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Fritz Fröhlich * 1908

Lastropsweg 35 (Eimsbüttel, Eimsbüttel)

HIER WOHNTE
FRITZ FRÖHLICH
JG. 1908
EINGEWIESEN 1935
ALSTERDORFER ANSTALTEN
‚VERLEGT‘ 10.8.1943
‚HEILANSTALT‘ MAINKOFEN
ERMORDET 23.11.1944

Fritz Hugo Fröhlich, born 26.2.1908 in Altona, admitted to the "Alsterdorf Asylum” ("Alsterdorfer Anstalten” now Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf) on 29.3.1935, deported to the "Mainkofen sanatorium and nursing home” near Deggendorf ("Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Mainkofen”) on 10.8.1943, died there on 23.11.1944

Lastropsweg 35 (Eimsbüttel)

Fritz Hugo Fröhlich (called Fritz) was born on 26 February 1908 at Waterloostraße 2 in the then still independent Prussian city of Altona (now part of Hamburg).

His parents, the cigar dealer Paul Hugo Fröhlich (callname Hugo), born on 27 June 1876 in Schwerin an der Warthe, and Margarete Hedwig Charlotte Fröhlich, née Stolz, also born on 18 September 1879 in Schwerin an der Warthe, both professed the Protestant faith. They had married on 24 January 1905 in her birthplace.

Fritz Fröhlich's father was listed in the Altona address book from 1906 with a cigar shop at Waterloostraße 2, from 1909 at Königstraße 184 and, after a stopover in what was then Hamburgerstraße (now Max-Brauer-Allee) in Altona, from 1916 at Lastropsweg 35 in Hamburg-Eimsbüttel.

In addition to Fritz, the Fröhlich couple had eight other children. This can be seen from an entry in Fritz Fröhlich's patient file at what was then the "Alsterdorf Asylum” ("Alsterdorfer Anstalten” now Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf).

Fritz Fröhlich had to repeat a year at school. He was dismissed from the 2nd grade of primary school (the 1st grade was the highest at the time). He then underwent an apprenticeship as a locksmith, which he completed after four years with the journeyman's examination. After that, he was unemployed with brief interruptions. He always lived with his parents.

Fritz Fröhlich was admitted to Eppendorf Hospital on 26 June 1931 due to ‘pain in the head’, especially during periods of anger. He was initially described as ‘unremarkable’. After a fit of rage, however, he wanted to run to the police to have himself shot. When he began to laugh ‘unmotivatedly’, make ‘silly remarks’, ‘walk around naked’ and lie ‘in absurd positions in bed’, the hospital doctors initially thought he was suffering from schizophrenia. However, they also thought it was possible that Fritz Fröhlich was faking a mental illness in order to stay in hospital longer. They were unsure of their assessment and in March 1934 made the diagnoses ‘schizophrenia’ and ‘easily excitable feeblemindedness’, each with a question mark, and transferred Fritz Fröhlich to the Friedrichsberg State Hospital for mental illness on 4 August 1931. (The term ‘feeble-mindedness’ used to refer to a reduction in intelligence or congenital weakness of intelligence).

There, Fritz Fröhlich smashed a window pane after a fit of ‘sudden impulsive excitement’, as it was called. He injured his own left wrist in the process. He then allegedly said that he had smashed the window to ‘atone for his sins’. Phases of extraordinary friendliness and a great desire to work alternated with ‘irritability’ and ‘ideas of sin’. However, there was no evidence of delusions or sensory illusions. There were also no attacks of unconsciousness or convulsions.

In February 1934, Fritz Fröhlich escaped from the state hospital during a work assignment on the hospital grounds. Three days later, he was apprehended in Boizenburg and brought back. The reason he gave for his escape was that his destination was Berlin and that it was too boring in Friedrichsberg. Fritz Fröhlich remained in Friedrichsberg for another year. Here too, his diagnosis was ‘schizophrenia, erethical insanity’, with a question mark (erethical = easily excitable).

