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Ingeborg Grammerstorf
© Archiv Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf

Ingeborg Grammerstorf * 1929

Heußweg 22 (Eimsbüttel, Eimsbüttel)

HIER WOHNTE
INGEBORG
GRAMMERSTORF
JG. 1929
EINGEWIESEN 1939
ALSTERDORFER ANSTALTEN
"VERLEGT" 16.8.1943
AM STEINHOF WIEN
ERMORDET 19.10.1944

Ingeborg Grammerstorf, born on 30.7.1929 in Antwerp, in the Von Bodelschwinghschen Institutions in Bethel near Bielefeld from 26.1.1936 till 1.6.1938, admitted to what was at the time the Alsterdorfer Institutions (today the Protestant Foundation Alsterdorf) on 27.8.1939, removed to Vienna to the "Wagner von Jauregg Nursing and Care Institution of the City of Vienna on 16.8.1943, died there on 19.10.1944

Heussweg 22, Eimsbüttel

Ingeborg Grammerstorf was born in Antwerp on 30 July 1929. Her parents were Walter Hans Grammerstorf, a ships broker, born in Belgium on 27 May 1902 and Hertha nee Schmidt born on 31 March 1905 in Hamm (Westphalia). Ingeborg Grammerstorf had two siblings. Her brother Horst was born on 5 June 1931. He died on 19 March 1933. Her sister, Gudrun, was born on 3 August 1934. We know nothing about her subsequent life. It is not known when the family settled in Hamburg.

From 26 January 1936 to 1 June 1938, Ingeborg Grammerstorf was a ‘foster patient’ at the Von Bodelschwinghsche Anstalten in Bethel near Bielefeld. The head of the institutions was the child and adolescent psychiatrist Werner Villinger, a supporter of National Socialist racial hygiene. He also acted as a hereditary health judge and carried out forced sterilisations.

In June 1938, Villinger summarized Ingeborg Grammerstorfs life up till then as follows: ”Inge was born after a delivery that lasted two days (premature membrane rupture) and that required the use of forceps. Her remarkable large head which, attracted attention at the time, was severely deformed by the forceps, her right eye was closed and bleeding. At the age of two and half to three years, the child learned to walk and speak. An encephalography carried out in 1932 […] showed an internal hydrocephalus. Inge often suffered from bronchitis and asthma attacks. In her mental development, she lagged far behind. There is a high level of feeblemindedness. […] The patient has not yet been able to attend school. Apart from that, she is a quiet, harmless, somewhat anxious child. We observed repeated asthma attacks with bronchitic symptoms. Fever lasting several days. In October and November 38 several epileptic seizures occurred, including a group of eight seizures with prolonged twitching of the left limbs. These included some days of sustained fever. In October and November 38 several epileptic type attacks of asthma occurred including a group of eight attacks with a twitching of the left side limbs which lasted for a long time. Since then, the patient has remained seizure-free.”

Villinger attributed Ingeborg Grammerstorf's suffering to the birth injuries.

Ingeborg Grammerstorf was living with her parents at Heussweg 22 in Hamburg-Eimsbüttel when she was admitted to what was then the Alsterdorfer Institutions on 17 August 1939 at the instigation of the Social Administration immediately after returning from a journey to Antwerp. The reason was given as "The admission of the patient to the Alsterdorfer Institutions is necessitated by imbecility. Additional information: has to be fed, messy” ("imbecility” is an outmoded expression for a serious form of mental retardation).

Communication with the ten-year-old girl proved to be difficult since she spoke mostly Flemish. In February 1941, Ingeborg Grammerstorf was diagnosed as having "ikterus catarrhalis” (in simple language: jaundice), which lasted throughout the year and only eased at the beginning of 1942. She continued to be described as a quiet girl by nature who occupied herself only with toys, could admittedly eat unaided but who had to be helped extensively with her personal hygiene.

At the beginning of 1943, Ingeborg Grammerstorf was in the infirmery for several weeks with pneumonia and asthma.

It was not until 16 August 1943 that there was another entry in the patient file: "Transferred to Vienna due to severe damage to the Institutions through air raids. Signed Dr Kreyenberg”.

