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Uwe Diekwisch * 1940

Langenhorner Chaussee 560 (Hamburg-Nord, Langenhorn)

ERMORDET IN DER
"KINDERFACHABTEILUNG"
DER
HEIL- UND PFLEGEANSTALT
LANGENHORN

UWE DIEKWISCH
GEB. 2.12.1940
ERMORDET 3.1.1942

further stumbling stones in Langenhorner Chaussee 560:
Gerda Behrmann, Peter Evers, Elke Gosch, Claus Grimm, Werner Hammerich, Marianne Harms, Hillene Hellmers, Helga Heuer, Waltraud Imbach, Inge Kersebaum, Hella Körper, Dieter Kullak, Helga Liebschner, Theo Lorenzen, Jutta Müller, Ingrid Neuhaus, Traudel Passburg, Edda Purwin, Angela Quast, Erwin Sänger, Hermann Scheel, Gottfried Simon, Monika Ziemer

Uwe Diekwisch, born on 2.12.1940 in Hamburg, killed on 3.1.1942 in the "children's ward of the Langenhorn sanatorium and nursing home” (Kinderfachabteilung)

Asklepios-Klinik Nord-Ochsenzoll, Henny-Schütz-Allee, memorial house 25, entrance Langenhorner Chaussee 560

Uwe Diekwisch was born in Hamburg on December 2, 1940. For his parents, Else, née Crause, and the driver Erich Johannes Diekwisch, he was their first child together; his mother had brought a sibling into the marriage.

At Uwe's birth in the Finkenau Women's Clinic, which proceeded normally, he was found to have an unusually large occiput. At eleven days old, on December 13, 1940, he was transferred to the Rothenburgsort Children's Hospital. His medical history was recorded there. Uwe's feet were deformed, but could be corrected manually by applying slight pressure; they were splinted due to a "flat foot”. He received a daily massage, which was to be continued by his mother at home. The weight curve increased satisfactorily, but the head circumference continued to increase for reasons that remain unclear.

On January 16, 1941, Uwe was discharged from the Rothenburgsort clinic to be cared for at home by his parents. He initially lived with the family in Hamburg Neustadt, Peterstraße 15, and was baptized a Protestant.

The report on his hospitalization in the Rothenburgsort Children's Hospital was sent to the Eppendorf University Hospital. He was examined there again in June 1941 and was scheduled for an operation.
At the age of eleven months, on October 20, 1941, the Hamburg Health Department admitted him to the "Langenhorn Sanatorium and Nursing Home” with a certificate of "idiocy”. The diagnosis on admission was "hydrocephalus” ("hydrocephalus”, a pathological enlargement of the cerebrospinal fluid-filled spaces in the brain [cerebral ventricles]). "Malformations of the feet Epileptiform seizures”. In the admission record it is noted: "Ref. agrees to any negotiation procedure [treatment procedure] that promises success.” With this deception of the parents, who hoped that the "treatment” would bring about an improvement, the attending physician Dr. Friedrich Knigge gave himself the authorization to kill.

On November 17, 1941, the following was recorded in the medical history: "3 to 5 seizures are often observed per day, mostly during feeding.” On December 22, it was determined that the head circumference had not increased any further, it had remained at 52 cm.

On New Year's Day 1942, Uwe's death was presumably initiated in House M 10. Friedrich Knigge recorded in the protocol: "Has fever over 39°. Di-smear: nose and throat positive. Bronchitic noises above the lungs.” On January 3, 1942, he wrote: "Exitus” (death), 10:30 a.m., "at a temperature of 40.7 Diagnosis: hydrocephalus with epileptiform seizures. Deformities of the feet” and gave the cause of death as ‘hydrocephalus, diphtheria bacillus carrier, bronchopneumonia’.

Knigge killed with Luminal injections, a sleeping pill. Fever and pneumonia were the result; the children suffered a slow and agonizing death. In most death certificates, as with Uwe, the addition "bronchopneumonia” indicates this killing.

Uwe was 1 year, 1 month and 1 day old.

Six days later, his burial took place at Ohlsdorf Cemetery on January 9, 1942 at 1:30 p.m. by the Farnow Funeral Home, for which his parents had ordered decorations, plants and harmonium and organ music, grave location Bh 58, row 33, no. 11. The grave site is no longer preserved.

After the war, Friedrich Knigge commented on the accusations of murder and euthanasia in the "children's ward” of the Langenhorn hospital. In a letter dated June 13, 1945 to the criminal investigation department via Prof. Rudolf Degkwitz, senior official of the Hamburg health authorities, he only admitted to euthanasia in the case of ten to eleven "mentally ill and deformed” children, which he had been accused of by order of the "Reich Committee for the Scientific Registration of Serious Hereditary and Congenital Disorders”. He did not mention the name of Uwe Diekwisch.

"I would kindly ask you to check the medical files to see that another 16 parents agreed to the "treatment” and thus gave me the order for euthanasia:
1. Zapf 2. Ziemer 3. Cordes 4. Lorenzen 5. Boehm 6. Diekwisch 7. Gosch 8. Schulz 9. Knudsen 10. Nonnsen 11. Fokuhl 12. Meyer 13. Meibohm 14. Oje 15. Würflinger 16. Groß.

In all these cases the order was not carried out, in some cases to the obvious disappointment of the parents. The great willingness of the parents must have reinforced the impression for me and my department at the health authority that we were not only acting in the true interests of the child socially, but also legally.”

Translation: Beate Meyer
Stand: November 2024
© Margot Löhr

Quellen: StaH, 213-12 Staatsanwaltschaft, 0017 Bd. 001, Bayer Dr. Wilhelm, u. a., S. 126 f.; StaH, 332-5 Standesämter, Sterbefallsammelakten, 64217 u. 11/1942 Uwe Diekwisch; StaH, 332-5 Standesämter, Sterberegister, 9933 u.11/1942 Uwe Diekwisch; StaH, 352-5 Standesämter, Todesbescheinigungen, 1942 Sta 1b Nr. 11 Uwe Diekwisch; StaH, 352-8/7 Staatskrankenanstalt Langenhorn, Abl. 2000/01 Nr. 29 Akte 29112; Standesamt Hamburg 6, Geburtsregister, Nr. 5426/1940 Uwe Diekwisch; Archiv Friedhof Ohlsdorf, Beerdigungsregister 1942, Nr. 200.