Search for Names, Places and Biographies

Karl Levi
© Staatsarchiv Hamburg

Karl Levi * 1909

Güntherstraße 45 (Hamburg-Nord, Hohenfelde)

HIER WOHNTE
KARL LEVI
JG. 1909
EINGEWIESEN 16.4.1943
’HEILANSTALT’
MESERITZ-OBRAWALDE
ERMORDET 5.5.1943

Karl Levi, born on 14 Dec. 1909 in Hamburg, transferred on 16 Apr. 1943 from the Langenhorn "sanatorium and nursing home” (Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Langenhorn) to Meseritz-Obrawalde, death there on 5 May 1943

Güntherstrasse 45

Karl Levi’s parents were married in Hamburg in the summer of 1909, and they had both moved there from other towns. His mother, Wilhelmine Meta Gesine, née Wennholz, was born in Bremen on 29 Dec. 1885. His father, Emanuel Levi, came from Thiengen in Baden, where he was born on 30 Oct. 1877. He came from a Jewish family. His father was a cattle trader and he, too, had gone into the commercial field. Gesine Levi brought a son into the marriage, Karl’s half-brother. At first, the family lived in what was then the Hammerbrook quarter. Gesine Levi looked after and watched over her sons to the best of her ability.

She was not worried that Karl only started speaking at the age of three. When he was treated at the age of four for rheumatoid arthritis in the St. Georg Hospital, he was noticed there as "extraordinarily whiny.” He survived the disease without any obvious aftereffects. In 1916, he was enrolled in the reform school on Lübecker Tor, which he left after repeating one school year after grade 2. According to his own information, this was because he preferred playing soccer to studying.

Ultimately, however, Karl Levi did not gain a foothold in working life. At the end of the inflation period, his father succeeded in getting him an apprenticeship with a goldsmith. Since his apprentice’s master sent him "to fetch Köm” (i.e., liquor) several times even in the morning, he abandoned the apprenticeship. He gave up three more apprenticeships prematurely for various reasons. Apprenticeships alternated with short-term jobs as an errand boy.

Karl Levi began to disrespect his superiors and parents, which is not unusual from today’s point of view, given his 14 years of age. But when he indecently approached a six-year-old girl in the summer of 1925, the problem of a pubescent boy became a psychiatric one and his criminal liability was under scrutiny. In order to clarify the issue, he was admitted to Eppendorf General Hospital for examination. Overwhelmed with shame, he attempted suicide. In order to protect him from himself, he was transferred to the Friedrichsberg State Hospital (Staatskrankenhaus Friedrichsberg). There, physicians attested to him lack of insight into his guilt and weakness of will, which is why he was not punished with imprisonment but handed over to the youth welfare office. The youth welfare office admitted him to a home on Averhoffstrasse in the Uhlenhorst quarter for three months of observation. As early as Jan. 1926, Karl Levi was granted leave to stay with his parents, but he was still under supervision by a social worker (Schutzaufsicht) from the youth welfare office. He got himself a job as a messenger. When the supervision by the social worker was lifted on 22 June 1927, Karl Levi was 17 years old. Freedom lasted only for a short time, because already in the first night he caused a disturbance of the peace. He wanted to prove to prostitutes that he could call the police very quickly and he did succeed: Police officers arrived at the scene and took him back to his parents. Since his parents could not prevent him from going out at night and found him impudent, they applied for correctional education (Fürsorgeerziehung). On 18 July 1927, Karl Levi’s second stay at the Friedrichsberg State Hospital began.

Eight months later, he was transferred to the Langenhorn "sanatorium and nursing home.” This marked the beginning of an eventful period involving leaves of absence, re-committals, and re-admissions. Several times, his parents obtained unlimited leaves of absence, each ending with Karl becoming conspicuous or even violent and the "medic crew” taking him back to Langenhorn.

