Glückstadt Marine Hospital

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The Glückstadt naval hospital was a military medical service facility in the Engelbrechtsche Wildnis community east of Glückstadt in the Steinburg district . After the Second World War , the building served as the district hospital for the Steinburg district until 1956 . Then it was again a military hospital and from 1970 to 1974 a hospital of the Bundeswehr . Today it is used as a private clinic for psychiatry .

Marine hospital

In 1939 the medical officers Rudolf Tidow and Wunderlich had received the order to set up the elementary school again as a hospital. The inventory of Glückstadt's very first naval hospital that had been there up until then had been moved to La Baule immediately after the campaign in the west . Both doctors left the hospital in June 1940.

New building (1942)

After the experience of the Reichsmarine with the hospitals in Stralsund , Sanderbusch and Bremerhaven , the Kriegsmarine planned another hospital in the Glückstadt area in 1938/39. The fact that it chose the Engelbrechtsche Wildnis location was due to the location , which is separated from larger military objects, between Hamburg and the large naval station in Brunsbüttelkoog .

“That was thought militarily correct; but the place was too remote for a large peace hospital with no adequate catchment area. The best agriculturally usable cabbage soil had been built; Instead, the hospital should have been moved to the heather between Krempe and Itzehoe. "

- Rudolf Irmisch .

The "closed and graceful" building complex followed the building design by Kurt Diestel . The construction management was the responsibility of the Glückstadt architects Carl Schröder and J. Ravens . The building, inaugurated on November 17, 1942, cost 4.5 million Reichsmarks . It included the main building, a doctor's house, a dormitory for employees and nurses, farm buildings, stables and garages. The foundation walls of the three-storey building rested on a 22 meter deep pile foundation with 1,004 driven piles. Most of the sickrooms faced south. The central building carried a 64 m long terrace . In the basement there were air raid shelters with their own operating rooms . With 530 rooms and only 120 beds, the house was lavishly laid out, but throughout the war it was occupied by 300 to 700 wounded from all parts of the Wehrmacht, including the extensive attics .

In addition to the soldiers, some of whom were seriously wounded, the hospital also had to surgically treat the civilian population. Lighter interventions were carried out in the municipal hospital, the more severe only in the naval hospital. When the devastating air raids on Hamburg began in July 1943 , the great test began for the hospital. While the Allied bombers flew over the completely darkened buildings at night , doctors, orderlies and nurses carted the wounded in their beds into the huge air raid shelter. Day and night, for weeks, hundreds of injured people with burns and broken bones were brought into the operating theaters, often in miserable condition. The completely new sulfonamide has proven itself. The burn victims in particular feared new incendiary bombs . If they were tied to the bed because of breaks in wire tensions , they detached themselves from the frames. In any case, they required a lot of care and had to be looked after again the next morning.

The district administrator (Friedrich Karl von Lamprecht) thanked every employee of the hospital with a certificate.

Chief physicians

Steinburg District Hospital (1945–1956)

After the unconditional surrender of the Wehrmacht , the British military government confiscated the naval hospital. The German wounded had to be removed within 24 hours. The surgical department was returned to the Glückstadt elementary school, the interior to the former (National Socialist) state labor institute, the former provincial correctional institute for the province of Schleswig-Holstein . The English left after six months and left the house to displaced persons , especially Poles with tuberculosis . Meanwhile, the staff worked in the elementary school and in the institution building. Rudolf Tidow, senior physician in large hospitals after the war , took over the management of the internal department on June 1, 1946.

New old building

When the (still new) house on Grillchaussee began to empty in autumn 1948, the surgery moved in on October 1st. The other departments soon followed. The Steinburg district now owned the “most beautiful and most modern hospital” in Schleswig-Holstein . It had 300 beds. The internal department had an infection station. The department for gynecology and obstetrics with an excellently equipped delivery room was subordinate to surgery . There were also departments for ophthalmology and, for a short time, for dermatology . In addition to radiology and laboratory medicine , balneotherapy , physical therapy and chiropractic were also offered. The house included a pharmacy , a large kitchen with a diet kitchen , a wood-paneled festival room with an altar , a stage with a film projector , a disinfection system and delousing station, workshops , a telephone exchange and a boiler house . In 1962 August Vogl became head of surgery and Götz Rosolleck became head of internal affairs . Helmut Büsing was the chief physician of the district hospital from 1945 to 1956.

politics

In the post-war period, an efficient district hospital was missing in the Steinburg district; its creation was declared an urgent need. When the Julienstift hospital in Itzehoe was relocated to the barracks on Langen Peter in 1947/49, there was talk of an agreement between the district and the cities to coordinate hospital planning with the wishes of the population. This became as little as a special purpose association for the hospitals in Glückstadt and Itzehoe. Centrally located, the Itzehoe municipal hospitals were overweight from the start. In addition, the statutory health insurance stipulated that their insured persons were always referred to the nearest hospital. Located on the south-western edge of the district in open country and through the Elbe without any hinterland , Glückstadt was left behind . Too many self-interests in Glückstadt itself prevented the only sensible solution, the amalgamation of the city hospital with the district hospital. For many it was too far "into the wilderness". On top of that, since 1947 more and more expellees had left the overcrowded Schleswig-Holstein. With the increasing bed overhang, first the children's ward and then the internal department itself were closed. The house became uneconomical; the grant requirement of 200,000 to 500,000 German marks rose steadily. The demands of surgery remained great. Against bitter opposition in Glückstadt, the Steinburger district council decided on February 23, 1956 to close the district hospital on September 30, 1956.

Bundeswehr Hospital (1957–1974)

The Federal Armed Forces and the Federal Border Police always liked to take their patients to the Glückstadt Federal Armed Forces Hospital. The Bundeswehr asserted its claim to the former naval hospital on April 1, 1957. The Federal Property Administration handed over the Glückstadt district hospital to the German armed forces on December 28, 1956. From January 1, 1957, the building served as a school for paramedics , and soon also as a military hospital. In its prime it had 270 beds: 130 for surgery , 95 for internal medicine , 10 for ophthalmology and 35 for infections . Most recently, the number of beds was reduced to 64 and the number of doctors from twelve to five.

As a result of organizational changes, the Federal Ministry of Defense slowly closed the hospital. On Friday, December 13, 1974, the last patient left the house, which was closed on December 31, 1974. In seven years, 50,000 inpatients and 110,000 outpatients had been treated.

Chief physicians
1957–1968: Fleet doctor Rudolf Tidow
1968–1974: Senior Physician Suhr

Remarks

  1. ↑ In operation weserübung survived Tidow the downfall of Karlsruhe .
  2. ↑ Friedrich Karl von Lamprecht was not automatically arrested by the British military government, but appointed as a liaison in the civil administration.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Vitana's Psychiatric Center in Glückstadt
  2. ↑ a b c d e f R. Irmisch: The naval, district and finally Bundeswehr hospital in Glückstadt. Pp. 52-54.
  3. ↑ German Naval Archives
  4. ↑ a b c d R. Irmisch: Heavy war work 1942–1945. P. 54.
  5. ↑ R. Irmisch: The district hospital 1945-1958. Pp. 54-56.
  6. ↑ a b R. Irmisch: The Bundeswehr Hospital 1956–1974. P.56.

Coordinates: 53 ° 47 '23.5 "  N , 9 ° 27' 5.9"  E