State lunatic asylum Domjüch

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Domjüch state insane asylum - main building
State insane asylum Domjüch - boiler house

The Mecklenburg-Strelitz'sche Landesirrenanstalt Domjüch (from 1934 Sanatorium and Nursing Home Domjüch ), also known colloquially as Domjüch , was a mental hospital in Mecklenburg . The ruins of the institution building are located on the banks of the Domjüchsee in the Strelitz-Alt district of Neustrelitz and are a listed building . During the Nazi era , the institution was a transit station for many disabled people on the way to the Sachsenberg sanatorium or as part of the T4 campaign to the Bernburg killing center .

Since 2010, the association for the preservation of Domjüch has been campaigning for the continuation of the buildings and organizing a. a. Cultural events.

history

In 1805 the Altstrelitz prison was built as an  agricultural labor, breeding and madhouse  on the site of the Strelitz residential palace that burned down in 1712 . The common accommodation of prisoners and the mentally ill as well as the permanent overcrowding led to intolerable conditions. In 1896 a commission of inquiry was set up. This suggested the construction of a new lunatic asylum and the further use of the existing building stock as a farmhouse and poor house , penitentiary and prison . The model for the new building was the insane asylum in Gehlsheim in Gehlsdorf near Rostock, which was inaugurated in the same year (1896) .

On March 1, 1899, construction work began on the west bank of the Domjüchsee . The Strelitz magistrate made the site available free of charge. In 1902, the Mecklenburg-Strelitz'sche Landesirrenanstalt , which was under the “Grand Ducal Direction”, was   completed. On August 22, 1902, 70 women and 60 men moved to the new institution. The 31-year-old Dr. med. Carl Serger . He had previously worked for five and a half years as an assistant doctor in the Sachsenberg insane asylum in Schwerin, pioneering the treatment of mentally ill people, and had been working in Strelitz since 1894. In 1896 he played a key role in building the new state insane asylum. The ruling Grand Duke Adolf Friedrich V appointed Serger for his loyalty to duty and his zeal for service to the medical council and awarded him the Knight's Cross of the Order of the Griffin . In contrast to his work, his private life was not crowned with success. Serger was married but had entered into a relationship with the asylum's head nurse. The Medical Association had received notification of this relationship - a social faux pas at the time . Serger found out about it and committed suicide on October 18, 1913 suicide ; he was found dead in Domjüchsee. The head nurse took her own life in nearby Lanz. Serger was buried in the institution's own cemetery. His successor was chief medical officer Hermann Starke , a supporter of occupational therapy . He headed Domjüch until 1935.

During the First World War fewer and fewer patients were treated in the Domjüch state insane asylum ; Compared to the pre-war level, the number of sick people has fallen by more than half. The vacant premises were used as a state nursing home (60 beds) and a state children's home (20 beds) until 1927 . The children's home was closed on October 1, 1928. The children came to the Borwinheim in Neustrelitz.

The institution itself was converted into a state hospital in 1918 and since 1930 has been run by the Pomeranian Diakonissenanstalt Salem in Köslin on behalf of the state . The district administrator of the Office Stargard called in September 1932 to reduce the standard of living in the Mecklenburg institutions; Accordingly, Domjüch's management received the instruction to introduce a new catering class.

Period of National Socialism (1933–1945)

On January 1, 1934, the previously independent states of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and Mecklenburg-Schwerin were united to form the state of Mecklenburg . Domjüch, like the insane asylums Gehlsheim and Sachsenberg, was now designated as a sanatorium and nursing home and assigned to the Schwerin Ministry.

After Obermedizinalrat Strong in the February 1, 1935 pension was gone, a doctor from the directed mental hospital Sachsenbergstraße the healing and nursing home Domjüch with short breaks until the end of the 1944th

On September 30, 1939,  101 patients were transferred to Domjüch on September 1, 1939, when the Gehlsheim sanatorium was used by the Wehrmacht and civilian air raids when the Second World War broke out . Until May 1943, transfers from Gehlsheim to Domjüch and from there to the Sachsenberg sanatorium were made more and more frequently . The total number of transports and patients is not known.

