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Public Mental Health Practices in Germany

Sterilization and Execution of Patients Suffering from Nervous or Mental Diesase

Reported by

Leo Alexander, Major, M.C., AUS

CIOS Item 24
Medical

Combined Intelligence Objectives Sub-Committee

Part IV

(4). Documents concerning killer personnel selected for the children’s department at the State Hospital in Eglfing-Haar

These documents cover a period extending from 28 August 1940 until 18 November 1943. Nurses and attendants selected for the execution ward had to sign a special oath of secrecy. Two such documents are reproduced (Appendix 4, No.1 & 2). The first of the two documents signed by three nurses reads as follows:

"Obligation: To the Director of the Cure and Care Institute, Eglfing-Haar, Obermedizinalrat, Dr. Pfannmüller. I have been informed about the nature of my activity and my duties in the special department of the children’s house of the Cure and Care Institute, Eglfing-Haar, where children of the Realm Committee for Scientific Approach to severe illness due to heredity and constitution are housed. I undertake to carry out my duties in this department according to the directions of my chief and I confirm that my attention has been called to the fact that the treatment of these children in this department is a matter of the Realm which has to be kept absolutely secret. I have been instructed that I have to keep strictest silence concerning all happenings of which I should become aware during the treatment of these children, and that any breach of this silence on my part will warrant the death penalty. I have given my word to maintain strictest silence and I shall adhere to this at all times and toward all people.

Eglfing 26 April 1941".
Signed: "Dentlmoser Emma,
Spindler Maria,
Lang, Emma."

The second document signed by a clerk reads as follows: (Appendix IV, No.2):

"Obligation: I, the undersigned, have been obligated by handshake instead of by an oath, on the part of the director, to receive and to copy matters concerning the Realm which have to be kept secret. Such papers are of a special confidential nature. I herewith undertake to keep all papers which should become known to me under the heading "secret Realm matter" strictly secret, and never to give anyone knowledge of them without specific order from the director of the institution, Dr. Pfannmüller. My attention has been called to the fact that if I should not keep this oath of secrecy, I will face penal prosecution by the Gestapo, and that I will have to count with the possibility of the death penalty if I should either carelessly or deliberately divulge matters which have become known to me as "secret Realm matters".

Signed: "Erich Frank"

The people employed in the killing department received special annual supplements to their salaries (Appendix IV, No.3). These additional salaries for the year 1943 were paid to the following individuals: Dr. Gustav Eidam; Erna Dentelmoser, head nurse; Emma Lang; Marie Spindler; Klara Wicher, secretary; Maria Heismann, ward nurse and Kreszens Weige, Kindergarten nurse.

Of special interest in the letter from a doctor who had been offered a job on the killing staff in August 1940 but who declined it. This handwritten letter addressed to Dr. Pfannmüller is reproduced in photostat (Appendix IV, No.4). This letter translated reads as follows:

"Schwarzee bei Kitzbühel, 28 August 1940.

"Dear Herr Direktor:

"The heavy rains during the first half of my vacation had the advantage of giving me sufficient leisure for reflection and I am very grateful to you for your great kindness and consideration in giving me this time to make up my mind. The new measures are so convincing that I thought I could let personal considerations go by the board. But it is another thing to approve of measures of the State with full conviction and something else to carry them out oneself in their final consequence. I am reminded of the difference which exists between judge and executioner. Therefore, in spite of all intellectual insight and goodwill on my part, I cannot escape the realization that according to my personal nature I am not suitable for this job. As vivid as my desire is in many cases to improve upon the natural course of events, as repugnant it is to me to carry this out as a systematic job after cold-blooded deliberation and according to scientific objective principles, and not urged by medical feeling toward the patient. What has endeared to me the work in the children’s house, was not the scientific interest, but the physician’s urge, amidst our often fruitless labor, to help and at least to improve many of our cases here. The psychological evaluation, and the curative and pedagogic influence, were always much closer to my heart then anatomical curiosities, no matter how interesting they were. And so it comes about that, although I am sure that I can preserve my full objectivity in giving expert opinions, I yet feel myself somehow tied emotionally to the children as their medical guardian, and I think that this emotional contact is not necessarily a weakness from the point of view of a National Socialist physician. However, it hinders me from combining this new duty with the ones I have hitherto carried out.

"If this should force you to place the work in the children’s house into other hands, it would certainly be a painful loss to me. However, I consider it more right to see clearly and to recognize in time that I am too soft for this job, instead of disappointing you later.

"I know that your offer to me is a sign of special confidence, and I cannot honor your confidence in any better way than by absolute honesty and openness".

      "Heil Hitler,

  Your very devoted

F Hüzel".

The letter was initialled by Dr. Pfannmüller as having been received on 29 August 1940 at 1600 hours.

