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Karla Dietzel * 1915

Hansdorfer Straße 23-25 (Hamburg-Nord, Barmbek-Süd)

HIER WOHNTE
KARLA DIETZEL
JG. 1915
EINGEWIESEN 1919
ALSTERDORFER ANSTALTEN
´VERLEGT` 28.7.1941
´HEILANSTALT` LANGENHORN
27.11.1941 TIEGENHOF
ERMORDET 31.12.1944

Karla Dietzel, born 24.4.1915 in Hamburg, admitted to the former "Alsterdorf Asylum” (Alsterdorfer Anstalten today Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf) on 20.5.1919, transferred to the "Langenhorn sanatorium and nursing home” on 28.7.1941, transferred to the former "Gau-Heilanstalt Tiegenhof” (Dziekanka) near Gnesen (today Gniezno/Poland) on 27.11.1941, died there on 31.12.1944

Hansdorfer Straße 25 (Barmbek-Süd)

Karla Anna Henni Dietzel was born in Hamburg on 24 April 1915. The little we know about her is taken from the admission book of the former "Alsterdorf Asylum” (Alsterdorfer Anstalten today Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf) and an index card that was created for the Hamburg Health Passport Archive (Hamburger Gesundheitspassarchiv), which was set up in 1934 for the purpose of "hereditary-biological inventory" of the population.

Karla Dietzel was the child of the worker Karl Alexander Dietzel, born on 7 April 1890 in Blankenhain in the district of Weimar, and his wife Martha Auguste Frieda Ida, née Haare, born on 3 November 1894 in Wendisch Waren (today a district of Waren in the Ludwigslust-Parchim district of Mecklenburg). The couple had married in Hamburg on 15 July 1915 and had already lived together in Barmbek at Stückenstraße 89.
Karla Dietzel had a younger brother, Hans Dietzel, who was born on 2 March 1920.

The girl was admitted to the Alsterdorf Asylum on 20 May 1919 with the diagnosis "idiocy". ("idiocy" is an outdated term for a severe form of intellectual disability).
At that time, the family lived at Hansdorferstraße 25 III in Barmbeck (today Hansdorfer Straße in Barmbek-Süd).

According to the few key words on the index card, Karla Dietzel had to be fully cared for and fed.

On 1 August 1941, she was transferred to the Langenhorn sanatorium and nursing home, from where she was transported to the "Gau-Heilanstalt Tiegenhof” (today Wojewódzki Szpital dla Nerwowo i Psychicznie Chorych "Dziekanka") on 27 November 1941.

At least 203 patients were transferred to Tiegenhof from the two Hamburg asylums in Alsterdorf and Langenhorn on 14, 20 and 27 November 1941.

The Tiegenhof asylum had been built between 1891 and 1894 just two and a half kilometres from Gnesen in the administrative district of Poznan. Until 1919, beds were available for around 600 patients. After the territory was transferred to the re-established state of Poland, the institution was renamed Dziekanka. It was one of the psychiatric institutions with the lowest mortality rates in the world. In October 1939, the institution was occupied by the German Wehrmacht, renamed "Gau-Heilanstalt Tiegenhof" and included in the National Socialists' T4 euthanasia programme.

Even in this institution in occupied Poland, the state-organised murder of people with disabilities and mental illness through starvation rations, overdoses of medication and nursing neglect continued after the official halt to the "euthanasia" murders in August 1941.

Karla Dietzel died on 31 December 1944 in Tiegenhof.

Stand: January 2025
© Ingo Wille

Quellen: Adressbuch Hamburg 1919, StaH 332-5 Standesämter 6525 Heiratsregister Nr. 125/1915 (Karl Alexander Dietzel/ Martha Auguste Frieda Ida Haase), Sterberegister Nr. 1675/1942 (Hans Dietzel); Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf Archiv, Erbgesundheitskarteikarte von Karla Dietzel; Michael Wunder, Ingrid Genkel, Harald Jenner, Auf dieser schiefen Ebene gibt es kein Halten mehr – Die Alsterdorfer Anstalten im Nationalsozialismus, Stuttgart 2016, S. 269 ff., Wege in den Tod, Hamburgs Anstalt Langenhorn und die Euthanasie in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus, Hamburg 1993, S. 490.