During the National Socialist period (Nazi era), in the spring of 1940, the murders of the Nazi era began in the German Reich as part of Action T4 . The healing and nursing home Domjüch served the mentally ill and / or disabled people affected for many only as an interim institution on the way to the charge of Mecklenburg Nazi killing center Bernburg . There they were murdered in the gas chamber . The transport took place by the gray buses of the Gekrat or by the Deutsche Reichsbahn ; the outside of the buses was painted over. The experts from the central office T4 in Berlin ( Tiergartenstrasse 4 ) had previously decided on life and death . Due to “planned economic measures”, entire parts of the institution were vacated in the Domjüch sanatorium .

At the beginning of September 1941, 1113 people were registered in Mecklenburg's sanatoriums, about 480 fewer than on August 31, 1939.

From spring 1943 Domjüch was used as a tuberculosis sanatorium on the basis of a ministerial order . The remaining mentally ill were transferred to the sanatorium and nursing home in Gehlsheim and Sachsenberg or to the sanatorium and nursing home in Kückenmühle (Stettin). At the end of the Second World War, the area was occupied by Red Army troops.

(The healing and nursing home Domjüch must not with the as State Institute Neustrelitz-Strelitz designated prison confuse the writer. Hans Fallada was on September 4, 1944 in the forensic unit of the State Institute Neustrelitz-Strelitz - on the 2nd floor of the "Department of Medicinal and Nursing facility "( prison I) - briefed for observation and released on December 13, 1944.)

Soviet troop stationing (1945–1993)

From 1945 to 1993 the area of ​​the former Domjüch sanatorium was used for military purposes by the group of the Soviet armed forces in Germany and could no longer be entered. Three barracks were built for the troops of the 66th Guards Flak Missile Regiment stationed there . The eight institution buildings remained untouched.

The barracks buildings have stood empty since the CIS troops withdrew in 1993 and were demolished on the initiative of the city of Neustrelitz.

architecture

Recorded in 2009

Domjüch was built in the villa or pavilion style that was common for such institutions at the time . High walls, bars or iron gates were not used in the accommodation of the mentally ill patients. The institution had its own chapel and even its own cemetery. Long underground supply corridors stretch between the buildings. The designs for all the buildings came from master builder Otto Witzeck , who was appointed to the building department of the Grand Ducal State Government in 1895 . The surrounding fields, gardens and parks - planned by Ökonomierat Schulz from Neubrandenburg - made it possible for the sick to care for themselves. In the transition from the 19th to the 20th century, an exemplary medical treatment center was created within a landscaped park and garden landscape, equipped with modern water and electricity supplies as well as central heating.

The former institution today

One of the two ovens

Today's postal address is: Am Domjüchsee 1; 17235 Neustrelitz.

Planned conversion

In the summer of 2005, the city of Neustrelitz received a funding decision in the amount of over one million euros for the conversion of the property into a family holiday park with a campsite. The eight listed buildings are to be renovated and functions in the tourism project assigned to them. This plan was developed under the then Economics Minister of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Otto Ebnet (SPD).

In 2006 the site of the former sanatorium was sold to the specially founded Domjüchsee GmbH. The buyers announced that they would build 200 holiday homes and a campsite with 300 spaces at the site. To date, no further results are known in the planning for the conversion of the site. An early implementation of this project seems unlikely.

Arson in one of the prison buildings

Top floor of the building

On the night of April 3, 2008, a fire was started in the attic of one of the prison buildings. When the fire brigade reached the site of the former state insane asylum at around 2:25 a.m., the roof structure was already on fire. Parts of the ceiling had already collapsed and other parts gave way during the extinguishing work . Approx. 300,000 liters of extinguishing water were pumped from the nearby Domjüchsee. The fire fighting operation was only ended at 10:14 a.m. The criminal police began their investigations while the fire service was still on duty.

Domjüch from 2009

On November 11th, 2009 the engineering office Strelitz GmbH acquired the site. On January 15, 2010, the association for the preservation of Domjüch - former state lunatic asylum eV was founded. Club members, Neustrelitzers, companies in the region, administrations and the preservation of monuments cleaned up, worked on history, sealed roofs, renovated the chapel and paved roads.

