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Helmut Wichert * 1913

Grumbrechtstraße 41 (Harburg, Heimfeld)

HIER WOHNTE
HELMUT WICHERT
JG. 1913
EINGEWIESEN
ROTENBURGER ANSTALTEN
"VERLEGT" 1941
HEILANSTALT KAUFBEUREN
ERMORDET 28.10.1943

Helmut Wichert, born on 12 Mar. 1913 in Harburg, committed to the "Langenhagen Provincial Sanatorium and Nursing Home for Feebleminded Patients” ("Provinzial-Heil- und Pflegeanstalt für Geistesschwache zu Langenhagen”), transferred several times, murdered in the "Kaufbeuren-Irsee Sanatorium and Nursing Home” ("Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Kaufbeuren-Irsee”) on 28 Oct. 1943

District Heimfeld, Grumbrechtstrasse 41

Three years after his birth, the factory worker Franz Wichert and his wife Auguste, née Fricke, had their son Helmut baptized on 16 Apr. 1916 at the nearby St. Paulus Church in Hamburg-Heimfeld. It took a long time before the boy could stand upright, and when he had finally learned to walk, it became apparent that he was staggering. He was also very restless and "did damage.” After a short stay at the Harburg Hospital had not brought about any change, Helmut Wichert was committed to the "Langenhagen Provincial Sanatorium and Nursing Home for Feebleminded Patients” ("Provinzial-Heil- und Pflegeanstalt für Geistesschwache zu Langenhagen”) at the age of seven on 5 July 1920.

The origin of this institution goes back to the initiative of private individuals who opened a "sanatorium and nursing home for mentally handicapped and idiotic children” with 29 boarding pupils in the "small, idyllic village of Langenhagen” in 1862. After the financial problems could no longer be solved with private funds, the Prussian provincial administration in Hannover took over the sponsorship in 1897 and continuously expanded the institution in the following years. The administration was particularly interested in creating additional opportunities for occupational therapy. The sick included many children who were trained in the institutional school to work in a kitchen, carpentry, nursery, laundry, or sewing room. However, only the "pupils” capable of learning achieved this goal, while some of the "foster children” were mentally and/or physically invalid to such an extent that they needed constant care. Helmut Wichert stayed there for nine years. At the age of 16, he was transferred to the Rotenburg Institute (Rotenburger Anstalten) on 19 Aug. 1929. The initial examination revealed the diagnosis of "idiocy” ("Idiotie”).

Apparently, he settled in well very quickly to his new surroundings. He showed himself "willing and tolerable.” Occupational therapy was also very popular in Rotenburg for medical and economic reasons. Helmut Wichert was first used in the saddlery and later in the tailoring shop where he sewed on buttons. On 9 Dec. 1935, he – like 334 other patients before and after him – was compulsorily sterilized on the basis of the "Law for the Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Diseases” ("Gesetz zur Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses”) dated 14 July 1933, a first step on the road to the "destruction of life unworthy of living” in the "Third Reich.”

The radicalization of this policy culminated in Hitler’s decree in 1939 to kill incurably ill people on a massive scale. More than 70,000 patients of "sanatoria and nursing homes” were no longer alive by the time the killing of further inmates by carbon monoxide gas was stopped in Aug. 1941 and the second phase of the "euthanasia policy” began, in which the killing program was continued by other means. The Rotenburg Institute of the Inner Mission was also fully affected. After 140 patients had already been transferred to the "Weilmünster State Sanatorium” ("Landesheilanstalt Weilmünster”) in the summer of 1941, another 678 patients were transported to other facilities in the fall of that year. Only 240 residents remained, whose services were needed in the Wehrmacht hospital and the Bremen emergency hospital, which now moved into the evacuated buildings.

On 7 Oct. 1941, Helmut Wichert and 64 other men and women from Rotenburg were transferred to the "Kaufbeuren-Irsee Sanatorium and Nursing Home” ("Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Kaufbeuren-Irsee”) in Swabia, where he was classified as a "good-natured moron and helpless stutterer” who was unable to do any useful work. However, there were no signs of an "improvement.” After a few months, he was considered in need of care. The head of this institution was Valentin Faltlhauser, one of the experts of the "T4 Operation” ("Aktion T 4”). Even during a public tour of "his” institution, he made no secret of his attitude toward "euthanasia” policies: "These premises accommodate creatures who are waiting for a law to free people from them. They are no longer alive anyway, only the flesh and blood of them moves at all – worthless to themselves and to humanity.”

After the official stop of the "T4 Operation,” he continued his extermination activities within the walls of the "Kaufbeuren-Irsee Sanatorium and Nursing Home.” Even before the proclamation of the so-called "Hunger Decree” ("Hunger-Erlass”) for the Bavarian "health and care institutions” issued on 30 Nov. 1942, he introduced "deprivation diet” ("Entzugskost”) in his institution for all inmates who did not "do any significant, useful work.” This involved a fat and vitamin-free diet, consisting essentially only of boiled vegetables and water. This starvation diet led to severe hunger edema in the affected patients within three months. Those who did not shut their eyes to the suffering of the persons affected knew that this practice served to ensure that "people on the outside do not learn how dying is helped along at this place.”

In the "Kaufbeuren-Irsee Sanatorium and Nursing Home,” this murder program was supplemented by a medicinal killing practice, as testimony by one nurse shows: "The patients received Luminal [Phenobarbital] or Veronal [Barbital], in some cases also Trional in tablet form as well as Luminal and morphine scopolamine in liquid form. ... [The consequence was] a deep, leaden sleep (unconsciousness) of the sick, from which they no longer awoke. Death sometimes occurred very quickly, already on the first day, at the latest by the second or third day.”

The effects of this practice are reflected in the death statistics of the "Kaufbeuren-Irsee Sanatorium and Nursing Home” from 1941 to 1945. The mortality rate increased by 100 percent from 1941 to 1942, and by another 300 percent from 1943 to 1944. In 1944, almost half of the fosterlings died there.

Because of the dying on a massive scale, a new cemetery had to be built in Kaufbeuren in 1943. As the number of burials rose steadily and some residents complained about the frequent ringing of the death bell, a year later a crematorium was erected on the grounds of the institution.

Among the 261 dead in 1943 is Helmut Wichert. On 28 Oct. 1943, he closed his eyes forever.

After 1945, Valentin Falthauser justified the murder of disabled people, whose well-being was his responsibility, with the words, "My actions happened ... with the intention ... to free the unfortunate creatures ... from a suffering for which there is no rescuing by any means known to us today ... no relief.”


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

Stand: May 2019
© Klaus Möller

Quellen: Gedenkbuch der Rotenburger Werke der Inneren Mission; Archiv der Rotenburger Werke der Inneren Mission, Akten Nr. 106, 341; Bezirksarchiv Schwaben, Patientenakte Helmut Wichers; Rotenburger Werke (Hrsg.), Zuflucht; Cranach/Siemen (Hrsg.), Psychiatrie Nationalsozialismus; Mader, Ernst T., Sterben; Klee, "Euthanasie".