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Harry Dreher
© Archiv Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf

Harry Dreher * 1931

Oberaltenallee 72, Versorgungsheim (Hamburg-Nord, Uhlenhorst)

HIER WOHNTE
HARRY DREHER
JG. 1931
EINGEWIESEN 1939
ALSTERDORFER ANSTALTEN
‚VERLEGT‘ 10.8.1943
‚HEILANSTALT‘ MAINKOFEN
ERMORDET 6.5.1945

Harry Dreher, born on 22.8.1931 in Hamburg, admitted to the former Alsterdorfer Anstalten on 18.1.1939, "transferred” to the "Sanatorium and Nursing Home Mainkofen" near Deggendorf, where he died on 6.5.1945

Oberaltenallee 72

Harry Günter Ernst (callname Harry) Dreher was born on 22 August 1931, in Hamburg. At the time of his birth, his mother, Hertha Johanna Minna Dreher, was working as a domestic servant at the former Oberaltenallee care home (Versorgungsheim). No further details about her are known. Harry Dreher's father is unknown.

We do not know whether Harry Dreher lived with his mother after his birth or was immediately taken into municipal care. Before his admission to the former ‘Alsterdorf Asylum’ (‘Alsterdorfer Anstalten’, now the Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf), he lived in the "Friede” children's home in the former Bürgerstraße 39 (now Thedestraße) in Altona, according to the address book a facility run by the Großstadtmission. The boy should have started school at Easter 1937. The start of his schooling had already been postponed by a year without giving any reasons another year later, when it was set for 1 April 1939.

The youth welfare office arranged for Harry Dreher to be admitted to what was then the Alsterdorf institutions (now the Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf). He was admitted on 18 January 1939. According to the report, during the admission examination he was "calm and well-behaved, gave his name when asked, and referred to the examining doctor as 'man‘. No further word formation could be triggered."

In a postcard with no return address, his mother reported that her children's vaccination records had been lost. This suggests that Harry Dreher had at least one sibling. However, we do not know any further details.

From October 1939, Harry Dreher attended the Spielschule (a type of preschool education) at the Alsterdorf institutions. There, he is said to have spoken only when asked. "He is slow and lazy in all activities. Only when he thinks he is unobserved does he becomes more lively, talking to his classmates and playing countless pranks. He is incompatible, selfish, likes to listen to music without participating in singing little songs. He is timid and clumsy when it comes to small manual tasks. He likes to look at pictures. He finds it difficult to sit still," said his school records.

The only report written in 1940 also repeated that Harry Dreher behaved calmly when under observation. As soon as he felt unobserved, he became very wild. He often cried "for no reason,” often when another child merely touched him. He spoke little, walked poorly, and ate very "badly.” He was dependent on others for personal hygiene and had to be dressed.

In 1941, developmental regression was reported. His movements had become more sluggish and he often fell down. Harry Dreher continued to attend Spielschule, but made no progress.

At the age of ten, Harry Dreher was transferred to the men's section of the institution. There, he is said to have gotten along well with his fellow patients.

The few entries in Harry Dreher's patient file end on 11 August 1943 with the following note: "Transferred to Mainkofen due to severe damage to the institution caused by air raids. Signed Dr. Kreyenberg.”

After the Alsterdorf institutions suffered damage during the heavy Allied air raids on Hamburg in late July/early August 1943 ("Operation Gomorrah”), the director of the Alsterdorf institutions, SA member Pastor Friedrich Lensch, asked the Hamburg health authorities for permission to transport around 750 residents of the institutions because they had been left homeless by the bombing raids. Between 7 and 16 August 1943, three transports carrying a total of 469 girls, boys, women and men left the Alsterdorf institutions in various directions, including a transport on 10 August 1943, carrying 113 men, adolescents, and boys to the "Mainkofen Sanatorium and Nursing Home” near Deggendorf, close to Passau. Among them was Harry Dreher.

No records have been preserved of Harry Dreher's stay at the Mainkofen institution. His patient file contains only a death certificate signed by Dr. Reichart, according to which Harry Dreher allegedly died of pulmonary tuberculosis at 4:15 a.m. on 6 May 1945.

The institution informed the "Mayor of Hamburg” and the "Central Accounting Office for Medical and Nursing Institutions,” which was part of the Euthanasia Center in Berlin and was located in Mühlhausen/Thuringia at the time of Harry Dreher's death. Allegedly, "neither relatives nor the relevant authorities could be notified due to the current circumstances.”

The "Mainkofen Sanatorium and Nursing home", which was a psychiatric hospital in the pre-Nazi era, was systematically developed into a death camp during the Nazi era. During the first phase of the "Euthanasia” murders until August 1941, people were transported from there to the Hartheim Castle killing center near Linz and murdered with gas. 606 of them are known by name (as of 2016). In the period that followed, the patients in Mainkofen were murdered themselves, through starvation as part of the "Bavarian Hunger Decree” (starvation diet, meat- and fat-free nutrition, known in Mainkofen as the "3-b diet”), neglect by nursing staff, and overdoses of medication. According to the information available in 2016, 760 Mainkofen inmates died of malnutrition. The alleged causes of death were intestinal catarrh, tuberculosis, pneumonia, and pulmonary tuberculosis.

Of the 113 boys and men from Alsterdorf who arrived in Mainkofen on 12 August 1943, 74 died by the end of 1945. As in other death camps, "pulmonary tuberculosis” was repeatedly cited as the cause of death, forty times among the 74 patients from Alsterdorf. "Intestinal catarrh” was cited as the cause of death fifteen times. Only 39 people from Alsterdorf survived 1945, including 15 adults and 24 children and young people up to the age of 21. The surviving patients were transferred back to Alsterdorf on 19 December 1947.

It can be safely assumed that Harry Dreher did not die of natural causes. He was only 13 years old.

Since 2014, there has been a "learning and memorial site” on the grounds of what is now the Mainkofen District Hospital, where the murdered patients are named and commemorated. Another memorial plaque commemorates the more than 500 young people and adults who were forcibly sterilized.

No place is known for certain where Harry Dreher lived with his mother. Since she worked at the Oberaltenallee care home for a long time, it is conceivable that her son was also there. For this reason, the stumbling stone in memory of Harry Dreher was laid in the sidewalk in front of the former care home at Oberaltenallee 72 in Uhlenhorst.

Stand: August 2025
© Ingo Wille

Quellen: Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf, Archiv (Sonderakte V 424, Harry Dreher). 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.