During the heavy air raids on Hamburg at the end of July/beginning of August 1943 ("Operation Gomorrha”), the Alsterdorfer Institutions were also damaged by the bombing. With the approval of the health authorities, the director of the Institutions, SA member Pastor Friedrich Lenzsch, took the opportunity to remove part of the inmates of both sexes who were considered to be "incapable of productive work, in need of intensive care or to be particularly difficult” by transporting them to other Nursing and Care Institutions. On 16 August 1943, 258 women and girls from Alsterdorf as well as 72 girls and women from the Nursing and Care Institution Langenhorn were "transferred” with one of these transports to the "Werner von Jauregg Nursing and Care Institution of the City of Vienna” (also known as the Institution "Am Steinhof”). Ingeborg Grammerstorf was one of them.

At the time of her arrival in Vienna, the fourteen-year-old Ingeborg weighed 37 kg. She was said to be quiet but completely disorientated. According to the entries in her patients record, she behaved very apathetically and didn`t occupy herself for the rest of the year.

Ingeborgs mother, Hertha Grammerstorf, who was living in Scharbeutz (probably as a result of the damage caused by the bombing) received a notification from Vienna in March 1944 that her daughter had been in the Werner von Jauregg Nursing and Care Institution since 17 August 1943. "There has been no significant change in the patients condition and no improvement can be expected. She is not really aware of where she is and in her thoughts is still living in the Alsterdorfer Institutions. The child has grown recently. We have not observed any more asthma attacks recently. There are no grounds for concern. The Medical Director signed Assistant Professor Dr Bertha”

On 2 May 1944, the Viennese Institution filled out "Registration Form I” with which the psychiatric institutions had had to report important information about their inmates of both sexes to the Euthanasia Central Office in Berlin, Tiergartenstraße 4, during the first phase of euthanasia from April 1939 till August 1941. The information in these individual notification sheets served as the basis for the decision on whether or not people with mental disabilities or psychological illnesses should be killed in one of the six gas killing centres of the German Reich. The diagnosis of "Dementia caused by damage to the brain” was entered for Ingeborg Grammerstorf also that she was not capable of work. The medical report does not say what the purpose of the ‘Registration Form’ was so long after the central direction of the murder of patients had ceased, whether it was sent to Berlin and/or whether it had any influence on Ingeborg Grammerstorfs subsequent fate.

On 1 September 1944 there was a detailed report on Ingeborg. Although she had grown, her weight had diminished to 27 kg. Without taking into account her Flemish background, it was said that her speech was difficult to understand and not always grammatically correct. She was somewhat nervous, did not know the names of her parents or where they lived. She could also not name the number of fingers on a hand. On this day, there was no mention of an impairment in her state of health. On the other hand, the Institution wrote to her father on 7 September: "In recent months the condition of your daughter G.I. has deteriorated badly in respect of her physical health due to a tuberculosis infection in both lungs, there has been no change in her mental condition. The parcels which you sent to your daughter have arrived here and have been given to her. Signed Dr Wunderer”

Walter Grammerstorf answered with a letter dated 24 September which was received in the Institution in Vienna on 13 October. "I received with thanks your letter dated 7th of this month in which you informed me of the shocking facts about my daughter Ingeborgs state of health. You will understand that the news of the deterioration in Ingeborgs condition has affected me greatly and that we as parents have only the heartfelt wish to know that our daughter is protected from suffering and pain. I am confident that my child is in conscientious hands with you and thank you for the concern that you are showing her. Please continue to send me news from time to time. Heil Hitler signed Walter Grammerstorf.”

Ingeborg Grammerstorf died on 19 October 1944. The cause of death was recorded as tbc pneumonia.

During the first phase of the NS "Euthanasia” from October 1939 till August 1941, the Institution in Vienna had been an intermediate institution for the killing centre Schloss Hartheim near Linz. After the official end of the murders in the killing centres, the killings continued on a wide scale in the former intermediate institutions (and, therefore, also in the Viennese institution itself) through overdoses of medication and nontreatment of illnesses but above all through starvation.

Up to the end of 1945, 257 of the 300 girls and women from Hamburg had died, 196 of them from Alsterdorf.

Translation: Steve Robinson
Stand: November 2024
© Ingo Wille

Quellen: Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf Archiv, Sonderakte V 259 (Ingeborg Grammerstorf). Peter von Rönn, Der Transport nach Wien, in: Peter von Rönn u.a., Wege in den Tod, Hamburgs Anstalt Langenhorn und die Euthanasie in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus, Hamburg 1993, S. 425 ff. 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., 331 ff.