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Karl-Heinz Dohrmann im Alter von 4 Jahren
© Archiv Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf

Karl-Heinz Dohrmann * 1937

Feuerbergstraße 43 (Hamburg-Nord, Ohlsdorf)

KARL-HEINZ DOHRMANN
JG. 1937
UNTERGEBRACHT 1940
KINDERHEIM FEUERBERGSTR.
ALSTERDORFER ANSTALTEN
"VERLEGT" 7.8.1943
HEILANSTALT EICHBERG
"KINDERFACHABTEILUNG"
ERMORDET 12.10.1943

further stumbling stones in Feuerbergstraße 43:
Anna-Maria Tomassetti

Karl-Heinz Dohrmann, born on 17.5.1937 in Hamburg, 12.10.1940 admitted to the former Alsterdorf Institutions, on 7.8.1943 "transferred" to Hattenheim to the "Eichberg State Sanatorium", murdered there on 12.10.1943

Feuerbergstraße 43, formerly "waiting school

When Karl-Heinz Dohrmann was born on in the Finkenau Women's Clinic, the birth was normal. His mother was 26 years old, unmarried and worked as a domestic servant. A year later, she was married by then, and gave birth to a healthy daughter.

At two months of age, Karl-Heinz was admitted to the pediatric clinic at Eppendorf University Hospital and treated for intestinal disorders. The diagnosis was "lactation dyspepsia." The record of July 31, 1937, states: "The child plays, laughs, drinks well. No more meningitis." Karl-Heinz was discharged two weeks later in good "A.Z." (general condition) from the children's hospital.

The conditions under which Karl-Heinz lived in his Grindelallee home for the next two and a half years are not known. The circumstances that led to his examination by the psychiatrist and neurologist Dr. Hülsemann, senior physician at the Hamburg Youth Welfare Office, or by his assistant physician Dr. Gräfe, have also not survived. After an examination on January 11, 1940, which was conducted under the question "Can the child stay with the mother?", placement in the "Warteschule Feuerbergstraße" (care facility against the neglect of small children from poorer families) was recommended. With the mother's consent, Karl-Heinz went there. A Carmen Einhard, née Richard, was appointed as his guardian.

A group report by Sister H. Schöffer and Sister Ruth Schüttel dated March 15, 1940, indicates that Karl-Heinz had in the meantime been transferred from the Feuerbergstraße home to the Johannes-Petersen home in Volksdorf, Schemmannstraße. This home of the Pestalozzi Foundation of 1846 of the Masonic Lodge "Zur Brudertreue" had the foundation's mission to "save children who were to be considered orphaned by the lives of their parents". The report of the sisters shows a consistently negative picture of the boy: "[...] in the community very disturbing and for this danger bringing child" and "is a child completely impossible in the community [...]". There is no information about a promotion of Karl-Heinz.

On April 10, 1940, the assistant physician Gräfe of the Hamburg State Youth Welfare Office drew up an expert report on Karl-Heinz, in which he judged him to be: "a highly feeble-minded, community-disturbing child, severely underdeveloped in all his bodily functions. [...] it will not be possible to avoid the preservation of the child". For the meantime, he recommended placement in the "Warteschule Feuerbergstraße". Soon after, Karl-Heinz was temporarily sent there again.

On May 25, 1940, Karl-Heinz was admitted to the Altona Children's Hospital with the diagnosis "diphtheria bacillus carrier." The treatment lasted seventeen weeks. No complications occurred and Karl-Heinz was discharged as cured on October 4, 1940. In the meantime, his transfer to the "Alsterdorfer Anstalten" for "preservation" had been prepared in the "Warteschule Feuerbergstraße".

With the transfer arranged on October 1, 1940, "need for admission to the Alsterdorfer Anstalten due to imbecility and educational difficulties," Karl-Heinz was admitted to the "Alsterdorfer Anstalten" on October 12, 1940. In the protocol of June 17, 1942 or 1943 (illegible), a positive development for Karl-Heinz is attested. "With toys he can occupy himself well alone. He can speak everything," are the last entries in Alsterdorf that are recorded there about Karl-Heinz.

According to Dr. Kreyenberg's protocol of August 6, 1943, Karl-Heinz was discharged from the "Alsterdorf Institutions" and "transferred, since the Alsterdorf Institutions have been destroyed." On August 7, 1943, Karl-Heinz, together with 127 patients, children and men, was taken from the "Alsterdorfer Anstalten" to the Ochsenzoll freight station in the dreaded gray, windowed GeKraT buses (Gemeinnützige Krankentransportgesellschaft). Together with 82 patients, men and some women, from the "Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Langenhorn" they were transported in the freight train to Limburg. There, during the night, the wagons with the 51 boys destined for the "Kalmenhof" in Idstein were separated. The remaining train arrived in Hattenheim the next morning and Karl-Heinz was taken to the "Landesheilanstalt Eichberg" together with 28 children and adults from the "Alsterdorfer Anstalten" and the Langenhorn patients.

Two months later, on October 12, 1943, Karl-Heinz was murdered at 3:30 p.m. in the "Landesheilanstalt Eichberg".

Karl-Heinz was 6 years, 4 months, 3 weeks 4 days old.

The killings took place in the "children's ward" by overdosing morphine, sleeping pills or anesthetics, among others with Luminal. The cause of death is given here as "cardiac insufficiency due to pneumonia with cerebral insufficiency".

Karl-Heinz Dohrmann is erroneously registered there in the death register under the surname Bohrmann.
Whether the Eichberg Institutional Cemetery is his final resting place, or whether Karl-Heinz Dohrmann's brain, like that of many of the victims, was irreverently transferred to the research department of the Psychiatric-Neurological Clinic in Heidelberg after his death, is not known.

Translation Beate Meyer

Stand: March 2023
© Margot Löhr

Quellen: StaH, 213-12 Staatsanwaltschaft, 0018 Quickert, Wiegand, Dr., u. a.; Archiv Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf, Patientenakte V 86, Aufnahmeakte 8122; Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf, Auskünfte Michael Wunder; Gedenkstätte Hadamar, Auskünfte Georg Lilienthal; Landeswohlfahrtsverband Hessen, Fachbereich Archiv, Gedenkstätten, Historische Sammlungen, Kassel, Auskünfte Dr. Dominik Motz, Karl-Heinz Dohrmann (Bohrmann), Sterberegister 1944, Heilanstalt Eichberg, Signatur-Nr. B 10 Nr. 121; Patientenliste Alsterdorf, Ingo Wille; Stadtarchiv Eltville am Rhein, Auskünfte Maritta Klewitz, Sterberegister 12.10.1943, unter Bohrmann registriert; Klaus Böhme/Uwe Lohalm (Hrsg.): Wege in den Tod. Hamburgs Anstalt Langenhorn und die Euthanasie in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus, Hamburg 1993; Herbert Diercks: "Euthanasie". Die Morde an Menschen mit Behinderungen und psychischen Erkrankungen in Hamburg im Nationalsozialismus, hrsg. von der KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme, Hamburg 2014; Christina Vanja: Von der herzoglichen Irrenanstalt zum modernen Gesundheitskonzern. Die Geschichte der nassauischen Psychiatrie, in: Nassauische Annalen 123 (2012), S. 603–633; Michael Wunder: Euthanasie in den letzten Kriegsjahren. Die Jahre 1944 und 1945 in der Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Hamburg-Langenhorn, Husum 1992; MichaelWunder/Ingrid Genkel/Harald Jenner: Auf dieser schiefen Ebene gibt es kein Halten mehr. Die Alsterdorfer Anstalten im Nationalsozialismus, Hamburg 1987.