Fritz Fröhlich was transferred to the Alsterdorf Asylum on 29 March 1935. Here he was said to have been confused at first and mocked and exploited by his fellow patients. The reports about him again speak of a very changeable behaviour. He was said to have been constantly asked to work in the labour column. Fritz Fröhlich developed a strong collecting instinct; he kept scraps of cloth, broken toothbrush handles, broken pieces, colourful buttons, cigarette packets etc. in his pockets. In 1936, he put smouldering cigarettes and cigarette butts into his mouth several times and swallowed them. However, it was also repeatedly noted that he worked well and showed no signs of illness.

After a fight with an orderly, whom he bit on the right thumb so that the latter had to seek medical treatment, Fritz Fröhlich was taken to the guardroom.
(‘Guard rooms’ already existed in the 1910s. Restless patients were isolated there and treated with permanent baths, sleep and fever cures. They were not introduced in the Alsterdorf institutions until the end of the 1920s. In the course of the 1930s, their function changed: patients were now primarily sedated here, sometimes with medication, sometimes with restraints or other measures. Those affected often perceived this as punishment).

In the years that followed, there were repeated reports of Fritz Fröhlich becoming confused and having violent arguments with other patients and carers. As a result, he was isolated several times. A ‘protective jacket’ (a euphemistic term for the colloquial term ‘straitjacket’) was used to protect him from blows and scratching attacks against himself.

The occasional aggression of earlier years is said to have largely subsided in 1941 and 1942 and Fritz Fröhlich behaved calmly and complied with all orders. He is said to have taken no interest in his surroundings.

Fritz Fröhlich's patient file contains the following entry on 10 August 1943: ‘Transferred to Mainkofen due to severe damage to the asylum caused by air raids. Attn. Dr Kreyenberg’.

At the Mainkofen sanatorium and nursing home near Deggendorf, no efforts were apparently made to alleviate Fritz Fröhlich's symptoms. In only three entries in the patient file it is noted that he was ‘admitted’ to the Mainkofen sanatorium and nursing home on 11 August 1943, and on 4 July 1944 that he had recently ‘declined’ physically and that tubercle bacilli had been detected in his sputum. On 23 November 1944, finally was noted: ‘Will be discharged today due to pulmonary tuberculosis.’

During the first phase of the ‘euthanasia’ murders, people were deported from the Mainkofen institution to the Hartheim Castle killing centre near Linz and murdered with gas. 604 of them are known by name. After the ‘euthanasia’ murders were officially stopped in August 1941, the deaths of the patients in Mainkofen were deliberately brought about by depriving them of food as part of the ‘Bavarian Hunger Decree’ (starvation diet, meat- and fat-free diet, known as ‘3-b diet’ in Mainkofen), nursing neglect and overdoses of medication.

In Mainkofen, 762 patients died in the so-called starvation houses. The alleged cause of death was recorded as intestinal catarrh, TB, pneumonia or pulmonary tuberculosis.

It must be assumed that Fritz Fröhlich was also put to death in Mainkofen.

Stand: January 2025
© Ingo Wille

Quellen: Adressbuch Hamburg (diverse Jahrgänge), StaH 332-5 Standesämter 113305 Geburtsregister Nr. 558/1908 (Fritz Hugo Fröhlich); Standesamt Schwerin a.d. Warthe, Geburtsregister Nr. 235/1879 (Margarethe Hedwig Charlotte Stolz), Heiratsregister Nr. 5/1905 (Paul Hugo Fröhlich, Margarethe Hedwig Charlotte Stolz); Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf, Archiv, Sonderakte V 415 (Fritz Hugo Fröhlich). Michael Wunder, Ingrid Genkel, Harald Jenner, Auf dieser schiefen Ebene gibt es kein Halten mehr – Die Alsterdorfer Anstalten im Nationalsozialismus, Stuttgart 2016, S. 315 ff.