(5) Letters to relatives, government agencies, banks, insurance companies and welfare agencies concerning people who had been killed

Letters to relatives of patients who had been killed, who worried about the whereabouts of their mother, brother, sister or child as the case might be, were all evasive, usually limiting themselves to the statement that the relative in question had been "sent to another institution, the location of which was unknown". In some cases the letter was referred for further attention to the Gemeinnützige Krankentransport G.m.b.H., but there was only one instance in this file when a relative was given the address of the company. However, referral to the transport company was the rule in the case of inquiries by official bodies. It is significant that even official bodies such as county governments, mayor’s offices, welfare agencies, the Ministry of the Interior, government insurance agencies and banks were likewise given the same evasive information as the relatives themselves.

The letters to relatives were written with various degrees of politeness. The lower class of politeness was used exclusively in dealing with relatives of Jewish victims, concerning 31 of which this file contains documents. 17 of them were females and 14 males, one of the latter a 10 year old child. All the Jewish patients who are included in the correspondence had been transported from the institution in a collective transport of Jewish patients on 20 September 1940. The least polite way of dealing with the inquiry was to send no reply at all, but merely to refer the letter for reply to the transport company. This was done in 7 cases. The next degree of politeness in dealing with the relatives was a brief reply to the effect that the relative "is no longer in the institution, but was transferred on 20 September 1940 with a collective transport of Jewish inmates to an unknown institution" (Appendix 5, No.1 & 2). Only slightly more informative was the letter to a sister of a transferred patient informing her that her sister was "transferred to an institution not known to us. You will be informed from the institution to which she has been admitted" (Appendix 5, No. 3 & 4). A number of other answers to letters of inquiry include the additional notation that "the request for information had been forwarded to the appropriate place" (Appendix 5, Nos 5 and 6). Simultaneously to that reply to the relative the letter of the relative was forwarded to the Gemeinnützige Krankentransport G.m.b.H. for action by them (Appendix 5, No.7). This type of action was taken in 6 different cases. In one case the sister of a patient was informed that her sister was transferred according to an order of the Ministry of the Interior to an unknown institution and the suggestion was made to the sister that she ascertain to what institution she was transferred by writing to the Gemeinnützige Krankentransport G.m.b.H. in Berlin (Appendix 5, Nos. 8 & 9).

The county government ("Landrat") in Munich was dealt with equally evasively. When this government agency inquired about the patient Berta Sara Thalheimer (Appendix 5, No.10), they were briefly told "the above named was transferred according to a decision by the State Ministry of the Interior for the collective transport of Jewish inmates on 20 September 1940, to an institution unknown to us. You may contact the Gemeinnützige Krankentransport G.m.b.H. Berlin, Potsdamer Platz 1."

Initialled: "Pfannmüller"(Appendix 5, No.11)

The mayor of Bamberg, was merely told upon inquiry that his letter had been forwarded to the proper place, since the name of the institution where the patient was transferred was "unknown to us" (Appendix5, Nos.12 & 13); and his letter was referred to the transport company for action (Appendix 5, No.14). A request by the Mayor of Deidesheim dated 30 December 1940, was similarly acted upon (Appendix 5, Nos. 15, 16 & 17).

The Dresdner Bank was particularly curtly dealt with. A request concerning the whereabouts of a Mr. Oswald Feis (Appendix 5, No.18) drew merely the reply "that the above named was no longer in the institution and the locality of his present institutionalization is unknown to us" (Appendix 5, No.19). At the same time, the letter was referred to the transport company (Appendix 5, No.20).

The Dreadner Bank was not satisfied with that reply and requested more information on 20 December 1940 (Appendix 5, No.21). This drew the briefest reply from Dr. Pfannmüller limited to two sentences: "Oswald Feis was transferred on 20 September 1940 to another institution. Further details are not known to us" (Appendix 5, No.22).

The fact that the location where the patients were killed remained a secret, created a rather serious confusion to finance offices and registrar’s offices, who had to be given not only a date of death but also a place of death for completion of their records. But when the finance office of Krumbach (Schwahen) tried to find out through channels where Berta Sara Schnell had died (Appendix 5, Nos. 23, 24. 25 and 26) all the answer they obtained from Dr. Pfannmüller was that she "had been transferred on 20 September 1940 with a collective transport of Jewish patients, according to an order from the State Ministry of the Interior to another institution". and they were referred to the Gemeinnützige Krankentransport G.m.b.H. for further details (Appendix 5, No.27). This correspondence is interesting in that it reveals the time which elapsed in that particular case between the transfer and the killing. Berta Sara Schnell reported as having died on 29 November 1940 i.e. 69 days after her transfer.

Similar evasive replied were sent to the district court of Fürth, the district attorney and the Mayor of Landau i.d. Pfalz, the government insurance company in Berlin, the county welfare association in Würzburg, the Lord Mayor of Nürnberg and the district attorney of the superior court, Nürnberg; and to the district court of Munich and to the Ministry of the Interior in Munich itself, in a case submitted through the guardianship court of Stuttgart. A lawyer who inquired about a client was likewise referred to the Gemeinnützige Krankentransport G.m.b.H. (Appendix 5, Nos. 28 & 29). Another lawyer, whose practice was likewise limited to Jews only was not as fortunate. His letter was merely referred to the transport company for action (Appendix 5, Nos. 30 & 31).