Karl Levi drew nearer to the German Communist Party (Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands – KPD) and had himself elected to the anti-war committee, but his parents deregistered him. They attributed his "intolerable behavior” to his political attitude. He told an examining doctor that he "would rather serve time in prison and then be free than be committed to a psychiatric ward.” This wish was not fulfilled: In a trial concerning charges of bodily harm, he was acquitted based on proven innocence, though he was not released into freedom, but returned to the Langenhorn "sanatorium and nursing home” (Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Langenhorn). Repeatedly, he displayed rebellious behavior there. For example, he provoked a fight that earned him a stay in the "observation room” [Wachsaal – a room in which patients were immobilized and underwent continuous therapy]. In another instance, he harassed fellow patients during work at the institution’s felt shoemaking department and refused to do his job, after which he had to leave this workplace and return to his ward. Five months later, by then more sociable, he came back to the felt shoemaking workshop at his own request.

In Nov. 1930, he was granted "leave until further notice.” On 14 Dec. 1930, he was incapacitated and the social welfare police (Wohlfahrtspolizei) appointed an administrative inspector as his guardian.

At the beginning of 1931, the Langenhorn "sanatorium and nursing home” discharged Karl Levi with a favorable prognosis. According to medical reports, he lacked the ability to adapt socially, but through increasing maturity, education, and therapy he had become more balanced and sociable and would meet professional, social, and human requirements in the future.

His father Emanuel Levi worked as an employee at the Hamburg finance authority. Almost immediately after the transfer of power to the Nazis in 1933, he was dismissed from this position based the "Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service” ("Gesetz zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums”). He managed to get another job for two more years. The Levi family moved from Kolbergstrasse 36 in the St. Georg quarter to Güntherstrasse 75 in Hohenfelde. Emanuel Levi had left the Hamburg German-Israelitic Community in 1931, but rejoined on 1 Oct. 1934. In 1936, the Community exempted him from taxes, since his income amounted to only a monthly pension of 100 RM (reichsmark).

In Nov. 1933, Karl Levi was suspected of having committed, in a state of sound mind, "preparatory acts toward a treasonous undertaking.” The "acts” involved the "exchange of anti-state publications.” Thereupon, he was initially recommitted to the Friedrichsberg State Hospital and then, in Dec. 1934, according to official instructions again to the Langenhorn "sanatorium and nursing home.” Prior to that, he had been subjected to compulsory sterilization in the Barmbek General Hospital.

In 1935, only a few events were recorded in Karl Levi’s patient file. At the end of the first quarter, the file read that he was "unreasonable” and had trampled the food parcel his mother had brought with her. In April, the appeal of his committal order was reviewed and turned down. Thereupon, he returned to felt shoemaking. In 1936, the file read, as it had before, that he had become more modest and reserved, causing his father to think that he might be discharged. The attending physician, Wigand Quickert, supported this view and recommended to the Higher Regional Court (Oberlandesgericht) an experimental discharge. The guardian and the Gestapo unanimously resisted this proposal, after which Karl Levi became unruly toward the doctors and the nursing staff. They imposed a ban on reading and smoking and moved him to a single room until he remorsefully fit in again. After the extraction of a tooth, the restlessness and imperviousness recurred and in response, the patient was transferred to a single room. A medical report from 1937 judged him to be a "failure in life” and a "public danger.” The following year, nothing of the sort was mentioned and instead, Karl Levi’s impeccable attitude and hard work were praised. Then, however, the next phase of agitation built up. In July 1939, the court gave its consent to an eight-day leave. The following years saw a repetition of the changeable events.

Following the Polish campaign of the German Wehrmacht in Oct. 1939, "T4,” the Nazis’ "euthanasia” campaign for adults, was launched. On 23 Sept. 1940, "fully Jewish” ("volljüdische”) patients were among the first group of patients from Hamburg to be transported to the "euthanasia” killing center in Brandenburg and murdered there with carbon monoxide. As a "Jewish crossbreed of the first degree” ("Mischling 1. Grades”) along the lines of the Nuremberg Race Laws, Karl Levi was not affected by this. His parents fought successfully for his recognition as a "non-Jewish crossbreed,” which was granted to him on 18 May 1941. With this recognition, they initially protected their son, but also themselves, by maintaining their status of living in a "privileged mixed marriage” ("privilegierte Mischehe”). However, this recognition did not prevent Karl Levi from being reported to the "T4” headquarters in Berlin. This office decided who was to be transported where and when for killing. Reasons for the fact that he was still alive at the end of the "euthanasia” mass killings in Aug. 1941 may be related to his good state of health, as well as in the fact that his parents lived nearby and cared for him. His productive work in the gardening detachment and in the tailoring department during the winter probably also played a role. However, asthmatic complaints limited his fitness for work. In early 1943, he had to stay in bed for weeks.

