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Albert Wienecke im Dezember 1928
© Archiv Ev. Stiftung Alsterdorf

Albert Wienecke * 1920

Steinstraße 27 (Hamburg-Mitte, Hamburg-Altstadt)

HIER WOHNTE
ALBERT WIENECKE
JG. 1920
SEIT 1928 PATIENT
IN VERSCHIEDENEN
HEILANSTALTEN
"VERLEGT" 1943
HADAMAR
ERMORDET 27.10.1943

Albert Karl Richard Wienecke, b. 1.4.1920 in Hamburg, committed on 10.20.1928 to the then Alsterdorf Institute, transferred on 8.7.1943 to the Eichberg State Mental Hospital in the Rheingau, murdered on 10.27.1943 at the Hadamar State Mental Hospital

Steinstrasse 27 (Steinstrasse 143)

Albert Wienecke was born into a Lutheran home in Altona, the son of the construction worker Albert Carl Jonni Wienecke (b. 9.3.1875) and his third wife, Anna Rebecka Wilhelmine, née Niehuus (b. 4.18.1889). Because his paternal grandparents only got married two years after the birth of their son, Albert’s father received the birth name of his Wienecke mother and the family name of Petersen.

Albert’s mother came from Krempe in the County of Steinburg. Until her school leaving in 1904, she grew up in the "poor and workhouse,” the daughter of the unmarried Johanna Niehuus. Afterwards she had a "position” with a farmer for a few years, and, until she married Albert’s father on 4 April 1919, she worked in a factory. In the Wienecke family there was in addition to Albert the two-year older sister, Albertine Wilhelmine, and the four-year older half-sister, Johanna Niehuus; two other children died shortly after being born. The Wieneckes lived in modest circumstances, mostly in the Gängeviertel of the Hamburg Old and New cities.

While Anna Wienecke was pregnant with Albert, she took a fall. The fall presumably displaced him. He was born, a 9-month child, in a breech birth on 4 January 1920. While still an infant, Albert had to be treated several times in the hospital. Before his first birthday he fell out of a window and suffered a concussion. At Easter of 1927, Albert was sent to school and then, after six months, held back "because he was no good in school.” After this the Youth Office sent him in 1928 to the city orphanage on Averhoffstrasse for in-patient observation. Following this Albert entered the Friedrichsberg State Hospital in Hamburg-Eilbek. An official fetched him from there and brought him to the then Alsterdorf Institute (today the Evangelical Alsterdorf Institute). Upon his entry, serious deformations were confirmed: "hydrocephaly and distortions of the lower extremities.” The doctors hypothesized that in the early years of his life he had developed "muscle spasms,” muscle cramps, which could lead to epilepsy-like occurrences. But because epileptic seizures were observed neither at Friedrichsberg nor later at Alsterdorf, the diagnosis was changed to "feeble-mindedness of high degree.”

Albert Wienecke was described as quiet and calm, obedient, and willing, and he liked to play with other boys. He was considered "anxious-is virtually immovable, and rarely answers.”

At the end of the 1920s, his parents had to leave their apartment on the third floor at Steinstrasse 143; the old houses were demolished to begin construction of the Burchard Court, in what is today a complex of large office buildings (Kontorhausviertel). When, in 1930, Albert’s mother attempted to bring her son home, custody was denied; at that time she was separated from her husband. Custody was granted to Albert’s father who was then persuaded by the directing senior physician, Gerhard Kreyenberg, that further institutional care was absolutely necessary, whereupon he withdrew his application for release. Albert’s parents divorced on 6 February 1935. In 1939, his mother married the box maker, Ernst Menk (b. 12.6.1897), and lived at Seestermannstrasse 29 in Altona (the street no longer exists).

Albert Wienecke attended the Institute‘s special school. In 1932, one of his teachers evaluated him as follows: "His interest in instruction is increasing. He would participate more actively in instruction were it not for his almost pathological shyness.”

On 14 July 1933, the National Socialists issued the "Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring.” In November 1938, at eighteen years of age, Albert was sterilized in the Eppendorf University Hospital.

His sister Albertine, who spent some time in the Alexanderstrasse Home for Girls, was also sterilized by order of the hereditary health court. (Her claim for compensation in 1960 was unsuccessful.)

In early 1939, Albert’s health records noted "not fit for service in the German Armed Forces.” He was employed in housework within the institution and outside, pushing a convoy of wagons.

At the end of his 15-year stay in Alsterdorf, Albert Wienecke was no longer positively evaluated: he was "very depressed” and "of no use for any kind of work, wholly indifferent, apathetic, and still.” The impression he produced was described as "miserable.” Nevertheless, he continued working in the outside convoy until the end.

On 7 August 1943 it was stated on his records: "because of severe damage to the Institute by air raids, transferred to Eichberg.”

The Eichberg State Mental Hospital in the Rheingau, founded in 1849, was only a stop for Albert Wienecke on the way to the neighboring Hadamar killing center. On 12 October 1943, he, along with 23 former Alsterdorf patients, was transferred there. For family members the frequent transfers were difficult to fathom. Even after the official halt to the "euthanasia” program in August 1941, systematic killing continued at Hadamar. To be sure, it was no longer done with carbon monoxide in a gas chamber disguised as a shower room, but rather through medications, starvation, and intentional withholding of care.

Albert Wienecke was murdered on 27 October 1943, fifteen days after his arrival in Hadamar.

Initially, his family heard nothing about Albert’s death. His father had already died in Hamburg on 14 November 1942. Only at the end of 1950, when a brother-in-law requested a transfer back to Hamburg, did the family receive news of Albert’s death. In a return letter from Hadamar, it was stated: "Regrettably, I must inform you that your brother-in-law Albert Wienecke, b. 1.4.1920 in Hamburg, according to available records, died on 10.27.1943. Given as cause of death, in addition to mental illness, is heart failure. Because of the confusion due to the war, information about the gravesite has been lost; the exact grave number is not available. However, the institution’s cemetery is being well cared for under the new administration. I regret that, for lack of information, I am not in position to be of more help.”

Translator: Richard Levy
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: April 2020
© Susanne Rosendahl

Quellen: StaH 351-11 AfW 42151 (Grahlow, Albertine Wilhelmine Maria, gesch. Kluge); StaH 332-5 Standesämter 6187 u 2583/1875; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 3341 u 204/1919; StaH 213-11 Strafakten 2336/43; StaH 242-1 II Gefängnisverwaltung 1009; Archiv der Evangelischen Stiftung Alsterdorf V 91 Albert Wienecke; Wunder: Exodus, S. 199–201.