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Hans Möller * 1908
Hugo-Klemm-Straße 51 (Harburg, Heimfeld)
HIER WOHNTE
HANS MÖLLER
JG. 1908
VERHAFTET 1938
KZ FUHLSBÜTTEL
EINGEWIESEN 1938
HEILANSTALT LANGENHORN
ZWANDSSTERILISIERT
‚VERLEGT’ 1941
HEILANSTALT KÖNIGSLUTTER
TOT 13.11.1943
Hans August Otto Johann Möller, born on 11 Sept. 1908 in Harburg, detained in the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp, from 1938 until 1943 committals to "sanatoria and nursing homes,” died on 13 Nov. 1943 in Königslutter
District of Heimfeld, Hugo-Klemm-Strasse 51
Hans Möller, born in Harburg in 1908, was the only child of the senior municipal civil servant (Stadtamtmann) Friedrich Möller and Margarethe, née Lindhorst. He went to the Harburg Realgymnasium [a high school focused on the sciences, math, and modern languages] up to grade 3 before attending the local municipal business school for half a year. Afterward, he began training as a pharmacist, though dropping out after a year and completing a three-year apprenticeship at the district savings bank (Kreissparkasse) in Harburg, where he was employed for an additional year. Since the early 1930s, he was unemployed and worked for the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in an honorary capacity during this time. He lived at Scharnhorststrasse 51 (today Hugo-Klemm-Strasse).
Although subsequently described by the parents as "passive and lacking in drive,” others portray him as an "open-minded person,” who was very well liked among his comrades. After Hans Möller had been employed as an unskilled worker at the local statutory health insurance company (Allgemeine Ortskrankenkasse) for the Harburg Administrative District for a month, he terminated this work abruptly on 1 Oct. 1937 because he felt "worn out.”
Afterward, the 29-year-old man developed schizophrenia that resulted in voice hallucinations, persecution mania, and delusions of grandeur as well as states of agitation, during which he also became violent toward his parents. At the end of Oct. 1937, they took him to the Psychiatric and Mental Hospital of the Hanseatic University Eilbecktal” ("Psychiatrische und Nervenklinik der Hansischen Universität Eilbecktal”), on the grounds of today’s Schön Clinic in Hamburg Eilbek, where the acute delusions subsided after three weeks. Only his state of "lacking in drive” continued.
On 22 Jan. 1938, he was transferred due to "lack of space” to the Langenhorn State Hospital (Staatskrankenanstalt Langenhorn), the subsequent "sanatorium and nursing home,” and in addition, the assistant doctor B. Hoffmann, who provided the expert’s report, deemed further institutionalization necessary because of "hereditary danger” ("Erbgefährlichkeit”). Possibly, the parents already realized at this stage that their son was getting into danger due to the hereditary health ideology of the Nazis, for they strove to have him discharged, denying that he had become violent toward them. However, the acute schizophrenia with which Hans Möller diagnosed had already set in motion "sterilization proceedings” ("Unfruchtbarmachungsverfahren”) that barred his discharge in Feb. 1938. Shortly after a decision by the Hereditary Health Court, he was sterilized in the Eppendorf University Hospital at the end of May 1938 and then discharged on 19 May.
On 17 Oct. 1938, due to "conspicuous behavior,” Hans Möller came under suspicion of having homosexual tendencies and of having gone into a state of sexual arousal at the sight of the bare knees of a young man. When the latter tried to detain him for assault and take him to a police station, Hans Möller defended himself with a stick. As a result, he was arrested and placed in "protective custody” ("Schutzhaft”) in the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp from 20 until 24 Oct. 1938. Upon being interrogated, he admitted an instance of homosexual activity dating back four years, though he denied having had any sexual intentions in the case at hand.
Apparently, this experience caused a renewed outbreak of his illness, and after a stay of only one day in pretrial detention, he was already committed to Langenhorn again. An expert’s report prepared by the institutional physician Wigand Quickert on authority of the Hamburg District Court (Amtsgericht) in Feb. 1939 also diagnosed Hans Möller with schizophrenia that met the criteria for mental incapacity in accordance with Sec. 51 of the Criminal Code (Strafgesetzbuch – StGB). Despite an "orderly outward attitude and seemingly balanced prevailing mood” reappearing soon, the physician saw in Hans Möller a "danger for public safety,” considering institutionalization in Langenhorn necessary. At the end of 1939, the deputy medical director Körtke noted that the patient’s condition had not improved, that he was an "affectively moronic mental patient lacking in drive and incapable of social contact, who was living from day to day completely immersed in his own delusional world of ideas.”
On 14 Aug. 1941, Hans Möller was transferred to the Königslutter "sanatorium and nursing home” ("Heil- und Pflegeanstalt” Königslutter) near Braunschweig, where he died on 13 Nov. 1943 at the age of 35, officially of "myocardial degeneration” ("Herzmuskelentartung”).
Translator: Erwin Fink
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.
Stand: October 2017
© Ulf Bollmann
Quellen: StaH, 213-8 Staatsanwaltschaft Oberlandesgericht – Verwaltung, Abl. 2, 451 a E 1, 1 c; 242-1II Gefängnisverwaltung II, Abl. 16; 352-8/7 Staatskrankenanstalt Langenhorn, Abl. 1995/1 Nr. 24658.