Under pressure to provide space for various types of war victims, a new wave of transfers from "sanatoriums and nursing homes” to areas "safe from bombing” ("luftsicher”) began in early 1943. In the Hamburg area, the Langenhorn "sanatorium and nursing home” served as an assembly point and interim institution. The prison management turned to the Hamburg public health administration with the request to apply to the "T4” headquarters in Berlin for the transfer of 50 men and 50 women each. A week later, Gerhard Siebert, the head of "charitable ambulance organization” (Gemeinnützige Krankentransport GmbH – GekraT, a subdivision of "T4”), informed the public health administration that he had chosen the "Meseritz-Obrawalde sanatorium and nursing home” ("Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Meseritz-Obrawalde”) for the planned transfers. This institution, about 180 kilometers (approx. 110 miles) east of Berlin in Pomerania, was originally a conglomerate of various welfare institutions with a department for the mentally ill. By that time, it only served to hold the so-called mentally ill in custody and, since Walter Grabowski took over the management in Nov. 1941, to "eradicate” these inmates. The Hamburg and Pomeranian institutions negotiated between them the modalities of the transfers in direct exchanges. However, misunderstandings between the two institutions and the Berlin authorities involved resulted in a total of 50 women and 150 men being transferred to Meseritz-Obrawalde in four transports instead of the 100 male patients agreed in Feb. 1943. If the original number had remained in effect, Karl Levi would have stayed in Langenhorn instead of being transported to distant Pomerania with the last of these four transports on 16 Apr. 1943.

As in many concentration camps, at the "Meseritz-Obrawalde sanatorium and nursing home” the ability to work and inconspicuousness made the difference between life and death. Karl Levi was probably killed on 5 May 1943 in Block 21 or one of the neighboring blocks. Small death rooms had been set up in these blocks – cells into which the victims were led by the ward nurses or caregivers, respectively. The selection was made by the institutional physician Hilde Wernicke or by her colleague, Theophil Mootz. Both also determined the cause of death to be indicated on the death certificate. The persons doomed to die were injected with a lethal dose of morphine-scopolamine or given dissolved Phenobarbital (Luminal) or Barbital (Veronal) pills by their nurses or caregivers. If they fought back, they were cajoled into giving in, whereas physical force was used only rarely. Death usually occurred within a few hours to half a day.

Afterward, the nursing staff or the cemetery detachment took the corpses to the adjacent morgue, behind which the institution’s own cemetery was located. Only a few of the dead got a single grave. Karl Levi’s death was notarized at the records office set up especially for the institution; the cause of death was indicated as "febrile bronchitis, cardiac insufficiency.” His parents received news of his death when he was already buried, probably like the thousands of other victims in a mass grave. Karl Levi was 33 years old.

Emanuel Levi died in 1950 in the Marienkrankenhaus hospital in Hohenfelde at the age of 72; Gesine Levi in the St. Georg General Hospital in 1968, at the age of 83.


Translator: Erwin Fink
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: December 2019
© Hildgard Thevs

Quellen: StaH 213-12 Staatsanwaltschaft Landgericht, NSG 0013/001, Bl. 158, Lensch-Verfahren 0013/010, Bl. 5382, Bild 11; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 1449- u. 2342/1968; 3127 u. 493/1909; 7309- u. 131/1950; StaH 352-8/7, Abl. 1995/1, 17281; Thomas Beddies, Die Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Meseritz-Obrawalde im Dritten Reich, in: Kristina Hübener (Hrsg.), Brandenburgische Heil- und Pflegeanstalten in der NS-Zeit, Schriftenreihe zur Medizin-Geschichte des Landes Brandenburg, 3, Berlin, 2002, S. 231–258; Peter von Rönn, Die Entwicklung der Anstalt Langenhorn in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus, in: Klaus Böhme, Uwe Lohalm (Hrsg.), Wege in den Tod. Hamburgs Anstalt Langenhorn und die Euthanasie in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus, Hamburg, 1993, Forum Zeitgeschichte, Bd. 2, S. 91–102; Michael Wunder, Die Transporte in die Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Meseritz-Obrawalde, in, ders., Wege in den Tod, S. 377–396.