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Georg Witt, 1939
© Archiv Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf

Georg Witt * 1928

Forbacher Straße 12 (Hamburg-Nord, Dulsberg)

HIER WOHNTE
GEORG WITT
JG. 1928
EINGEWIESEN 10.8.1943
’HEILANSTALT’
MAINKOFEN
ERMORDET

Georg Witt, born on 12 Dec. 1928 in Hamburg, died in the "sanatorium and nursing home” in Mainkofen ("Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Mainkofen”) in Bavaria on 8 May 1945

Forbacher Strasse 12

Georg was four years old when admitted for the first time to what used to be the Alsterdorf Asylum (Alsterdorfer Anstalten), namely the Alsterdorf Protestant Hospital, on 11 Jan. 1932. He had a sister who was six years old at the time. In his medical record, Georg is described as a friendly, but also an anxious boy who could stand upright and walk. A few days after his admission, he cried a lot at night and slept restlessly. Adults frightened him. A few months later, he went to infant school with great joy and was always "friendly, cheerful, and lively.” Whenever he was unable to take off his coat, the report says, he would tear down all objects within reach.

Georg Witt’s ability to speak remained underdeveloped. He obviously had a good emotional relationship with the other children in his living quarters. Most reports about him read along these lines. From 1942 onward, the caregivers described him as "in total need of care.” It is also remarkable that Georg was weighed every month during the entire period of his presence in the Alsterdorf Asylum, but that this aspect of general health monitoring ceased starting in Apr. 1943.

After that, one finds only the terse entry, dated 6 Aug. 1943, that indicated "Due to severe damage to the asylum by air raid, transferred to Mainkofen. Dr. Kreyenberg.”

On 12 Aug. 1943, Georg Witt arrived at the "sanatorium and nursing home” in Mainkofen ("Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Mainkofen”) near Deggendorf in Bavaria. With him, another 112 Alsterdorf residents were transferred to Mainkofen, among them several old men: six between 60 and 70 years old and four over 70 years old, the oldest being 79 years old. Most of them were regarded as "difficult, high-maintenance institutional inmates” and/or, according to the jargon of the time, "inferior charges” ("tiefstehende Pfleglinge”).

The Mainkofen "sanatorium and nursing home” had systematically developed from a psychiatric hospital of the pre-Nazi era into a killing institution. Death in Mainkofen was slow but very regular. Of the Alsterdorf boys and men who arrived in Mainkofen on 12 Aug. 1943, 74 died by the end of 1945. As in other killing institutions, one the stereotypical causes of death appearing repeatedly was "pulmonary tuberculosis;” as was the case in forty instances among the 74 former Alsterdorf inmates who died in Mainkofen; "enteritis” was cited fifteen times as a cause of death. Only 39 patients survived beyond the year 1945, 15 of them adults and 24 children and adolescents up to 21 years of age. The 39 surviving patients were transferred back to Alsterdorf on 19 Dec. 1947.

Georg Witt was assigned to house no. 18 in Mainkofen, about which no further information can be found. There are no reports from Mainkofen about the 14-year-old boy. On 8 May 1945, however, it was noted that Georg’s health had deteriorated considerably in recent days. He died as a result of pneumonia on 8 May 1945. There is every reason to doubt this version.


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

Stand: May 2019
© Ingo Wille

Quellen: Evang. Stiftung Alsterdorf, Patientenunterlagen der Alsterdorfer Anstalten (Georg Witt); Michael Wunder/Ingrid Genkel/Harald Jenner, Auf dieser schiefen Ebene gibt es kein Halten mehr, Hamburg 1987, S. 205; Psychiatrie im Nationalsozialismus: die bayerische Heil- und Pflegeanstalten zwischen 1933 und 1945, Hrsg. Michael Cranach und Hans-Ludwig Siemen, München 1999, S. 245.