Search for Names, Places and Biographies

Klaus-Peter Volstedt * 1941

Mittelweg 112 (Eimsbüttel, Harvestehude)

HIER WOHNTE
KLAUS-PETER
VOLSTEDT
JG. 1941
EINGEWIESEN 1942
ALSTERDORFER ANSTALTEN
´VERLEGT‘ 7.8.1943
KALMENHOF-IDSTEIN
´KINDERFACHABTEILUNG‘
ERMORDET 16.9.1944

Klaus-Peter Volstedt, born 25.2.1941 in Hamburg, admitted to Alsterdorf Asylum ("Alsterdorfer Anstalten", now Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf)) on 24.7.1942, deported to the "Curative Education Institution Kalmenhof" ("Heilerziehungsanstalt Kalmenhof") in Idstein/Taunus on 7.8.1943, died there on 16.9.1944.

Mittelweg 112 (Eimsbüttel, Harvestehude)

Klaus-Peter Volstedt's mother, Margarethe Volstedt, born on 30 July 1921 in Uetersen, worked as a housekeeper in the maternity home at Mittelweg 112, where Klaus-Peter was born on 25 Febr. 1941. He was the second child of Margarethe Volstedt, his older sister Annamargarete (born 1939) grew up in a foster home.

Klaus-Peter Volstedt was initially placed in the municipal infant home (Kleinkinderhaus) on Winterhuder Weg. He was subject to "public education", i.e. parental care had been withdrawn from the mother and transferred to the youth welfare office by court order. There is no information about contacts between the infant and his mother in his patient file.

On 26 June 1942, the State Welfare Office of the Hamburg Social Administration ordered Klaus-Peter Volstedt's transfer to the Alsterdorf Asylum (nowadays Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf) "because of mental and physical underdevelopment due to pituitary disorder" (the pituitary gland controls various bodily functions and plays an important role in controlling hormone balance). On admission to the Alsterdorf Asylum it was noted: "The child Klaus-Peter Volstedt admitted here suffers from debility" (Slight reduction in intelligence).
The "public education" was cancelled at the end of September 1942.

Klaus-Peter now received a guardian. The only report from the Alsterdorf Asylum to the guardian contained in the patient file, dated 29 Dec. 1942, gives a brief description of the boy: "Your ward Klaus-Peter Volstedt suffers from imbecility. He can now stand and, if he holds on, also walk a little. He does not yet speak a word, but apparently tries to produce something of the sort. He has to be fed with porridge and cannot be kept dry. Essentially he is friendly and calm, laughs and is happy to be handled."

During the heavy air raids on Hamburg in the summer of 1943 (Operation Gomorrha), the Alsterdorf Asylum also suffered damage on the night of 29/30 July 1943 and then again on 3/4 Aug. 1943. The director of the asylum, SA member Pastor Friedrich Lensch, asked the health authorities for permission to transfer 750 patients, ostensibly to make room for wounded and bomb-damaged. With three transports between 7 and 16 Aug. 1943, a total of 468 girls and women, boys and men were "transferred".

The first transport on 7 Aug. 1943 included 128 girls, boys and men from Alsterdorf, 76 of them were transported to the Eichberg sanatorium and nursing home in the Rheingau and 52 to the "Curative Education Institution Kalmenhof" ("Heilerziehungsanstalt Kalmenhof") in Idstein/Taunus. Klaus-Peter Volstedt, who was two and a half years old at the time, was among those taken to Idstein.

Klaus-Peter's mother received a brief note dated 12 Aug. 1943, "that due to bomb damage in our institutions, your son Klaus-Peter was transferred to the Idstein/Taunus nursing home on 7 Aug. 1943."
Obviously Klaus-Peter's guardian enquired about his ward, because the Alsterdorf Asylum sent a letter to him on 18 Nov. 1943, referring to his enquiry of 10 Nov. 1943: "Klaus-Peter Volstedt was transferred to the Curative Education Institution Kalmenhof in Idstein/Taunus on 7.8.43, as a result of damage to our institutions by enemy action. In the meantime we have received the news from this institution that the child is now in the welfare home (Fürsorgeerziehungsheim) in Scheuern near Nassau/Lahn. Heil Hitler!"

The letter of the guardian is not available. In view of the very scarce documentation in the file, it can be assumed that this and other parts of the file have been lost.

It is not clear, for example, when the boy was taken to Scheuern and transferred back to Idstein. The latter can only be deduced from the death register excerpt from the Idstein registry office. It shows that Klaus-Peter Volstedt died of "congenital imbecility, feverish bronchitis, bronchopneumonia" on 16 Sept. 1944 in the Idstein home for children with special needs.

Founded in 1888 by wealthy citizens of Frankfurt and Wiesbaden on the "Gut Kalmenhof", the "Idiot Institution Idstein" was deeply involved in the National Socialist "euthanasia" programme during the years of the Second World War. Together with the institutions in Herborn, Weilmünster, Eichberg and Scheuern, it formed a ring of so-called intermediate institutions around the killing facility in Hadamar, from where the inmates were sent to death. After the official stop of "Aktion T4" in August 1941, the prison director Wilhelm Großmann and the head of the newly established "children's specialist department", Mathilde Weber, had no qualms about continuing the murder programme in another form. Almost daily they selected their patients on their rounds. The selected children and adults were then killed with a morphine/scopolamine injection or with Luminal. A total of 666 people were killed in Idstein from 1940 until the end of the war.

The killings of the children from Alsterdorf started a few days after their arrival. On 11 Nov. 1943, 48 of the 52 children had already been "hosed down". In the last years of the war, the dead were no longer buried in the municipal cemetery, but in a field behind the hospital so as not to unnecessarily disturb the population.

It can be assumed that Klaus-Peter Volstedt was also murdered with medication in the Kalmenhof.

It is not known whether the mother could be informed of her son's demise. Allegedly her whereabouts were unknown.

Since Klaus-Peter only spent his short life in institutions, the Stolperstein commemorates him at Mittelweg 112, the former maternity home where he was born.

Translation: Elisabeth Wendland

Stand: August 2023
© Ingo Wille

Quellen: Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf Archiv Akte V 85 (Klaus-Peter Volstedt), Erbgesundheitskarteikarte Familie Volstedt, Standesamt Idstein Nr. 139/1944 Sterberegisterauszug Klaus-Peter Volstedt. Michael Wunder, Ingrid Genkel, Harald Jenner, Auf dieser schiefen Ebene gibt es kein Halten mehr – Die Alsterdorfer Anstalten im Nationalsozialismus, Stuttgart 2016, S. 35, 283 ff.