Era": The Wiesloch Sanatorium during National Socialism. Wiesloch 1993.
  39. ↑ Enno Schwanke was awarded the Science Prize of the Ambassador of the Republic of Poland at the University of Potsdam on December 15, 2014. see the report here