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Heinrich Gunkel * 1922

Rehmstraße 9 (Hamburg-Nord, Winterhude)

HIER WOHNTE
HEINRICH GUNKEL
JG. 1922
EINGEWIESEN 1939
ALSTERDORFER ANSTALTEN
HEILANSTALT LANGENHORN
‚VERLEGT‘ 27.11.1941
HEILANSTALT TIEGENHOF
ERMORDET 3.2.1943

Heinrich Gunkel, born 28.8.1922 in Hamburg, admitted to the Alsterdorf Asylum (now Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf), on 10.1.1939, transferred to the Hamburg-Langenhorn sanatorium and nursing home on 28.7.1941, transferred to the Gau-Heilanstalt Tiegenhof (Dziekanka) near Gnesen (now Gniezno/Poland) on 27.11.1941, died there on 3.2.1943

Rehmstraße 9, Winterhude

Heinrich Gunkel was born in Hamburg on 28 September 1922. He was one of five children of the worker Albert Eduard Hermann Wilhelm Gunkel, born on 26 August 1882 in Hamburg, and his wife Maria Theresia, née Krause, born on 1 November 1881, probably in the Cologne area. The couple had married in Hamburg on 10 August 1909 and had previously lived together in Bussestraße in Winterhude.

Little is known about Heinrich Gunkel and his family. The little that we do know is taken from an index card that was created for the Hamburg Health Passport Archive, which was set up from 1934 onwards for the purpose of "hereditary biology" of the population. This shows that Heinrich Gunkel had four sisters, one of whom died at the age of eight months.

Heinrich Gunkel was admitted to the Alsterdorf Asylum for the first time on 6 March 1931 and was discharged on 22 November 1931. He probably lived with his parents in the following years, who now lived at Rehmstraße 9, also in Winterhude.

The doctors at the Alsterdorf Asylum diagnosed Heinrich Gunkel with "imbecility". (This term, now obsolete, referred to a moderate mental disability). Heinrich Gunkel is said to have had little relationship with his environment and to be incapable of doing "any productive work". "Cleanliness and tidiness" were rated as reasonably satisfactory.

According to the entries in the admission book of the Alsterdorf Asylum, Heinrich Gunkel was transferred to the sanatorium and nursing home Hamburg-Langenhorn home on 28 July 1941 and from there, on 27 November 1941, transported in a transport of 32 women and 37 men to the "Gau-Heilanstalt Tiegenhof" (Wojewódzki Szpitaldla Nerwowo i Psychicznie Chorych "Dziekanka") near Gnesen (today Gniezno, Poland).

The Tiegenhof Asylum was built between 1891 and 1894 just under two and a half kilometers from Gniezno, around 50 km east 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' "euthanasia” program.

Almost all the men and women of the Hamburg transport perished: they starved to death through deliberate food deprivation and/or died after being administered overdoses of drugs such as Luminal, scopolamine and chloral hydrate. Heinrich Gunkel was murdered on 3 February 1942.

Translation: Elisabeth Wendland
Stand: December 2024
© Ingo Wille

Quellen: Adressbuch Hamburg, diverse Jahrgänge; StaH 332-5 Standesämter
9533 Heiratsregister Nr. 394/1909 (Albert Eduard Hermann Wilhelm
Gunkel/Maria Theresia Krause; Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf Archiv, Erbgesundheitskarte Heinrich Gunkel. Schwanke, Enno, Die Landesheil- und Pflegeanstalt Tiegenhof, Die nationalsozialistische Euthanasie in Polen während des Zweiten Weltkrieges, Frankfurt/M. 2015, S. 101ff.; Wunder, Ingrid Genkel, Harald Jenner, Auf dieser schiefen Ebene gibt es kein Halten mehr – Die Alsterdorfer Anstalten im Nationalsozialismus, Stuttgart 2016, S. 269ff.; Peter von Rönn u.a., Wege in den Tod, Hamburgs Anstalt Langenhorn und die Euthanasie in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus, Hamburg 1993, S. 75ff., 490f.; Jenner, Harald, Wunder, Michael, Hamburger Gedenkbuch Euthanasie – Die Toten 1939 – 1945, Hamburg 2017.