Since the chapel reopened on May 27, 2011, the association has made the site accessible to visitors on Sundays. In addition to events in the chapel, association members offer exhibitions and guided tours.

The changed development plan shows a temporary special area of ​​solar energy on a part of the area that was used as a technical base during the CIS times and is a conversion area . The plant is already in operation and was built by the Stadtwerke. Houses with large plots of land that will be integrated into nature are to be built there.

On June 1 and 2, 2013, the Nägel mit Köpf X (NMK X), a regional geocaching event, took place on the site . Around 500 participants met, whose favorite passion is lost -place caches. The resident association reached a large number of interested citizens on numerous tours on this occasion.

literature

  • Christiane Witzke: Domjüch - A state insane, sanatorium and nursing home in Mecklenburg , Steffen Verlag, Friedland 2012, ISBN 978-3-941683-16-7
  • Christiane Witzke: Domjüch. Memories of a sanatorium and nursing home in Mecklenburg-Strelitz , federchen Verlag, Neubrandenburg 2001, ISBN 3-910170-43-9 , ( review )
  • Alexander Rommel: Former state sanatorium and nursing home Domjüch, Strelitz-Alt on the banks of the Domjüchsee , Bachelor thesis , University of Neubrandenburg, 2011. ( digitized ; 25 MB, digital library NB )

Web links

Commons : Landesirrenanstalt Domjüch  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Christine Witzke: Without heavy iron gates and barred windows, the Domjüch state mental hospital is almost forgotten history . In: Nordkurier , series: Mecklenburg-Strelitz in the 20th century.
  2. ↑ a b Kathleen Haak, Ekkehard Kumbier, Sabine C. Herpertz: Remembering - Mourning - Shaking the Wake Up, In memory of the victims of forced sterilization and "euthanasia" in the time of National Socialism ( PDF ; 133 kB) In: Clinic and Policlinic for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at the University of Rostock → On the history of Gehlsheim and the KPP .
  3. ↑ a b c d e Ernst Klee: "Euthanasia" in Mecklenburg and Pomerania, "Affected families had to deal with the pain on their own", The Gehlsheim sanctuary and nursing home in the Third Reich. In: Lichtblick 1/1997, pp. 28–30. ( PDF; 131 kB ( Memento from December 19, 2013 in the Internet Archive ))
  4. ↑ a b c d Chronicle of JA Neustrelitz ( Memento from April 27, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) In: ja-neustrelitz.de ; or chronicle JVA In: justiz-in-mv.de .
  5. ↑ a b Harald Lachmann: Financially strong lovers of monuments wanted . In: Nordkurier. Strelitzer newspaper .
  6. ↑ a b c d e f g h Christiane Witzke: State sanatorium and nursing home Domjüch - island of the blissful? . In: Mecklenburg-Strelitzer Calendar - A yearbook , ed. Freundeskreis des Karbe-Wagner-Archivs e. V., Neustrelitz, 1998, p. 38 ff.
  7. ↑ s. Review: on Christiane Witzke: Domjüch. Memories of a sanatorium and nursing home in Mecklenburg-Strelitz , federchen Verlag, Neubrandenburg 2001, ISBN 3-910170-43-9 .
  8. ↑ List of troops and units of Soviet troops in Germany, status: 1.1.1991 - jetjournal.net ( Memento from September 5, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
  9. ↑ City expects concept for Domjüch In: neustrelitz.de , February 2006, accessed on March 12, 2019.
  10. ↑ a b Frank Pergande: Former state mental institution: No bars on the Domjüch. In: faz.net. January 13, 2013, accessed March 12, 2019 .
  11. ↑ Mission report
  12. ↑ Photovoltaic systems - Stadtwerke Neustrelitz In: stadtwerke-neustrelitz.de , accessed on March 12, 2019.

Coordinates: 53 ° 19 ′ 51.6 ″  N , 13 ° 7 ′ 40.8 ″  E