Replies to non-Jewish relatives of killed Jews or to relatives of non-Jews were more polite. Frieda Schneider inquired about the whereabouts of the mother-in-law of her brother, who at the time was a soldier at the front (Appendix 5, No.32). The reply reads as follows (Appendix 5, No.33).:

"We have no news as to which admitting institution Mrs Sara Kirschbaum has been taken. We have been assured that you will receive notification from the admitting institution. Your letter had been transmitted to the proper place for action."

A Mrs Elise Strohmaier wrote a rather touching letter about her sick daughter to whom she was very attached and devoted (Appendix 5, No.34). This reads as follows:

"Dachau, 14 December 1940.

"Greatly honored Herr Direktor:

"Please forgive me if I approach you personally with a heavy mother’s heart in these days which also for you must be full of suffering.

"On 2 December I received an announcement from the institution that my daughter, Anny Wild, House 8, had been transferred because the house had to be cleared and that the receiving institution would notify me, but up to date I have not heard anything.

"I beg you urgently to tell me as soon as possible where my daughter no is.

"At the same time I want to express to you venerated Herr Direktor, and to the other doctors who helped to care for my daughter in her many days of severe suffering, my deeply felt gratitude. If you realize that she has been bed-ridden for almost a whole year but now at this season had to go on a journey, you will understand my great solicitude; and also if you consider that the holidays are near, when we would have liked to much to visit her.

"I beg you urgently for an immediate reply.

"With German greeting,"

Signed: "Elise Strohmaier,
Dachau,
Hermannstr 10.

"I can be reached by telephone at Burgmeier T 365".

This touching letter drew the following reply from Dr. Pfannmüller (Appendix 5, No.35):

"16 December 1940"

"Greatly honored Mrs. Strohmaier,

"In reply to your letter of 14 December 1940, I regret not being able to tell you in which reception institution your daughter has been admitted, since I personally was not informed about the matter. However, I have been assured that you will be informed about the condition of your daughter, Anny Wild, in a short time from the receiving institution. The transfer of the patient occurred within the frame of a planned evacuation of the institution for the purpose of making room for evacuees upon the direction of the commissioner for Defence of the Realm. The direction of this institution has no influence upon the transfer of patients".

The receiving institutions apparently were quite tardy with their replies as exemplified in the correspondence of Mrs. Sophie Sara Landecker about her son (Appendix 5, No.36). Her letter, dated 2 December 1940, reads as follows:

"You have informed me on 21 September 1940, that my son Martin, who has been transferred to you from the monastery in Reichenbach has been sent to a collective institution according to the instructions of the State Ministry of the Interior. Since up to date I have heard nothing from or about my son, I beg you most cordially to inform me where he has been taken so that I, as his mother, know of his whereabouts. I inclose stamped envelope for your reply.

"With esteem:

Signed: Sophie Sara Landecker

Hindenburgstr 20".

This letter was referred to the Gemeinnützige Krankentransport G.m.b.H. Mrs Landecker received the following reply (Appendix 5, No.37):

"We have referred your letter to the appropriate place because the receiving institution is unknown to us".

A similar inquiry by a Mr. Oppenheimer concerning his daughter was dealt with in the same manner (Appendix 5, Nos. 38, 39 & 40).

A rather pathetic letter, which indicates at the same time that patients’ property disappeared as tracelessly as the patients themselves, is reproduced in Appendix 5, No. 41. This letter reads:

"Schwartzenau a/Eder, Westfalen, 2 March 1941.

To:- Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Eglfing:

"I received from Lublin the death notice of my sister, Mrs Meta Sara Frankenberg of Coburg, with a note that my previous letter sent to the director of Eglfing had been forwarded there. I had, at the same time, made arrangements in Coburg to forward my sister’s linen shrouds according to Jewish custom. If these shrouds should still be in Eglfing I request you to kindly send them to me here at my expense.

"For your efforts, best thanks,

With esteem,

Frieda Sara Kahn".

Dr. Pfannmüller replied:

"All effects were sent along with the patients at the time of the transfer. There are no more clothing or valuables here which belonged to Meta Sara Frankenberg." (Appendix 5, No.41).

Apparently also the case histories and personal records disappeared. When the State Hospital of Lohr am Main inquired about the case histories of the Jewish patients who had been transferred to Eglfing on 16 September 1940, because they needed them for their annual statistics (Appendix 5, No.42), Dr. Pfannmüller replied (Appendix 5, No.43):

"These histories of Jewish inmates who had been transferred to my institution and who were transferred from here into another institution, cannot be obtained by you because they were sent along with the responsible transport agency who transferred the patient".

Even the Gemeinnützige Krankentransport G.m.b.H. could get no further personal data on the patients once they had been handed to them. On 8 January 1941 the Gemeinnützige Krankentransport G.m.b.H. requested of the director of the Institution at Eglfing-Haar, the date and place of birth of one of the transported patients which they needed in order to find the data necessary for replying to a relative (Appendix 5, No.44). Dr. Pfannmüller, in reply, gave the date of birth, but stated "the place of birth we cannot supply because we no longer are in possession of the records." (Appendix5, No.45).

Part III
Part V